by Deeanne Gist
But going easy wasn’t in Nate Campbell’s nature. He had a bit of the bully in him. She might have brought it on herself, but it was, after all, just a misunderstanding.
He tried again. “Look, I just want to get down from here, all right?”
The dog seemed to understand, gazing up at him with wolf-like eyes. A long, low rumble rolled in his throat.
Even with all the distance between them, even with the police there and the leash firmly coiled around the dogwalker’s fist, Logan’s mouth dried up. He knew better, but he couldn’t shake the image of that animal leaping up at him, fangs sinking into him, its head snapping back and forth to pull a chunk of flesh loose. His throat seized up and he began to cough.
“What’s the matter with you?” Nate said. “You can come down anytime. Nobody’s stopping you.”
The dogwalker looped another circle of leash around her hand.
“He won’t bite, Mr. Woods. I promise.”
He closed his eyes, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths through his nose. The growling stopped, cut off by a jerk of the leash, but it was too late.
“Give me a second,” he said.
On the ground, they kept talking, but Logan checked out of the conversation. His hand gripped the statue, but he felt powerless now that the trembling had taken hold. The others wouldn’t be able to see it. If he just toughed it out, maybe they’d never pick up on his fear.
He took deep breaths and tried to imagine climbing down to join them. He wasn’t ready, though. Not yet. He didn’t trust his arms to hold out.
When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. But Nate was in the dogwalker’s face, hissing in a quiet, menacing way. And the woman, in spite of the bravado she’d shown a few moments before, looked ready to cry. Meanwhile, Officer Kirk watched with a poker face, giving no hint what he thought of the situation. Logan made a point of not looking at Toro at all.
He closed his eyes again and tried to think happy thoughts. His mom standing on the porch, calling him in to dinner. Dad closing the newspaper after finishing one of his articles, a smile across his lips. The crack of his bat against a baseball, the white speck disappearing into the stratosphere. Slowly his heart rate returned to normal.
Nate’s voice thundered below. “Don’t take that tone with me.”
There was no response. Logan opened his eyes again.
He’d expected to find the dogwalker cowed and submissive, but instead she looked ready to throw a punch.
Before things could get out of hand again, Logan lowered himself down, kicking awkwardly in the air until his foot found a purchase. Getting up had been easy in comparison, and by the time he let go and dropped the final yard, the conversation had stopped so all three of them could watch. Four, counting the dog, but Logan was trying to pretend it didn’t exist.
“And he sticks the landing,” Nate said, clapping his shoulder. “So what do you say, Logan? Feel like pressing charges?”
“Of course I’m not pressing charges.” He cast an apologetic glance toward the pretty dogwalker, hoping to distance himself a little from Nate’s brusque behavior, but she wasn’t having it.
He sighed. The detective had some rough edges. Deep down, though, the guy was all right. Logan counted him as a friend—and over the past couple of years, he’d proven to be quite an asset for a crime reporter to have, considering how talkative he could be. But that didn’t excuse him for bullying the girl.
He glanced at the dog. Now that he was back on the ground, its proximity couldn’t be ignored. It took a tentative step toward him, a gourmet diner edging closer to the table.
Logan’s limbs felt rubbery from the climb. If it turned into another sprint, he didn’t fancy his chances. But it was too late for fear. He stood up straight and did his best to look nonchalant.
“In that case,” Nate said, “why don’t you get going, ma’am? In the future, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
“And what about the other man? Suppose he’s still out there?”
Nate arched an eyebrow at Logan.
“She means Wash Tillman, my photographer.”
“Ah.” Nate turned to her. “If you run into him, be sure to smile for the birdie.”
She shot Nate a look of loathing, then snatched up her skates and headed back the way she’d come. At the edge of the memorial, she turned again, her eyes boring a hole through Logan.
Hey, wait a second, he thought. He didn’t want her lumping him together with his friend. He had half a mind to go after her and explain.
