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  And saw, as I reached the welcome area, that it wasn’t empty now. Ed Bransom was there, the manager of our ineffective security company.

  Not good timing. I didn’t want to chew him out until I talked to Dante about this latest fiasco.

  But I could make it clear how angry I was.

  “Did your patrol guy George tell you what happened here?”

  “Yes,” Bransom said, “he did.” I didn’t like the belligerent look on his military-sharp face.

  “Did he tell you I made it clear I wasn’t happy that the dog got in here, that it could have harmed others?”

  “He told me.”

  “Then what happened. Why wasn’t your company doing its damned job?”

  Bransom scowled even more fiercely, reminding me of the dog I’d faced before, partly thanks to his company’s ineptitude. “We were doing our job, Ms. Vancouver. Can’t necessarily say the same for you.”

  Shocked, I said, “What the hell do you—”

  “Our guy doing rounds—George—did see someone bringing a dog into HotRescues earlier this evening. Not out. Nothing looked amiss. His assumption was that the person he saw was someone who belonged there. She certainly didn’t appear as if she was engaged in anything improper.”

  Despite my rage, my brain seemed to narrow its focus onto one word. “She?” That would definitely abridge my suspect list.

  “Here’s the gist of what he told me: The person he spotted was in a unisex kind of getup, jeans and a hoodie worn so it obscured her face. Or his. He wasn’t sure. But . . .”

  “But what?” I pushed.

  Bransom’s eyes narrowed, even as his mouth edged up in what appeared to be a cruel and accusatory smile. “He’s been around here before, when you’ve been present. He knows you, Ms. Vancouver. He’s seen you wearing that hoodie. And he’ll swear that the person he saw was you.”

  Chapter 27

  Once again, it was really late by the time I thought about leaving HotRescues that night.

  Once again, I’d suffered a wound—this time a scratch from a usually benign gate latch, not a falling knife.

  This time, no one was insisting that I go to a hospital to make sure I was all right. Which was fine with me. I didn’t like to be babied.

  But I wasn’t a fool. In all my many years of dealing with animals, I’d heard of a lot of minor wounds that turned into something really nasty and even life-threatening if they weren’t taken care of adequately.

  But not necessarily by a medical doctor in a hospital emergency room. I called Carlie. Despite how late it was, she was still at her veterinary clinic in Northridge.

  The Fittest Pet Veterinary Clinic was on Reseda Boulevard, in a relatively quiet commercial area. The building was delightful, an animal hospital that looked like a medical facility people might aspire to. It was pink stucco and square, with treatment rooms along the outer perimeter. Test and care facilities lined the inside, and windows opened to a large Eden-like garden.

  Dogs in good enough condition, including those being boarded while their owners were out of town, were treated to walks outside in the loving custody of the veterinary techs. Cats weren’t leashed, of course, but they were nevertheless given the luxury of some pleasant crate time overlooking the lovely garden area.

  Even if I hadn’t been good friends with Carlie, I’d have made sure that animals from HotRescues that needed medical care were brought here. And, of course, when my own family’s sweet little Bosley had been alive—and when his life was clearly almost over—this was the veterinary facility we had used.

  It was long past office hours, but I walked up to the reception area and pushed a button to ring a bell inside. I heard it go off, and a female tech with a kind and concerned expression on her face responded quickly, opening the door.

  The Fittest Pet hospital offered twenty-four/seven emergency care. When I identified myself to the tech, she smiled. “Dr. Stellan is expecting you.” She looked down at my arm and shook her head. “That isn’t the usual kind of emergency we see here. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go somewhere else?”

  “If it was something life-threatening, absolutely. But I have lots of faith in Dr. Stellan’s ability to perform first aid on a human.”

  “Me, too.” The tech led me through the door into the heart of the medical center and into a room within the inner sanctum. “Here she is.” The tech left me there.

  Carlie was inside, dressed in a white hospital jacket, softly petting an unconscious collie mix.

  My heart stopped, softhearted organ that it was. Carlie obviously saw my concern and smiled. “Just waiting for this fellow to wake up after successful minor surgery to remove a few coins that he decided to eat. They weren’t just passing through as we expected, so I went inside to help.”

  I smiled back. “And are those coins helping to pay your exorbitant bill?”

  “A down payment. Let’s go next door and take a look at your arm. You’d think someone who spent as much time around animals as you would know when to stay away from a dog who’s lost his temper. And to stay away from vicious gate latches.”

  “Yeah, you’d think so.” I’d told her enough, when I’d called her, to realize she was kidding. She understood the circumstances and seemed almost as outraged as me about my confrontation with EverySecurity.

  After calling for a vet tech to keep an eye on the sleeping dog, she sat me down on a seat reserved for patients’ owners in the next-door treatment room. She washed her hands, then bathed my arm in a solution that I assumed was an antiseptic. She applied some clear ointment and bandaged the sore spot. My friend worked so efficiently and gently that I barely felt any pain. I also showed her the wound on my leg. It was still healing well and didn’t hurt much.

  “Okay, come on into the kitchen and we’ll talk,” she said.

