Home Is Where the Bark Is (40 page)

“Please don’t say you’re sorry again.” This time Serena knew her smile was strained.

This situation with Jenna was getting weird. She wondered if Jenna was on some kind of medication. Or off some kind of medication more likely.

Jenna drained her tea. “Before I go, I want to ask you something. Do you know what they charged Tony with?”

“Assault.” Why didn’t Jenna go to the police station and find that out for herself?

“Anything else?”

“Should there be anything else, Jenna?” Jenna shrugged and didn’t meet Serena’s gaze. “Come on, Jenna,” said Serena. She remembered what Nick had said. “You live with the guy.”

“Did he . . . did he admit to anything else?” asked Jenna.

Serena felt like shaking her. “I know you want to protect him. But if he’s done something wrong and you know about it, you have to go talk to the police.”

The irony of the conversation was not lost on Serena. Here she was, with her history, urging her friend to go see the cops.

“Why was Kylie talking to the police last night?” asked Jenna.

How much did Jenna know? How far would she go to protect Tony?

“Jenna, you know something, don’t you?”

“Maybe. Was it . . . was it something to do with stolen credit cards?”

“You knew he was involved with credit card fraud?”

There she went again. Serena Oakley. Hopeless PI. Giving out details it might have been wiser to shut up about.

Jenna nodded. “I suspected it,” she said.

But she didn’t say anything? Just let her boyfriend rob a whole lot of people? Including her? Serena would never have believed Jenna capable of that. No matter how much she wanted to hang on to her man. Nick had been right. Serena felt the last remnant of respect for her friend dwindle away and die.

“You didn’t tell me about Kylie,” said Jenna.

Serena decided to give Jenna the information she wanted just so she could get her out of Paws-A-While. “Kylie identified Tony.”

Jenna paled. “What do you mean?”

“Tony was caught on a surveillance camera tape using a stolen credit card. He had tried to disguise himself, but Kylie identified a prison-inked tattoo on his wrist.”

“Wh-what was the tattoo?” Jenna asked.

“A cross. Like his name, Cross.”

“So there was no doubt?”

“No.”

Jenna leapt from her seat, fists clenched. “The dumb-ass,” she screeched. “After everything I did for him.”

The fury in her voice echoed around and around the near-empty playroom.

Serena pushed back in her chair, too shocked to do anything but stare. The expression in Jenna’s eyes switched from cunning to crazy and back again.

Serena had seen eyes like that before. On her stalker. “Whwhat did you do for him, Jenna?” she managed to choke out from a throat constricted by fear.

From next to her came a low, primeval growl.

Mack.

“Shut the damn mongrel up,” snarled Jenna.

Mack growled again.

So did Snowball. It was a menacing sound for a small, fluffy white dog.

Serena got up from her chair.
“You,”
she breathed. “Not Tony.
You
.”

Jenna nodded. “You think you’re so smart, Serena. But you didn’t have a clue, did you? When you apologized to me for my late invoice payment, I almost peed my pants trying not to laugh.”

Her cruel words hit Serena like a punch in the belly. But she sensed she needed to be careful with her reaction. Her friend was ready to blow. “You’re the smart one, Jenna. We both know that. How . . . how did you do it?”

“I started off by contacting your clients who bought a lot of my products and told them they would save money if they bought from me directly.”

“You . . . you undercut my prices?”

“Some of the clients, like those goody-goody Godfreys, only did it once or twice before they realized the implications it had for you and stopped. With the others, the difference between the wholesale price you would have paid me and the price I charged them meant more profit for me, a little pain for you.”

A giant-sized shaft of pain shot through her. “Why? What did I do to you to deserve that?”

“You patronized me. Looked down on me. Always trying to give me a makeover. And you stole my boyfriend.”

“Jenna, I—” Jenna seriously believed that. There was no point trying to reason with her.

“Tony had quite the little shrine to Serena St. James in his apartment, I discovered.”

Serena shuddered at the thought. “What then, Jenna? You were so clever.”

