Double Dog Dare (The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series)

by Ball, Donna

  I had apparently dallied over my appearance longer than I had intended, because when I arrived poolside Miles and his mother had already settled into lounge chairs with drinks in their hands and Melanie was bouncing impatiently on the edge of her seat, Cisco’s leash in her hand. Cisco, his fur still damp and rumpled, sat alertly in front of her with an expression of expectant anticipation in his eyes.

  “There you are!” Melanie exclaimed, jumping up. “We’ve been dying!”

  Cisco rushed over to greet me, and I knelt to give him a kiss, grateful for the distraction. “Sorry to keep you waiting, buddy,” I said to him. I winked at Melanie. “You, too.”

  Miles said, “Lemonade or wine, Raine? We have some cheese and fruit too.”

  I stood up. “Nothing for me, thanks.”

  I was happy to see that Miles was not one of those middle-aged men who liked to show off his hard-won physique in a Speedo. Not that he wouldn’t have looked great in one, but he looked even better in swim trunks and an open Hawaiian shirt. In fact, he looked so great that I really would have liked to see him without the shirt, tossing a flying disc for Cisco on the beach. But now I had a dilemma. Miles and his mother seemed to be settled in with drinks and snacks, and the polite thing to do of course would be to join them. But what I really wanted to do was go to the beach with Melanie and Cisco.

  “We were just talking about what to do for dinner,” Miles said.

  I laughed a little. “We just had lunch!”

  “I say we should stay in and let the service bring dinner,” his mother said. “They make a wonderful poached fish… what’s it called?”

  “It’s our first night here,” Miles objected. “I want to take my girls out on the town. What are you in the mood for, Raine?”

  “Really,” I said, “I’m fine with whatever you decide.”

  “Daaaad,” Melanie said, drawing out the word to emphasize her frustration. “Some of us have to go to bed at nine, you know. Any chance of getting in some beach time before bedtime?”

  I couldn’t help grinning, and Miles lifted his sunglasses to give his daughter a level look. “Would you like to try for eight?” he said, but I noticed his lips were twitching too.

  Cisco picked up the leash that Melanie had dropped and made a soft whining sound in his throat. Both Miles and his mother laughed at that, and Miles swung his feet to the ground. “Okay, let’s hit the beach. Did you put on plenty of sunscreen?”

  Melanie assured him that she had, and then asked, “What about Cisco? Do dogs need sunscreen?”

  I clipped on Cisco’s leash and said, “Actually they do, especially if they have white coats or if their fur is really short. That’s why it’s sometimes a bad idea to shave your dog in the summer. They make a special spray for dogs. I’ll put some on Cisco when we get down there.”

  Miles picked up my beach bag and lifted his eyebrows. “How long are you planning to be gone? Your luggage didn’t weigh this much.”

  “Dogs need a lot of stuff,” I replied defensively.

  “Grandma, are you coming?” Melanie called.

  “Right behind you, sweetheart. Miles, you forgot your phone.”

  Miles had one of those super-duper smart-phones with satellite technology—some of which I was pretty sure wasn’t even on the market yet—that worked anywhere in the world. He had given Melanie and me one just like it and had probably given one to his mother too. There once was a time when I might have chided him for taking a phone like that on vacation. After all, did he really need to be able to reach Hong Kong from St. Bart’s? But I knew better now. And I had my phone in my beach bag.

  “Thanks.” He took it from her and dropped it into his shirt pocket. “I’ll make dinner reservations when we get down there.”

  There was a walk-through gate opposite the pool where a set of stone steps wound down the hillside fifty feet or so to the white sand below. It would be no easy climb under the best of circumstances and for safety’s sake I decided it would be best if I handled Cisco’s leash, at least on his first trip down. There was an electronic keypad set into the stone pillar at the side of the gate, and I watched Miles punch in a code.

  “It’s always the day’s six-digit date,” he explained to me. “Month, day and year followed by a code word. This week the code word is—”

  “Cisco!” cried Melanie proudly.