  The pet hospital kitchen, down the hall and around a corner, was a huge room filled with a variety of cooking and storage equipment—gas ovens and microwaves, refrigerators and freezers. I’d seen it before when Carlie gave me the hundred-dollar tour of the place, but I hadn’t spent time in this area.

  Now, she fiddled around with a coffeemaker, added beans for it to grind, and started a fresh pot. “I assume regular will be okay with you, even though it’s getting late?”

  I assured her that I looked forward to the caffeine. I’d probably need it to get home safely that night.

  While it was brewing, she sat down beside me. “Okay, now, tell me all. You only whetted my appetite before. Some jerk of a security guy is accusing you not only of bringing a vicious dog to HotRescues, but leaving it loose so it could bite you? What a crock.”

  “Yeah, but this crock could turn into a boiling cauldron of trouble for me.” I explained why I felt so anxious, in light of the other things that had happened at HotRescues. “The security guy claimed that the person was wearing a hoodie like mine—which was missing from my office. Whoever came in could have grabbed it before bringing the dog in. Or the security guy could have done it himself. Or lied about it altogether. But if the police thought I was setting things up before, this just adds another suspicious act to their list. Especially considering the purportedly stellar reputation of that damned security company.”

  Carlie’s usually brilliant violet eyes sizzled down to a deep and ominous purple. “What’s really going on, Lauren? Not that I know what I’m talking about, but as an outsider looking in, it appears that someone is going to a lot of trouble to make you look bad in a lot of ways. The person who murdered Efram? But why all the rest of this?”

  “I’ve wondered that, too.” I sighed, glancing over her shoulder toward the counter where the coffeemaker seemed to be finished with its work for the night. I stood and so did she. She’d already put two bloodred Pet Fitness TV mugs out and I filled them.

  She waited for me to rejoin her at the table. When I didn’t say anything at first, she demanded, “Well, what’s your conclusion. Who’s doing this and why?”

  “The kill
er at HotRescues, with ingenuity,” I said, in a feeble effort to jokingly employ the format of the old board game Clue.

  “Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I gather from your silliness that you don’t have a clue.”

  “I have several, but none conclusive.”

  She laughed, then grew serious. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Talk it through with you, of course.”

  I gave her a rundown of my latest effort at organizing my suspicions in computer files. “I keep moving my suspects around, since I’m trying to keep a running assessment of whom I think is most likely to be the perpetrator.”

  “Okay, but what else?”

  “Well, here are those I have in mind so far.” I gave her an abbreviated list of those I suspected, how much I suspected them, and why. I realized that Matt had moved up several rungs on my ladder of suspicion. I didn’t want that to have happened, but it unfortunately made sense.

  “So you think those damned puppy mill clowns are the most likely to have killed Efram?” Carlie demanded when I’d finished.

  “Yes, and after them those other people he knew. His stepmother and girlfriend both had excellent motives.”

  “But the opportunity to do all the rest of this junk, right there at HotRescues?” I must have looked surprised, for she smiled and commented, “I’m a TV star, don’t you know? So of course I watch some of the competition, like those shows where all kinds of characters, official or not, solve murders. I know all about the basics that are fed to the audience, including who, why, what, where, drama, opportunity, and sex.”

  My turn to laugh.

  But seriousness washed her lovely face into a grave and worried expression. “Anyway,” she continued, “I have lots of faith in you, Lauren. I know you’re using all your ingenuity to try to figure this out, including how a stranger might be able to sneak into HotRescues. But I think some kind of kick in the butt is needed, something different. Something that will get your villain to differentiate himself from the other riffraff of suspects. Let’s brainstorm, see if we can come up with something that will turn the tide here.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” I admitted. “Something has come to mind. I’ve no idea if it’ll work, but let me run it by you.”

  I did, and despite throwing in suggestions and concerns of her own, Carlie appeared to love it.

  Which was a good thing, because the next day Detective Stefan Garciana appeared bright and early at HotRescues.

  Although I wanted to tell him to get lost, I was the epitome of politeness and invited him into my office. He sat immediately in one of the chairs in my conversation area, motioning me to join him. I swallowed my irritation that he was giving me nonverbal orders in my own environment.

  “I heard about what happened here last night,” he said, his features even darker than usual, which tossed an urgency to run in my direction. “I was also in touch with the manager of EverySecurity. Do you know what he alleged?”

  “Mr. Bransom and I are not exactly admirers of one another. He told me last night how much he suspects me of bringing that nasty dog here to attack me and make people feel sympathetic. Same thing about dragging Honey into the storage shed so I could use her as an excuse to get myself stabbed—again to elicit sympathy. And all of this so the world would assume that I’m so targeted and persecuted that I couldn’t have murdered Efram—which he’s sure I did. Is that it?”

  “You’ve nailed it.” Garciana’s mouth lifted on one side, whether because he wanted to feign a grin or heartburn I wasn’t sure. “It certainly would explain how whoever’s been doing it all has gotten onto the property despite your having a security company on board.”

  “There are other explanations, like Efram showed his killer how to circumvent the system the first time and the method is still working.”

  “Maybe.” Garciana didn’t sound at all convinced. “Any idea who it could be?”