Nate must have read his mind, because the detective burst out laughing.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” he said. “Woman chases you up the flagpole, and you wanna run after her to apologize.
When I reflect on the fact your batting average is so much better than mine, it really pains me, Logan.”
But Logan wasn’t listening. He strained his eyes watching her, not turning until she finally disappeared into the night.
Chapter Three
The morning sun sparkled on the harbor, and a warm breeze blew the state flag anchored proudly above the Sebastians’ house. Sweeping her gaze over their breathtaking four-story Regency, Rylee studied the windows off the second-floor balcony.
No sign of an intruder. Releasing a pent-up breath, she slipped through the gate and fished an oversized key ring from her bag. It held a dazzling array of color-coded keys. She found the right one with practiced ease and opened the back door.
Karl stood pouring a cup of coffee, a half-eaten slice of toast in his free hand.
“Karl! I’m so sorry. I should have knocked.”
He grinned in reply, raising a finger as he finished chewing his toast. “Don’t be silly. You don’t need to knock. We’re practically family.”
She smiled, though that wasn’t exactly true. Back in the day, Sebastian, Lynch & Orton had been Sebastian, Lynch & Monroe. Until Rylee’s father simply walked out, abandoning his wife, daughter, and law partners. Shortly after, the Monroe was replaced by Orton. Karl would have been eighteen at the time, Rylee only five.
Karl’s father, Grant, had helped with the financial wreck her dad had left behind. Since then, he’d swooped back into their lives during emergencies and been present for the various milestones in Rylee’s life.
In spite of the shared history, though, she and Karl had lived most of their lives in two different worlds.
“Want some coffee?” he asked.
“I better not. I have two more dogs after Romeo, and they’ll be awfully uncomfortable if I keep them waiting too long.”
His eyes held a glint of amusement. “Well, we can’t have that.”
Her heart took an inadvertent jump. It always did when he used that conspiratorial tone, like the two of them shared a secret.
Realizing she’d been staring, she scrambled for something to say. “So, your dad told me you’re moving out when they get back from their honeymoon. Have you decided on a place yet?”
He brushed crumbs from his fingers. “Actually, he asked me to hold off awhile on that.”
“Oh. Well.” I’m an idiot. “That’s nice of you to accommodate him.”
“I missed you last night.” He leaned a hip against the counter and took a sip from his mug. “You didn’t come for Romeo at your usual time. He’s not proving to be too much trouble, is he? Because if he is—”
“It’s nothing like that.” She flicked her thumbnail against the strap of her bag. “I made Romeo my first walk of the night, since he’s one of my smaller dogs. With the burglaries and all, I decided to save my biggest dogs for last.”
“Nothing else has happened, has it?” He lowered his mug. “If you were in trouble, I’d want you to tell me.”
Her first instinct was to pretend everything was normal. But after the burglary here, her fear from the night before, and the condescending way the police detective had treated her, Karl’s concern was like a balm.
“Actually,”
she said, “there was an incident last night. I had this feeling someone was following me, and then there were these two men creeping around the Confederate Memorial. I actually called 9-1-1.”
He straightened. “Again? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She plucked a leash off a peg by the door. “Just a case of mistaken identity.”
Before he could ask more questions, Romeo zoomed around the corner, ears perked, wriggling all over at the sight of her.
Smiling, she put her bag on the table and squatted down. “Morning, Romeo. How’s my sweetie pie?” She tried to clip the leash to his collar. “Hold still, you silly.”
She finger-combed his salt-and-pepper hair aside, trying to locate the loop on his collar. He moved his nose closer and closer to hers. His eyes grew dreamy, and right before she clipped on the leash, his bright pink tongue shot out and swiped her across the lips.
Laughing, she nuzzled his neck and scrubbed behind his ears.
“Lucky dog,” Karl said, eyes shining. “You’ve stolen his heart, you know. All he does is mope until you show up.”