  He grinned. “We wanted it to be easy for you to remember,” he told me. “If you get stranded on the beach, there’s no other way in. And remember the code resets at midnight.”

  It seemed like an awful lot of security for paradise, but I supposed that was the way rich people lived. I said, “They do the same thing at the nursing home. The day of the week part, not the Cisco part. Seems to me like the hardest thing in a place like this would be remembering what day it is.”

  Miles’s mother laughed. “You’re right about that. That’s why I find it easier never to leave the property.”

  The gate swung open and Melanie skipped through, scrambling down the steps without so much as a backward wave to us. Both Miles and his mother called after her, “Be careful!” and I was glad I hadn’t succumbed to the same impulse. Cisco started to lunge after her, but I quickly brought him into a close heel as we started down the steps. Miles and his mother followed behind me, and the gate swung closed automatically.

  “I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Melanie,” Miles’s mother said, “but did you hear the awful news about Rachelle Denison?”

  “The driver told us,” Miles said. “He said the police had closed down the dive site.”

  “I should imagine so. They’re still trying to recover the body from what I understand.”

  Cisco’s eagerness had taken me two steps below them, but now I brought him to a halt and looked back. Miles’s expression was as confused as mine, but I was still a little shy around his mother so I was glad that he asked the question. “What do you mean? I thought she was diving with her husband. How can they not have a body?”

  “Oh, darling, I don’t know.” She took his arm for support and caught up the billowing skirt of her caftan in the other hand. “The whole thing is just so awful. Apparently there was some kind of equipment failure underwater, and he tried to help her get to the surface by sharing his oxygen, but something went wrong and he had to surface without her. Of course he kept diving and searching, but never found her. The poor man. They think she was caught in a current near one of the caves, although it seems to me so much time has passed that they’re not likely to find anything now.”

  Miles sighed. “Let’s try not to discuss this in front of Mel, okay? I don’t want her to be afraid of the water. But I am glad she put off starting scuba lessons,” he added.

  “Good heavens.” Her expression was not easy to read behind the oversized dark glasses, but the horror in her voice was unmistakable. “Scuba lessons? Out of the question! I wouldn’t sleep a wink. For the rest of my life,” she added pointedly, and Miles tightened one corner of his lips. Apparently they had had this argument before.

  “At any rate,” she went on, “her husband is a wreck, as you might well imagine. And that’s what I wanted to mention. Someone by the name of Amanda Rickey called the house this morning. It seems some of his friends are getting together on Wednesday evening at his house for a—not a memorial service exactly, but a show of support. Apparently they had all planned a big anniversary party for the Barrys and now it seems to have turned into a wake, if you can imagine anything so tacky. I suppose they didn’t want to waste the catering. She wanted to know if we would come. Of course I didn’t know the man at all, but I suppose you can hardly say no.”

  “How did she know Miles would be here?” I asked, holding on to my hat as a sea breeze flipped back the brim.

  “It’s a small island,” Miles said with a shrug.

  “And the concierge service has a list of all the people who are in town,” his mother added. “That’s what I would do if I were giving a party—I’d ask them fo
r the list.”

  Miles said, “Party? You’re right—tacky.”

  “Well, what can you expect? The people here are so strange. Give me my friends back in Myrtle Beach any day. They may be old and cranky, but at least they know how to act at a funeral.”

  I was starting to like her more and more. I said, “I don’t want to sound ignorant, but I’ve never heard of her. Was she supposed to be famous?”

  “Famous might be an exaggeration,” Miles said. “Besides that vampire thing—”

  “Werewolf,” I corrected.

  He shrugged. “She couldn’t have had much of a career. My impression was that she was just starting out. She was only in her twenties. And yes,” he added before I could ask, “her husband is my age. Maybe older. Definitely a trophy wife.”

  “Miles, please,” his mother admonished.

