Howl Deadly

by Linda O. Johnston

  In the afternoon, he was doing much better—so well, that relief made me feel like pirouetting in pleasure.

  I even decided I could run by Dante the ADR idea my brain had begun to ponder. I wanted to resolve the situation at HotRescues before the lawsuit was actually served by Efram Kiley’s lawyer, James Remseyer. And now that mama wolf had been found and Jon Doe’s murder had been solved—even though I still hadn’t all the background details I intended to demand—my subconscious had returned to the other main unfinished matter on my mind.

  Brody had already headed back to L.A., and I had driven to the hospital, again leaving Lexie with Dante’s household staff. I sat on the chair beside his bed and pressed the button on the remote to mute the business news on the TV.

  I told him what I wanted to talk about, and he agreed—probably relieved that I wasn’t pressing for the missing details about Jon Doe. Yet.

  “It’ll take a bit more settlement money,” I told him, “and more effort from Lauren Vancouver, but I suspect she’ll consider it a win-win situation.”

  When I’d explained, Dante was on board—even to the tune of expanding on the funds he would commit to make the case go away. Together, using the speaker function on Dante’s spiffy super-techno phone, we spoke to Lauren. I wasn’t sure whether she worked at HotRescues twenty-four/seven, but with her commitment, I wouldn’t have been surprised. She sounded pleased by the settlement possibility we presented, if not extremely excited.

  Next, as the lawyer for HotRescues, I called James Remseyer from my own cell, got his voice mail—it was Sunday, after all—but got a call back fairly soon. He agreed to meet the next day, as long as it was in his office.

  “Your settlement offer better be a lot better than your last suggestion, Kendra,” he asserted. “You know the last time—”

  “It is, you’ll see.” I cut him off before the assertive attorney allowed his words to run rampant over the phone lines. “Just be sure to bring your client.”

  LEXIE AND I had headed back to L.A. that evening, too late for me to pet-sit, but I picked up keys from Rachel the next morning to hit a few of my favorite charges’ homes.

  And then I headed for Remseyer’s Northridge office.

  Lauren was already in the suite’s reception area. Efram Kiley was waiting with Remseyer in the same small conference room where I’d convened with the attorney the last time.

  I hadn’t met Kiley before. Couldn’t say he looked especially abusive, but his snide glances from Lauren to his lawyer suggested he was visualizing lots of dollar signs. He looked to be in his early twenties, perhaps an exercise addict, with lots of brawn outlined by his sleeveless T-shirt.

  My idea might be an ideal use of all those muscles, I thought.

  “Glad you could join us, Ms. Ballantyne, Ms. Vancouver,” Remseyer began. “Now, you know, we’ve been holding off serving the complaint in our action only to give you another chance to propose an acceptable settlement offer. I hope this one is better than the last one. Of course—”

  “Of course,” I interrupted. This guy, with his perfectly tailored suit and shaved head, still attempted to assert control over the meeting by never shutting up. I wondered how he fared in court, if he tried the same kind of manipulation with judges as well as opposing counsel—and hoped I wouldn’t have to find out. “And here it is.”

  I laid out the proposal, in which Kiley could earn a heck of a lot of money without worrying about the iffy nature of a lawsuit—but, yes, he would have to earn it by working at HotRescues and being tutored in animal care and kindness by the staff. He had claimed a misunderstanding, after all. Not cruelty to his dog, but failure to keep him from injuring himself. Efram would commit to a minimum number of hours over an agreed-on time period—an amount that allowed him to keep whatever other job he might have. From what I’d gathered, he was an air-conditioning repairman, and this idea was not incompatible with his schedule.

  He would help in all aspects of animal care, and if at any time he did anything that resembled cruelty, he would be kicked out and have to refund half of what he had earned.

  His efforts would be monitored by a neutral third party—well, neutral as between HotRescues and Kiley, but an animal advocate who wouldn’t put up with any nonsense or nastiness from him. At the end, assuming he never did anything wrong at the rescue facility, he would get a lump-sum bonus.

