Limbo

by Adrienne Giordano

  Otherwise, they’d have to walk clear around to the opposite side, bypassing the security guard who’d stopped Lucie and Tim earlier.

  All that, with a stolen dog.

  Lucie watched the man who’d just been interviewed push through the west exit, then swung back to the reporter and the cameraman standing near the gym door.

  From that vantage point, they’d see anyone leaving.

  And heading for either exit.

  The reporter sliced her hand across her throat. “Let’s see what we’ve got, Glen.”

  Yes, let’s see what you’ve got.

  “Excuse me,” Lucie said. The cameraman glanced over at her and she held up the photos of Otis and the blonde. “I’m Lucie. I don’t know if you heard the announcement, but our dog is missing.”

  Maybe Otis wasn’t exactly hers, but she loved him enough that the lie would be forgiven.

  “This is him. And the woman we believe took him from inside this room. Did you see them?”

  The cameraman studied the picture, narrowing his eyes. “Well, they weren’t interviewed on camera. I’d have zoomed in on the dog in that shirt.”

  The reporter eyed Lucie then wandered over. At this distance, her make-up appeared heavy—caked on. “Hi. I’m Melanie Schaefer.”

  “Hi. I’m Lucie Ri—“

  Oh, no. Not going there. Years of experience had taught her where it would lead. The second she said Rizzo, all attention would wander from Otis to the fact that Lucie was a real, honest to goodness, mob princess.

  Lucie shook Melanie’s hand. “I was just wondering if your cameraman might be able to help me.”

  “What’s up?”

  “She owns the missing dog.” Glen handed the reporter the photo. “This is him.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I watched him do the limbo. So cute! I was hoping to get a shot of him performing.”

  “Well,” Lucie said, “if we find him, I can make that happen. I think the woman who took him left via one of these two doors. And from where you’re standing, you probably caught both on video. Any chance I can get a look at your footage?”

  3

  Lucie stood beside Melanie, flanking the cameraman as he flipped up the eyepiece on the camera to reveal a small viewfinder. He scrolled through the video for a few seconds. “How long ago did this happen?”

  “We have her taking him out of the auxiliary gym at 9:42.”

  “So she would have walked right by us?”

  “Yes. But there’s a blind spot on the security footage and once she leaves the room, we can’t see her.”

  “Where’s the blind spot?”

  Lucie pointed to the gym wall. “That side of the hallway.”

  “Ah. But if she was against the wall, I may not have caught her.”

  He pressed a button on the camera. “I can’t tell the exact time on the footage, but we’ll rewind and see what we’ve got.” He pressed another button and the video rolled. “It should be sometime after this.”

  On the viewfinder, the reporter spoke with a woman holding a pure white Bichon Frise, groomed to perfection with an Afro that buried her ears. The dog wore a plain pink bow—Ro would have complained about the lack of flair.

  They were at a dog show for heaven’s sake. Put a little sass in that bow. Make it a leopard print or bling it out with some rhinestones. Something.

  After the interview, the woman set Fluffy down and the two of them scampered off. The images widened and revealed the lobby area filled with milling patrons and vendors.

  All Lucie needed to confirm was which door the thief—that evil witch—had gone out of. Then she could have Kurt pull the outside security footage and maybe, hopefully, they’d get a description of the getaway car. Or even a license plate.

  “Wait!” Lucie said.

  The cameraman froze the screen. “You see her?”

  “I’m not sure.” She tapped the corner of the screen where she thought she’d spotted someone weaving through the crowd.

  A blonde.

  Walking what looked like Otis. Because let’s face it, Otis’s body was hard to miss. Big chested but skinny in the back, he had a distinctive walk that Lucie would recognize a mile out. Throw in the nub of a tail and she had her Otis. Really, for many reasons, this chick had picked the wrong dog to boost.

  “Can you go back a little so I can see this woman and the dog? I think that’s her. I just need to check which door she leaves through.”

  He hit rewind then paused the shot, not perfect, but enough that Lucie could clearly see that, yes, it was Otis.