  “I was going to say gold digger,” I said, “but it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead.”

  “Thank you, Raine,” said Rita—I really had to get used to calling her that, if only in my head. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “About the gold digger or the trophy wife?” Miles said, and at his mother’s exclamation of exasperation he held up a hand of surrender. “Sorry. It’s entirely possible she was a nice person and I’m sorry she’s dead. No one deserves that. But I’ve known Alex Barry for years and I can assure you he’s not a nice person. It’s hard to be as sympathetic as I probably should be.”

  I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Does that mean you’re not going to the wake, or whatever it is?”

  “Of course I’m going,” he replied. “It’s good business.”

  Rita shook her head in dismay. “Where did I go wrong?”

  I tried not to smile. Like I said, I was really beginning to like her.

  We had reached the bottom of the steps and Melanie, who had raced to the surf’s edge, called, “Let him go! Let’s play Frisbee!”

  Cisco’s ears were so far forward they were in danger of flying off his head, and his tail slammed back and forth against my legs.

  I glanced at Miles. “Is it okay to let him off leash?”

  “I don’t see why not.” He nodded toward a red-and-white striped pavilion a few feet away, where lounge chairs, a table and even a cooler were already set up. “That’s our tent. I’ll put your beach bag there.”

  “Wait.” I dived my hand into the bag and dug out the flying disc and the tennis ball, then knelt to unclip Cisco’s leash. He took off toward Melanie like a shot. “See ya!” I said to Miles and raced after my dog, fully prepared to have the time of my life.

  “Glad you’re learning to relax!” he called after me, and I barely spared him a wave as I splashed into the surf with Melanie and Cisco.

  Melanie and I tossed the Frisbee back and forth and laughed out loud as Cisco bounded through the water and twisted in the air to catch it. Miles joined us for a time, tossing the ball into the surf for Cisco to chase. I loved watching Cisco paddle out and over the undulating waves, then dive under like a pelican and come up with the tennis ball in his mouth, amazing everyone. The four of us swam together for a time, jumping waves like children and letting the tide carry us to shore. Then Miles brought out a paddle board, which neither Melanie nor I had the patience to master on our first day out, so he took it out beyond the tide line while Melanie, Cisco and I went back to the tent for cold drinks and a fresh layer of sunscreen.

  I was ready to relax and sit in the shade for awhile, but Cisco and Melanie were nowhere near that point. Rita suggested we look for seashells, which was the kind of clever compromise only a mother could come up with. I pulled on my cover-up and my hat and was content to walk at a leisurely pace along the shore line with Rita while Cisco and Melanie romped ahead.

  There were other pavilions like ours on the beach with people sunbathing around them, and a few people swimming, kayaking or paddle-boarding in the sea, but for the most part the beach was quiet and relatively uncrowded. “This is not really a family-oriented beach,” Rita explained. “Not like back home, anyway. But it’s nice for a change, and Melanie seems to have a good time here.”

  “Little girls always have a good time when they’re with their daddies,” I pointed out, but even saying that caused a small hidden pain in my heart, which I quickly sealed off and pushed away. Not even my memories were untainted now.

  “I suppose that’s true,” she answered with a small laugh. And then she glanced at me. “I want to thank you, Raine. Melanie is a different child now, and it’s mostly because of you.”

  “Me?” I looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Of course you did. When Melanie lived with her mother…” She cut herself off with a small shake of her head. “Well, the less said about that the better, I suppose.”

  I had never met Melanie’s mother, who had abandoned her daughter—literally—last year to live in Brazil with her new husband, surrendering custody to Miles in the process. She still texted and talked to Melanie on the phone, and Melanie seemed pretty sanguine about the whole thing, but I would never understand how a mother could do that—just walk away from her daughter for the sake of a man.

  Anymore than I could understand how a man could betray his family for the sake of a woman.

  “Anyway,” Rita went on, “that situation was definitely not the best, and I’m afraid my granddaughter was growing up to be a bit of a brat.”