  And, with luck and perseverance, Lauren would get some feel for, and assurance that, this guy would learn enough not to harm any hounds again.

  “If you agree, we’ll memorialize this in a settlement agreement, of course,” I finished.

  There was silence from their side of the table as I described all this. Yes, silence from Remseyer. I exchanged glances with Lauren. Maybe we’d need to go to trial on this case after all.

  “Can I talk to you?” Kiley whined to his attorney. They rose and started talking in whispers near the window at the end of the conference room.

  “What do you think?” Lauren asked. “I love the idea, especially if we can get some publicity for it.”

  “I’m sure we can,” I said, thinking of my friend Corina Carey. I’d called her last night as soon as I was sure Dante agreed I could give her the down-and-dirty details—as far as they could be made public—about mama wolf and Jon Doe.

  In about five minutes, the two men sat down across from us. “Depending on the details in the settlement agreement,” Remseyer stated formally, “throw in another five thousand dollars and we have a deal.”

  I didn’t tell him that Dante had authorized up to an additional ten thousand dollars.

  Chapter Thirty

  LAUREN AND I called Dante from outside the office building. He sounded extremely pleased by our news. And then he asked, “Will you be back here soon, Kendra?”

  “First thing after my pet-sitting tomorrow,” I told him.

  “There’s some more news,” he said. “Megan figures that, with all the less than stellar publicity HotWildlife is getting, it’s a good time to announce the winners of the contest to name our wolves. She got some good entries right away—along with some contributions—and always made it clear that the contest wouldn’t go on very long.”

  “Great!” I exclaimed. “What are they?”

  “The winner based the names on the fact that the wolves were rescued by HotWildlife. Mama’s name is now Pepper—the epitome of hot. The male pup is Cal—for ‘caliente,’ ‘hot’ in Spanish. The girls are Sparkie and Flame. Perfect, in my opinion.”

  “And no wonder,” I said, “in the opinion of the man who owns HotPets.” The names were perhaps a little too cute for wild wolves, but, hey, they weren’t likely to know their monikers or care about them.

  No one, apparently, had claimed a reward for helping to find the missing mama wolf—certainly not Esta—and the only man eligible to ask for it certainly wasn’t about to go public.

  I soon said goodbye to an extremely pleased Lauren. She had started the day looking so stiff that I knew she was nervous. Now, her green eyes glowed, and she appeared to be a happy kid—even though I’d figured she was older than me. “I hope that neither HotRescues nor I ever need legal representation again,” she said, “but if we do, you’re at the top of our list.”

  AS PROMISED, I headed back to the San Bernardino Mountains the next day after my early pet-sitting rounds, bringing Lexie so she’d be able to hang out with her friend Wagner. I dropped her off at Dante’s home and headed to the hospital, where he was just being released. They’d kept him a little longer to be sure he was healing okay.

  After all, he was Dante DeFrancisco, and they wouldn’t need the bad publicity if he took a turn for the worse after going home too soon.

  He looked a whole lot better than he had yesterday, and even managed to appear sexy as an aide pushed him to the curb in a wheelchair.

  Back at his luxurious cabin, Dante thanked his staff and asked them to return tomorrow. He probably would hang around for a few more days before chancing the lo
ng, bumpy road back to L.A.

  And then, except for the dogs, we were alone.

  I propped him up with pillows on his lush leather sofa, wanting him to be as comfy as possible. I’d taken a change of his clothes with me to the hospital, so he now wore jeans and a loose brown sweatshirt over his bandage.

  It was Tuesday afternoon. I brought him a sandwich and coffee from the kitchen, courtesy of the staff before they left. Lexie and Wagner, on the floor nearby, were charmed by the smell and started begging, to no avail. Well, to little avail. We did give them some small treats.

  When we were done, I let Dante finish watching an investment show on a business channel.

  And then I dug into what I wanted to know as the dogs went to sleep at our feet.