She smiled. “I admit, I’m a bit smitten with him, too.” She eased Romeo down. “I was wondering if it would be all right if I took him to a retirement home later this week. Your stepmother said it would be all right, but I wanted to check with you just in case.”
Karl rinsed out his mug and set it in the drainer. “No, no. That’s fine. Take him as often as you like. I’m sure he gets bored cooped up all the time.”
“Oh, thanks so much. That would be great.” She slipped her bag onto her shoulder and headed for the door.
“Speaking of being bored,” he said. “There was something I wanted to ask.”
She stopped, her hand on the knob.
“You wouldn’t happen to be free this Friday, would you? For dinner?”
Her breath caught. “Dinner? Friday?”
Slipping his hands into his jeans, he gave her a sheepish look.
“It gets pretty quiet in this big ol’ house sometimes. I thought a little break in the monotony would be nice.”
“Monotony? You’re always at the best parties, the ones I only read about in the papers.”
He shrugged. “They get old after a while.”
Maybe they did, but she couldn’t imagine someone with his looks and background being without a long list of women willing to go to dinner with him. Women who moved in his world. Women who weren’t working for his family.
Still, she couldn’t help but be tempted.
Digging deep, she made herself resist. “Much as I’d like to take you up on that, Karl, I’m afraid I can’t. It’s against my policy to date clients.”
He lifted a corner of his mouth. “But I’m not your client. My stepmother is.”
She released the knob and turned to face him. “You know what I mean.”
He closed the distance between them, a hint of his woodsy aftershave teasing her senses. “Do you really consider me a client?
I mean, we’ve known each other forever.”
“Not really, Karl. Let’s be honest. We hadn’t seen each other since your dad sold my house. And even then, it was for a very brief time.”
“What about when you were a kid?”
“I don’t remember much about that time.”
“I remember. I remember you in your white-and-navy sailor dress one Easter. And the time you sprained your wrist falling out of that tree right there.” He indicated a big oak in the garden behind them. “You’d think you’d broken every bone in your body the way you carried on.”
Her eyes widened. He was talking about the time before her parents died. Things she longed to know, but the memories were always just out of reach.
“You came flying through this door screaming loud enough to bring the house down.”
“I was here when I fell?” she whispered. “At your house? Nonie told me that happened at my house. But she gets so mixed up sometimes.”
He shook his head. “It was here. I’m positive. How is your grandmother, anyway?”
Rylee looked to the side. “Sometimes she’s fine, and sometimes she . . . she doesn’t remember the simplest of things.”
He ran his finger lightly, lightly down her arm. “I’m sorry. That’s gotta be tough.”
She swallowed. “Yes. Well, listen. I better go. I’ll see you later. Okay?”
“I’ll be counting on it.”
She felt his eyes lingering on her as she went out. She hustled Romeo past the three-tiered fountain and around the pool, not looking back until she was on the other side of their green gate.
She’d left her rollerblades in the car, reserving them for bigger dogs and nighttime walks, when the streets were less busy. With Romeo panting merrily at her feet, she replayed the scene in the kitchen. The dinner invitation had come out of nowhere. She wasn’t sure what to think.
She was attracted to him. No question. But dating clients was bad for business. If the relationship didn’t work out, her reputation could suffer. And in her line of work, reputation was everything.
In her bag, she carried keys to dozens of multi-million-dollar homes. Of all her qualifications, trustworthiness was at the top of the list. Compromise that—even a little—and her livelihood would collapse. Charleston was a tight community south of Broad. People talked.
A group of tourists on the opposite sidewalk paused to admire Romeo. They snapped photos of the little schnauzer as if he and his walker were one of the city’s sights. Rylee smiled and waved.
Surrounded by the exquisite, sometimes crumbling, architecture, the Caribbean color palette, and the scent of flowers as she trekked past hidden gardens, she felt she was part of the city. One of the sights. Rooted in the heart of her self-proclaimed neighborhood.
