“That doesn’t bear thinking about. What about the dog’s adoptive family then?” she muttered.
“More to consider,” he said. “And I’m busy updating Ansel with this new information too. Apparently nobody has contacted the neighbors yet but me.” He pulled out sandwich fixings and a couple loaves of French bread.
“Wow,” she said, “we used to turn that whole thing into a big sub, didn’t we?”
“That’s what I’m planning to do right now,” he said with a big grin. And he went to it while she watched.
She put on a fresh pot of coffee, as she finished her iced coffee, and asked, “Do you think you’ll ever find the dog?”
“I hope so,” he said. “Titanium Corp, the company I work for now, had a dozen War Dog files. I’m on the eleventh case. Ten other guys have gone before me, and every one of the dogs was found.” He said, “I would really hate to be the one guy who couldn’t do the job.”
She winced at that. “That would suck, wouldn’t it?”
“But this one’s also a far-fetched case. It’s one of the reasons that they didn’t deal with it right away. So they know it’s a long shot.”
“You’re always good at those,” she said with a chuckle. She picked up a knife and sliced the tomatoes he bought, the dill pickles, then the cucumbers and the onions. By the time he had loaded that French bread, it was massive. She shook her head. “I’ll eat like three inches of that sucker.”
He cut it in half and then took the other half and cut that in half. Pointing, he said, “That one-fourth is yours. This three-fourths is mine.” And he proceeded to cut his again, so it was a little easier to pick up. She did the same with hers, and they carried their plates onto the back veranda.
“I’m so ready for this,” she said. “I finished getting the vanity in place and got the backsplash done and the floor tiled,” she said, “So the upstairs guest bathroom needs to dry for a day or two.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I had a shower this morning before I left.”
She looked at him in surprise.
He shrugged. “I’ve always been quiet. You know that.”
“I know,” she said. “I was really surprised you managed to get up and leave without waking me.”
“I didn’t hear anything coming from your bedroom,” he said. “I presumed I got away with it.”
She nodded. “You did, indeed. The only disturbance all morning came from the dogs. They thought they saw somebody, but I couldn’t see anybody outside.”
“No vehicle sounds?”
“Nope, they barked like crazy up at the front of the house, and then they ran straight to the back of the house, and then back and forth again, as if they lost track of whoever it was.”
He stared at her for a moment and slowly nodded.
She looked up at him, curious. “Why?”
“Just want to ensure that nobody followed us home last night.”
She frowned immediately and asked, “Who would care?”
“The guy who shot that dead man.”
“Was it a man?” she asked, her heart sinking at the thought of somebody following them here. “I couldn’t tell.”
“I’m pretty sure it was,” he said.
“There wasn’t enough to check?”
“Not from what I saw, … but you’re right. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”
“Still sucks,” she said. “Despite the dogs’ barking, I don’t think anybody was here earlier. Graynor wasn’t bothered.”
Caleb looked over at the big dog, who wagged his tail right then. “How often does he get up?”
“Only enough to go outside to take care of business,” she said. “He’s not eating much anymore either.”
“That’ll be a tough day,” he said, “but you’re giving him the best life that he can have. So there’s some solace in that.”
She tried to smile and nodded. As she got down to her last bite, she pulled out a piece of ham, hanging off the side of the bun. She popped her last bite in as she stood, walked to Graynor, and gave him the ham. He lapped it up, his tail thumping like a happy boy. And she quickly scrubbed his head, leaned over, giving him a kiss on the forehead, and said, “I’ll still miss you, bud, but you take whatever time you need to take and enjoy whatever life is left to live,” she murmured. He seemed to understand, just casually lying there, fully relaxed.
“It’s really nice to see him again,” he said, “and your other dogs.”
“I agree,” she said. “Just so many good things about having animals.”
“Absolutely.”
She walked back to him. “Are you really thinking somebody might have followed us?”
“No, I’m not thinking that particularly,” he said. “You did have rain here last night, and I did see another set of tracks outside the entrance to the property, but they’d pulled off to the side and didn’t come in.”
She stared at him. “You’re spooky when you do that,” she muttered.
“Maybe,” he said, “but better to be safe than sorry.”
“Now you got me wondering who was there,” she said.
“It could have been anybody,” he said with a shrug. “No need to see it as a negative.”
“No, but, at the same time, it’s hard not to.”
“I know,” he said. “So what have we got going on this afternoon?”
She smiled. “If you’re up for it,” she said, “I would absolutely love to get those floors finished upstairs.”
“Since your master was already done, and you finished tiling the guest bathroom today, that leaves the two other bedrooms and the hallway. We’d have to empty the rooms,” he said.
“Which is also why I haven’t done it,” she said. “I figured that, while you’re here, maybe we could move everything downstairs or in the garage or whatever, and then we can do those two bedrooms.”
“Yeah, and you would sleep downstairs for a night or two,” he said, looking around.
“Tons of room here to pile up the second-floor furniture, and we could get all of it done, hallway, bedrooms, right down to the stairs—even finish the stairs.”
He walked over to look at them and said, “They’d be a lot more work, but they certainly need it.”
“And a lot of new long-lasting finishes are available right now,” she said, “so refinishing them would last twenty years.”
“Don’t know about the hardwood flooring though. I guess it depends on how much use it gets.”
“True,” she said cheerfully. “But you know? I still think it’s … I don’t really want to get rid of the hardwood, and that means I have to work with this.”
“I wouldn’t get rid of the hardwood either,” he said. “It’s too gorgeous.”
“It’s also difficult in some ways,” she said, “because, of course, you know there’s a lot of work to taking care of them.”
“But you’re not afraid of work, and something like this here?” he said. “You’d want to preserve it. It’s beautiful.”