“Abra runs away every chance she gets,” he said. “And you knew Dr. David and Deely were coming. Those aren’t excuses, Whiskey. You should have called me.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe I needed you to call me. So I could be sure you care. Sometimes I’m not sure you do.”
“You’re not sure I care?”
“Sometimes, no, I’m not. Sometimes you seem more interested in other people.”
“What other people?”
“Like the person who invited me here. You told me I should go to the show. You said it might help my business if I did. And I believed you. But now I think you just wanted to please Susan Davies!”
The silence on the other end of the phone was thunderous.
“Hello?” I said finally.
“I’m speechless,” Jeb said. “If you believe what you just said-. Well, I have nothing to say.”
“Convince me not to believe it!” I cried.
Then my stomach made a sound like a dying sperm whale-loud enough, I was sure, for every dog in the RV park to hear it. I expected a chorus of sympathetic howls.
“What’s the matter?” Jeb said.
“I don’t feel good. Odette said I look terrible. Oh, I forgot to tell you, she’s here. With Liam. They came by helicopter.”
“Liam showed up? Then he’s gotta be worried about Susan. So I have a right to be worried about you,” Jeb said. “In addition to being pissed at you. What do you want me to do? Should I come get you?”
“I can’t leave! Abra’s missing!”
Then I remembered that she wasn’t. Anymore. We just had to get her and Silverado out of room 18. I hastily explained that to Jeb.
“Anyway, I have my car here,” I added. “As soon as I can load Abra up, I’m heading for home. I should be there in time for dinner.”
My stomach roiled again, and I wondered when or if it would be safe for me to actually eat.
“I don’t know about food,” I said, “but we can talk. Do you want to talk?”
“We need to talk,” Jeb said firmly. “You got some crazy ideas in that head of yours.”
Just then I noticed Matt Koniger. He was about fifty yards away, striding toward the exhibit hall, with a dog. One dog. Silverado.
“Excuse me,” I told Jeb. “I’m gonna have to call you right back.”
Of course there were other blue-gray hounds at the show. But Matt had been on a mission to retrieve that one. Plus Abra. I wondered how he’d managed to remove Susan’s dog from Kori’s motel room without Kori’s key. She had been with me, and then she’d gone off with her uncle. What I really needed to know was what had happened to Abra.
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” he said.
I shook my head.
“The door to room 18 was ajar. I found Silverado on the bed watching TV, but Abra was gone.”
What little strength I had left leaked from my muscles like water from a shattered vase. Matt reached out a hand to steady me.
“Easy,” he said. “You need something to eat. Let’s go to the concession stand. My treat.”
“No burgers,” I murmured.
“No way,” he agreed. “I recommend hot dogs or nachos.”
I wasn’t sure my stomach could handle either.
Inside the arena the competition had resumed. Perry Stiles must have decided that the show should go on.
A second show was in progress. In the concession area Susan and Liam were having a conversation with Kori and Odette. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected in that department, but it wasn’t a four-way chat. The group had taken over a table in the concession area, where Silverado, Matt, and I were pointed now. I couldn’t wait to see how Susan would express her gratitude to Matt for returning the lost dog. Most likely, she’d save some of her enthusiasm for their next trip to the side door.
Perry Stiles waved to me. He was in the concession area, too-standing at the condiments table, garnishing a wiener.
I thanked Matt for the offer to buy lunch but said I’d cover my own. He promised to let me know if he heard anything about Abra, but his focus was now entirely on Susan. Did that make him his father’s son?
“Good job getting the show going again,” I told Perry. “And before you ask-the answer is ‘Hell, no!’ I have no affiliation whatsoever with those animal-rights maniacs. Except that some of them are my friends.”
I flashed him my most earnest smile. The one I use whenever I have to explain myself to the IRS. Or to my mother.
Perry looked beyond me to the table where the Davies clan sat, accompanied by Odette. Susan was fussing over Matt and Silverado.
“You’re witnessing a historic event of questionable taste,” Perry whispered. “Susan, her husband, his lover, and her boy-toy. Plus the poor niece, stuck in the middle-with the dog.”
“I just have one question,” I said. “Is Matt as shallow as I think he is?”
“How shallow do you think he is?”
“Well, I met Mitchell Slater, and I don’t think the apple fell far from the tree… “
Perry said, “So, you know that story! Who told?”
“The niece in the middle.”
“Good for Kori! You got to love that girl’s pluck, if not her wardrobe. Yes, Mitchell was a vain one, and Matt is more or less the same-minus the mean streak.”
“Mitchell was nasty?”
“Ask his first wife. For that matter, ask any woman he loved and shoved aside.”
“Including Susan?”
Perry looked startled. “Susan dumped Mitchell. I think she’s the only one who pulled that off. If you ask me, she toyed with him just to get close to Matt. Or maybe, knowing Susan, all she really wanted was the dog.”
“What dog?”
“The niece didn’t tell you that story? Silverado was Mitchell’s gift to Susan.”
“I thought Susan dumped him-right after he left his wife for her. Then he cheated Susan out of her stud fee.”
“Mitchell would have left his wife, anyway,” Perry said. “He left them all. The man preferred conquests to connubial bliss. As for the stud fee, Susan didn’t get cheated. Mitchell saved enough sperm to make lots of puppies. Silverado was one, and Susan got him-plus the full refund of her stud fee. Ramona knows that.”
“Why would she and Susan lie?”
“Why do they do anything? For starters, Susan’s a manipulative bitch, and Ramona’s a drama queen. The latter will make a full recovery, by the way. She took the bullet in her well-padded ass, a glancing wound only.”
I refrained from revealing what I knew about Ramona’s acting career, courtesy of MacArthur.
Perry continued, “Ramona likes to make Susan look better than Susan is. Ramona probably thinks that makes her look better, too, by association. They’re friends and co-breeders, after all. As for her lies about Slater, well, Ramona had issues of her own with that bad boy.”
“What-?”
But I was interrupted. By a chili dog and a book. To be precise, I was interrupted by Odette Mutombo, who stood before me bearing gifts.
“Excuse me,” she said to Perry. “Whiskey, you need to eat.”
“Do I also need to read?”
“Yes. I bought this for you from that vendor over there.”
She pointed to a smiling red-haired woman sitting near the concession stand, behind a table piled high with books.
“That’s the author,” Odette said, pointing to the woman’s photo inside the book.
“Thanks… but I really don’t have time to read.”
“I think you should make time.”
Odette tapped the cover, which featured a cartoon-like rendering of a running Afghan hound.
“It’s a mystery about a dog like yours. That woman over there has written a whole series of them. Perhaps if you read the books, you would learn something.”
I doubted it, but I took the book just the same, tucking it into my bag. I took the chili dog, too, with more enthusiasm. When I bit into it, I was almost overcome with hunger.
“I can’t believe how good this tastes,” I said, my mouth full. Then I remembered my manners, or some of them, and started to introduce Odette to Perry.