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“I can’t tell you details, Tom.” I wasn’t sure how much Brenda could hear from the back seat, but enough. Maybe she’d piece it together on her own, but I had to be able to say I hadn’t done it for her. “I can say that it will be a whole lot better for Shelton, the sheriff’s department, and the case if he does this.”
“I’ll try.”
From Thomas David Burrell, that was a pledge to the death. If it could be done, he’d do it.
The trouble was Shelton.
We went to my house to wait.
Shadow greeted us at the door, happy to see Diana and me, though clearly noting the irregularity of me coming in the front door.
He watched Brenda with the reserved neutrality he employed with most strangers.
His reaction to Suzie Q was also reserved, yet intensely curious, especially since I carried her in. He looked up at me with a world of questions in his eyes.
“This is Suzie Q. She’s visiting for a little while. She’s had a tough time lately.”
I had the feeling I didn’t need to add that last part.
I put her down not far into the room.
Neither dog’s tail wagged. Neither made any attempt to sniff the other. That would have concerned me more with other dogs. Shadow stood back and regarded her. She stayed were I’d put her. Not moving. Not looking around. Not caring.
Jennifer called with answers, which I messaged to Tom.
While Diana made coffee and put cookies on a plate — I’d worry later about how she knew where what I considered my backup super-secret stash of Pepperidge Farm Double Dark Chocolate Milano cookies was kept — I lit the already laid fire in the fireplace.
I called Suzie Q. She didn’t budge.
I put a spare leash on her, then drew her close to the fireplace, and ordered her to sit. Before I could add the next command, she slid into a down. Shadow gave me a questioning look. I tipped a shoulder in a faint shrug.
He came over to the fireplace and laid down parallel to her but not touching. After a half dozen breaths, he shifted onto his hip, putting his back to her now, but touching her side. She didn’t move away.
We three women were each on our second cookie when Suzie Q stretched her head out on her paws and expelled a sorrowful breath.
“She’s accepted that he’s not coming back,” Brenda said quietly.
“A lot more grief to go through, but she has accepted it,” Diana agreed.
I was focused on Shadow.
He’d heard a vehicle outside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Tom modestly gestured Shelton and Richard in ahead of him when, by all rights, he should have entered to a hail of rose petals and trumpets for his achievement in getting them here.
If he’d come in first, he might also have buffered those of us inside from the waves of fury pulsing from Shelton. To say Shelton was thunderous would be likening a tsunami to bathtub splash-over.
“What the—”
He couldn’t get more words out. Possibly because the only ones that came to his tongue were curse words and he rarely indulged.
Still, Shadow rose and put himself between the two men in uniform and Suzie Q.
That drew Tom’s attention to the dog. He raised one eyebrow at me.
I responded later with a look.
