Double Dog Dare (The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series)

by Ball, Donna

  “There is no such thing as a coincidence,” I murmured, because I had heard my uncle, my father and my ex-husband say it a thousand times. And I knew he was right. There were dots to be connected, of course there were, but try as I might I could not draw the lines. All I could think of was Cisco, alone and far from home, maybe wandering the busy streets of downtown Gustavia, maybe abandoned on the beach miles from here, maybe on a boat in the middle of the ocean, maybe none of those things at all. He was evidence in a kidnapping. Criminals disposed of evidence.

  “Exactement.” He smiled, and nodded politely to me. “Good night, mademoiselle. We’ll talk again.”

  ~*~

  Cisco had been lost once before. A child had been missing then, too. It had been cold, and dark, and he had run off into the woods with a wild border collie who had later become one of his best friends. Of course everyone was Cisco’s best friend. I had been on crutches at the time with a knee injury, and it was Maude who searched all night. Maude who knew how dogs think, the patterns in which they wander, where they are likely to go and what they are likely to avoid. Eventually Cisco and the border collie had been found, together, keeping the missing child warm in the woods. What would Maude have told me now? Where would she have had me look?

  I missed her so much.

  Once, when Miles and I were new acquaintances and I still was trying very hard not to like him, my collie Majesty escaped the house during a rainstorm and went missing all night. He had driven up and down muddy country roads looking for her, then had sat up with me all night while I checked the front porch and the back porch and the barn every fifteen minutes in case she had come home. That was when I first suspected he might be worth keeping.

  Majesty had been found wet and muddy but otherwise unharmed, sitting on my aunt’s front porch. Miles and I became friends, then more than friends. Because of that, I had met Melanie. And now Melanie had come home, safe and sound. There were happy endings. There were.

  Then why couldn’t I stop the panic from swelling up in my chest, building and building until it threatened to blow my world apart?

  I stood on the balcony outside the French doors of Melanie’s room, watching her asleep on her bed in Rita’s arms. The ocean was loud below me, and the warm breeze tossed my hair around my face and neck. Inside, the room was dark but for the Little Mermaid nightlight, and Miles sat in a chair near the bed, watching her, too. All of us were keeping watch over one we loved. But one of those I loved was not there.

  Eventually Miles noticed me, and got up. He kissed Melanie’s forehead, and stood for another moment, looking down at her. Then he came out onto the balcony. I heard the door lock engage as he pulled it closed. In the time I had been here I don’t think any of us had locked our doors at night. But I was glad to hear that sound now.

  “Miles,” I said with soft urgency as he came over to me, “I have to go look for Cisco. I can’t just do nothing. You need to stay here with Melanie, but I have to go.”

  He put out a hand and caressed my shoulder gently. His face was weary and touched with regret, but his tone was firm. “Honey, I need you to stay here tonight; I can’t let you leave.”

  I stepped away from his touch. Something about the way he used I twice in one sentence caused a flare of irrational anger within me. I need. I can’t. What difference did it make what he needed? His baby was home. Mine was still missing.

  “I don’t need your permission,” I said shortly, and turned on my heel to go. “I just wanted you to know.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder again, this time more firmly. “It’s one in the morning,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. And no one is leaving this house tonight.”

  I tried to pull away from him but he took my other shoulder and I turned on him, pushing hard against his chest. “I can’t just leave him out there!” I cried. “He’s lost and alone and he doesn’t know how to find his way home! He’s just a dog and he depends on me and…” Tears scalded my eyes and I looked at Miles, helpless to fight them. “I can’t help him, can I? I don’t know where to look. He’s not on the beach. He’s not in the neighborhood. They took him too far away. I don’t know where to look. There’s nothing I can do.”

