He turned to look at her, and then his face lit up with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  She spread her arms out wide and said, “You could have answered my call. We were worried about you.”

  He pulled out his phone, looked down, and sighed. “My phone’s not working. Probably from the accident.”

  She pointed at her car, and he looked over to see Mugs and Goliath, their faces plastered against the glass, and somewhere around the headrest was Thaddeus. “They went crazy after you left. You saw Mugs racing down the road behind you, didn’t you? They wouldn’t stop pestering me. They wouldn’t leave me alone,” she said. “I had to get them all in the vehicle and follow you. As far as they were concerned, you were in danger.”

  Chester and Arnold, who appeared to be helping Mack at the accident scene, came over after hearing that.

  “Seriously?” Arnold asked, pushing his hat back off his head.

  Doreen nodded. “They knew Mack was in danger. And this proves they were right.” She stared at his vehicle and groaned. “What happened? Did you go too fast and wrap around a lamppost or something?”

  At that, Chester had a hard time smothering his grin.

  Mack snapped, “No, I wasn’t going too fast, and, no, I didn’t hit a lamppost. Somebody tried to run me off the road.”

  She stared at him and then looked at his car and wondered. She tried to school her expression into something that looked like compassion, but all that came out was, “Are you sure? Because your vehicle wasn’t damaged in that way.”

  He sighed. “You aren’t a forensic specialist,” he said patiently. “And you’re not a cop.”

  “No,” she responded in a dry tone. “But even I can see the front end of the driver’s side is where the damage is. Anybody trying to run you off the road would have hit the back of your car.”

  “Quite true,” he said, “unless they tried to overtake me on the road and then to force me off the road by coming in really tight and hitting my front end.”

  “But only if you were jerking toward him,” she said, “so you smashed into him.”

  This time he fisted his hands on his hips and glared at her. “I turned to stop myself from being forced into the ditch,” he said, “and, yes, my front end did clip his back end.”

  She was already looking around for whoever had dared to run Mack off the road. “Did you catch him?” she cried out, peering through the crowd. “Surely he’s not already down at the station, is he?”

  “I didn’t catch him,” he said. “My vehicle gave up the ghost, and he took off.”

  “Drat. But it was a truck, wasn’t it?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “What makes you think it’s a truck?”

  “Because the front end of your car is badly damaged. You probably caught the rear end of his truck bed, and, with a decent steel bumper, your car couldn’t even begin to beat that competition.”

  “It was an old truck.”

  “Did you get the license plate?”

  “Of course I did. Remember? I’m a police officer.”

  She just crossed her arms over her chest. “And remember? I’m the caretaker of the animal menagerie who wouldn’t let me rest because they thought you were in trouble,” she roared.

  At that, silence enveloped the group. And then Mack laughed.

  She just glared at him, and she was so angry she didn’t know what to do, so she stomped her foot.

  At that, Chester and Arnold guffawed, both turning away out of politeness. But Mack had absolutely no problem. He reached out, snagged her up, and gave her a great big hug. When he set her back down again, not only was she limp from the power of his embrace but she was also very pleased, enough so that she worried it would be evident to all.

  He grinned at her and said, “Thank you. Glad to hear you care.”

  “I don’t care,” she snapped. “Didn’t you just hear me? I said the animals care.”

  On that note, salvaging whatever pride she had left, she spun on her heels and went to cross the road. Instantly Mack grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her back to safety as a great big car roared past. He groaned and said, “Could you please watch where you’re going?”

  And just to make sure, he waited until there was a break in traffic, then he escorted her to her car and waited while she got in.

  He bent down at that point and smiled at her, his hand connecting with each of the animals in tow, letting them know he was fine. “I’m okay,” he said. “Go home and rest.”

  “And you take care of Guido,” she said. “Because his truck just ran you off the road.” And she gave him a fat smile and took off, leaving him standing in the road, staring after her.

  Chapter 29

  Wednesday Late Afternoon …

  Doreen had been intent on going home, but, as she turned the corner, she found herself heading in the direction of Guido’s. She remembered the cross section between the streets as she had gotten back onto the main road, but she hadn’t figured out how to get there directly. It took her a little bit to get onto the right road, but finally she was heading out Glenmore way and looking for something familiar as a landmark to show her where Guido’s house was. The only way Guido could have come after Mack was if Clara had called him.

  If Clara had called him and said Mack was asking questions and she was going to the police to tell them something, then maybe Guido would have tried to run Mack off the road.

  The section of road they had been on was mostly fields, but there were ditches with some big rocks. It could have been just an impulse on Guido’s part. If somebody was trying to kill Mack, there had to be an easier way, but then she thought about the ditch and realized Mack probably would have ended up rolled or flipped several times out in the field, and that could quite possibly have taken him out. Just that thought made her angry enough that, when she caught sight of the intersection and recognized the house on the corner, she did a very quick left turn and whipped across traffic just in time.

  As she approached the house, a truck had been moved into the very back of the yard, and big wooden gates were being closed. She didn’t know what kind of truck it was, but she caught a glimpse of gray, and then the gates shut firmly, blocking it from view. She drove past and parked where she’d been before and sent Mack a text.

