Unleashed (A Melanie Travis Mystery) (25 page)

Sam didn’t say a thing until the fifth puppy was dry and nursing. Following his lead, I was silent as well. I’d had my say. Now it was his turn.

“I can take a pretty good guess what Brian would have told you,” Sam said finally. “He would have wanted to strike out at me, and if hurting you would have accomplished that, he’d have done so without hesitating. I imagine he’d have warned you against marrying me.”

“For what reason?”

“Brian would have said that I still cared for Sheila. That she was the love of my life, and I’d never gotten over her.”

I felt a pain in my chest. My heart, constricting with sudden apprehension. “And would he have been wrong?”

I wanted reassurance. Sam looked annoyed.

“Of course,” he said, his voice clipped, curt. “Do you have to ask?”

Yes, I thought. I did.

“Talk to me,” I said. “Make me understand. Because no matter how hard I try, I still don’t get it. What was so awful that happened between you and Brian to make you still despise each other?

“Yes, Sheila came between you. Both of you loved her, both of you lost her. But that was years ago. How come neither one of you ever got over it?”

Sam sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out. He was stalling. That was all right. Faith was resting quietly again, and I could afford to wait.

The puppies had finished eating and dropped off to sleep before Sam spoke again. “The animosity you saw between Brian and me wasn’t about Sheila,” he said. “Not after all this time.”

I should have felt better. Maybe I would have, if I hadn’t still been confused. “What else was there?”

“Anger,” Sam said slowly. “Guilt. Betrayal of a friend’s trust. Remember when I told you about the video game that Brian stole and patented under his own name?”

“Island of Mutant Terror,” I said. “The one that made him millions.”

Sam nodded. “I was the friend. That was my game. Those were my millions. All those years ago, I took Sheila from him, and he took that from me.”

I felt like I’d been suckerpunched. I knew zip about video games, but I understood the concept of millions readily enough. I stared at Sam in shock.

“You designed Island of Mutant Terror?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t take it to market.”

“It wasn’t ready yet. There were still a few bugs I was working out. Back then, it was just an intellectual exercise, something to play around with when business school got to seem too much like real life.”

I’d never thought of Sam as naive, but I hadn’t known him a dozen years earlier. He’d been much younger then, with so many of the events that would shape his life yet to happen. “So it didn’t occur to you to protect your creation.”

He shook his head. “None of us realized that the game had the potential to become a best-seller. When you’re living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, you don’t think in terms of striking it rich overnight. Not unless you’re standing in line to buy a lottery ticket.”

I cast a quick glance at Faith. She was snoozing in the box, curled contentedly around her litter. “You might not have realized what you had, but what about Brian? It sounds like he must have had a pretty good idea.”

“Maybe,” Sam said thoughtfully. “I’ve wondered about that over the years. And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure. Sheila and I had just gotten together, so I had other things on my mind. I’d pretty much shoved the video game onto a back burner.

“I guess that gave Brian the opportunity he was looking for. I don’t think he was hoping to make a fortune; I think he just wanted to hit back at me any way he could.”

“Okay, I can see that.” I trailed a finger over the nearest puppy. It felt warm and pudgy beneath my hand, just the way it was supposed to. “But I don’t understand why you didn’t go after him. Why didn’t you sue or something? Wouldn’t your other friends have supported your claim?”

“Probably. If I’d felt like dragging them into it, which I didn’t. Remember, I had no idea how successful the game would become. None of us did. And besides, there was an element of guilt there on my part as well.

“There’s an unwritten rule: you don’t steal your best friend’s girlfriend. And I’d broken it. Maybe I felt like I deserved to have him come back at me. Or maybe I just figured we’d made a fair exchange.”

Millions of dollars versus a life with Sheila?

Don’t even go there, I thought.

In the box beside us, Faith stirred uncomfortably. Contractions were starting again. I reached in and stroked the side of her face. Tipping her head, the Poodle leaned into the caress.

“You’re doing great,” I whispered. Mindful of the puppies beside her, Faith’s tail wagged gently.

Since litters are delivered from back to front, with those nearest the end of the birth canal being born first, this puppy had the entire length of Faith’s body to travel, and was a long time in coming. Faith pushed; Sam encouraged; I worried. I also had a few minutes to think.

By the time Faith pushed out the sixth puppy, something troubling had occurred to me. “Sam, where were you Friday evening?” I asked as we dried off the new girl and got her set up for a meal.

“At Sheila’s parents’ house. It was my last night, and we had dinner together. After that, Sheila’s brother and I drove back to his house—it was Sheila’s when she lived out there, but she sublet it to him when she came East—to pick up some papers I was going to need.”

“So you were with other people all night?”

