Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [111]
“You’re the horseman!” Why hadn’t I seen it sooner? The shorter torso, longer legs. And the old football pads in the stables. Monica wore them to lend the illusion of being a man.
“Nice deduction, just a trifle late in the game.” Monica smirked.
I heard a scuttling on the hardwood floor beyond the kitchen. Monica heard it, too. She checked over her shoulder. “I have a delicious surprise for you both.” She was almost giggling.
But I had a surprise, too. “I can hardly wait.” Just beyond the parlor, Chablis darted past a doorway, her little nails skittering on the wood.
“Ah, the dogs.” Monica didn’t bother looking. “I may keep the little one. The big hound will join you in the tunnels.”
The idea that she would kill Sweetie without a qualm—and steal Chablis!—anger surged in my chest.
“You won’t get away with this.” It was such a clichéd line I almost groaned.
“Yes, yes, I know.” She waved the gun. “Justice prevails and all of that.”
In the brief moment when she allowed her vigilance to slip, Sweetie rounded the corner and catapulted herself directly into Monica’s back. Seventy pounds of hound rammed her at thirty miles an hour.
Monica flew forward. The gun discharged wildly as she smashed onto her face. Her chin hit the tile floor of the kitchen with such force that she cracked a tile and shattered several teeth.
I kicked the gun free of her hand and knelt in the center of her back with all of my weight.
“Good job, Sweetie!” I had nothing but praise for my heroic red tic. “Barclay, get some kind of rope or cord.”
Monica moaned beneath my knee, and it gave me great pleasure to grind my kneecap harder into her. “Where is Tinkie?” I demanded as Barclay went to the parlor and ripped a cord from a lamp.
Monica spat blood and tooth fragments, acting as though she were suffocating. I had no problem with that.
“Get … off—”
I leaned down. “Screw you, Monica. Where’s my partner?” Sweetie Pie licked my face. A new notch would be cut in Sweetie’s leash—she’d brought down another criminal.
Barclay bent beside me to tie Monica’s hands. “What a pleasure this is, Mommy, dearest.”
The first warning of anything wrong was Sweetie’s long, low growl.
“What is it, girl?” I started to stand but froze when I felt the cold metal of a gun muzzle against my head. Very slowly I turned to face … Monica. No, Eleanor.
“You aren’t dead, either.”
“Far from it. Now get off my sister.” Her shove sent me into Barclay.
Monica flopped and moaned. “My teeth! My teeth! She broke my teeth out.”
“Four million can buy a lot of dental work, Monica,” Barclay said. Beside him, Sweetie growled fiercely.
“Just add it to the plastic surgery list,” Eleanor said.
“You’ll pay for this.” Monica scooted away from us and used the kitchen counter to pull herself upright. “Shoot the dog, Eleanor. Then shoot them.”
“I don’t want to carry them to the tunnels. They can walk.” Eleanor’s hand was level as she held a gun on us. The one Monica had used was against the kitchen counter about ten feet away. Neither Barclay nor I could reach it in time.
Sweetie bared her fangs and snarled.
“Shut that freaking dog up!” Monica slurred through bloody lips. “Or give me the gun and I’ll do it.” Eleanor swung the weapon out of her grasp.
I don’t know where Roscoe came from, or how he knew to intervene, but he sailed through the air and his jaws clamped down hard on Eleanor’s gun arm. Chablis streaked around the corner and leaped high in the air—a truly Michael Jordan vault. She caught Monica’s bloodied lip with her little underbit teeth and clamped down with a snap I heard clear across the kitchen.
Monica and Eleanor, a dog hanging off each one, slammed together in a screaming frenzy. Eleanor still held the gun, but Roscoe controlled her wrist. When the mutt finally gained his feet and began to shake his head back and forth, Eleanor screamed and released the weapon.
In a moment I had scooped it up. Barclay went for Monica’s gun, just as Chablis lost her lip grip. Undaunted, the Yorkie leaped at Monica’s face, narrowly missing her nose. Cupping