  The woman led him down the hallway, just trotting along without a care, to the north exit. The one at the far end of the building.

  Where she marched right out into the parking lot.

  After hunting down the dog show’s event manager, Tim flashed his badge and ten minutes later was on his way to the auxiliary gym to meet the owner of the wiener dog about to become a hero.

  As much as Tim didn’t like to rely on his badge to get things done, it sure saved him a ton of wrangling.

  Just as he reached the eastside door to the auxiliary gym, his phone rang. He stepped back from the doorway to avoid getting clobbered by people coming out of the gym, and leaned against the opposite wall. “Hey, Luce. Everything okay?”

  “Oh my God,” she shrieked. “He’s out of the building!”

  Whoa now—what? Pressure exploded from the center of his chest, radiating out into his arms and legs. He stood straight, spun right and stopped. Tearing through the hallway wouldn’t help. One of them had to stay calm.

  Clearly that wasn’t Lucie.

  “Wait. Honey, slow down. Who’s out?”

  “Otis! I found a reporter doing interviews. They had the blonde on video. Walked him right out the exit to the parking lot. I’m on my way back to Kurt’s office. Where are you on the sniffer dog?”

  The gym door opened and out came a guy with a German shepherd, a burst of mingled voices and barks following them. The man nodded and escorted the dog to the end of the hallway.

  “I’m about to walk into the aux gym,” Tim said. “The event manager hooked me up with the Dachshund's owners. They’re willing to help. Let me get in there and I’ll call you back. Call Ro and Joey and have them search the parking lot. And when you find Kurt, tell him to pull video from the lot. If we’re lucky, we’ll see where she took him. Have you seen any cops yet? They should be here.”

  “No. Not yet. I’ll check with Kurt.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  Tim punched off and whipped open the gym door. Once again a burst of voices and fast, sharp barks erupted. Unlike earlier, something had riled these dogs because they’d suddenly gotten antsy. A couple hundred dogs lined up in crates like parked cars was no joke in the noise department.

  He pushed through the crowd, to the end of the second row and found the Dachshund's assigned “parking” space.

  A middle-aged couple stood in front of the crate. The woman spotted Tim and leaned into the man, his arm instinctively coming around her and gently landing on her shoulder. Probably one of those couples who’d been married twenty years. Their bodies seemed to move in sync after years of practice.

  Tim stopped about two feet from them, giving enough space that he wouldn’t be crowding, but close enough to be heard without hollering.

  He flipped his badge up—a whole lot of that going on today—and gave the couple a second to study it. “I’m Detective Tim O’Brien. The event manager called you about Marlowe helping out.”

  “Yes,” the man said. “I’m Hal Pickney. This is my wife, Joy.” He waved to the wiener dog sitting in the crate behind him. “And this is Marlowe.”

  The dog looked up at Tim and his floppy ears twitched. Crazy looking dog with that long snout and even longer body, but hell on earth, he was damned cute.

  “Hi, Marlowe,” Tim said. “You wanna help us find Otis?”

  “He sure does.” Mrs. Pickney flipped her hand out. “Let me see what you�
��ve got?”

  Tim handed over the baggie with Otis’s half-chewed bone. “Will this work?”

  “Normally we use a piece of fabric, but we can try. You never know.”

  “The family would appreciate it. This thing just got a little more complicated because the perpetrator was seen taking Otis out of the building.”

  Mrs. Pickney’s eyes bulged. “Oh, no. Let’s get moving then.”

  Squatting to open the crate, Mr. Pickney hooked on Marlowe’s leash. “Okay, boy. Time to work.”

  The dog stepped out of the crate, stuck his snout in the air and damned if it didn’t look like some kind of salute.

  “This is just awful,” Mrs. Pickney said. “I’d be insane if someone took my Marlowe.”

  She slid Otis’s half-chewed and fairly nasty bone from the baggie and held it up. “Go to work, boy.”

  Marlowe’s ears twitched again.

  It’d be a miracle if the dog didn’t snatch that bone. If it were Tim, he’d grab it and haul ass.

