“Morning, Alex,” Harvey said.

  “Morning,” I replied as I nonchalantly glanced around.

  “He’s not here,” Harvey said flatly.

  Guess I wasn’t so nonchalant after all. I ignored the remark and took a moment to greet Simba before sitting down across from the old man. I reached out and plucked a piece of bacon off his almost empty plate all the while warring with myself.

  “So where is he?” I finally asked.

  “He had an appointment with a real estate agent to look at a couple of offices for his new business.”

  “He’s really opening a security company here?”

  “So he says,” Harvey replied with a grin. “Moving nearby too. He’s going to rent the house over on Pearl until he can find a place of his own.”

  Pearl was one street over from ours. The house Harvey was referring to was owned by an elderly woman who had fallen recently and broken her hip. Currently she was still in the hospital but would soon be going to a rehab facility. Her children weren’t ready to sell the house as they were hoping she might be able to return home, but her recovery was going to take months. They didn’t want the house to sit empty and had asked around about someone to rent it temporarily.

  I tried to keep the dismay from my face as the house was directly behind mine. Harvey watched me with a grin on his face. I glared at him, but he just laughed. I love Harvey. He is the father/grandfather I never had, and he treats me like family even to the point of making fun of me when needed.

  “Alex,” he said. “It will do you good to have him around. You’ll either get over the hurt or kill him. Either way, you’ll finally be able to move on.”

  I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. The look on my face wasn’t at all welcoming. Harvey didn’t say anything else but gave me a slight nod. Eventually I reached over, squeezed his hand, and changed the subject.

  “I need to give Simba his antibiotics. Can you help me?”

  “Sure.”

  Simba cooperated and took his medicine fairly easily. I gave the bottle to Harvey and asked him to give the dog another dose that evening. Harvey agreed, and I headed out.

  The drive to Halie’s was uneventful although it did take longer than usual because I took a couple of detours to see if someone was following me. I didn’t see anyone and felt reasonably sure I was clear once I arrived at her house.

  When I pulled to a stop in front of Halie’s, there was a vintage Mustang in the driveway. I’m not a huge car enthusiast, but I know my muscle cars. One of the men my mother was involved with was a car nut. He was one of the few who took an interest in me and taught me a thing or two about automobiles. This one was a beauty, but I hoped the owner wouldn’t be around long. I really needed to speak with Halie.

  She answered the door dressed a little better than the day before. This time, her shirt and shorts matched. Her hair was still messy, but she no longer had an ink stain on her face. She gave me an absent smile and waved me in. I followed Halie to her office and discovered exactly who owned the Mustang parked in the driveway.

  “Hello, Lexie,” Luke said.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded.

  “My guess is the same thing you are,” he replied, giving me a look. “Checking to see what Halie found on the chip.”

  “I told you this wasn’t any of your business, Luke,” I said angrily. He started to say something, but I cut him off. “No matter what you may think, you don’t have the right to interfere with my life.”

  “You may have been able to use that argument before, Lex, but the minute you asked Granddad to keep Simba, you lost it.” His voice was calm and even but with an underlining of anger and frustration. “I have the right to protect my grandfather.”

  Turning away, I huffed out a breath. He was right. I didn’t like it, but he was right. Halie was sitting in her desk chair watching us with wide eyes and laughter on her face. I glared at her a minute, then stepped back and pointed at each of them.

  “How do the two of you even know each other?” I asked sharply. Luke’s eyes narrowed, and Halie frowned. Even I could hear the jealousy in my voice.

  “R and S Corporate Security is a client of mine,” Halie said slowly. “Luke is sometimes my contact.”

  Halie worked with companies all over the world. I wasn’t surprised she had worked with Luke’s. The part that did surprised me was neither she nor Luke had ever mentioned it. Halie and I weren’t as close as Claire and I, but she knew about my relationship with Luke. She knew how much he had hurt me. There wasn’t much point in belaboring the issue so I moved on.

  “So what did you find?”

  Halie studied me a minute, glanced at Luke, and then raised a questioning eyebrow. I relaxed a little; she was still on my side. At least about this. I nodded. He deserved to know. Besides, Luke’s opinion would be helpful. This was an easy way for me to get it without actually asking him.

  “The chip was a basic microchip implant,” Halie said. “Normally, they contain an ID number that can be matched to a database that has things like medical records and contact information. It was easy enough to read once I found the correct scanning program.”

  She handed me a single sheet of paper. Luke stepped closer to read over my shoulder. The page contained three lines:

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

  4F 8L 3L

  9438

  “A Tale of Two Cities?” I asked incredulously. “What the hell?”

  “I ran it through a few cipher programs but didn’t get anything,” Halie said.

  “It’s too simple,” Luke replied. “This is amateurish.”

  “Really?” I asked. “So what does it mean?”

  Luke shrugged. “Don’t know. We’ll need to get the key to the code; otherwise, it’s probably going to be impossible to break. I have a feeling it’s a message for someone specific.”

  “Great,” I said. I walked over to one of the chairs by the window and sat down. “Caldwell is still wanting the dog so that makes me think he’s after the chip.”

