Deathtrap (4 page)

She refused to worry about it. Worry caused stress, and stress was the enemy. “I still need to put these posters up.” She lifted her stack as they reached the sidewalk.

He took the posters and the duct tape from her. “I’ll take care of it.”

And what was she going to do, wrestle them back? Her mouth set in a tight line, she turned toward home. She was beginning to regret ever walking up to his house. She’d had her share of controlling people in her life. Nothing turned her off as fast as the let-me-tell-you-what’s-best-for-you personality type. Which was probably required for a police captain.

He adjusted his long stride to her shorter one. “Lived in Broslin long?”

None of his business. “Almost six months,” she said and didn’t elaborate.

“I’ve lived here all my life.” He sounded pleased about it.

The last thing she wanted to do was exchange personal information with him. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the dog before?”

“Not that I can remember. I’m sure people will call. When did you find him?”

“This afternoon.”

“Is he at your house?”

“Outside.”

“Not a dog person?” he guessed.

“Not really. You?” Hope leaped.

He must have read it on her face, because he said, “Can’t take this one. I don’t have a fence. I’m never home. And the cat would never put up with it. Mango’s got issues.”

Mango must have been the orange cat. Sophie swallowed her disappointment as they turned the corner. She pointed at her house. “That’s me. I can make it from here.”

He raised an eyebrow as he checked out the small nursery on her front lawn. “Planting a forest to go with your fairy cottage?”

Her house was the smallest and oldest on the street, with some pretty fancy woodwork. It did look like an English cottage, which was why she’d been thinking about a garden in the first place. While she was drawn to Captain Bing’s stately home, her little cottage fit her perfectly.

“Good night.” She kept walking, hoping he would turn around eventually.

He didn’t.

They were almost at the house when the stray walked out of her stand of unplanted boxwood bushes. She froze and began backing away, while Ethan Bing calmly walked forward, then squatted, not the least rattled, holding out a hand in an inviting gesture toward the animal. “Hey there, buddy. Come here.”

Her whole body tightened, anticipating an attack. She was desperately trying to think what would be the right first-aid procedure for a ripped-off hand.

But instead of an eruption of violence, the dog slinked across the street, away from them.

“Nice dog.” The man stood. “Doesn’t look like he’s been on the streets for long. I’ll make sure people at the station know about him, in case someone calls. You should call the shelter and have them come and pick him up. They can hold him until the owner is found. No-kill shelter, pretty decent place. We do a fund-raiser for them every year.”

She should have thought of that sooner. “I will.”

He nodded but didn’t move.

She felt awkward all of a sudden, unbalanced by a flashback—being escorted home from her first date back in high school—there’d been only three altogether—standing nervously at the front door. She’d been scared to death that Bobbie Greene would kiss her, scared to death that he wouldn’t.

An idiotic thing to remember right now.

Did Captain Bing think she might invite him in? She didn’t feel any more comfortable with him than she did with the Rottweiler. Both were clean-cut, good looking, and probably dangerous. He might be a cop, but he did have that hard edge to him she wasn’t sure what to do with.

“You have anyone waiting for you inside?” he wanted to know.

Because, apparently, he thought she needed constant supervision. She was this close to losing patience with the man. And then she caught herself.

Okay, so this was her sensitive spot. She was madder at herself for the fainting spell than at him for reacting to it. He meant well, probably. So when she said, “I don’t need to be transferred from hand to hand,” she made sure her tone carried more amusement than heat.

He didn’t seem impressed with her declaration of independence. “I’ll stay here until you get in.”

He patted his jacket and reached into the inner pocket, pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “I’m sure you have a ton of friends and good neighbors, but if you have another dizzy spell and can’t reach whomever, it’d be no big deal for me to run you over to the ER. I’m usually up half the night working on some case anyway.”

“Thank you.” She took the card. “I’m fine. Really. Good night.” And with that, she cut across her lawn and left him.

