I wasn’t really. It made me feel like I’d been kicked.
Trask grabbed my arm.
“Honey, you’re a classy lady, and I like you—even though you were married to that jerk Kahn. So I want you to promise me something.”
I stiffened. Trask’s grip was too tight, and his face too close. Why did people think it was acceptable to call one’s ex-spouse a jerk? Maybe he was, but I’d loved him once, and he was my jerk.
Trask kept his grip tight. “I want you to promise me you’ll get your butt out of this porno palace before you take an unplanned swim in the Trent, or have a run-in with Mr. Ratko’s knife, or…” He gestured at the shredder and, further down the room—the huge blade of the book-trimming machine. “Or you have an unlucky accident. Don’t think you’re not in danger because Sherwood’s romancing you. Promise?”
I gave a nod. The trimming machine did look dangerous. Meggy always called it “the guillotine.”
Everything Trask said made terrible sense. On the other hand, with his massive shoulders and scarred cheek, the man looked pretty dangerous himself. I was glad when he loosened his grip.
Trask lifted the pack to his shoulders and started toward the door.
“Oh, and if you’re looking for that crazy little dog, he’s not dead. I just fed him a little Valium sandwich. I remember how he used to bark like crazy whenever he got a whiff of me, and I didn’t know who or what I was going to find in this place.” He shone his flashlight under one of the long tables, where Much lay in an uncharacteristic sprawl.
My heart lurched.
“Much!” I crawled under the table. The little dog was limp and inert. “How much did you give him? You may have killed him!” I called over my shoulder to Trask. “We have to get him to a vet!”
I heard nothing but the slam of a door as Trask disappeared into the night.
I put my hand on Much’s snout. When I felt breath, I could finally get my own lungs to work. I slid the dog’s immobile body from under the table and lifted him—he was heavy for such a little guy—and carried him back to the canteen. I had to get him to a vet somehow. Where could I find one, without a car on a Saturday night? I laid him on the couch in front of the television and wondered if I should run to the Merry Miller in hopes of finding Liam and Davey.
No. Trask would have seen them if they’d been at the pub.
I needed to phone someone. Vera. Her home phone number would be listed somewhere in the office. That lock on the door was old. Maybe I could open it with a credit card the way people did in the movies. I pulled my wallet from my tote bag. Finally that maxed-out AmEx Card might be good for something.
After checking once more on Much, who seemed to be breathing regularly, I ran down to the office. I tried to slide the card between the door and the jamb but it wouldn’t fit. As my panic rose, I kicked the door a couple of times, hoping I might loosen it, but nothing happened.
Well, almost nothing. I might have imagined it, but after the first kick, I thought I heard movement inside. I did hope it wasn’t rats. Not when I was alone and Much was
hors de combat.
There it was again. Something like a footstep, coming from inside the office. Had Trask got into the inner sanctum somehow? Maybe it was Davey. Or Alan. Probably Alan. Doing something kinky with some girl, no doubt. Obviously he wanted his privacy. Too bad.
I rapped briskly on the door.
“You in there! Open the door. This is an emergency.” I knocked again. “Please. It’s matter of life and death.”
“Life and death?” said a voice. “Are you sure you’re not exaggerating, Duchess?”
I’d know his voice through a dozen doors.
“Peter?” I said, afraid to believe.
The door opened and there he was—deeply tanned and dressed in jeans and his green San Francisco hoodie—faded now—with his shaggy hair pulled back in a pony tail.
Peter. Alive. Not murdered by Barnacle Bill. Not pursuing criminal exploits in some far corner of the planet. Here.
Safe.
He clutched me and gave me a kiss so delicious that for a moment I forgot the urgency of my mission—and how much I should fear him, if any of Trask’s stories were true.
When my brain regained supremacy over my hormones, I pulled away.
“There’s no time. Much needs help. Now. He’s lying unconscious in the canteen.”
