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We headed up in the elevator to Frank’s. The doors pinged on the fourth floor. When they opened, a woman was waiting to get on.

A very beautiful woman.

I wondered for a split second if this could be H. I’d wondered that every time I saw any woman walking around this complex over the last few days. But then H said she was a nurse. This woman wasn’t in scrubs.

She was my age, maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Brown hair in a loose braid, a long flowing skirt, gold sandals. I’d never seen her before, and God knows I would have remembered bumping into her.

The dog was pulling on the leash, trying to meet her. She was in white, and I didn’t want him to jump so I held him back. I nodded at her while we edged past. She smiled at the dog.

She took my spot in the elevator, and I was still facing her, trying to get my puppy to move in the direction we were going, when her eyes dropped to my tool belt.

“Red,” she said, almost to herself.

Then the doors closed and she was gone.

I looked down at myself. Red what? My tools?

I didn’t have time to figure it out because the dog was pulling again. He’d been here once and already knew where he was going. He dragged me down the hall, and I let myself into Frank’s apartment and unleashed him.

Andrea was sitting at the kitchen counter, and she squealed. “A dog? Where’d you get him?”

She hadn’t been here when I came over yesterday.

“Found him abandoned in a unit,” I said, dropping the leash on the counter.

“Are you serious? Poor baby!”

She hopped off the stool and leaned over so he could lick her chin.

Frank came around the corner, holding an electric screwdriver. “Hey.”

I nodded at his hand. “Uh, what are you doing with that?”

“Hanging a shelf.”

“Did you anchor it?”

He paused. Then he turned and hurried back the way he’d come.

“What’s his name?” Andrea asked.

“I haven’t named him yet,” I said.

The Doobie Brothers were playing from somewhere outside the apartment. “Listen to the Music.”

The neighbors were a little loud. The other day someone had shouted, “DICK GUILLOTINE!” at the top of their lungs. No idea what that meant, though it sounded like a great name for a band.

Band names . . .

“What about Doobie?” I asked, looking down at my dog.

Andrea ruffled his ears. “Yeah, he looks like a ‘Doobie.’”

I crouched to pet him. “Do you like that? What do you think?”

He wagged his tail and licked my nose. “Okay. Doobie it is.”

Andrea stood. “How’s the new job?” she asked.