  Miles started to say something about the morning but I didn’t hear him. I couldn’t hear him for the roaring in my ears, the black bubble of helpless pain that grew and grew until it suddenly burst in my chest and flooded my whole soul with big, ugly, shard-like sobs, the kind of sobs that suck the light out of the stars and the hope out of the universe. There’s nothing I can do . The words kept playing over and over in my head, and for some reason so did pictures: my father, sitting on the edge of the bed after my mother’s funeral, his face buried in her coat; Maude, taking a Christmas ham out of the oven; Cassidy, my first golden, breathing her last breath with her head in my lap; my husband and my best friend who promised to love me forever, looking at me with shame in his eyes as he betrayed our marriage for the last time. Pictures, pictures. Andy, who used to leave me graffiti love notes in the steam on the bathroom mirror when we lived together in college, walking into a rain of gunfire. My mother, pinning back my hair on my wedding day. Cisco, flying through the jumper’s course, barreling through a locked screen door, carrying a basket of flowers at the senior center, scarfing down a whole platter of cookies five minutes later. Pictures, pictures, pictures.

  Somehow I was on my knees, and Miles, sinking to the floor with me, wrapped his arms and his legs around me and pulled me close as though only by doing so could he keep the pieces of me from flying apart and being dispersed on the wind. I couldn’t stop crying. I wanted to stop. I wanted to be strong for him, for Melanie, for Cisco, who needed me so much. But I couldn’t stop until every bit of me was wrung out, dry, exhausted, empty. “I’ve lost so much,” I whispered, my head against his chest, my fists bunched into his shirt. “I can’t lose Cisco too. I just can’t.”

  Miles took my hot, swollen face in his hands and tilted it to look up at him, wiping away the oozing tears with his thumbs. “You’re not going to lose Cisco,” he said. “And…” he pressed a long and tender kiss into my hair, “you’re not going to lose me.”

  I said brokenly, “I don’t believe you.”

  “Ah, baby.” He laid my head against his shoulder, gently, and rested his chin atop my hair. “That’s okay. Because I do.”

  ~*~

  TWELVE

  I don’t think I slept, but I must have dozed off and on throughout the endless night, because by the time I stepped out of the shower the next morning I was surprisingly clear- headed. It was as though the torrent of pain and defeat that had washed through me the night before had left me clean, lighter, ready to face whatever I had to face.

  But I deliberately did not look at the empty designer dog bed with its small pile of toys when I passed.

  The sky was a pale morning blue over the still ocean below, still streaked with pink in places, but Miles was already waiting for me on the balcony. His face showed the puffiness of sleeplessness and stress, but he, too, was freshly showered and changed. He handed me a cup of coffee when I came out. “No offense,” I said as I accepted it, “but you look like hell.”

  “No offense back, but—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  He smiled tiredly and leaned against the rail.

  I sipped my coffee. “Melanie is still sleeping?”

  He nodded. “I’ve arranged for a plane to take Mom and her back home this morning.”

  I said, “I can’t leave until I find Cisco. But you don’t have to stay. You should be with Melanie.”

  A single dismissive shake of his head said that he had already considered the options, made up his mind, and moved on to other matters. “I printed out a bunch of fliers with Cisco’s picture,” he said. “Gustavia is the most likely place to start looking. We can blanket the town with fliers. The marina too. There are lots of Americans there this time of year, not the usual celebrity crowd. They like to sail down from Flor
ida and Puerto Rico, and most of them are dog lovers.”

  I opened my mouth to thank him, but instead I said, “Felony.” I frowned a little, puzzling over the memory. “Melanie said she heard the word ‘felony’. As in ‘kidnapping is a felony’ which it is—in the United States. An American would say that. Maybe even an American who hasn’t been here that long.”

  Something flickered across Miles’s eyes, and he said, “Come inside for a minute.”

  I followed him the few steps across the balcony and to his room, hesitating just inside the door as he put his coffee cup on a table beside the sofa and proceeded across the room. There was a chrome-framed abstract painting on the wall, and he slid it to the right to reveal a small wall safe. He said, “Do you remember Melanie’s birthday?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I watched him tap some numbers onto the keypad. “That’s the code. Enter it twice. Month, day, year, then year, day, month.”

