Doghouse (22 page)

The woman didn't take the bait, though. “You've been nosing around in things that don't concern you, and do concern us. That's not wise. We're here to teach you some wisdom.”

Teddy would have rolled his eyes in exasperation in any other situation. “Let me guess. There really is a dogfighting ring in the back room at Sammy's. And you think we were
investigating that?” He remembered how much money Ginny had said was involved in dogfighting. Of course they'd react to someone poking around and asking about dogs. Damn it. Because God forbid this actually could have been an easily resolved job. “So what now?” he asked.

“Now you learn better.”

There was a crash behind him, and Teddy swore, not wanting to take his eyes off the woman but needing to know what her companion was doing. From the sounds of it, breaking a table. And—there was the slam of something softer, heavier, against a hard surface—maybe people, too. He took a step forward, already calculating the odds, when the woman produced a Bowie knife and someone grabbed him from behind.

Penny had
been dozing, one eye on the people below her, half that attention focused on Georgie, who was just out of sight under a table. Penny would have preferred the dog stay closer, but she was with Ginny, so that was all right.

The puppy was with the girl who worked with Theodore. That was all right, too. The puppy needed a person, and the way the girl's hand kept reaching out to touch his fur, the girl needed a dog, too.

The sounds and smells here-and-now were normal, familiar, soothing, and Penny had drifted into her thinking-space, mulling over the smells and sounds she'd been collecting, the things she'd overheard and nosed out for herself. None of it made sense to her, even for people, and that worried her. Humans often did things for strange reasons, but normally she could piece together what
Theodore and Ginny said, add them with what they'd learned, and find the cause. Not this time.

Penny blamed that deep-thinking, or the soothing familiarity of her surroundings, for how she was caught off guard, letting trouble come without her seeing it. The first she knew something was wrong was when the girl let out a frightened cry, and the puppy echoed it with a pained yip, as though someone had yanked its tail. Penny instinctively slipped down off the shelf, hiding herself behind the rows of bottles, tail bristling and whiskers outstretched, trying to find the danger.

On the floor behind the bar, the puppy whined at her, and she shushed it irritably with an ear twitch and a flick of whiskers. He hunched down and quieted, watching her intently.

Maybe there was hope for the thing yet.

Penny turned her head and took in the scene below her, her eyes widening and her ears going flat. A low rumble started in her throat.

This was
her
place.
Her
people.

Ginny had
tried to keep her attention on the discussion with Hollins, trusting Tonica to deal with whatever was going on at the bar—it had to be serious for him to leave, but that was his job, after all, as manager. She could slog on without him, especially knowing that there was a bar full of backup, if she needed it.

“This is a business,” Hollins was saying again, and Ginny was
so
tired of that word already. “I see no reason why everyone should not benefit from it, if we all do our
jobs properly. Your side venture has shown that you have initiative, and potential. I am a patron of potential. Can we not consider all this a job interview?”

The worst thing was, he was totally serious. She was about to lay out the reasons why she wouldn't take a job with him if he were the last paycheck in the Pacific Northwest, when a loud cry and the sound of something breaking grabbed their attention.

Ginny was out of her seat in an instant, Georgie at her heels. She didn't know what Hollins thought of her behavior, didn't care, because the sound of splintering furniture was not a sound she should be hearing at Mary's, not now and not ever.

There was too much of a crowd gathering around the bar, blocking her view. She shoved impatiently at a shoulder until someone moved, and she could see Stacy, glaring over the bar at a woman, tall and strongly built, wearing a baseball cap, dark jeans, and a dark blue windbreaker. The woman was facing the bar but half turned, looking at Tonica like she was daring him to move. Someone else shoved one of the patrons aside and stepped forward, coming up behind Tonica. A man, holding the broken-off leg of one of the chairs, which he brought around Tonica's neck and used to yank him back so hard Teddy's head jerked back and stayed there. Ginny felt the command for Georgie to attack rise in her throat, and then choked it off, not sure if that would only make things worse.

“Shit,” Ginny whispered into the sudden silence in the bar. She could almost feel the piece of wood pressed
against her own neck, her mouth dry and her pulse too fast. Her phone was on the table; there was no way she could call the cops. Had someone else called the cops? Her gaze went to Stacy, who was looking from Tonica to the woman, who was now holding a knife, a big-ass one with a blade that caught the bar light but didn't reflect it back. “Shit,” Ginny said again, louder this time. No way the cops would get here in time.

A hand came down on her shoulder, gently. It was Hollins standing beside her. His gaze was focused on the scene in front of them, the same as everyone else, but somehow the expression on his face was different. Not concern, not fear or even shock, but an intense . . .
study.

