I slammed my hands over my mouth. He was stunning. Magnificent. The ultimate protector. And he’d paid the ultimate price. I reached out a shaking hand to pet him. He was too still. Too quiet.
I dropped to my knees and ran my fingers through his thick fur. Nuzzled his ears. Leaned over the gorgeous beast and whispered, “You tried, didn’t you, boy? I promise I’ll find them.”
“Janey,” Angel said. He’d draped an arm over my shoulder and was tugging gently. “We have to go.”
I nodded, gave the beautiful dog one last caress, then stood up. I knew now that the Vandenbergs’ captors meant business and that the family was in serious danger. I had no choice but to tell the police what I knew. But if they caught me at the house, the danger the Vandenbergs were in would get lost in the fact that I broke and entered.
“Okay,” I said, wiping at my face, “I’m going to call 911, grab the cat, then run. The cops will show up and find the dog. They’ll know something is wrong.”
“Good plan, but maybe you should grab the cat first.”
True. I picked up the cat, took a few hits for the team, then asked Angel if he saw a phone.
He looked around. “Nope.”
“Wonderful.” We searched the house again, this time looking for a phone, with no luck. “They must not have a landline. I thought all mansions came with landlines.”
The cat took another swipe as Angel said, “You’ll have to go to a pay phone or something and call in an anonymous tip.”
“Good idea. I just have one problem.”
“Just one?” he asked, brushing his finger through the cat’s nose.
The cat swiped at him, and I was surprised. It actually saw him. Maybe I wasn’t crazy after all.
“How am I going to get the cat through the doggy door?”
He turned to assess the situation. “You’ll have to put the cat through first.”
“What if it runs off?”
“Dude, it’s a cat. It can hunt the shit out of this town.”
“That doesn’t help. Oh, wait.” I grabbed a cookie out of a jar on the kitchen counter. “This’ll keep it busy.”
After enticing the cat with it, I tossed the cookie out the doggy door, then shoved the cat through. I suffered a few near-fatal lacerations in the process – fucking cat – but it seemed to work. The cat stayed put as I started to shimmy through the door after it.
“You know,” Angel said, standing over me, “you could just unlock the door.”
“Fuck.” I shimmied back inside, unlocked the door, then ran for my life. Or, well, for Mable’s car. The cat was none too happy about being manhandled, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment except do my darnedest to dodge its claws. We had to hurry. Mostly because the alarm went off the second I opened the door.
We ran past departed Darwin, and I felt bad. Like I was abandoning him. So I grabbed his arm and tried to lead him to the car. When he refused to budge, I yanked at him.
“Janey, seriously, we have to go.”
“Charles!” I yelled in his face. He snapped to attention. It would be crazy if that was really his name. Or if he really was Charles Darwin. I pointed to the car. “Move it!”
He loped after us. Angel helped with Charles while I tried to get into the car holding a volatile ball of fur with razors for claws.
I finally got it inside and tossed it in the backseat. It hissed. Like literally. After Angel got Charles inside the car, I turned the ignition and sped down the street. About two more blocks away, I pulled a U-ey, then parked to watch the cops. Thankfully, we’d hightailed it out of there before they came.
Angel tapped my shoulder and pointed.
“Crap.” I’d taken off without Charles. “He must not know how this works. Can you go get him?”
“What if the cops come?” he asked.
“You’re invisible.”
“Right.” He disappeared, then reappeared beside Charles and dragged him all the way back to the car. After wrestling him inside again, he asked, “Just what are you going to do with him?”
“The cat?”
“The dead guy.”
“I’m not sure. I just feel, I don’t know, obligated somehow.”
“Interesting,” he said, peering out the windshield.
Charles, who was now in the backseat directly behind me, poked the back of my head.
“What’s interesting?”
“What?”
“What’s interesting?”
“You.”
“How?”
“What?”
He was totally fucking with me. “How am I interesting?”
“Well, right now, you’re not. But if we both got naked —”
Charles poked me again. I turned around, and he went for the eyes again.
I dodged his twig, then glared at him. “I will rip that ghost stick out of your hands, mister. Don’t make me come back there.”
And when he poked me a third time, I did just that. I took it from him, broke it in half, and tossed it out the window.
Charles gaped at me – for, like, ever – before he recovered and started poking me with his finger. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and prayed for patience. Angel was right. I had no idea what to do with him. With either of them. Thankfully, the cat was busy taking potshots at Charles’s wristwatch.
“Shouldn’t they be here by now?” Angel asked.
“Yes, they should.” I started to grow concerned. I grew even more concerned when, twenty minutes later, no cops.
“Hold on,” Angel said. He disappeared, then reappeared. “The alarm is off.”
“What the hell? Don’t they have to check it out?”
“Not if they called him first.”
I dropped my head back onto the headrest. “They did. They must’ve called his number. He had no choice but to tell the company it was an accident. But that means that Mr. V is probably still alive.”
“You still gonna call the cops?”
“No. The captors must be on edge now. Anything could set them off. Could convince them to cut their losses – and the Vandenbergs’ throats – and run.”
Charles had finally stopped poking my head with his finger. He’d graduated to phrenology, examining every inch of my head by touch.
“What are you going to do?”
I turned to Angel, thankful that while the departed were solid to me, I could still see through them for the most part. Charles was now studying the shape of my eye sockets and the size of my nostrils.
“We drive around.”
“Oh, hell, yeah,” he said. “We’ll cruise. Chill out a little. Check out the babes.”
“Do people still say babes?” I asked him, starting the car.
“What? They don’t?”
“I’m going to drive around town and, well, try to feel him. Is that dumb?”
“Only because he’s married and he’s probably not in the mood to be fondled right now.”
“His emotions. They were so powerful today, maybe I’ll be able to pick them up.”
“Are you sure it’s safe to drive with Charles glued to your face?”
“Probably not.”