  “Miles, I’m not really comfortable …”

  But I stopped speaking as he swung open the door. Inside was a 9 mm Glock, so stark and ugly on this gentle tropical morning that I actually caught my breath.

  Miles took the pistol out of the safe and ejected the magazine, handling it with confidence and expertise. “Have you ever fired one of these?”

  I nodded slowly. “Target practice.”

  “Fifteen rounds,” he said, holding up the clip, “fully loaded and ready to fire.” He snapped the magazine back into place and returned the gun to the safe.

  “Miles, I don’t think…” I began again, but I really didn’t know how to finish.

  “In the past twenty-four hours, my boat has been blown up, my security system tampered with, and my child kidnapped,” he said shortly. “You need to know where the damn gun is.”

  In a moment I nodded. He was right. I did. “I don’t like it when I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

  He looked at me steadily. “You know exactly what I’m thinking.”

  I drew in a slow breath. “So,” I said, “about how much money would Alex Barry need to shore up his company, anyway?”

  Miles picked up his coffee again. “More than I have, at least in ready cash. That’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense about the kidnapping scenario.”

  “That and the fact that he was with us the entire time this was going on.”

  “Possibly so he would have an airtight alibi. But he’s involved in this somehow. What I have to do is figure out how.”

  I said cautiously, “And then?”

  There was a hard glint in Miles’s eyes I had never seen before, and it gave me a chill. “That,” he replied, “depends entirely on what I find out.”

  I thought about it for only a moment. “So,” I said. “When are we going to go talk to him?”

  He looked for a moment as though he might argue with me, then recognized it would only be a waste of time. “It means putting off the search for Cisco,” he warned.

  I answered, “But it might be our best chance of finding him.”

  Miles nodded, “I think so too.” He glanced at his watch. “They’ve scheduled that press conference for eight this morning. I think they’re trying to make the morning news shows. I doubt if we’d be disturbing anyone if we showed up now, but I need to tell Mom we’re leaving.”

  Rita, who was making waffles for a still sleeping Melanie when we came down, was not at all pleased when Miles told her his plans—not the ones about confronting Alex, but the ones about sending Melanie and her home.

  “Miles,” she said, putting down the whisk with which she had been beating several eggs into an unnecessary submission, “I know she’s your daughter and you have to do what you think is best, but are you sure about this? You didn’t want her to be afraid of the water, but if you send her home now don’t you think you run the risk of making her afraid of everything?”

  Miles gave a sharp shake of his head, brows drawing together. “That’s not the point. She isn’t safe here. Maybe she does need to be a little afraid.”

  Privately, I agreed with Rita, but I tried a different approach. “Have the police even cleared her to leave? She’s a witness to a crime.”

  “I haven’t checked with the police. They have her statement.”

  This was the stubborn side of Miles I knew too well and had not yet learned how to manage. I looked helplessly at Rita, but she just leaned against the countertop and looked helplessly back at me.

  “Dad?” Melanie stood at the doorway in shortie pajamas with multicolored paw prints printed all over them, looking rumpled and tousled and sleep-fresh, but also a little worried. “We’re not going home without Cisco, are we?”

  Miles went over to her, picked her up, and kissed her soundly. “Do you know how good you look to me this morning?”

  She wriggled to be put down, and since she was barely a foot shorter than I was, it wasn’t much of a struggle. “What about Cisco?” she demanded.

  “We’re not leaving without Cisco,” I assured her.

  “But I think your grandmother and you should go home early,” Miles said. “Raine and I are going to stay here until we find him.”

  She looked at her father with a kind of helpless disbelief. “I can’t leave without Cisco,” she said. “I’m the one that lost him!”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Melanie, you didn’t lose him. You and Cisco were both lost together, you just came home first, that’s all.”

