I couldn’t find Bella. Fear skittered up my throat, and my heart lodged there right alongside it. Had she slipped out when I went to check the mail?
I opened the front door and called her name. Daisy kept yipping for me to retrieve her rubber, squeaky dachshund toy from under the couch, while Minnie barked at…nothing I could see. Another chaotic morning as the owner of three mini-dachshunds. “Bella!”
Tears burned my eyes as I called her name again, then darted around the common area of Riverside Towers. The morning air carried the faint smell of someone’s coffee drifting from a cracked window above, and somewhere on the second floor, Mr. McIlroy’s television droned through the wall. I glanced under every bush, peered behind the row of terra-cotta pots Mrs. Henderson kept lined up along the walkway like little clay soldiers, and even crouched to check beneath the wooden bench near the mailboxes. Nothing. Not a single low-slung, velvety body pressed flat against the concrete. Where could she be?
My chest tightened. Bella was the smallest of the three, at only eight pounds when she was soaking wet, and the most adventurous by a mile. Daisy caused trouble on purpose. Minnie caused it by accident. Bella caused it by sheer curiosity — nose to the ground, ears dragging, trotting after any scent that caught her attention without a single backward glance.
Fearing the worst, I returned to my apartment. “Bella!”
The front door swung shut behind me, and Daisy immediately abandoned her squeaky-toy campaign to run figure eights around my ankles. Minnie sat squarely in the middle of the rug, looking deeply offended by something only she could perceive. Neither of them offered any useful information. I checked behind the couch. Behind the armchair. Inside the bathroom. Empty.
I stepped into my bedroom with my heart in my throat, and there she was — her little chocolate-colored head barely visible above the mountain of bed pillows I’d stacked against the headboard, one dark eye blinking at me without so much as a flicker of guilt.
“You little scamp.” Relief washed through me so fast it made me dizzy. I crossed the room, lifted her from her pillow fortress, and cradled her against my chest. She licked my chin exactly once — her version of a formal apology — then squirmed, which let me know that she considered the matter settled. I kissed her nose, breathed in the warm smell of her fur, and set her gently back among the pillows. She circled twice and collapsed like a deflating balloon.
Daisy chose that precise moment to renew her squeaky-toy emergency.
I could hear it from across the apartment. That desperate, repetitive yip that she reserved for genuine crises, which in Daisy’s world meant the toy had traveled too far for her to reach it but not far enough for her to accept its loss. I found her still in the living room, front paws stretched flat under the sofa, nose nearly touching the baseboard, staring at the toy.
I lay prone on my belly and tried to reach it while all three dogs decided that this was the perfect moment to pile onto my head. Minnie stepped on my ear. Daisy abandoned the toy crisis to lick the back of my neck. Bella, who had apparently given up on her pillow sanctuary at the first sound of group activity, grabbed my ponytail in a vain attempt to drag me backward across the hardwood floor like a very small, very determined sled dog.
“Stop it, girls. You aren’t making this any easier.”
How in the world had the toy gotten so far under the sofa? I stretched until my shoulder ached, fingertips grazing it once, twice, before I finally got a grip. Three dachshunds cheered by climbing further onto my back.
Someone knocked on the door. “Come in!”
I used what little core strength I had left after three months of mostly gentle tenant-management duties to push myself upward. Success. I lifted the toy triumphantly into the air, then threw it the full length of the living room for Daisy to chase. She caught it mid-bounce, pranced back to the sofa, and, with an expression of utter satisfaction, shoved it firmly back underneath.
I straightened my ponytail and accepted my fate.
Linda Hooper, once a murder suspect, now my best friend, stepped through the door with the easy confidence of someone who had never once doubted her welcome. She wore a floral blouse tucked into wide-leg trousers and carried a reusable tote bag printed with cartoon dogs that I strongly suspected she had purchased specifically to impress my girls. It was working. Minnie sat down at her feet like a disciple.
“How soon you forget that killers walk among us.” Linda draped herself against the doorframe before making her entrance properly. “Crystal Waters, I have the perfect way to relieve your boredom.”
“The killer was three months ago.” I pushed to my feet and straightened my ponytail a second time, since Bella had already begun working it loose again from her position on the arm of the sofa. “And I’m not bored.”
I glanced at my dogs, who were currently engaged in a rotating cycle of yipping, barking at the wall, and relocating the squeaky toy to an even more inaccessible position. Daisy paused long enough to give me a long, knowing look.
