The Lost - J. D. Robb [54]
But what was taking Sam and Monica so long? I didn’t like the look of them, standing too close in the doorway, talking in earnest voices too low to hear. Although at one point Monica clapped her hands at some comment of Sam’s and said distinctly, “Oh, that would be great.” What would? Having me put to sleep?
At last Sam turned and started toward the car. Well, this was it. The moment of truth. I searched his face for anger, indignation, but he was smiling, no doubt savoring some bon mot of Monica’s. Who, just then, thought of something else she must say to him and jogged out to the car, too.
“Oh, Sam, don’t forget the, um . . .” Suddenly she was tongue-tied. Sam finished buckling Benny’s seat belt, backed out, and closed the door. “The, um, you know.” She made a gesture with her hands, but Sam moved and his body blocked her. I couldn’t decipher it.
“I won’t,” he said.
“Don’t forget what?” alert Benny asked through the open window.
“Don’t forget . . . to tell me how Sonoma got out,” Monica said, clearly improvising. She reached in to ruffle Benny’s hair. “Pretty smart dog you got there.”
“She is really, really smart,” he agreed.
Monica looked at me and lifted one eyebrow. She wasn’t trying to communicate—sending ironic signals to a dog was the last thing on her mind. But to me, that private, raised brow was as good as a wink.
She hadn’t ratted on me.
Well, great. Just great. What was I supposed to do, thank her? And for a second, actual gratitude welled up in my retriever heart. I yawned at her. I grinned. I licked my lips.
Then I got a grip on myself. What naïveté. How could I fall for such a slick trick? I wasn’t one of those dogs you could smack around and then give a bone to and everything was hunky-dory. Forgive and forget—that’s what dogs do, but I was still Laurie. If I wanted to keep my family, I had to hang on to what I knew: Monica Carr was not my friend.
“I wonder why she came over to your house,” Sam said, settling in behind the wheel. “Although I’m glad she did—she could’ve gotten run over on Wilson Lane.”
“Maybe she’s in heat,” Monica suggested. “You should think about having her spayed.”
“I’m going to. I’ve just been too busy. I’ll call and make an appointment tomorrow.”
“Ah-r oooooo!” Oh, noooooo!
Monica thought that was a riot. “Ha ha ha! It’s like she heard you!”
At home, somebody had stuffed a large white envelope through the mail slot in the door. I got a whiff of a familiar smell, and just before Sam snatched it up, I recognized the preprinted logo in the return address: S&L. Of course—the familiar smell was Ron, my boss at Shanahan & Lewis. Funny, until now I hadn’t even known Ron had a smell.
Normally I’d have gone with Benny when he ran upstairs to his room, but something about Sam, a new dejection I could sense even though he didn’t say a word, didn’t even sigh, made me want to stay with him. When he went into the den, I followed.
He was pulling paper-clipped pages out of the envelope when his eye caught the blink of the answering machine light. He tossed the papers on the couch and punched the button.
Ron’s voice. “Hey, Sam, it’s Ronnie. Sorry I missed you this afternoon. I should’ve called first, but you were right on my way home, so I took a chance and stopped by. Anyway, good news—we got a bid on the cabin. As you can see from the offer there, it’s not the asking price, but it’s close. It’s no insult. So you think about it and let me know. We can go up ten or fifteen percent with our counter, I’m thinking. This guy’s a lobbyist. He lives in D.C., wants the cabin for hunting on weekends with clients. He says he’d hire someone for the rehab, wouldn’t do it himself—not the way you