  But this time, in the bright light of day with all the nightmares behind her, it didn’t work. “Dad,” she pleaded, “don’t make me go home without him!”

  I saw in her eyes a very familiar desperation; it was the same kind of helplessness I had felt last night. I turned my back on Melanie and spoke very quietly to Miles. He would only get one shot at getting this right “Miles,” I said, “don’t take her power away.”

  Rita stepped forward and touched his arm. “Maybe you should listen to Raine, Miles. It would only be for another day or two.”

  He looked from his mother to me as though he wanted to understand, and usually he did understand, but this time he was a man trying to protect his family in the only way he knew how and he just didn’t get it. He said to Melanie, “Sweetheart, I’m sorry but—”

  In the other room, the phone rang, and we all froze. It was seven-thirty in the morning, and the sound was like an alarm bell. Miles went quickly to answer it, and none of us was far behind.

  Miles spoke tensely into the receiver and then glanced at us. “It’s the police,” he said. I moved closer. He listened for another minute, and I saw the relief wash over his face. “Thank God,” he said. He stretched out a hand to me.

  I whispered, “Cisco?”

  Miles nodded, and covered the receiver with his hand. “He’s okay,” he said. “They found him.”

  Melanie flung herself on me, grinning from ear to ear, and I hugged her hard, too weak and too relieved to speak. I could barely draw a breath. I heard Miles say, “Okay, we’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Thank you, Inspector.”

  Miles hung up the phone and I managed, “Where?” My voice sounded strained and I think I was shaking a little—okay a lot—as my heart kicked into high gear and the adrenaline of relief surged through me, turning my muscles to jelly.

  “The marina,” Miles said. “Apparently he was being kept on a boat.”

  “I’ll get dressed!” Melanie cried, but Miles caught her hand before she could race off.

  “Whoa, there, cowgirl,” he said. “You need to stay home with Grandma on this trip. We’ll deliver Cisco right to your door.”

  Melanie looked devastated, and, as anxious as I was to get to Cisco, I thought he was being unnecessarily harsh. But it was Rita who said, “Miles, don’t you think—?”

  He gave a small shake of his head, and his expression went grim. “The news is not all good,” he said. “The place they found Cisco is a crime scene now.” He drew Melanie to him in a gesture of comfort and reassurance as he added,
“A man is dead, and they think it’s the kidnapper.”

  ~*~

  Crime investigation among the uber rich and famous, I was beginning to understand, was conducted very discretely in this island sanctuary. The Port of Gustavia, home to some of the most luxurious yachts in the world, would not be inconvenienced by something so gauche as a death onboard one of its lesser vessels. There was no police tape, no security check, no emergency vehicles with flashing lights. Things were very, very different here.

  We parked near the deep-water area of the marina, and I was glad not to have to walk past the charred skeleton of Miles’s sailboat with all the horrifying memories of the night before. I knew, of course, that the remains of that sailboat might well end up being part of the story that had led to Melanie’s and Cisco’s kidnapping, but at that moment I was not interested in the story. All I wanted to know was where my dog was.

  Inspector LeClerk met us on the dock, and those were my first words as I rushed toward him. “Where is he?” I demanded. “Where is Cisco? You didn’t put him in a police car in this heat, did you? You didn’t leave him alone on the boat?”

  The inspector held up a staying hand. “Your dog is quite well, mademoiselle. He is being held in the office of the harbor master. I will escort you.” I turned in that direction without waiting for his “escort.” But I could hear the trace of a smile in his voice as he added, “He is quite a—how shall we say?—handful, this Cisco of yours.”

  Miles walked on the other side of me, fingers brushing mine. “How did you find him?”

  “Apparently some of the overnight guests on neighboring yachts were disturbed by the persistent barking throughout the night. When an employee of the marina went onboard to investigate, they found the dog tied up inside the wheelhouse…”