Approaching Tradd Street, they crossed to the opposite sidewalk so she could pass by First Scots Presbyterian, her church home for the past five years. Just a glimpse of the fine old building, pillars and spires, was enough to induce reverence.
As they approached, however, her sense of awe evaporated. A police car sat at the curb, lights flashing. No one at the wheel.
Through the gaps in the wrought iron, she caught sight of her pastor, Dr. Welch, engaged in an animated conversation with a police officer. This one was older than the previous ones she had recently encountered and much wider around the middle.
She coaxed Romeo forward with a light tug of the leash. “Let’s make a quick stop here and make sure everything’s all right.”
They entered the gate and bounced up the wide steps into the shade of the church’s breathtakingly tall portico.
“Dr. Welch?” she called.
The two men turned, and Dr. Welch smiled in recognition. “Mornin’, Rylee.”
His brick-colored polo and tan twill pants were tidy and neat, though his shock of gray hair had frizzed up in the August humidity. Next to him, the portly policeman studied her, clipboard in hand. The chrome name tag over his breast pocket read r. munn.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
Dr. Welch bent over to give Romeo a rub. “Fine, fine. But we seem to have a bit of a mystery on our hands. Look what was left on our doorstep last night.”
At the top of the stairs, tucked just behind a fluted column, she discovered a two-foot-tall bronze figure. A horse jockey standing with one leg bent at the knee, his hand resting elegantly on the hip. A riding crop dangled by his side.
She crouched before him, trembling with recognition. The expression on the bronze jockey’s green-gray face was cryptic as the Mona Lisa’s, strangely enticing. An old-fashioned paper tag hung from his neck by elastic, inscribed in black ink: Sell and give proceeds to the poor.
“It’s a fine sentiment,” Dr. Welch said, coming up alongside. “But under the circumstances, I thought I’d better call the police.”
She looked up at him. “I recognize this.”
Officer Munn snapped to attention. “You do?”
“This is the
statue that was stolen from the Bosticks. They’ll be so happy to get it back.”
Dr. Welch let out a sigh. “So it is the Robin Hood burglar? I thought so. Imagine. Of all the places he could have donated the loot, he chose our church. Why do you suppose he’d do that?”
“Search me. But I’ll be glad to return it to the owners.” She encircled the statue at its base.
“Don’t touch that!”
She jerked her hands back and stepped away from the statue, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Dr. Welch tried to smooth over the awkwardness with a chuckle, but the policeman gave Rylee a hard look, staring her down.
Fine, she thought. After last night, she wasn’t exactly a fan of the department.
“Now,” Officer Munn said finally, “how do you know the Bosticks?”
“They’re clients of mine,” she said. “I walk their dog, Cocoa, and pet sit while they’re out of town. As a matter of fact, they’re on Long Island and won’t be back until next Tuesday.”
Officer Munn frowned. “The Bosticks were out of town when the burglary took place, weren’t they? And now they’re gone again?” He didn’t try to hide the disapproval in his voice. A lot of locals were none too pleased by the influx of wealthy newcomers who treated the city’s historic homes as occasional getaways.
“They’re not like that,” she said, reading between the lines.
“They’ve lived here all their lives. They just like to travel, that’s all.”
“And what’s your name, ma’am?”
“Rylee Monroe. That’s R-y-l-e-e.”
He scratched out what he’d written and rewrote it. “Would you mind waiting here while I radio this in? I’m sure the detective will want to speak with you.”
She hesitated. “Detective Campbell?”
He looked up. “You know him?”
“I ran into him last night.”
Munn made another note, then headed for his cruiser. “Just sit tight and I’ll let you know what the detective wants to do.”
She didn’t want to see Detective Campbell again. Not ever again.
“Dr. Welch?” A woman in her forties stuck her head out the massive front door. “Your appointment’s here.”
