Page 32 of Fang Fatale

"I will."

"And try not to let him redecorate the passenger seat again."

My eyes widen.

"You knew?"

"I've met dachshunds."

He turns and starts down the path without another word.

I wait until he's disappeared beyond the trees before opening the gate just wide enough to retrieve the paper bag.

The cinnamon still smells warm.

Back inside, Barnaby claims the couch with the confidence of a dog who has already forgotten he spent months in a kennel.

I break off a piece of the biscuit for him before settling beside him with my scone.

Outside, the world carries on.

Inside, the cottage is quiet.

Peacefully quiet.

Barnaby presses his warm little body against my leg with a sleepy sigh.

No one is telling me what I'm allowed to want.

No one is deciding what comes next.

Maybe freedom doesn't arrive all at once.

Maybe it arrives one choice at a time.

Today, I chose an old dachshund.

And for the first time in years...

I chose myself.

CHAPTER 7

ALARIC

It’s the first one I’ve ever been allowed to have.

The sentence roosts on the back of my tongue for the rest of the day. I’m too old for sentimental paralysis, but not immune to the kind of ache that creeps along my scapula and makes typing reports feel like penance.

Back in my small office, I stare at the bottle sketches I doodled in the margins of my notebook—copious, dramatic, and not remotely medical—and wonder if this is how people accidentally become decent. They let in a little guilt, then a lot, and before you know it, you’re eating cinnamon scones on a park bench and writing checks to the local cat rescue.

But that’s not why people hire me.

People hire me for black-bag jobs—for tracking the untraceable and intimidating the otherwise unrufflable. Leland hired me, specifically, to bring back a "difficult" ex-fiancée.

But I'm starting to rebel against his vocabulary.

Birdie Longfellow isn't difficult.