  “I doubt he’s the one the message is for,” Luke said, joining me by the window.

  “Yeah. I have a feeling the message is about him, not for him. Anything special about the chip, Halie?”

  “Not that I can tell. I’m not an expert or anything, but it looks and acts like a basic chip; although, I’m pretty sure this was homemade.”

  “Homemade?” I said. “Who would know how to do that?”

  “Quite a few people,” Halie replied. “I could do it.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for someone with that kind of talent other than asking you.”

  Halie smiled. “I can ask around, but if someone was trying to hide something, then the person who made the chip won’t want to talk.”

  “Yeah, it’s probably a dead end.” I paused a minute to think. No bright ideas popped into my brain. Knowing who made the chip wouldn’t do much other than help us locate Simba’s owner. I had already determined that was my next step. But if the owner was nervous enough to encrypt a microchip, he probably didn’t reveal anything to the chipmaker. “Halie, what did you find out about Caldwell?”

  This time Halie handed me a folder. I leafed through the pages as she talked.

  “As your background search didn’t find much, I dug a little deeper. He has a Swiss bank account.” I looked up in surprise. She smiled and continued, “It’s pretty well hidden. He opened it eight years ago with a nice tidy sum of five million dollars.”

  “And where did he get that, I wonder?”

  “I couldn’t find a direct link, but at the time, he had been working for a company that was fighting a hostile takeover. According to what I found, they were winning until one day the CEO suddenly resigned amidst allegations of fraud and misappropriation of funds. The rival company swooped in and took over. Caldwell was let go with a nice severance package but not enough to live like he starting doing.”

  “So Caldwell somehow set up the CEO, received a severance package that made it look like he was laid off just like everyone else, but got a secret payoff which he hid in that account.”

  “That’s how I see it,” Halie said. “Since the account was opened, it has more than doubled with occasional deposits of fairly large amounts. Now here’s where it gets interesting. Two days before his wife’s murder, a withdrawal of fifty thousand dollars was made from the Swiss account. And the day after the murder, another fifty thousand dollars.”

  “He contracted a hit on his wife,” Luke said.

  “One hundred thousand dollars for murder?”

  Luke nodded. “Not sure what the going rate is for a professional hit, but I’m sure he could have hired someone local for that amount.”

  “There’s more,” Halie said. “A week ago, there was a withdrawal of one million dollars and then three days later one for an additional one million dollars.”

  “Two million?” I asked with a gasp. “Another hit?”

  “That sounds more like a professional,” Luke interjected.

  I leaned back in the chair and thought a minute. “Caldwell hired a local to kill his wife, making it look like a carjacking gone wrong. The local killer is blackmailing or threatening him with something so Caldwell hires a professional to take out the local?”

  I wasn’t sure I had it exactly right, but it felt like I was close. I glanced briefly at Luke. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t contradict me.

  “Shouldn’t you contact the police?” Halie asked.

  “And tell them what?” I asked. “I found a dog that had a microchip implanted in his tooth which contained an obscure message. I assume the information you found about Caldwell wasn’t found legally so I can’t give it them. No, the only way to resolve this is to find out who owned Simba and see if the message he or she left leads us to something more concrete.”

  Luke’s phone rang. He glanced at it, quickly excused himself, and left the room, leaving Halie and me alone. My eyes lingered on Luke until I could no longer see him. When I turned back, Halie was watching me.

  “He cares about you,” she said. “He always asked about you when we worked together.”

  “Halie...”

  “Alex, you know I’m not much for relationships. One-night stands occasionally. Maybe a long weekend with a ‘friends with benefits’ type, but that’s it. So maybe I shouldn’t be talking, but he cares about you. Even I can see that.”

  “It’s complicated,” I said lamely.

  “It’s only as complicated as you make it,” she replied.

  Luke returned before I could answer, which was a good thing as I didn’t know how to respond. The look on Luke’s face drove all other thoughts from my mind.

  “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

  “Carl Harrison.”

  “What about him?”

  “That call was from one of my contacts at the FBI. They have been watching Carl Harrison for the past three years. He lists his profession as a stockbroker, but they think he’s a contract killer.”

  “He’s the professional killer Caldwell hired?”

  Luke nodded. “His going rate is two million dollars—one million upfront.”

  Halie gasped, and we both looked at her. Her face was ashen. She looked at me with frightened eyes.

  “Yesterday Caldwell withdrew another one million dollars.”

  Chapter 12

  Luke followed me all the way back to the house. We had argued for ten minutes in Halie’s office. He was convinced that the one million dollars was a down payment for a hit on me. I told him the timing was off. Caldwell had met me the same morning he withdrew the money. Contacting a hitman and arranging my murder after one meeting was just too farfetched. Luke argued that Caldwell had realized during the meeting I knew more than I was saying. Deep down, I feared he was right, but my own stubbornness, i.e. stupidity, wouldn’t let me agree. I ended the argument by simply walking out the door.