  “You’re the detective,” I countered, trying to keep my tone reasonable instead of as explosive as I felt. “You should have figured it out by now and arrested the real bad guy.”

  “I hear that a lot from people who want me to think they’re innocent. The problem is, ninety-nine percent of the time they’re the bad guys themselves. How about you, Ms. Vancouver?”

  “This is the other one percent, Detective,” I assured him. But at the ironic skepticism he glared at me, I was sure my time to prove the truth to him was running out.

  I’d have a lot of planning to do, but I intended to start on my hopefully last-ditch scheme to save myself right away.

  Chapter 28

  It had taken over a week to get this event together, but it was still one of the fastest I’d ever accomplished—and I’d put together a lot of them, all over LA.

  With the help of my excellent staff and volunteers, plus a hint to that obnoxious reporter Corina Carey, I’d gotten out the word about the HotRescues pet adoption fair in memory of Efram Kiley—and worded it with the tact of a politician up for reelection, without rubbing his dead face in the fact he had been involved with a horrendous puppy mill.

  No, I wasn’t the world’s most despicable hypocrite. I was using Efram for my own purposes, just as he had abused animals for his. My intent was to get each of the people I suspected of his murder to appear, to at least feign grieving, and hopefully to say something that revealed the truth and exposed him or her as the killer.

  I’d gotten all required permission to hold the event in O’Melveny Park, one of the largest in LA, which happened to be in Granada Hills not far from HotRescues. My team and I had brought a dozen dogs and nearly as many cats, mostly in crates. They included Honey, since the people who’d expressed interest in adopting her hadn’t yet followed through, poor baby. Or maybe it was just as well, if those folks were so unreliable.

  The animals we’d carted here also included Sweety and Missy, from Efram’s puppy mill. They were just exiting quarantine and doing amazingly well, thanks to Carlie and lots of TLC at her veterinary clinic and HotRescues. Soon, they’d be ready to rehome. It didn’t hurt to display them to potential new owners now.

  Naturally, the dogs didn’t stay in crates. We’d constructed holding areas surrounded by portable fencing, so a few pups were loose inside—the better to put their noses to the barrier and look wistful enough to attract possible adopters. Plus, our volunteers displayed them, one at a time, by taking them for walks through this area of the park, like models flaunting their assets on a runway.

  I intended to go on some of those walks—later. Right now, I sat at a shaded table nearest the parking area, the better to see who joined us, at least from the area most likely to entice visitors. Fortunately, all my wounds had healed well enough by now that I barely felt them.

  Nina was beside me. We’d brought along plenty of applications for people who were interested in adopting. Plus brochures that would tell them about HotRescues, our achievements, and our goals. We also had some bags containing pet food samples and other goodies from—where else?—HotPets.

  We had called on a lot of our regular volunteers to join us, so they could ask our standard questions of potential adopters. I still needed to personally approve each adoption. Although it happened sometimes at our pet fairs, none would be finalized that day. But we often had success in getting people to become excited about animals they met at this kind of event and start the adoption process.

  “This is such a good idea, Lauren.” Nina’s pleasure was contagious. Or maybe I just felt really proud of myself, killing two or more birds with one of this park’s stones. With luck, some of our residents would find new forever homes, thanks to this event.

  And with even more luck, I’d get myself off the hook as a suspect in Efram’s murder.

  “Thanks,” I said to Nina. “I just hope we’re really successful.” In all ways.

  I decided to practice my intended routine on Nina. I did, after all, still maintain a page on her in my suspect file. Even though she was one of thos
e I wanted in the worst way not to be guilty.

  “I hope it’s not too tacky making this a memorial for Efram,” I said. I hadn’t expressly discussed it with my second in command before. I’d just told her that this was what I intended to do, then expressed my desire for her to help with it. “But my hope is that it’ll show what he himself never seemed to grasp: pets need to be taken care of, not harmed, and not left in shelters without someone to love them.”

  “That’s what I thought you meant.” Nina’s face looked as bright and enthusiastic as I’d ever seen her. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a clip, emphasizing the leanness of her cheeks. Her curviness filled out her HotRescues T-shirt. I’d wondered often if she ever considered dating again. Despite my recent moments with Matt, I rarely did, and my miserable excuse for an ex-husband hadn’t abused me.

  “I’ve thought long and hard about who could have killed him,” I continued. “Of course murder’s a heinous thing, especially since whoever did it is apparently willing to let me take the rap. But I can certainly understand why someone was angry enough with a man like him to wish him harm, don’t you?”

  She looked at me with a defeated expression that suggested she thought I was about to accuse her. Which I wasn’t . . . directly.

  “You know I do,” she said quietly. “I hated him because of what he did to animals, and because he threatened me for telling you about the puppy mill rescue. I wasn’t as sad as I should have been about what happened to him. But . . . I couldn’t have done it, even if I’d wished I could.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  An older couple approached our table, which sent a wave of ambivalence through me. This conversation was over, at least for now. And although I realized that Nina could be lying, I didn’t think so. I’d learned enough about her over the year she’d been working for me to get a sense of when she was fudging the truth.