Peter’s face went pale. “Dear God, Duchess. Why didn’t you say so? Come on. We’ve got to get him to a vet.”
I ran after him, my body flooding with relief. International criminal or not, Peter Sherwood made me feel safer than anyone I knew.
When Peter saw Much, floppy and unresponsive on the canteen couch, his reaction was as horrified as mine. He checked for breath.
“He’s alive. Let’s take him up to Vera’s straight away. She has a neighbor who runs a veterinary surgery.” He listened to the dog’s breathing and picked him up. “What’s happened to him?”
I gave a bare-bones account of Trask’s visit, leaving out his talk of Peter’s criminal past, and of course, my promise to “get my butt out of this porno palace.”
“I’ll kill that Yank if I see him.” Peter’s voice was cool and matter-of-fact as he petted the little dog with gentle care. “Trask never liked Much. I’m always wary of people who don’t like dogs. They usually don’t play well with others.”
I followed as Peter carried Much through the drizzly rain to his car—the same Mini-Cooper Liam had used to pick me up from the airport when I first arrived—less than two months ago. But another lifetime. Peter told me to get the car’s keys out of his pocket. He lifted his elbow so I could have access to his jacket while he murmured words of encouragement to Much.
I felt Peter’s body warmth as I reached into his fleecy pocket, wishing I hadn’t heard Gordon Trask’s awful accusations. For now, I had to allow myself to believe Trask was wrong.
I opened the passenger side door and sat, reaching up for the little dog, who whimpered in his sleep as Peter set him gently on my lap. Peter ran around to the driver’s seat, gave Much a reassuring pat, then drove with dramatic speed through the narrow, deserted streets and up a dark, winding road as emotions crashed in my head.
“What time is it?” Peter said. “I hope Vera won’t be asleep.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s not quite ten.”
His wrist was naked, his Rolex gone. And he wore cheap canvas shoes. I wondered if his rich-man trappings had financed his Croatian trip. And how he had acquired them in the first place. Were they stolen? Bought with drug money?
I had a thousand questions, but kept quiet as Peter launched into an emotional tale about a dog named Biscuit he’d had as a boy, growing up in the slums of Nottingham.
He looked like a father with a sick child—hunched over the wheel with white-knuckle tension.
It took me a moment to take in the implications of what Peter was saying: he had grown up in the slums of Nottingham. So much for Plant’s story of Peter’s rumored aristocratic lineage. Nothing I’d ever heard about Peter Sherwood—positive or negative—seemed to stand up to scrutiny.
The truth was—I had no idea who this man was who was driving me at such alarming speed through the rainy night.
When we stopped at a red light, Peter reached over to pet Much. “I think if I was an animal in a former life, I was a dog.” He gave an odd laugh. “Probably a stray that got flattened by a lorry, like poor old Biscuit.” He grinned, his teeth reflecting the red of the traffic light. The red teeth brought to my mind my dream of the were-coyote.
“What an awful thought,” I said, desperate to brighten the mood. “I think you would have been an alpha dog—with lots of buddies around you. Remember how that coyote ran from you in San Francisco? Maybe he knew you were the leader of the pack.”
Peter let out another bark of laughter.
“So you think I’m a coyote, eh? Poor, out of luck and friendless? Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“Not that. Obviously you have lots of friends.”
He turned to me with a look that was all challenge. “Do I?”
I didn’t know what to say. Of course his people were loyal. Didn’t he know that? Maybe he found it lonely at the top. But if he felt friendless, it was his own fault—taking off without a word, leaving his company, and me, at the mercy of Rodd Whippington and the mendacious Alan Greene.
But I decided this wasn’t the moment to say that. Instead I told him how relieved everybody would be to see him.
I started to ask if Ratko had come back with him, and if Ratko knew his home had been turned into a porn studio, but after a hair-raising turn, Peter squealed the Mini to a stop in front of a neat brick bungalow surrounded by a lush garden.