Keep her
talking. Keep her talking. Teddy swallowed against the weight across his throat, tried to relax a little rather than resisting, hoping that the hold would loosen. No such luck. He tried to talk, and felt the rough wood press more firmly against his Adam's apple, making him cough. At a signal from the woman, the wood eased a little. He swallowed, trying to get some moisture back into his mouth, then got the words out.

“You're here to tell me to back down from asking questions, and walk away?”

The woman shook her head, smiling slightly under the bill of her cap. She was weirdly relaxed, as though they were just shooting the breeze over a few beers, not in a standoff in front of nearly twenty people. “That would
presume that our boss gives warnings. He doesn't. He takes care of problems.”

“Seriously?” His voice, annoyingly, cracked on the word, and he felt the man holding him huff with laughter. That—more than anything else—pissed him off. “You come here, in the middle of a crowd, and threaten to carve my face up, and think the cops won't notice?”

The woman smiled at him again, unfussed, and stepped up closer, letting the knife's edge curl down the side of his face gently, not quite cutting skin. She didn't have cold eyes, he realized. She had dead eyes. There was someone home back there, but they weren't taking calls.

Great. He was about to get carved up by a professional sociopath.

“
I really wouldn't advise that,” a new voice said.

The woman was clearly not pleased with whoever had interrupted what was probably going to be a fabulous “As you know, Mr. Bond” speech. “Excuse me?”

“I said, I really wouldn't advise that.” Lewis Hollins was standing next to Ginny, who was wide-eyed, one hand resting on the top of Georgie's head, keeping the dog still. He walked past them as calmly as though he were heading to the bathroom, and stopped barely a foot away from the woman, well within reach, if she decided to lunge for him.

“I've been hearing rumors about your employer for a while. Nasty work, that. None of my business, of course, except as it touched my people. I gave them orders not to sell to him, and presumed that would be the end of that. It appears not.

“Now, I realize that you are following orders—or perhaps elaborating on them, as you seem the type to do that. But even if your employer has not realized that this sort of behavior is bad for continued business, I'm afraid your too-high profile has cut into
my
business. And I can't allow that.”

“You . . .” Her laughter was derisive, raking him from head to foot. Even to Teddy, who knew who he was, the guy didn't look very impressive, shirtsleeves and dress shoes, against a sociopath with a knife and the muscle-bound fighter who was armed, at the very least, with a wooden club. “How are you going to stop me?”

Hollins didn't posture, didn't make a witty comeback. He merely lifted his left hand and shot her with the pistol he held there.

The wooden club dug deep into Teddy's throat again, and he felt his abdomen clench as the air was yanked out of his lungs. Everything else went bright, and then dark as he fell to his knees, the last thing he heard a high-pitched screaming that might have been a cat's battle cry. . . .

“You need
to let go.”

Penny hissed, her claws still deep in soft, satisfying flesh. She had no intention of letting go.

“C'mon, Penny. You have to let go.” Georgie was nose-to-nose with her, big brown eyes mournful, and she felt the urge to hiss, to scratch at her friend's muzzle, to make the dog back off, go away. But then she'd have to let go, and she wasn't angry at Georgie, anyway.

“Penny?”

Georgie's human knelt down beside her, eyes wide, a dark mark on her face and blood on her lip. She had gotten into the fight, too. Penny approved.

“Penny, sweetie, come on. The cops are here, and if you don't let go they can't take him into custody.” She lifted a hand, wisely not touching Penny's fur: instead she let her hand drop into the folds of Georgie's pelt. “If you don't let go, they might think you're vicious, and . . . if they take you away, if they call animal services about you, who's going to look after Teddy?”

Penny's tail lashed, and she flexed her claws into skin, the man underneath her moaning slightly.

“He hurt Theodore,” she said to Georgie.

“And you hurt him,” the dog said.

That was true. He wouldn't be hitting anyone anytime soon, not after what she had done. She sighed and flexed her paws, releasing claws. Ginny scooped her, hands delicately under her belly, and lifted her up, holding her against her chest.

Penny permitted the indignity because this was Georgie's human.

“Were these the bad guys, Penny? Were these the ones who took the little man's home?”

Penny didn't know. But she wasn't going to admit to Georgie that she didn't know.

And then there were two men in uniform standing behind her, smelling of bitter smoke and cold metal, and the rest of the humans had backed away.

“Sir,” one of them said, kneeling by the man, but not touching him. “Sir, can you?”

The man surged up, and the uniformed human grabbed him by one arm, twisting it behind his back and snapping a metal collar around his wrist. “I guess he's not too badly injured, after all,” the uniformed human said to his companion, and hauled the man to his feet. “Better get the medics to look at his face, though. God, what a mess.”