Once inside, she locked the front door behind her, ready to put him from her mind, but as she shrugged out of her coat, she caught sight of him through the window.

He stood directly under a streetlight, all big and sure of himself. He was handsome, in a manly man, rugged kind of way.

He was leaving cookies for the dog.

The Rottweiler shuffled around but didn’t go any closer.

He watched the animal for another second or two before he glanced toward her house. Then he turned and with strong, purposeful strides walked into the night that had by now fully settled on the street.

She crumpled the business card in her hand as she watched him go. The only thing she was more leery of than big dogs were strong, take-charge type of men. She didn’t want to be anyone’s rescue, anyone’s pet project. She didn’t want another man who got his sense of strength from her being weak next to him. She’d had that with Jeremy.

New heart. New house. New life.

If her future was going to include a man, he was going to be the exact opposite of her ex and nothing like Captain Bing either. He was exactly what she didn’t want. She refused to be attracted to him.

Good thing was she never really had to see him again.

She pulled out her phone and typed in Broslin animal shelter, dialed the number that popped onto her screen, then explained her situation to the receptionist on the other end.

“I’m sorry.” The woman cut her off halfway through. “We have no openings. We have dogs sleeping in the offices. You might have better luck at the county shelter. They have a larger facility.”

Sophie thanked her for the information, then made the next call, but the county shelter couldn’t take the dog tonight either.

“You can always try calling back in a couple of days. We have an excellent adoption program. We do get animals out to new homes as fast as we can,” the guy on duty there told her.

She thanked him, then hung up. Okay. What next?

She checked out the window. The dog was still there, watching her front door as if waiting for her to appear.

Deep breath. She needed to stop stressing and obsessing about the dog, she thought as she turned away and walked into her kitchen. Stress was the enemy. Calm and serene. She was going to make herself a healthy dinner. She needed to visualize the biopsy results coming back good tomorrow, and living to a hundred.

The body’s immune system treated the new organ as an infection. The meds helped with that, but it still needed to be monitored. Depending on how many rejection cells the lab would find in her biopsy specimen, the doctor would update her meds. Maybe she could cut back on her pills a little.

She washed her hands twice with antiseptic soap in the chipped sink that she hoped someday she’d be able to replace. She glanced at the small shabby chic wooden plaque above the faucet. WONDERFUL THINGS ARE ON THEIR WAY. Exactly.

She got out a bowl and in went lettuce, washed twice in a special liquid that came at a high price but guaranteed to free vegetables from all sinister bacteria. She laid grilled chicken strips on top, added some cheese and wedges of boiled eggs, sunflower seeds, topping it all with raspberry vinaigrette—all of it organic.

But she only nibbled on the food as she walked to the front window. Night had fallen outside. She shrugged into her coat, picked up her plate, and walked out to the front stoop.

The Rottweiler watched her with brown eyes that seemed big enough to swallow the world.

“I did what I could,” she told him, pulling the coat closed in the front. She wasn’t supposed to risk a cold. She was to stay as far away from germs as possible. Pets were out of the question. Adopting strays was specifically on her no-no list.

She picked a piece of chicken out of her salad and tossed it to the dog. Of course, it only made it halfway, so he had to come closer. Her heart raced. But she had to toss him another piece now, even closer than that, to get him out of the road.

And then he was suddenly standing at the end of her walkway.

She froze, poised to flee back inside.

He didn’t look too sure about her either, his head down, his eyes on the plate she held.

The overwhelming Captain Bing had said he didn’t have a fenced property. She did. She glanced at the fence that surrounded her backyard, the gate to her right. Would the dog attack if she walked over to open it?

“Come on. You’re not going to hurt me. I’m not going to hurt you. Okay?”

She got no reaction to the deal she was offering. The dog watched her as if he was trying to figure her out, as if she was something strange.

Time for a blind leap of faith. She tossed a piece of chicken to the left; then she hurried right, to the gate. She opened it, stepped way back, then tossed a piece of chicken into her backyard.