  When I pulled into my driveway, Luke parked his own car in Harvey’s driveway. I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked into the kitchen. The relief didn’t last long. Walking into my office a few minutes later, I found Luke sitting on the sofa across from my desk with Hero at his feet and Teazer in his lap. I glared at all of them but didn’t say a word. I just sat down at my desk and logged into the computer.

  “Hello, Alex,” Claire said pointedly. She looked back and forth between Luke and me. “So what’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I said sharply.

  Luke grunted and shook his head. “You should tell her. She has a right to know.”

  I could feel my temper rise. I hated he was always right, but I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t warn Claire about what we had discovered. So I took a deep breath and filled her in.

  “A hitman?” Claire said incredulously. “Who hires a hitman? Isn’t that only in the movies or on TV?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Luke responded.

  “Claire,” I said, ignoring Luke. “Maybe you, Danny, and the kids should take a long weekend. You’ve been wanting to go visit your dad, haven’t you?”

  “You think we’re in danger?” Claire asked in a small voice.

  All the anger left me at those words. It wasn’t anger that had me arguing with Luke. It was fear. At first, it was fear of my feelings for him and getting hurt again. Now it was fear of the situation. A simple lost dog case had turned into murder for hire. And I was in the middle of it.

  I looked at Claire and answered her as honestly as I could. “I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone is in danger, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “I’ll call Danny,” Claire said. “See if he can get off early. If we leave as soon as the kids are out of school, we can be at my dad’s before dark.”

  “Good,” I said.

  She turned to Luke. “You’ll make sure she’s safe?”

  “Hey, I can take care of myself.”

  “I will do everything in my power to keep her safe,” Luke promised solemnly.

  Claire nodded in response and then picked up her phone to call her husband. I shot a look at Luke. He just smiled. Claire ended her call, gathered a couple of pieces of paper, and walked over to me.

  “I’ve called all the missing persons contacts on the list. I marked the ones I was able to reach. So far no one owned a Great Dane.”

  “Yeah. I’m not surprised.”

  “We have another case. A missing terrier. I put all the information in the database. The client’s name is Carson. I haven’t had a chance to call anyone yet.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take care of it.”

  Claire left a few minutes later, and I was alone with Luke. I pulled up the information on the terrier and waited for Luke to leave. When he didn’t, I looked at him. He was absently petting Teazer and looking out the window.

  “Are you just going to sit there all day?” I asked sharply.

  He turned his laser gaze on me and flashed a smile. “Yep.”

  “Don’t you have something else to do?”

  “Nothing more important than this.”

  “Luke…,” I started but couldn’t think of anything else to say. He watched me a moment and then gently pushed the cat off his lap before standing.

  “What did Claire mean about a missing person’s list?” he asked as he walked over to me.

  Luke knew more about investigation techniques than I did. He had worked as a private investigator while in college. I had always known, in the back of my mind, that was why I had chosen the work as well. He had taken his skills with him into the military and later into his job with corporate security. Our paths had ended differently, but they had started out the same. If anyone could help me find Simba’s owner, it would be Luke.

  “Give me the list of deaths,” he said after I finished explaining what I was doing. When I handed him the list, he read through it quickly. “Two of these are from Myers County, and a couple more are local. I know one of the local homicide detectives and a guy who works for the sheriff’s office. I’ll start the calls while you work on your missing terrier.”

  Ten minutes later, I had a picture of a small Yorkshire terrier. The dog was at one of the city shelters. She didn’t have any tags and wasn’t microchipped so the shelter was holding her for the required time. I had them send me a picture, and then I called the client.

  Erin Carson sounded about five years old, but according to Claire’s records, she was an elementary school teacher. I hadn’t thought she would answer her phone as it was during school hours, but she picked up on the first ring. I introduced myself and sent her the picture. She squealed with delight as soon as she saw it and thanked me profusely. When I offered to pick up the dog for her, she told me she had taken the day off to look for her baby and would go to the shelter herself. Open-and-shut case. Just how I liked them.

  “You just earned two hundred dollars for about fifteen minutes of work,” Luke said with a smile. He had commandeered Claire’s desk to make the calls.

  “Sometimes the cases are easy. Sometimes they are hard.”

  “I remember,” he said softly.

  Ignoring that remark, I pulled up a copy of the list I had given him. “I can make some of the calls now. I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up.”

  Luke nodded. We spent the next thirty minutes calling next of kin and police stations. Just before I was about to suggest we stop for lunch, Luke got a return call from his detective friend. They exchanged pleasantries for a few moments, and then Luke got to the point.

  “So Pete,” Luke said. “Do you know if any of the victims in these cases owned a Great Dane?”

  A smile crossed his face as he listened to Pete’s answer. Luke glanced at me and nodded. I walked over to him. He pointed to a name on the list. Joel Santos.

  “What can you tell me about his death?” Luke asked.

  I couldn’t hear Pete’s reply, but I returned to my desk and pulled up a database search. Joel Santos had been a thirty-four-year-old auto mechanic. He owned a small house, a three-year-old pickup, and a 1951 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He had a couple of credit cards and one overdue electric bill. He had also been shot once in the back of the head. The police had no suspects in the execution style murder.