“I’ll get Vera,” he said. I watched him bound up to the door of the bungalow.
I tried to think rational thoughts as I sat petting the unconscious dog. No matter what anybody told me about Peter, I couldn’t believe he was an evil man, especially now I knew he hadn’t gone off with Barnacle Bill, abandoning me and his company for some nefarious criminal scheme.
And I was awfully happy Bill hadn’t murdered him.
Maybe Trask had made up those stories. He was a fiction writer, after all. Besides, the man was an admitted dog poisoner. How could I believe what a person like that said?
Peter came back a few moments later with a pale, anxious Vera. She wore a raincoat over flannel pajamas. She said she’d called the clinic—only a few streets away—and somebody would be ready to see Much.
Vera didn’t seem moved by Peter’s miraculous reappearance. All her attention was focused on Much—and her anger at Gordon Trask.
“I’m disappointed in that chap. If he wanted copies of his books, all he had to do was ring me. No need to resort to poison and thievery. Let’s hope it was only a tranquilizer he fed Much. But I wouldn’t put anything past a man who could do that. He’s nothing more than a common criminal.”
Common criminal. I wondered if there was such a thing. I’d met quite an assortment of criminals recently—all so very different. Some had their own code of honor, like Davey and Liam; some were parasitic and devious like Alan Greene; and others were threatening and violent like Barnacle Bill and Ratko.
So what kind of criminal was Peter? I had to accept that he was one. His own tales of his Caribbean adventures made it clear he hadn’t always lived within the law.
When we reached the clinic, Vera said that since she’d put herself on record as Much’s owner, she needed to be the one to accompany him into the inner office. Peter and I were left to sit in the waiting room with the parents of a weeping child whose hamster had been mauled by the family dog, and a nervous little man whose cat had been run over by his mother’s motorized wheelchair.
I was desperate to ask Peter the questions zinging around my brain, but I knew I couldn’t get any real answers while we were in public. So, in between the hamster-owner’s wails, I asked about the weather in Croatia. Peter said it was splendid and told me—at some length—about the pleasant little seaport town of Pula.
A travelogue. I found it hard to pay attention to the words. Mostly I was aware of Peter’s lilting Midlands accent, and how gorgeous he looked with that healthy tan, and how much better he’d look with a haircut that didn’t remind me of Alan Greene’s.
Peter misinterpreted my silence.
“I’m sure he’ll be right as rain, Duchess. He’s a tough little fighter.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. His palm felt rough and warm. I didn’t want to let it go. Whatever he was or had been, right now, he made me feel safe.
A few minutes later, Vera emerged, looking like herself again.
“It’s most likely a tranquilizer after all.” She let out a sigh. “I wasn’t half terrified it might be rat poison. Henry brought some into the office the other day. He was bothered by the rats down in the coal cellar, so he’d bought a tin of strychnine, the moron. Do you know what would happen to Much if he ate a rat with a belly full of strychnine? Sometimes I don’t think Henry has the brains of a hat rack.”
The vet wanted Much left at the clinic overnight, but he had assured Vera that Much would probably sleep off the effects of the drug in a few hours.
Everything was smiles and relief until we got outside. Once we were all in the car—me in back and Vera and Peter in front—Vera turned to Peter.
“Do you know what’s been going on at Sherwood while you’ve been on holiday, Peter? Tom’s gone; Charlie’s sacked; they’ve built a pervy playroom in Mr. Ratko’s digs; and Brenda’s toy boy has taken over the company. I hope your holiday was worth it.”
Peter turned around and looked at me, then back at Vera. “What are you talking about? Brenda? From the pub? What toy boy?”
“Alan bloody Greene, he calls himself.” Vera sniffed. “Although I can’t for the life of me find any records for him under that name. That man really gets up my nose.”
Peter looked back to me for confirmation.
“Charlie Vicars—sacked? Who’s in charge of sales?”
Vera gave a sad laugh.