The dog watched her.

“Up to you now.”

He moved toward her.

She held her breath.

He came closer.

Don’t attack. Don’t attack. Don’t attack. She tossed another piece of chicken.

And he calmly walked through the gate.

She locked it behind him with shaky hands, dumped the rest of her food inside, and hurried into the house. She ran through, out the back, and opened the shed door while the dog was still busy eating by the fence. Then she rushed back inside, filled a bowl with water, and set that out on her deck before she pulled the sliding glass doors closed behind her, heart racing.

She did her breathing exercises until she got that under control a little.

“Nothing to worry about now,” she told herself. She’d done it. The dog had food, water, and shelter. That was all she could do for him. To make sure he knew, she opened the door a crack and shouted out, “You get dinner, and you get to spend the night. That’s it. I’m not committing!”

The dog came around and gave her a look. She hoped it was a look of agreement and understanding.

There. Problem solved. For now. All by her dainty little self. Take that, Captain Bing.

Chapter Three

Bing had half an hour before he had to be at the police station. He barely had enough time to drink his morning coffee, let alone to feel lonely. Yet, for the first time since Stacy had died, he wished he had someone to say good morning to when he woke, other than Mango, who would have been a gold medalist if “ignoring humans” was an Olympic event. A great companion he was not. Bing liked him anyway.

He strode up the street with the stack of FOUND DOG flyers in his hand, squinting against the rising sun. He was up to his eyeballs in work at the office. His house needed painting. He had a whole town to take care of. Yet his mind kept going back to Sophie Curtis.

Interesting woman. She’d been scared. Whether just of the dog, him, or something else in addition, he couldn’t tell.

She was pretty—wildest red curls he’d ever seen. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. She must have looked like Orphan Annie when she’d been a kid. Now— Hell, if he’d noticed her—and he’d kept that side of him shut down for the past two years—then other men must have followed her around drooling.

She’d been annoyed with him. She hadn’t wanted him to walk her home. It wasn’t as if he had any romantic interest in her. But he was a cop who’d seen another woman bloodied and lifeless just hours before. And then there was Sophie, alone in the night and not feeling well. Protection was in his blood. It was his first instinct.

Protect the good, punish the bad.

He walked around the park, putting posters up and asking the people who were walking their dogs before heading off to work. None of them had lost a Rottweiler or recognized the dog in the picture. When he ran out of posters, he walked back home, stopping in front of his house for a second. The place seemed gigantic compared to Sophie Curtis’s cottage, way too big for a single guy who was never home.

He’d considered selling, but the time had never seemed right. Yet, what the hell was he waiting for? Anger swept through him suddenly. Stacy wasn’t coming back.

He was hurrying up the walkway when his phone rang. Joe from the station. Bing grabbed the call, hoping some labs had come back early for the Haynes case.

“Sorry to bother you, Captain. We have a drunk and disorderly. It’s your father, sir.”

Eight o’clock in the morning. Bing closed his eyes for a second. Filled his lungs. “I’ll be right there.”

Mango slunk up the steps and, in a rare display of affection, rubbed against his leg. But only for a minute before he flashed his, I’m done with you; be off, human look over his shoulder. Bing let the cat in, then drove straight to the station.

“Morning, Captain.” Leila, the admin assistant, put her hand over the phone for a second to greet him, then went back to her call, very sternly reminding someone about the fines for illegal garbage dumping. She was widowed, raising three teenage sons on her own, and as tough as any of the cops at the station.

She had short hair, short nails, and a generally no-nonsense attitude, except when it came to her footwear that came in colors that would outshine neon lights and had heels that could be classified as lethal weapons.

“Morning.” Bing passed by her, nodding to Joe, who was working at his computer in the back but stood up to walk forward.

“Thanks for the ticket yesterday, Captain. Flyers won. Took an ice girl out on a date.” He grinned.