“I’ve always enjoyed a bit of embezzlement on the side. Right back to college days when I ran a gambling scam. But when your clients asked to pay by credit card, my ideas got bigger. I got a portable skimming device to steal all the details off of their cards when they paid me, and I was on my way.”

“And . . . and me? Did our friendship mean nothing?”

“I enjoyed bringing you down, Serena. You didn’t even remember Tim McHugh’s name. You could have had any guy in school. But you had to steal my guy.”

All the while Jenna had been talking, her eyes darted around the room. But they kept returning to the spotted tote bag she’d brought with her. Serena had noticed it because it was such a clash with Jenna’s outfit. No wonder it clashed. Now she doubted it was a fashion accessory.

Serena swallowed hard against her sudden terror. Sweat beaded on her top lip. There was more than enough room in that bag for a gun. Or a knife.

The sickly scent of the white lilies permeated the room. Funeral flowers. Did Jenna speak so freely because she intended to make sure Serena would not be around to repeat her confession to anyone?

A horrible feeling of déjà vu threatened to freeze Serena to the floor. She was back in the bathroom with her stalker. That time, she had been lucky her friends had come home when they did and given her the chance to lash out with the hair dryer. But this time she was on her own.

The dogs were by her side. Vigilant. Sensing something was wrong. Snowball snarled and Mack growled again, that deep, primeval growl that would have turned her insides to jelly if she hadn’t known the dog would never harm her.

But the sound freaked Jenna enough to have her suddenly lunge for her tote bag and pull out a gun.

Serena didn’t know whether Jenna intended to shoot Mack or herself. Either way, she wasn’t going to let it happen.

Fuelled by a rush of fury, she instantly shouted a command. “Mack! Get her!”

In one bound, Mack launched his massive weight and clamped down on Jenna’s right forearm with his huge jaw. At the same time, with her left hand, Serena grabbed Jenna’s wrist and twisted it so hard the other woman’s fingers released and the gun thudded to the concrete floor.

With her right hand Serena shoved Jenna with such force the other woman grunted, staggered, and crashed backward against the metal pool fence that marked the boundary of the playroom. Without any further command, Mack reared up to his full, terrifying height, put his enormous paws on Jenna’s shoulders and pinned her to the fence, his bared teeth just inches from Jenna’s face. Then there was a white flash and Snowball went on the attack.

Jenna screamed.

For just a split second, Serena’s eyes met Jenna’s. She was shocked at the rage she saw there. Rage. Fear. And then a shift to cunning. “Serena, please,” Jenna choked out.

But Serena was over any feelings for the so-called friend who had brought deception and danger to Paws-A-While.

Without a word, she yanked down two of the dog leashes that were hanging on the fence. Using Coco’s hot pink leather leash, she lashed Jenna’s right arm to the metal railing of the fence. When Jenna tried to struggle Mack growled and pushed harder to immobilize her. Serena used the fluorescent yellow of Bessie’s leash to tie Jenna’s left arm to the fence.

It was all over in what seemed like a flash.

 

 

Nick
sat outside Paws-A-While in his parked truck, cracking his knuckles like crazy. He desperately wanted to see Serena but wasn’t sure what kind of reception he would get after last night. Once again he’d pushed her too hard, too fast. And then he’d gotten between her and her friend.

The lights were on in Paws-A-While. He reckoned she was in there with the dogs. She wouldn’t leave them on their own. He wished he could see what she was doing. Then he remembered the receiver for the micro surveillance camera planted in Mack’s collar. It wasn’t spying. Not really. He was just going to test how well the camera worked. He slid it out of his pocket and switched it on.

Even before the image came into focus he heard Mack growling, a sound that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Then Jenna’s voice: “A portable skimming device to steal all the details off of their cards when they paid me, and I was on my way.”

She was the mastermind. Tony merely her lackey.

Her voice sounded unhinged.

And, as far as he knew, Serena was alone with her.

Nick was out of that truck so fast he scarcely registered he’d opened the door. He called the police on his cell while he was unlocking the front door to Paws-A-While. Then ran without pausing through the reception area and into the playroom.