  I diplomatically said nothing.

  “But then she met you, and when you gave her the puppy, everything changed. I really don’t know if she would have made it through the whole transition after her mother left if it hadn’t been for that little dog.”

  “Puppies always change things,” I agreed, “and almost always for the better.”

  “It gave her a purpose bigger than herself,” said Rita, “and made her feel important. But even more than the puppy, I don’t think Melanie had ever had a strong female role model before. You gave her that, and that’s why I wanted to meet you, and thank you.” She reached out and gave my arm a little squeeze, smiling. “So thank you.”

  Wow. I had never been anyone’s role model before. Certainly I had never thought about Melanie and myself in those terms. The only thing I knew about modeling any kind of behavior was in relationship to dogs: if you respect them, they respect you back. If you listen to them, they will listen to you. If you remain calm and confident, they will be relaxed and secure. Come to think of it, a lot of the same things pretty much applied to children as well.

  Still, I felt awkward. “I didn’t even like kids until I met Melanie,” I admitted. “She’s something special.”

  “So she is,” agreed her grandmother indulgently. “And she’s completely crazy about you and Cisco. Miles is too, of course, although I suspect in his case Cisco definitely takes second place.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling tongue-tied and inarticulate. “Well, I’m crazy about them, too.” I could feel my face go a shade of red that had nothing to do with the hours I’d spent in the sun.

  “Oh dear,” Rita said. “Now I’ve done exactly what I promised Miles I wouldn’t do. I’ve embarrassed you. Promise you won’t tell.”

  I was somewhere between delighted and intrigued. “Miles asked you not to embarrass me?”

  “Wait.” Her expression went thoughtful. “Maybe it was not to embarrass him.”

  I laughed, and it was official: I really liked Miles’s mom.

  Which, if I thought about it, only opened up a whole new set of problems.

  I did not have time to think about anything right then, however, because at that moment a big wet golden retriever came bounding up, tongue lolling, tail spiraling, spraying us with sand and salt as he barreled between us, did a quick 360, and raced the other way again. “Cisco!” I exclaimed.

  But no sooner was the word out of my mouth than another golden— just as wet, just as sandy and just as big—dashed between us, almost knocking Rita off her feet. I could hear Melanie’s laughte
r in the background, and a male voice calling, “Cocoa! Cocoa, you bad dog!”

  I caught Rita’s arm to steady her as the two dogs raced away from us. “Are you okay?”

  “Good heavens,” she said, pushing her sunglasses back into place. “Was that Cisco?”

  The two dogs were running toward us again, followed by Melanie, who was followed by a dark-haired young man in khaki shorts and a white tee shirt. He called again, “Cocoa! Cocoa, I’m going to wring your neck! Come here, you rotten dog!”

  If I were a dog, I would have come.

  I stepped forward, raised my arm for attention, and called in a clear, don’t-mess-with-me-now voice, “Cisco, come!”

  I should add that I said a little prayer, as I always did, that this time he would listen. And he did.

  One of the wet goldens swiveled his ears toward me, did a minor course correction, and galloped to an attentive sit at my feet. I reached into the pocket of my cover-up for a treat—seriously, every garment I own has greasy hot-dog stains on it—and exclaimed, “Good dog!” as I popped the treat into his mouth.

  Usually, around this time the other dog would realize that something about Cisco’s behavior had generated a treat and would try to imitate it. This dog was out of control. He galloped around me, bumped my hands for a treat, reared up on his hind legs as though to jump on me, and only when I folded my arms and turned my back did he finally give up. Cisco regarded him impatiently as he came to a stop before me and sniffed my hands until, having determined something else was required, he sat beside Cisco. I said, “Good dog!” and produced another treat from my pocket. I’m never without them.

  Melanie came running up, out of breath and laughing. “Look, Raine, Cisco made a friend! They’re like brothers or something.”