Sam saw where I was headed. “You’re thinking I might need an alibi, aren’t you?”

“Could be. Probably no one has a stronger motive for killing Brian than you do.”

“Don’t worry. Sheila’s brother is pretty active in local politics, and he’s friends with half the Evanston police force. I’m sure he’ll back me up.”

“Good.” I offered Faith a sip of cool water. She lapped from the small bowl politely, then lay back down on her side.

“How do we know when she’s done?” I asked. “Six puppies seems like a nice size litter. How do we know if there are more coming?”

“We don’t. The best thing to do is just watch and wait.”

Glancing at the clock by my bed, I was surprised to see how late it had gotten. I slipped out of the room and went to find Davey and Tar. Both were sound asleep on the couch. I put the puppy out in the backyard, then carried Davey upstairs, changed him into pajamas, and put him into bed.

“Did Faith have more puppies?” he asked sleepily, clutching the covers to his chin.

“Two more,” I whispered. “You can see them in the morning.”

“Is she going to sleep on my bed?”

“Not tonight. How about Tar? Would you like him to stay with you?”

Davey nodded, and drifted off. I went downstairs, let Sam’s puppy in, then warmed up some boiled chicken I’d prepared for Faith earlier. With six hungry mouths to feed, she was going to need plenty of sustenance.

By the time I got back to my bedroom, Sam and Faith were snoozing, too. I paused in the doorway and smiled. Though there was a bed right beside him, Sam had stretched out on the floor. One arm cradled his head; the other reached up and dangled over the side of the whelping box, resting gently on Faith’s side. If she stirred to signal another puppy on the way, he’d know about it.

I took a pillow from the bed and placed it under his head. Sam opened one eye, looking just as sweetly drowsy as my son had. He’d had a long week.

“Go back to sleep,” I said, lifting his arm out of the whelping box and placing it in a more comfortable position. “I’ll take the first watch.”

Sam nodded, sighing into his pillow. “Wake me up if you need me.”

“I will,” I promised.

Hours passed. All around me the house was silent. I handfed Faith her chicken. I admired her beautiful new litter. I gazed at the man lying on the floor next to them. And through it all, I thought about how lucky I was. Please God, I prayed, if this is all I ever have, I’ll be happy for the rest of my life. Just please don’t let me screw it up.

No more puppies arrived. Faith woke up diligently every few hours to feed her litter. I kept watch, drifting happily, feeling more at peace than I had in days. As the first soft streaks of dawn lightened the window, I put my head down on Sam’s shoulder and fell asleep, too.

I awoke to the nudge of a none-too-gentle foot and the sound of Aunt Peg’s voice ringing in my ears.

“Six gorgeous puppies,” she was saying as she leaned over the box and praised Faith’s efforts. “Aren’t you a wonderful girl?” Her gaze swung briefly my way. “I hope you didn’t sleep through the whole thing.”

“Six puppies?” I sat up and registered surprise. “When did that happen?”

“Knock it off, both of you,” Sam said, grinning. Considering that he’d spent the night on the floor, he looked remarkably cheery.

Slowly I pushed myself to my feet. “Faith must need to go out.”

“Mo-oom!” Davey’s voice crescendoed in disgust. He was sitting behind me on the bed. “We’ve already done that. Sam and I have been up for
hours.
Faith and Tar have already had breakfast, too.”

Oh. “What about you?”

“I had shortbread cookies and milk,” Davey said smugly. “Sam said I could.”

“You snooze, you lose,” Sam informed me.

“I wouldn’t mind having a few cookies myself,” said Aunt Peg. She sat down on the floor beside the whelping box and upended a canvas bag she’d brought with her. Half a dozen bottles of brightly colored nail polish spilled out onto the rug.

“Are you going to paint their toenails?” Davey giggled. I was glad he’d asked. It saved me from having to do it.

“Not their toenails, their backs.” Peg unscrewed the nearest bottle, labeled Sonic Blue. “This used to be much harder back in the days when nail polish only came in red, pink, and taupe. Now look at all the choices. I was able to bring a color for each puppy.”

I waited for more of an explanation. It didn’t come. Instead, Peg reached in the box, picked up the nearest puppy and dabbed a big blue spot on the shiny black hair in front of his tail.

“Aunt Peg,” I said, “what are you doing?”

“Making identifying marks. How else do you expect to be able to tell them apart? Six newborn puppies, all pure black. Even I think they look alike, and I’ve been doing this for years. You haven’t got a prayer.”

That was reassuring.

“Why do I need to tell them apart? I thought Faith took care of everything for the first few weeks.”