  But, would you look at that? No snatching. Just intense sniffing as Marlowe ran his nose down one side of the bone and then the other.

  “Go to work, Marlowe,” Mrs. Pickney repeated.

  “That’s his command phrase,” Mr. Pickney said. “We only say it when we want him to search.”

  “I’ve only seen our tracking dogs at the PD do this. It’s cool to see a civilian do it.”

  “It’s a ton of work for Joy. She trained him so we always have her do the commands.”

  And then Marlowe stuck his snout to the ground and took off. Talk about hauling ass. That wiener dog dragged—as much as a wiener dog could drag— Mrs. Pickney behind him as he bounced from side to side in the row, checking crates, dodging fascinated people on his way to the door.

  Holy hell, this might work.

  Unfreakingbelievable.

  Kurt was nowhere to be found.

  Gah!

  After a trip to the security office—the very empty and locked security office—Lucie ran through the hallways accosting any male with dark hair wearing a beige shirt. Every man thought her psychotic, but they hadn’t seen the worst of this mental breakdown yet.

  That would come if they didn’t find Otis.

  After whipping through the main gym, she sprinted back to the makeshift security office. Still locked.

  Nobody home.

  She pounded on the door, waited three seconds, pounded again.

  No. Flipping. Answer.

  She turned, kicked the hard cement of the wall and pain shot through her big toe, straight up her shin.

  “Ooh, ow.” She hobbled in circles. “Ow. Ow. Ow.”

  Tears bubbled up and she blinked, shoved both palms against her eyes. Crying. Please. Who had time for that?

  But she needed to find Otis. To get that sweet lug of a dog back. And nothing, nothing was going her way right now. The longer it took to find Kurt, the farther away that evil witch got with Otis.

  And all Lucie could do was run around this damned athletic center searching for someone to help.

  She curled her hands into fists, felt the prick of her nails against her palms. Dammit. She shook her fists in front of her, that fierce anger waging war against her nervous system and needing some kind of release.

  Then she started swinging. Maniac that she was, she stood in the empty hallway, drumming her fists against an imaginary wall. One that wouldn’t give her a few broken digits. A few seconds in, her heart rate kicked up and her mind zoomed in on an image of Otis.

  Yes. Get all those endorphins working.

  She stopped swinging, closed her eyes and took an enormous gulp of stale air. Sucked it all in as her body hummed and the panic scouring her mind subsided.

  “I’ve got this.”

  She opened her eyes and studied the chipped paint along the edge of the security office door.

  Forget Kurt. If she couldn’t find him, she’d find someone else. The event organizer even. Anyone who could locate him, make an announcement, whatever, to get Kurt back to the office.

  She hobbled along on her maybe-broken toe, doing a goofy limp-run-walk routine until she reached the main hallway and mowed through clumps of people. “Pardon me, excuse me. Injured person coming through.”

  An older man about her father’s age with dark wavy hair came toward her holding his hands up in the classic stop signal. “Are you all right?”

  No time for that, Mr. Good Samaritan. She had a missing dog to find.

  “I’m fine. Thank you.” She kept moving and the man fell into step beside her.

  “You appear to be upset.”

  Old man, you have no idea. She let out a harsh, painful laugh. Upset might be the understatement of the decade.

  “My dog is missing. A woman stole him. Walked him right out of the building. Now I need to find security and I just kicked the stupid wall and broke my stupid toe and Otis is still gone.”

  Lucie stopped, lowering her hands to her knees, because—holy cow—that rush of words and the huge burst of oxygen it took combined with her throbbing toe sent the room spinning.

  Don’t pass out.

  “Who?” the man asked. “Kurt?”

  Lucie lifted her head. “You know him?”

  “I should hope so. He’s my son.”

  4

  Kurt’s father may have just saved the day, and Lucie contemplated smacking a big wet kiss on him.

  “Thank God I ran into you,” she said, following the older man and Kurt into the security office.

  “I was coming to tell my son goodbye and saw you. The way you were limping, I figured you needed help.”

