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“Are you from Milford?” Jane asked.

“I didn’t grow up around here, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m actually from Duluth.”

“Oh,” Jane said. “I’ve never been up that way. Must be cold in the winter.”

“That’s for sure. But I can’t believe how much snow we’ve been getting around here the last couple of years. All this crazy weather. Hurricane Sandy! Were you here for that?”

Jane nodded. “That was unbelievable. My stepfather’s place is right on the beach, on East Broadway. Lot of damage there. At least his house could be fixed. A lot of them, they just had to tear them down.”

“What does he do?” Reggie asked. “Would I know him?”

“Well,” Jane said, cracking a smile as the elevator doors opened, “I think I’m pretty safe in saying he hasn’t engaged your services, or any other life coach’s for that matter.”

“It’s like I said. Men don’t want to appear weak.”

“No kidding.” They emerged from the building into the sunlight and the heat. “Where you parked?”

“Over this way,” she said, pointing. “The lot was full when I pulled in, so I found a spot down an alley up here. I’m so sorry to drag you out of the office like this.”

“No problem. Reggie, did you have any kind of advertising budget in mind for this?”

“Well, it’s all so new to me. All I’ve done is the Web site, and I got this kid I know who’s real good with computers to set it up so it hardly cost me anything except to get the whaddyacallit domain name registered. But I was wondering what I could do with a thousand dollars or so.”

They turned into the alley.

Jane shook her head. “I have to be honest. A thousand really isn’t going to buy you very much. That might pay for my time to come up with a couple of quick concepts, but let’s say you want to buy some radio spots. That’s gonna be a chunk of change.”

“Here’s my car,” she said, getting out her key.

“Nice Beemer,” Jane said. The car was parked next to a white Lexus SUV. “Looks like the life coach game pays better than I might have thought.”

Reggie had the back door open and was leaning in to reach a briefcase. “Oh, I didn’t get this from being a life coach. My husband, Wyatt, bought me this.”

“Oh,” Jane said. “What does your husband do?”

Reggie glanced back over her shoulder to answer Jane, but seemed to be looking beyond her. “Together, he and I commit tax fraud, and just a little while ago, he helped me kill a man who we’d been led to believe had something we wanted, but he didn’t.”

Jane stopped dead. “What?”

“Oh,” she said, coming back out of the car. “And, I guess you could add, kidnapper.”

That was when someone behind Jane swiftly pulled the canvas bag down over her head, and everything went very dark.

Forty-seven

“Is this going to be long?” Nathaniel Braithwaite asked. “Because I really have to find King and Emily.”

“What and who?” Gordie asked from the front passenger seat of the van. Bert was behind the wheel, and they were on the move. Braithwaite was struggling to maintain his balance, given that the van had only the two front seats. He had his legs positioned wide apart on the metal floor, a hand gripping the top of each of the front seats.

“The dogs. Those are their names. King and Emily. I’m responsible for them. If I don’t find them, their owners are going to be apoplectic.”

“Appawhat?”

“They’re going to be very upset. How would you feel if you’d entrusted your dog to someone and they lost him?”

“I would be peeved,” Gordie said. “Yes, that’s what I would be. What about you, Bert?”

“I’d be peeved, too,” he said.

“Come on,” Braithwaite said. “What do you want? Does Mr. Fleming want to see me? Like I said, I’ve been wanting to talk to him. I want to end our arrangement. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“Really?” said Gordie.

“That’s right. And I’m willing to pay him back the money he’d already paid me. As a sign of good faith. But I’m not comfortable with it.”

“You’re going to pay him back, you say?” Gordie asked.

“That’s right. In full. He’s given me three thousand dollars. I can pay that all back.”

“With what?”

“I’m sorry?”

“With what?”

“With... the money he gave me. I haven’t spent it.”

Gordie shifted around in his seat. “You sure you haven’t come into any other money lately?”

“What are you talking about?”

The van lurched around a corner, and Braithwaite nearly fell over.

“When’s the last time you were in the Cummings house?”

“It’s been a few days. They’re away on vacation. I sent you a note. Well, to Mr. Fleming. I let him know that they were going to be away for a week.”

“And so you haven’t been over there in the meantime?”

“No. They boarded their dog. There was no reason.”

“But you could’ve if you wanted to.”

Braithwaite said nothing.

“Hello? What do you say to that, Nate?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at. Of course I could get into their house if I wanted to. You know that. I have a key. I know the code. I can get in anytime I want, but there’s no point going there if Mandy’s not there.”

“That’s the dog’s name?” Bert asked. “Like in the Barry Manilow song?” Bert had always liked Manilow, although he never liked him as much as the Carpenters.

“Yeah,” Nathaniel said.

“Are you sure you weren’t in that house last night, Nate?” Gordie asked.

“What? No. I wasn’t. Why would I have been there?”

“Maybe to solve your cash flow problems? I hear you haven’t always been in the dog-walking game. I don’t even think there’s a community college course for that. What I hear is there was a time when you were in a slightly higher income bracket. That right?”

“Yes.”

“That you had some kind of computer company?”

“Apps.”

“Hmm?”

“We designed apps for phones and tablets. That’s what we did.”

Gordie nodded. “So you were making gazillions doing that, and now you clean up after dogs doing a dump on the sidewalk. That is what I would call a downfall of fucking epic proportions.”

Braithwaite struggled to maintain balance. “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much.”

“So it strikes me that if you saw an opportunity to get back a little of what you once had, you’d take it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why d’you think our boss wanted to get into that house in the first place?”

“I don’t know and I didn’t ask. He just gave me his word that he’d never take a thing, he wasn’t going to steal anything, that the owners would never know anyone had ever been in the house. I figured — I don’t know... I thought maybe he was using the house to watch some people across the street, or maybe he was putting in bugs, you know, to listen in on the Cummings.”

“And you were okay with that?”

“Your boss is hard to say no to.” Braithwaite shook his head. “He said he did me a favor. I couldn’t believe this. Some guy who’s been seeing my ex, he had him beat up. Broke his jaw.”

“Yeah,” Gordie said. “I nearly busted my hand. Fucker never saw it coming.”

“Jesus, you did that?” Braithwaite said.

Gordie shrugged.

Braithwaite said, “Vince said, in appreciation, I better help him. Or word might get out that I’d done it, or had someone do it. The man’s a goddamn manipulator. But I don’t care. I don’t want to be under his thumb anymore.”