Well. Maybe a little.
With my boyfriend, Lance, back full-time with the Riverside PD, his schedule had returned to its usual rhythm of unpredictable shifts and late nights, which meant our quiet evenings together had become rarer. And with a maintenance crew now hired to handle the yard work — a concession I’d made after the great hedge-trimming incident of September — my days had narrowed down to dogs, bills, the occasional tenant complaint, and approximately forty-five minutes of daily reading that I kept falling asleep during. I loved my life. I genuinely did. But love didn’t always mean thrilling.
“What’s your grand idea?”
Linda’s grin spread wide and satisfied as she settled onto the sofa, accepted Minnie onto her lap, and scratched Bella under the chin with the practiced ease of someone who knew exactly how much pressure to use and where.
“The Riverside Kennel Club.”
I blinked. “Dog politics? No, thanks.”
“It is not politics.” She gave me a look of patient but firm correction. “It’s war with paws and bows. Which, I grant you, is more entertaining than politics by a significant margin.” She nodded toward my three. “Your girls would do well. They’re beautiful, they’re spirited, and they have personality to spare. As a professional dog walker, I have seen what wins ribbons and what just takes up space in the ring, and these three have what it takes.” She paused for effect. “Also, Daisy has a naturally competitive spirit. You can see it in the way she eyes other dogs on the street.”
This was unfortunately accurate. Daisy had opinions about other dogs that she expressed freely and at volume.
“I volunteer at the club,” Linda continued, apparently reading my hesitation as the beginning of a cave rather than a refusal. “I can introduce you to everyone who matters. And before you say anything about the time commitment, it’s one meeting. Tomorrow night at the Riverside Community Center. Six o’clock.” She stood, returning Minnie gently to the floor, where she immediately went to bark at the door. “I’ll pick you up at five-thirty. You can bring these three.”
“What’s on your agenda today?” she asked brightly, already moving toward the door.
I sighed and counted on my fingers. “A light is out in the laundromat. One of the washing machines is off-balance and sounds like it’s trying to walk across the floor with every spin cycle. Mrs. Henderson says there’s a bad smell coming from under her kitchen sink, and I’m half-convinced it’s the drain gasket, but it could be worse.” I paused. “Oh, and someone on the third floor submitted a written complaint about the parking lot lighting, which I agree with but haven’t budgeted for yet.”
Linda tilted her head with the expression of someone who had just proven their point for them. “And then what?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
She smiled with enormous kindness. “It’ll be fun, Crystal. I promise. These girls need an outlet for all that…” she gestured at the living room, where Daisy had resumed her squeaky-toy campaign, Minnie had shifted from barking at the door to barking at me, and Bella was attempting to open the kitchen cabinet where the treats were kept by pawing at it with both front feet and determination. “…energy.”
With her smile still fully in place, she sashayed out of my apartment, the door clicking shut behind her, apparently not taking no for an answer and not concerned that I hadn’t given her a yes either. That was Linda. She operated on the assumption that people would eventually arrive at the right conclusion, and that the right conclusion was always hers.
I stood in the middle of my living room for a moment, listening to the morning sounds of Riverside Towers. The distant rumble of the faulty washing machine that I really did need to fix today, the murmur of televisions and voices filtering through walls, the scratch of Bella’s small paw against the cabinet door.
“You three try to behave.” I reached for my tool belt from the hook by the door. I buckled it on with the familiar weight of purpose that came with having something useful to do. “I’ll take you for a walk when I get back.”
Daisy squeaked the toy once in acknowledgment. Minnie barked at the radiator. Bella looked up from the cabinet, considered me for a moment with those deep, liquid eyes, and then went back to the project at hand.
I grabbed my key ring and headed out into the hallway, already mentally sorting the order of repairs. Light bulb in the laundromat first. Then the washing machine. Then Mrs. Henderson’s sink, which I suspected would take the longest and smell the worst.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, quiet and persistent as Bella at a cabinet door, was the image of three dachshunds, one smooth-haired and two long-haired, trotting around a show ring — ears flying, tails up — causing absolute havoc among the dog-bow-and-politics crowd of the Riverside Kennel Club.
Maybe Linda wasn’t entirely wrong.
Not that I was going to tell her that until at least five-thirty tomorrow.
- Publisher : Winged Publications
- Publication date : March 24, 2026
- Language : English
- Print length : 217 pages
- ISBN-10 : 196879283X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1968792831