  “I think I understand a lot of what started that whole Jon Doe situation, but I want you to tell me the rest.”

  His smile was both amused and rueful. I knew he’d rather go off on a tangent than follow the direction I’d set for him.

  “I gather that you pretty well filled in the blanks in the story I told you,” he said. “Especially with Callaway’s help.”

  I stared at him in surprise. “How did you know I spoke with him?”

  “Your favorite P.I., Jeff, told me—and also how you’d sneaked Callaway’s number from my cell phone.”

  Oops. I guess I’d mentioned that tidbit to Jeff when he’d inquired. But why were Jeff and Dante discussing this situation? “So Jeff and you talked?”

  “I called him from the hospital when you weren’t around. Since you weren’t being particularly forthcoming about how you’d gotten the clue that led to our missing wolf, I decided to ask him. He seemed okay with filling me in. Even said he figured I should know what you’d been up to, especially after you contacted the feds, since I might be in a better position than he is to take care of you.”

  “I’m glad Jeff and you are becoming buddies,” I said sarcastically. At least it sounded as if Jeff was conceding that he and I weren’t involved anymore. He still sounded concerned about me, though, which was sweet. Maybe. “Anyway, please continue.”

  Dante repositioned himself, hunkering down as if bracing for something less than pleasant. “Okay, here goes. But you still have to keep this utterly confidential.”

  “I will,” I said. “That was part of my deal with Callaway, before he told me where to find … Pepper.”

  “You made a deal with him? Hubbard didn’t get into that.”

  “Kinda. Now go ahead. Tell me about your work with Callaway and what happened.”

  “Not much to say about our work. We reported to him on a task force that dealt with confiscating and disposing of property seized in federal felony cases. Brody and I were still fairly raw and unseasoned back then, both intending to shake the world—but not the way that was being done, with members of the task force taking property for themselves. When we learned what was going on right under the government’s nose, we figured the higher-ups would appreciate being told—but instead the shit really hit the fan. They couldn’t make us the scapegoats, since we’d already made noise and it would be obvious what they were doing. Dubbs—later known as Doe—agreed, for a price. They even found a way to fudge his fingerprints in AFIS. But he grew more and more angry and disillusioned—probably encouraged by Callaway and his crew, even while he served time in prison. I’m sure they prodded him to get his revenge on us for giving up what was going on—and shut us up, too. Now, some of this is our surmising—Brody’s and mine.”

  He looked at me, and I nodded that I understood. He couldn’t actually know all this, but his guesses would be more than educated.

  He continued, “Doe’s initial purpose was to scope out what I was up to and find a way to dispose of me quietly, and Brody next. Most likely, Callaway helped him develop a fake identity and background. And he was definitely younger than his purported age—closer to Brody’s and mine. Fortunately, there were enough impediments to stop his plans to kill us. Like Krissy stealing the wolf, and Doe finding out about it.”

  Aha! That was undoubtedly how Callaway had learned where mama wolf had gone—via Jon Doe.

  “Doe threatened to squeal on her, so she wanted a way to get back at him—and hung around him when she could. That was how, eavesdropping on Doe’s conversations with Callaway, she learned he intended to get rid of me. In her own misguided way, she did kill him for my sake. But she got angry when she kept seeing how I felt about you, after you kept coming to HotWildlife with me—and leaving with me, too. She decided both to protect herself and, like Doe, get her revenge on me by framing me. Brody, too, if it worked out that way. She didn’t care. And I’d not be at all surprised if she also had a plan to get rid of you—unless she thought that sending me to prison for life would hurt you enough.”

  “Nice lady,” I said sarcastically. “So she left me those threats?”

  “Probably, and I suspect Callaway encouraged her. Doe/Dubbs probably told him all about Krissy when things started to happen around here.”

  “Interesting,” I observed. “So they were in touch, too, and he apparently used her for his own nasty purposes. It’s additionally interesting that she never did anything to follow through. She never actually harmed me.”

  “That might have meant revealing herself earlier,” Dante said.