“
Just get him out of here,” Ginny said.
“Get them both out of here. Please.”

The crisis sorted, Penny leaped out of Ginny's arms, crossing the floor to where another human was inspecting Theodore's throat. Her human looked up and saw her there.

“Hey, you.” His voice sounded strange, but he was smiling. Penny's tail lashed one more time, even as she purred her pleasure that he was all right. Not even the sight of the puppy on his knee, his hand stroking its fur, could ruin her good mood.

14

T
he cops weren't the same
ones who'd come out the last time someone came into Mary's looking to do damage, but they'd obviously heard about Georgie.

“Looks like your dog's been teaching that cat some lessons about being badass,” the younger of them said to Ginny, eyeing all three animals clustered by the door as though expecting Parsifal to suddenly sprout fangs.

The gunshot woman had been loaded into the first ambulance, and taken off, while statements were taken from everyone in the bar. The injured man—still moaning about his face—was being packed into a smaller emergency vehicle that had been called once the situation had been assessed. The other cop said something to the paramedic, and then stepped back, the doors closing just as the vehicle took off down the street.

“I think Penny was born badass,” Ginny said after a moment, when the noise of the sirens died down. The cop smiled politely, made his excuses, and joined his partner outside on the street, where they seemed to be comparing notes.

“They've suggested that we hire a private security
guard,” Teddy said glumly, watching them through the window. “Because yeah, that's the rep we want, exactly.”

Ginny patting him on the arm. “Still. Nobody seems too traumatized, and only the bad guys got hurt. That's good, right?”

“Excuse me?” Stacy raised her hand, dragging their attention back to the others. “I haven't had my hair pulled that hard since I was in fourth grade.”

“You got close enough to get grabbed,” Seth said. “You haven't been listening to a thing I been teaching you?”

“I was serving customers! How was I supposed to know that she was going to go all psycho hair-pulling on me?”

Ginny tapped Teddy on the arm and tilted her head, indicating Hollins, who had calmly given his statement to the cops first, and was now waiting off to the side, near the table they'd been sitting at originally. A quick look at him, you'd never think he'd walked up to a knife-wielding sociopath and shot her in cold blood. Or maybe that was exactly what he looked like.

He'd had a permit for the pistol, fortunately. And since there were witnesses galore that the woman intended to do significant harm . . .

“It seems fair to expect that those individuals will roll over on their employer, yes?” he said to them now.

“Maybe,” Teddy said. “Depends on if they were paid enough to ensure their loyalty. But the cops have enough to charge them, and if they're smart they'll make a bargain.” He didn't think they were very smart in that regard. “Either way, their boss knows that officials are watching, so I suspect he's going to close up shop, at least for a while.”

“Good.” He must have seen surprise on their faces, because he looked exasperated. “I told you, as I told that female. I did not like their methods, and will be pleased to see them shut down.”

“And it doesn't bother you that you're going to be called to testify?”

“I'm a respectable businessman,” Hollins said. “Here to meet with potential business partners, who are entirely on the side of good, if not always the letter of the law. Why should I be worried?”

Since they didn't actually have any evidence against him, Teddy had to, reluctantly, give him that.

“And he will certainly have more pressing matters now than coming after two reasonably intelligent but relatively powerless amateur investigators,” Hollins added.

“That helps us, but it still doesn't help Deke,” Ginny said. “He's still homeless, and the cops still want to talk to him. And the moment they do that, the minute he gets flustered, he's toast.”

Hollins made a coughing noise, stage-perfect faux-­concern. “I take it, from your comments, that this individual is not one who wishes close contact with the police?”

“You know that already,” Teddy said. “You do your homework.”

“As I was saying before our discussions were so rudely interrupted, it was because he worked for me, however indirectly, that your friend got into this bind,” he said. “Therefore, I will make reparations.”

“Not a deal? Why the change in tone from earlier?” Teddy didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this had the look of a Trojan horse more than a pet pony.

“I have already determined that neither of you is interested in a continuing association. And if this bar has already developed a reputation among the local police, then it would not suit my needs, either.”

“Well, there's a silver lining,” Ginny said, quietly snarky, and Teddy grinned at her. If she was back to snarking, then everything was under control. Or nearly, anyway.

He turned back to Hollins. “Reparations how?”

“So we
just let the bastard go?” Seth sounded like he was a hundred percent done with everything.

“It's not like we actually have anything we could nail him on,” Ginny said reasonably. “His concealed carry was in order, by the cops' standards he did the righteous thing in shooting that crazy woman, and like he said, far as anyone knows for certain he's a respectable podiatrist who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, or something.”

It was a few minutes after midnight, and Tonica had finally kicked everyone out, claiming they'd had their fun earlier, leaving the four of them leaning against the bar in various poses of exhaustion. This was also the first chance they'd had to fill Seth and Stacy in on the discussion they'd had with Hollins.