  Her phone rang instantly. “I told you to go home,” he said in an ominous tone.

  “I thought your phone was broken,” she said gently.

  “Well, it’s working again now. Maybe it was just the shock of the accident.”

  “Maybe that’s why I didn’t go home too,” she said. “At Guido’s house is a truck. They just moved it into the back behind the gates on the left-hand side.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s the truck that hit me,” he said.

  “Gray,” she said, “I bet it was gray.”

  “It was,” he said grudgingly, “but you stay out of this.”

  “As long as you send cops to check over that vehicle, I will. Otherwise, I’ll take pictures of it.”

  At that, he cursed and swore at her. She was amazed at the breadth of his language. “Can I use some of those words too?” she asked with interest. “You know that I’m really trying to loosen up my tongue a bit.”

  “Every time you swear, you feel terrible,” he said. “So, instead of using my words, create your own.”

  “So I can say fudgesicle to make up for the f-word you just used?”

  At that, he groaned. “If you want to say fudgesicle as a swear word, go for it. I’d love to be there when you do.”

  She sniffed at that. “You should be inside a cop car, and you should be coming here right now,” she said. “I’m not leaving until then. Because you know these guys will just book it out of here.”

  “And where do you think they’ll go?” he asked.

  “Back to Mexico and the rest of his family, where Crystal is,” she said abruptly.

  “What?” he roared. “How did you possibly figure that out?”

  “It’s not that hard,” she said. “Really it’s the most logical answer.”

  There was an ominous sigh on the other side of the line. “When did you figure this out?”

  “This morning,” she said. “I was looking for the right time to tell you my working theory, but that was harder to find than I thought.”

  “We will have a talk about you and that lack of sharing information …”

  “We will when somebody isn’t trying to kill you.”

  “I’m on my way toward you,” he said, his voice hard. “No excuses, no more back talk, no more nothing,” he said. “You lock those car doors. You stay inside your vehicle and wait until I get there.”

  The trouble was she had already hopped out with both the dog and the cat at her side and Thaddeus on her shoulder.

  “Tell me that you’ll stay locked inside the vehicle,” Mack said, his tone official.

  “What if I’m not in the vehicle?” she asked. “What if I’m walking on the sidewalk?”

  “Oh, good Lord,” she heard him say under his breath. Beside him, she could hear Chester and Arnold talking.

  “What are they saying?” she demanded.

  “None of your business,” he said. “We will be there soon. In the meantime, you stay out of trouble and stay safe. This isn’t the time to do anything heroic.”

  “Oh, goodness, no, of course not,” she said. “I wasn’t planning on doing anything heroic. But really, you know I don’t like it when people hurt my friends.”

  On that note, she hung up on him. She laughed, and Mugs danced around. Goliath had stretched out on the hot sidewalk and just stared at her, the tip of his tail twitching. “This is a whole new area for us, guys,” she said, half laughing and half wanting to dance, partly because she knew Mack was safe.

  She didn’t understand the psychology behind somebody who would dare take out Mack. He was a force bigger than life. And he certainly wasn’t anybody to ignore or to not consider as a threat. And his attitude toward life was one she really could get behind. When her phone rang again, she looked at it and chuckled. “Hi, Nan. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, “but José isn’t. He wanted to talk to you, but apparently you’ve gone and upset an apple cart.”

  “Is he there today?”

  “He left early. He got an odd phone call and took off.”

  “Yeah, I’m not surprised,” she said. “Does he have a gray truck, by any chance?”

  “Yes, he does,” Nan said. “One of those really big ones, you know? Where you almost need a ladder to get into the cab.”

  “Well, you and I do,” Doreen said, “but guys like Mack, they can hop up with no problem.”

  “It’s old too,” Nan said.

  “Was he driving it when he left?”

  Nan suddenly got wind of what she was talking about. “What’s happened?” she asked excitedly. “Fill me in.”

  “Nan, that’s not really fair now, but I can give you a little insider information. Maybe you can make good use of this. I’m thinking maybe José and Guido just tried to run Mack off the road with that gray truck.”

  Instant silence came, and then Nan’s soft gasp escaped. “Oh my,” she exclaimed. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Doreen said. “Now you tell me. When did José leave?”

  “Maybe thirty minutes ago, forty-five minutes ago, I don’t know,” Nan said, her voice distracted.

  Doreen could hear sounds of pen markings. “What are you writing down, Nan?”

  “The times,” she said. “Times are very important. You know that.”

  “Are you placing a bet on Mack’s life?” Doreen asked in an ominous tone.

  “Oh, goodness, no. But now we have a race, a really good race to how long before you solve this case too, my dear. You’re getting so good at this. I’ve got to run. Bye.”

  And just like that, Nan was gone too.

  Chapter 30

  Wednesday Late Afternoon …

  With both Nan and Mack done with their calls, Doreen wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do next. She crossed the road and walked to the corner so she could casually walk past Guido’s house. Or maybe it was José’s house. Maybe they both lived there. But, in her mind’s eye, as far as she was concerned, this wasn’t as much a child abduction as it was about finding the child. Only she was no longer a child. To get anybody else to believe it would be a different story. Mack might, but then he was caught up with the legalities of it all. It would take a little bit to get people to tell the truth.