  “Maybe.” Now, I would be the one getting revenge—since I felt sure she’d be convicted of Doe’s murder.

  “And as for the local sheriff’s department identification of Doe/Dubbs, with or without fingerprints … I can only speculate on that, but I figure Callaway, whether or not in his official capacity, dropped a few hints on their doorstep.”

  I’d assumed that, too, but was certain Callaway wouldn’t confirm it.

  “So what about Callaway?” I asked, my concern suddenly spiking as my mind mulled over the situation. “If he wanted Brody and you dead, and now apparently has it in for me, are we safe?”

  “Pretty much. I’ve discussed it all with Brody, and he’s been in touch with Callaway’s superiors, including some who hadn’t liked Dubbs’s taking all the blame to begin with. I suspect our buddy will be too busy covering his own butt to even consider coming after us—especially since his threats are part of the whole updated, ugly story that Brody revealed, including Callaway’s possible complicity in Dubbs’s plans against Brody and me, and even in Dubbs’s death. So … is that enough detail for now?”

  “I think so, but I’ll ask if I come up with any other questions. And I do expect you to keep me in the loop if you learn more about how Callaway’s being investigated by his superiors.”

  “I’ll tell you as much as I legitimately can, considering the classified nature of what’s going on.”

  “I guess that’s got to be good enough.” I was still somewhat concerned, but knew that Dante, and Brody, would have my back. And I’d stay especially alert while Dante was healing.

  “So, unless there’s anything else you need to tell me—do you want to watch your money shows again?” This subject had been covered enough … for now. I had brought along some fascinating legal stuff, and could always play with e-mail on my laptop computer.

  “In a minute.” He reached out his arms, and, smiling, I settled into them, careful not to touch his injured side. We kissed. And again. And again.

  And I wondered how much it would hurt him if we adjourned to the bedroom.

  Hell, that could wait. Something to look forward to.

  Absolutely.

  He pulled slightly away and got an extremely serious expression in those deep, dark eyes of his. “I think you know by now, Kendra, that I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Oh, lord, that particular L word made me crazy. Heat, cold, and terror all tumbled through me.

  I’d always been so awful at picking men. And this time, if I let my feelings go wild, would I lose him? Or would he turn out to be a louse like so many of the rest?

  And then there was the fact that I’d dumped Jeff Hubbard partly becaus
e he’d suspected me in a situation he was investigating. I’d considered Dante a suspect in two murders. Could he—did he—really love me?

  Well, he’d said he did.

  He’d apparently cared a lot for someone at least once before—a woman who’d died in a car crash. He’d mentioned her, said he’d tell me about her, but never seemed ready to talk about her. I’d already decided it was past history. I didn’t really need to know. Hardly even thought about it now.

  But I supposed it meant he was capable of love. Did I dare trust him to genuinely love me?

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked. His tone was patient, but he looked hurt.

  “Well … I think that’s wonderful, Dante,” I said brightly.

  “That’s it? How do you feel? Should I just walk away before it gets worse?”

  “No!” I exclaimed, suddenly recalling how scared I was when he was stabbed and I thought I might lose him that way. His walking away would be somewhat better—certainly for him—but it still would be terrible. Yet—“You can’t walk very far right now. You’ve been hurt.”

  He shook his head, although at least he was smiling. “You do know how to change the subject, don’t you? Well, even if I can’t walk away today, you can go home.”

  Home? Without him? Under these conditions, after his amazing assertion? And hadn’t I thought, not long ago, that I just might come to …

  “I love you, too!” I blurted. It popped out involuntarily. And yet, once I’d said it, and he’d taken me into his arms and kissed me, I couldn’t help but feel glad.

  Would I feel that way in a minute? An hour? A day?

  Who knew?

  Almost as if echoing my thoughts, Dante pulled back and looked down at me with sensuously flashing eyes … and said, “Then what’s next, Kendra?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. Not now.

  But I absolutely intended to figure it out right along with him. For now. And … forever?