Alexi’s dark eyes shined. “I did not sell this one, because I could not bear to give her to a stranger, no matter what the price.” He nodded, his nearly bald head bobbing up and down as if he was convincing himself. He fished in his pockets and came up with a set of keys. They glittered in the sunlight. Brand new.
“What about the rest of the litter?” Shannon asked.
“Oh, well, my daughter she took one, and my nephew, he, too, needed a dog. Two died at birth—such a shame—and so I saved this one, Skatooli, the best, for you.” He smiled broadly again as he handed her the keys. “These go to the back door, off the woodshed. I had to replace the lock and, as I told you, forgot to bring them to the closing,” he explained.
The keys were to the property that she’d just purchased from him, a ranch with twenty acres attached to it, located fifteen miles up the county road. A perfect spot, she’d decided, to expand her working training ground for search and rescue dogs, a place to start over, a place with no memories of the past and now, she thought, glancing to the blackened side of the horse barn, a place that might be safer from whoever had decided to harass her.
“What does Skatooli mean?” She pocketed the keys.
“A Greek endearment.” He waved his hands as if the real meaning was inconsequential. “All grandmothers—yiayiàs—call their adored grandchildren Skatoolis…” Yet he was blushing, the skin stretched over his pate turning crimson in the heat of the afternoon.
“Skatooli,” Shannon repeated as she held her new puppy, a golden Lab. “I don’t know what to say. You shouldn’t have…but thank you.” She stroked the pup’s soft coat as the tiny tail swept across her chest frantically. At her feet, Khan whined and circled.
“Don’t mention it. And please, get better!” His dark eyes were suddenly worried. “This business with the fire and with your sister-in-law…it’s disturbing…no good.” Obviously he’d read the newspaper reports or seen on the local television newscast that arson was suspected.
“Amen,” she agreed.
“Take care, Shannon. Be careful.”
“Always.”
“I mean it, you could use a security company to come and set up some kind of system, complete with cameras. Here.” He scrounged in his back pocket, came out with a smooth leather wallet and withdrew a business card. “When I’m not selling real estate, I do security work with my brother-in-law.” He handed her the card for Safety First, a company with a Santa Rosa address.
“So you sell houses and suggest that your clients invest in a security system?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I do what I can.”
“Nice gig.”
His smile broadened. “You might consider a system for here and the new place. You can never be too secure.”
“Safety first,” she said, fingering the card while holding the squirming little dog. She remembered the video equipment she’d installed at Aaron’s suggestion. The equipment Ryan had destroyed when he’d discovered it.
“Yes…exactly.” He lifted a hand in a slow wave, then walked to his car, a white Cadillac that was probably twenty years old, gleaming in the sunlight. As he opened the driver’s door, he looked over the car’s roof and added, “You’ll never regret buying the new place.”
“I certainly hope not,” she said, thinking his comment odd as she watched him climb into his Seville and throw it into reverse.
After completing a quick turn, he nosed the big car out of the driveway. She stood on the porch and watched as it bumped along the rutted tracks that wound through the copse of live oaks shading the drive.
“You know, Skatooli,” she whispered, “he’s more than a little weird. Good thing you escaped while you could.” Oh yeah, right. Like this was such a safe haven. She kissed the pup’s velvet-soft crown. Pure bred Lab? Unlikely since she was a gift. There was something about Alexi’s demeanor—a little bit of the overly clichéd oily used-car salesman—that bothered her. Yet she’d bought the property from him and signed the papers just the week before.
Before everything in your life turned upside down.
She watched the plume of dust rising from beneath the Caddy’s tires slowly dissipate and told herself she was borrowing trouble. “Come on inside,” she whispered, wincing as the pup wiggled against her ribs. “Careful.” With Khan nearly tripping her, she carried the little dog into the house.
The puppy, suddenly aware of the new smells, sights and sounds of her surroundings, trembled and Shannon clutched the tiny thing more firmly. “It’s okay,” she said as she gently introduced the little one to Khan. With his mismatched eyes studying the fluff of fu
r, Khan nosed the pup and snorted, as if in disgust, then trotted off to his water dish. “See,” Shannon whispered to Skatooli as the old dog slurped noisily, “he likes you already.”
She set the pup in the kennel she kept in a corner of her kitchen, saw that she had puppy food and water, then waited. The little dog whined and tried to climb the mesh as Shannon stuck its veterinary records into a file cabinet in the laundry room, then searched again for her damned cell phone.
The last call she’d made was to 9-1-1 as she was flying out the door to the fire and from that point on she couldn’t remember what she’d done with it.
If she didn’t find it soon, she’d have to cut the service and get a new one.
Though she’d tried it once before, she picked up her home phone and dialed her cell number. It began to ring on the other end, but not anywhere in the house.
Or did she hear something faint through her open window? On the fourth ring she heard her own voice and hung up. Then she hit redial and walked outside. The phone connected and this time she not only heard the ringing in her receiver, but also the distinct tones of her cell. She followed the noise to the open window of her truck before the voice mail answered again.