“So we keep quiet about what little we know about the
puppy mill, don't give his people any grief, and he makes all this go away?” Tonica was still having trouble swallowing that, too, even though he'd agreed to it.

“It's . . . not a bad plan, actually. He pins all the blame on the maintenance guy—turns out, he's the guy who came around every month to check on the dogs, at all the houses, not just Deke's. Hollins is pretty sure he's the one who actually did set the fire—that's why he was there in time to ‘rescue'”—Ginny used air quotes—“Shana and Deke in the first place. Said he's the kind of guy who'd do pretty much anything for a hundred. So Hollins will just pay him a little extra to take the fall. Cost of doing business.”

“We just have to say he was the one who had the dogs in the basement and Deke, being hard of hearing, never realized it,” Tonica added. “Since that's more or less the line Deke was taking, anyway . . .”

“And the maintenance guy will go along with this?” Stacy was frowning, too. She had really wanted
everyone
to go to jail.

“He's going to get nailed for the fire, one way or the other,” Tonica said. “Better to get paid for it, too, I guess. Nobody died in the fire, and an unregistered puppy mill isn't illegal, just skeevy. And it's not like the people he works for are all that concerned about clean references. His willingness to take a fall might actually make him
more
employable.”

Ginny glared at her ginger ale, wishing it was something stronger but not trusting herself with booze, this late at night. Georgie might be able to sleep comfortably in the
storeroom, but she couldn't. Then again, she wasn't sure even booze would help her sleep well tonight.

“He's a bit player, Stacy,” Seth said. “Long as those goons turn on their boss, the fights at Sammy's are over, and from what these two say, Hollins sounds like the kind of guy who, when he cleans his house, cleans the entire neighborhood, if you know what I mean. Even if the cops drop the ball on their end.”

“Good,” Stacy said, and knocked back the last of her beer, slamming the glass onto the counter with a little too much emphasis.

“It's not perfect,” Ginny went on, “but this way Deke gets people to leave him alone, which was pretty much all he wanted, anyway.”

He still didn't have a place to live, but being homeless because of fire was a lot better than because you were evicted—especially when nobody was claiming that the fire was your fault.

Hollins had also offered Deke a job—a legitimate one—but neither of them had felt like they could accept on Deke's behalf. Whatever those two agreed to, Ginny and Tonica had decided the less they knew, the better.

Teddy noted that Seth still wasn't looking happy. “Who twisted your shorts, old man? We did what you asked.”

“Yeah, mebbe. But seems like that Hollins guy solved most of the problems, means what you did was just a whole lot of running around and shouting. So much for your vaunted investigative skills.”

“Excuse you?” Both Ginny and Penny's hackles rose at that, Teddy was amused to note.

“You fell over the answer, and somebody else solved the problem, Blondie. That ain't what I was paying you for.”

“You fired us,” Tonica replied.

“And you never actually paid us our retainer, either,” Ginny pointed out.

“Well, that's convenient, innit?”

And there was the next round of Old Coot vs. Mouthy Dame, off and running. Teddy was about to pour himself another beer and watch the show when his phone vibrated at his hip. He looked at the display, and stepped away from his friends to answer it.

“I'm busy.”

“No you're not,” his oldest sister said, sounding far too alert considering it had to be 3 a.m., her time. “You don't work on Mondays. I'm tired of you ducking your shit.”

Teddy raised his eyebrows at that, but trying to interrupt his sister when she was in flow was pointless.

“There's a conference call on Wednesday and you will get your ass on it, all right? Nobody's going to make you come back to the East Coast if you don't want to, but you are going to own up to your damned responsibilities this once, Theo.”

“Yeah. All right.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Clearly, she had expected more of a fight. Equally clearly,
his cousin hadn't told the others that he'd already given in. He sighed. The politics of family was
much
harder than the politics of the bar.

“All right, then. Eight p.m. Be there, Theo!” And then she ended the call, as abrupt as ever. No doubt there was a senator or a diplomat who needed handling more than her baby brother.

“Tonica!” Ginny was calling him over. Apparently he was needed to cast the deciding snark. Maybe he hadn't fallen so far from the family career-tree as everyone thought. For once, the thought amused rather than depressed him.

As he passed by the bar, he lifted his arm, and Penny leaped onto it, walking up to his shoulder, where she draped herself comfortably, her claws digging in just enough to make themselves known.

“That's twice now you've helped out,” he said to her. “Maybe we should make you and Georgie official members of the team, hmmm?”

Penny purred in his ear, and flexed her claws in satisfaction, as though to say
what took you so long to figure that out?