The noise was the first thing to greet him. Mack’s fearsome deep growl that sounded like something wrenched from the throat of a wild beast. Two other sets of vicious snarling. All accompanied by a chorus of shrill yapping.

Jenna, her face white with terror, was immobilized by a pack of Paws-A-While dogs and tied up with brightly colored dog leashes. Mack had her pinned back to the playroom fence, his plate-sized paws planted firmly on her shoulders, his muzzle right up next to her face, his lips pulled back from his face in a terrible snarl that revealed his razor-sharp white teeth. His drool dribbled on the fabric of her shirt.

Snowball hurled himself at Jenna’s legs, prefacing each attack with a fearsome growl. The drops of blood at thigh level on the fabric of her torn pants indicated he had already met his target at least once. Brutus sat and stared up at Jenna’s face, growling fiercely without pause, which must have been disconcerting for Jenna.

Coco and Tinkerbelle ran around and around Jenna’s legs, uttering a series of high-pitched yaps that evoked a feeling of panic just to hear them. Bessie joined in but with just the occasional yip.

A short-barrel revolver—it looked like a Springfield XD compact—lay on the ground out of reach.

Serena stood on guard, her arms folded against her chest, breathing heavily, triumph emanating from every pore. “She went for us. We went for her,” she explained.

“Call them off,” choked Jenna.

“No,” said Serena, in her commanding boss-lady voice.

Two strides took him to Serena’s side. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “But I’m sure glad to see you.” She leaned against him when he put his arm around her.

“Wonder Woman in action,” he said, his admiration overcoming his fear for her.

“You could say that.”

“Call off the damn dogs,” cried Jenna.

Nick turned to face her. “Not until you tell us every detail of the frauds you committed against Serena Oakley and the clients of Paws-A-While and the whereabouts of the proceeds. I need dates, bank accounts, everything. I particularly want to know where the cash is that you stole from Serena.”

A sly look stole across Jenna’s stolid features. Even in the unenviable position in which she found herself she intended to scam him by denying it all afterward.

“You are being recorded—and videoed,” he said.

“Sure I am,” she sneered. “Where’s the camera?”

“On Mack’s collar. He’s captured a very good angle of your face.” Nick held up the receiver to her. “See. Not quite wide-screen TV but more than adequate as evidence for the police and courts.”

Jenna’s resulting string of curses was among the most colorful he’d heard at any time in his career.

“I want something more coherent than that,” he ordered. “C’mon. Start talking. Or I’ll tell Mack to get a little closer.”

Jenna started talking.

“Down, Mack,” commanded Nick. Immediately, Mack pulled away from Jenna and put all four paws on the ground. “Then drop,” said Nick. Mack dropped to a comfortable recording position near his quarry. “Good boy.”

Nick checked the leashes that Serena had used to secure Jenna. She’d done an excellent job. “Keep talking,” he said to Jenna.

Mack looked up and tipped his head to one side, his gaze intent on his master’s face. “That brave act of heroism deserves a burger,” Nick said to his dog. Mack tipped his head to the other side. “Maybe two,” said Nick.

Serena called off the other dogs.

“Oh, Snowball.” Serena scooped up her little Maltese and rained kisses on his furry, white head. “That’s the second time you’ve fought for me, you brave little boy.”

“What about this big boy?” Nick asked.

Serena must have sensed his uncertainty because she put Snowball down and came to him, walked into his arms, and hugged him as tightly as she could. “After . . . after the way I behaved last night I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I’ll never forgive myself for not getting here earlier,” he said, holding her.

And then the police sirens wailed down Filbert Street.

Serena
sat cross-legged on her living room floor playing her guitar. She hadn’t played it for a long time. But she badly needed distraction to stop herself from reliving the devastating scene of Jenna’s betrayal just hours before.

Nick was in the kitchen fixing her some lunch. She hadn’t had to ask him for some quiet time alone with her music and her dogs. He had seemed to sense she needed it.

She strummed a series of random chords, playing whatever music her fingers found. As she fooled around with different rhythms, different chords, she felt the tension begin to ease. She remembered a tune she used to play as a teenager, a calming melody that had brought her peace during the turmoil of those years.