  She needed help all right.

  Moments later, Kurt showed up and slid into his chair, nudging the computer’s mouse to fire up the system. “Thanks for calling, Dad.” He pecked away at the keyboard. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  “I don’t understand people,” his father said. “Stealing a dog. That’s awful.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Lucie said, “my friend is a detective. For months he’s been working a case involving show dog thefts. People steal the dogs and then sell them. It’s horrifying.”

  “And your dog is a show dog?”

  At that, Lucie laughed. “No. He’s way too stubborn for that. He was in the talent show. And he’s not really my dog—I’m the dog walker. But he’s…special. I love him and I have to get him back. I have to.”

  Lucie and Kurt’s father huddled at the back of the chair and peered over Kurt’s shoulder. “I’d say cue it up to around 9:40. We should be able to see her walking out the door.”

  Kurt clicked a link and a black and white image of the outside door popped up. A bar appeared on the screen and he clicked again, dragging the little icon until the time stamp read 9:40.

  He hit play and sat back, folding his arms as he watched.

  Any second the woman—barring some kind of insanity that was fairly typical in Lucie’s world—should be walking right through that door.

  The door swung open and out bounded Otis, as usual thinking he was the alpha dog and taking the lead. The blonde looped the leash around her hand a couple of times and jerked it.

  Lucie clamped her teeth together. She’d never been a violent person, aside from those infrequent moments, typically involving Joey, when her temper got the best of her.

  But if that blonde were standing in front of her right now, she’d hospitalize her.

  On the video, before Otis could step from the curb, a car passed through the shot and the woman once again jerked the leash.

  The idea of sweet Otis in this woman’s ugly clutches? Sickening.

  Maybe I’ll do more than hospitalize her.

  She might need Ro for this one.

  The woman stepped off the curb and hustled straight across and out of the shot.

  No. Nooo, nooo, nooo. That couldn’t be it. “What happened? Why can’t we see where she went?”

  “Hold on.” Kurt tapped a few keys and clicked
on two links. “These should be the parking lot views from the corner of the building.”

  Two black and white images of the parking lot popped onto the screen and Kurt tiled them side-by-side. He clicked, setting the first video in motion.

  Lucie poked her finger. “There she is!”

  “Gotcha,” Kurt’s father said.

  When Otis stopped to sniff the rear bumper of a car, the woman jerked the leash again. Otis, being as stubborn as the entire Rizzo bunch combined, ignored her. He’d move when he was ready.

  Good boy.

  “Swear to God,” Lucie said, “if she hurts that dog, I’ll take her out.”

  Finally, Otis cooperated, trotting just ahead of the blonde as she led him to the end of the row and out of the camera’s view.

  Kurt clicked again and the second video rolled. “Let’s see where she takes us.”

  The woman walked three rows over, finally making a left into a row. Sticking to the right, she picked up her pace, moving swiftly now. Otis slowed as he glanced up at her. She checked her watch. Must have been behind schedule. Lucie knew that feeling all too well.

  But being behind schedule might be the best thing—each second Otis wasted gave them more time to catch up.

  “Come on, Otis, do your thing, buddy.”

  The woman kept walking, maybe halfway down the long row, but Lucie couldn’t quite tell. She stopped at an SUV, popped the rear door and patted the floor of the cargo area. Otis plopped his butt on the pavement.

  Good boy!

  Lucie waggled her hand. “She’s crazy if she thinks he’s getting in there. That would take way too much energy.”

  The woman poked her finger, then motioned Otis into the car. Nothing.

  Keep it up, Otis. Obviously growing frustrated, the thief checked her watch again and shook her head. Then she squatted, wrapped her arms around Otis’s not-so-tiny bulk and hoisted. Whoa, on the first try she heaved him into the SUV.

  “Damn, she’s strong,” Kurt said.

  Lucie frantically shook her head, her panic soaring as the woman unclipped the leash and lowered the door.

  Poor Otis. This rotten, degenerate person was stealing him from the people he loved.