  Somehow Doreen needed Crystal to speak up. She was eighteen now. Being a Canadian, she might have had trouble getting her passport from way back when, and, if her parents never had one issued, she might have trouble getting one to come back to Canada, especially with no proof she had ever left her home country. Doreen hated to say it, but it was probably a pretty easy job to get the child smuggled into Mexico. But getting her back into Canada, her own country of birth? Well, that would have presented quite a different set of challenges. So, even if Crystal wanted to return, there would be some trouble making it happen.

  If she wanted to come back to the country to stay away from her parents, that was another big one, but this? … This was ready to blow wide open. She wondered if Crystal was ready for that.

  Doreen walked up and down the street a couple times, letting Mugs do his business on the roadside, and waiting for Goliath, who seemed to lose interest in the purpose they were here for and instead wandered through the high grass along the sidewalk.

  She saw a cop car pull into the driveway of Guido’s. Mack got out and turned to look around. Arnold and Chester got out too. She was deliberately facing the sidewalk and the underbrush. No house was here; it was just an overgrown patch of city land. But she could feel his eyes boring into her back.

  When she figured it was safe, she turned casually to find him standing at the front doorstep, knocking on the door, but still staring at her. She gave him a small smile and kept walking up the street. She didn’t want to go too far because she knew things could get ugly fast. But no one ever answered the door. And, if Mack didn’t have a search warrant, could he check the grounds? As it was, he walked over to the fence, and Mack was tall, so he could see over it.

  As soon as he saw the vehicle on the other side, he pulled out his phone and made some calls. At that point the front door opened, and a woman stepped out. Doreen was too far away to hear what the woman said, but Mack and the two cops talked to her, and Doreen could see Mack pointing at the vehicle in the backyard. The woman had her hands up, as if to say she didn’t know anything, but she was obviously not telling anyone anything either. From where she stood, Doreen could see somebody in the backyard. He ran for the back fence and jumped over it.

  She called Mack as she watched the stranger climb the fence. When he answered, she said, “He’s going over the back fence to your right.”

  Mack broke to the side, one cop with him, the other disappearing in the other direction. They ran to the side of the house where the person was already scaling the fence. The guy saw Mack and took off, jumping over a second fence to a different yard.

  But she’d pointed Mack in the right direction. With a beam of happiness, she walked back to her car and thought about the location of the other houses, wondering if she could catch the guy. She got everybody back into her vehicle and started it up, slowly moving past Guido’s house. She took a right and then another right, and, just as she was coming around the block, she almost hit a man racing across the road. As a matter of fact, he partially slammed into her fender, glared at her, punched the hood with his fist, and then kept running across the street. Mack was right on his heels, both cops now behind him.

  Mack gave her a thumbs-up because, in effect, she’d slowed the guy down.

  She grinned as Mack took a flying leap and tackled the guy running away. They both went down in a tumble on the sidewalk across the road. She sat here and waited. Nobody else seemed to come out of the houses; nobody else seemed to give a damn. But Mack was on his feet and had the intruder with handcuffs already on, his hands behind his back. Mack stood the man up and gave him a good shake. Doreen, not to be left out, hopped from her car. She still had Thaddeus on her shoulder, and both Mugs and Goliath had jumped out when she had.

  The guy stared at Mack resentfully. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “No, but you ran out as soon as the police arrived at your front door,” Doreen said, interfering as usual. “So you have to be up to something suspicious,” she said, her voice super cheerful. “You’re José, aren’t you?” He would have glared at her more if he could have. As it was, figurative steam came out his ears. She nodded. “I’m sorry. I really did want to talk to you. I didn’t realize you were heading out to run poor Mack here off the road. But I guess you heard I talked to Clara?”

  He seemed to wilt as he heard Clara’s name.

  Doreen nodded. “You really do need to watch out for things like that,” she said. “Clara is just bad news.”

  “She’s terrible,” José cried out. “She treated that little girl horribly.”

  “But then most of the women in your life are like that, aren’t they?” she said gently. “Look at Mary. Mary doesn’t like children.”

  José nodded. “She didn’t want anything to do with them. She just wanted Eric for herself,” he said, curling up his lip. “As if that guy is worth it.”

  “But maybe she wasn’t worth him either,” Doreen said quietly. “That little girl suffered though, didn’t she?”

  He nodded. “We knew the family before Mary got close to them. My brother and I used to work for Eric. We worked at his pawn shop, did various jobs. We tried to stay clean, but it’s hard when you’re an immigrant. We loved little Crystal. We were going through the process to get our citizenship, but we still had ties to Mexico, and Eric used to treat us badly sometimes. We’d leave, go back, and remember why we hated Mexico. Then we’d return to Canada again. It was like we needed a sabbatical,” he admitted, his voice heavy. “But every time we came back, Eric was still yelling and screaming at his little girl. And that wife of his was no better.”