Page 19 of You'll Be Sorry

Or he’d finally discovered where to run to?

Chief Ian Grady had obsessed over that answer.

Which made Mandy equally curious. Sometimes, it was the smallest things that were the most telling.

The dog named Dog.

What had that canine known that the rest of the community never figured out?

7

There’s no way your mother would ever let you keep it.”

“Which makes me really happy I live with my beautiful bride.” Theo flashed his dimpled grin.

Raquel rolled her eyes. She’d followed him outside, where there was indeed a dog sitting on their front porch. Pale coat, squarish head, medium to large size. The dog had glanced at them once. Mostly it kept its deep brown gaze focused on the woods out front. Maybe on a squirrel, deer, fluttering leaf?

“I’m sure it belongs to someone around here,” she informed him.

“No collar. No tags.”

“We’re in the country. Pet ownership can be a bit more laissez-faire.”

“I don’t think leash laws are purely a city thing.”

Raquel rolled her eyes again. She’d grown up with plenty of stick-thin strays roaming the streets, pawing through trash, begging pitifully for scraps. Sometimes Theo’s concept of non-Boston life was genuinely exasperating.

Though this dog didn’t look that thin or pathetic. Some mud on its coat, debris stuck to the backs of its legs. But solidly built, appearing more sanguine than desperate. Now the dog yawned expansively, rose to standing, shook out its frame.

Theo patted its head in delight, as if the pup had executed some clever trick.

Raquel looked from her husband to the mutt, back to her husband again.

“Did you feed it?” She already feared the answer.

“Just provided some water,” Theo minimized. “As any good host would do.” He scratched the dog behind the ear. The dog panted happily. “Now who’s a good boy? A really, really good boy…Yes, yes you are.”

“You know it’s a male?” Raquel asked her husband as the stray in question leaned heavily against him.

“Absolutely. Total bro vibe. Can’t you feel it?”

“We need to call animal control.”

“What?” Genuine horror. “And have Junior carted off to some shelter? Never.”

“What are we going to do with some four-legged intruder?”

Theo rose to standing. “The next logical thing, of course. Breakfast!”

“No.”

“Yes!” That incredibly dangerous grin as Theo sidled closer, whispered in her ear, “I know you think he’s handsome.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“And I definitely know you think I’m sexy.”

Heavier sigh. “You never learned to play fair, did you?”