“She does, but you still want to stay on top of things. Suppose you notice that five puppies are eating, but one is sleeping. You think, all right, maybe she’s not hungry. But you wouldn’t want her to miss two meals in a row, so you file that thought away: be sure that Pink eats next time around. See how that works?”

I nodded and yawned. On a full night’s sleep, I could have probably figured that out for myself.

“Can I help?” asked Davey.

“Of course you can.” Peg opened another bottle. “Come sit by me. You and I are going to be in charge of the puppies for a while. We might even name them all. Meanwhile, Melanie’s going to take a shower and wake up, and Sam’s going to go pay some attention to his own puppy, who’s feeling quite neglected at the moment.”

Aunt Peg was in an organizing mode. Sam and I knew better than to argue. We simply went and did as we’d been instructed.

By the time I’d stood under the hot spray of the shower, washed my hair, and brushed my teeth, I was just about revived. Peeking into my bedroom, I heard Peg and Davey arguing over the merits of the name Ezekiel and decided to leave them to it. I found Sam in the kitchen, sitting at the table, papers spread out all around him. Tar was lying at his feet, gnawing happily on one of Faith’s rawhide bones.

I opened the refrigerator, got out a cup of black cherry yogurt, stirred it up, then went to see what Sam was doing.

“Don’t ever let anyone try to convince you that you want to be executor of their estate,” he grumbled as I sat down. “You don’t.”

“Big job?”

“Enormous. Picture every little detail of your life as a loose end that has to be tied up by somebody. In this case, me.”

“Funny that after all these years, Sheila still named you executor,” I said idly.

“There’s nothing funny about it,” Sam muttered. “She probably did it for revenge. Somewhere, she’s having a good laugh at my expense, watching me pay her tab at the beauty salon and decide whether or not to cut off the electricity at her house.”

“Speaking of the house,” I said. “There’s something you need to know.”

Sam wasn’t going to like what I had to say, and we knew each other well enough that he picked up that from my tone. He shuffled the papers into a hasty pile, pushed them aside, and gave me his full attention. “Shoot.”

“Have you seen the lease?”

“Not yet.” He inclined his head toward an accordion file on the floor beneath the table. “It’s probably in there. Sheila’s brother, Pete, said that’s where she kept all her important papers. I just hadn’t gotten that far yet. Since the rent was paid through the end of the month, I figured it wasn’t a priority.”

“I was at Sheila’s house on Friday. Remember I told you I went there with Tim?”

“Right.”

“Chuck Andrews was there, too. Tim had called him to come and let us in. Chuck said something about looking for new tenants, and Tim told him not to bother because Brian had cosigned Sheila’s lease and was planning to take it over.”

Sam’s brow creased as he frowned. “Why would Brian want a little house in North Salem... ?” His voice trailed away. That wasn’t the question he should have been asking. Like me, it had just taken him an extra beat to realize it.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Sheila leased that house last winter. Since she was bringing the Pugs with her, she had to have everything in place before she arrived. She told me she came East for a temporary job assignment and because ...” Once again, he didn’t finish his thought.

“Because you were here,” I said. “That’s what she told Aunt Peg, too.”

“She never said a word about Brian. The first time I knew they’d gotten back together was when we had dinner at her house. I just assumed they’d run into each other at a dog show and gotten the idea to work together.” Sam paused, looking nonplussed. “Are you telling me that they’d planned all that in advance?”

“It looks that way.”

Much as I hated the idea that Sheila had moved East with the intention of stealing my fiancé, I realized this was worse. She’d lied to all of us. More importantly, she’d lied to Sam.

Though he’d rejected Sheila’s advances, I knew that Sam had been flattered, and maybe even a little bit intrigued by her attention. So how must he be feeling now with the knowledge that Sheila’s attempt to rekindle their love had only been Plan A; that she’d begun her quest with a backup option already in place?

“If what Tim said is true, then Sheila and Brian were in touch before she came here,” I said softly.

“It’s easy enough to check.” Sam reached down for the folder. “Pete said I’d have everything I needed right here.”

He thumbed through several sleeves, pulling out papers and glancing at them, then shoving them back. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. Sam drew out a sheaf of stapled, typewritten pages and put it on the table. As I leaned over his shoulder, he flipped quickly to the last page.

Below Sheila’s signature, was another: Brian Endicott.

“Damn,” I said, as Sam slumped back in his chair. Sheila’d been two-timing everyone. Now I really was glad she was dead.

I’d hoped Sam would react with anger, but it was clear he hadn’t gotten that far. For the moment, he just looked sad and disillusioned.

I got up, tossed my empty yogurt container in the garbage, got a couple of mugs out of the cabinet, and poured us each some coffee. Lost in thought, Sam barely seemed to notice when I set his cup down on the table. He nodded his thanks, but didn’t look up.