Hanni remained in the car quietly observing the dog in a way that made Ryan bridle with possessiveness. Then she looked up at Ryan with such concern that Ryan knew she'd heard about Rupert, that probably Dallas had called her. Hanni would know every detaiclass="underline" Ryan's gun found in the trash, the bullets embedded in her garage wall, the fact that Ryan had no witness to her own whereabouts during the time that Rupert was killed.
"Private picnic?" Hanni called, turning the CD down to a soft rhythm and swinging out of the car. Her long, thin legs were encased in faded blue jeans that matched exactly the blue of the Mercedes, her slim, tanned feet cosseted in expensive handmade sandals. Above the denims she wore one of numerous handmade sweaters, this number a bright rainbow of many colors that set off Hanni's prematurely gray hair. She stood looking at the dog with wide-eyed admiration.
"Where did he come from? He's beautiful. Dallas didn't mention a dog." She waited impatiently for an explanation, watching Rock, not Ryan. Then seeing that no answers were forthcoming she sat down on the grass oblivious to dirt or grass stains-she wouldn't have any, and Ryan didn't know how she did that. Watching Ryan, Hanni searched gently for an exact reading to the morning's events, making Ryan's throat tighten. Sympathy always made her cry.
"You can tell me the bad stuff later," Hanni said. "Except, is there anything I can do?"
Ryan shook her head. "It… I don't think I want to talk about it." She looked up at Hanni. "The dog isn't mine. Well, maybe he is if I can't find the owner. If I could figure out how to keep him," she said hastily. "He showed up this morning, he was up in San Andreas."
"You brought him back with you?"
"No, I told you… he showed up on his own. He was in the kitchen when I went up after… after Dallas left."
Hanni frowned, puzzled.
"He was hanging around up at the trailer, with those kids. They said he was a stray."
"A dog like this?"
"We tried to find his owner." She told Hanni the story, and how she thought the dog had found his way to Molena Point.
"And now you're going to reunite him with that Farger boy? See if you can get the kid to talk?" Hanni stared at her. "You think you can soften up that kid? You think if he joined that old man in setting a bomb, you can get the kid to spill on him?"
"I need to try. The dog might make a difference."
Hanni just looked at her; but then her gaze softened. "If I can help, I'm here." Rising, she rubbed the dog behind the ears then opened his mouth with easy familiarity and looked at his teeth. "Young. Maybe two years old." She gave Ryan a clear, green-eyed look. "If you can't find the owner, you have a real treasure. He's some handsome fellow." She rose and backed away watching him move as he followed her. When she sat down again the dog dropped down beside her stirring a hot surge of jealousy in Ryan. To look at her and Hanni, anyone would pick Ryan as the rough-and-tumble dog person, not impeccably groomed Hanni Coon. Yet it was Hanni who seemed able to train the roughest dog and still look like she was dressed for a party, not a smear of dirt, not a hair out of place.
Hanni lifted the dog's silky ears and looked inside, checking for ear mites and for a possible tattoo. She avoided mentioning Rupert directly. They both knew Ryan would be under investigation for his murder and that Ryan too might be in some danger. Picking up Ryan's purse Hanni opened it, reached into her own purse and, shielded by the dog and by Ryan, she slipped an unloaded revolver into Ryan's bag with a box of shells. She looked up at Ryan. "Until this is over, until you get yours back."
"Did Dallas…?"
"No. He doesn't need to know," she said, ignoring the intricacies of California gun laws that gave a person a carrying permit for only specified models. Hanni patted Ryan's hand with sisterly tenderness. "I'm headed for the Landeau house. You have time to come along?"
"The rug arrived from England, it's in San Francisco. It will be down by truck, a day or two. I went over this morning to see if the gallery had delivered the sculpture for the fireplace. The floor's wet, I guess from last week's rain."
"Wet? How can it be wet?"
"The Landeaus have already installed the sculpture, I don't know when they were down. Not there now, and I can't get them on the phone. I nearly sank in water, the floor's soaked. That temporary rug under the skylight. We need to find the leak, we can't put down the new rug, with a leak."
"There is no leak. I didn't build a leaky house. What did they spill?" Ryan could feel anger heat her face. "I installed that skylight myself, Scotty and I. It couldn't have leaked, it has a huge lip and overhang and it's all sealed, you saw how it's made. That's the top-of-the-line model. It's molded all in one piece, absolutely leak-proof. We checked with the hose, Hanni! Did you call the Landeaus? What did they say?" The idea that an item she'd ordered and checked out might be shoddy infuriated her.
She had finished the Landeau remodel shortly before she left for San Andreas. The Landeaus had bought the place as a teardown, meaning to start from ground up, but she'd talked them into gutting and refurbishing the well-built old cottage, turning it into a small and elegant Mediterranean retreat. She had torn out walls to create a flowing space for living, dining and master bedroom, and removed the old ceilings. The high, angled roof beams rose now to an octagonal skylight directly over the sunken sitting area.
She had covered the concrete floor, which was broken into three different levels following the rising hill, with big, handmade Mexican tiles the color of pale sandstone. Only the sunken sitting area was to be carpeted, with the rug that Hanni had designed, a thick, deep wool as brightly multicolored as Hanni's sweater, a rug to lie on reading, to sink into, to make love on. Hanni had ordered the handmade confection about the time Ryan started work on the house. The Landeaus had waited months for that rug, using a temporary brown shag that could be discarded when the new one arrived. And now that area was wet? The shag rug wet? She looked intently at Hanni. "The skylight did not leak. Marianna must have been down. What did she spill? Sullivan's blood?"
"Be nice, Ryan. You don't have to like the woman to do right by her professionally."
"I am doing right by her professionally. The skylight didn't leak."
She had a satisfactory enough business relationship with Marianna Landeau but she wasn't fond of her. Hanni jokingly said she was jealous of Marianna's beauty, but it was more than that. Marianna was a difficult woman to warm to. The pale-haired ex-model of nearly six feet-fine-boned, slim-waisted, as broad-shouldered as a Swedish masseuse-was as cold as an arctic sea. Marianna dressed in silks with tangles of gold jewelry, and wound her flaxen hair in an elegant chignon so perfect that no ordinary woman could have mastered its construction on a day-to-day basis. Over the years that Ryan had worked with the Landeaus on their San Francisco house, she had never seen Marianna really smile, had never heard her laugh with pleasure, only with sarcasm. Marianna Landeau was beautiful ice, a client who paid on time, but a woman Ryan didn't understand and didn't care to know better.
Hanni gave the dog a pat. "It must have been awful this morning." She waited quietly, watching Ryan, hoping that Ryan might unburden herself. Ryan scowled at her, and they sat not speaking. The dog sighed and stretched out. Hanni said, "What are you going to name him?"