She had on a pair of lime green capris and a large white T-shirt. Her hair was a mass of curls, her cheeks rosy.
She looked good.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
BeBe inched closer to Tam until she was practically a pair of drooling slippers. Tam patted her head.
“The doctor said I could resume normal activity. The baby’s lungs are mature enough now so that if I do go into labor again, it will be safe to deliver.”
“Are they sure?” I was a worrier by nature.
“They’re the ones with the degrees. I just thought I’d stop by and see how the yard was doing.”
“Are you going to come back to work?” I asked, hopeful.
Her curls bounced as she shook her head. “Think I’ll rest until the baby’s born. Don’t want to push it. You’re in good hands with Ursula.”
Hmmph.
“Oh,” she said. “I’ve got those books for you.”
She opened her car door, leaned in and pulled out the accounting books. She talked as we walked to my truck, BeBe on our heels.
“At first glance everything seems to be in order.”
“But?”
“It’s really odd. On certain days of the week the store is barely floating by. On others, business is booming.”
I thought about the possibility of Bill skimming from the days’ takes. “Would those barely getting by days be Monday, Wednesday, Friday?”
“Actually, the opposite.” She opened one of the books.
“See here? This week last month, the profits on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday far exceeded Tuesday and Thursday.
The weekends were somewhat of a wash. More was made, but not eye-poppingly so.”
And the numbers were eye-popping. On the days Bill 220
Heather Webber
managed Growl, he took in nearly quadruple what Russ had been pulling in.
“Does it look like someone’s been embezzling?”
“Not that I could see,” she said in that haughty way of hers that told me if she hadn’t found something, no one would find something.
“Do you have any idea why the take would be so much higher on those three days?”
“Nope. Good management only goes so far.”
“Weird.”
“Very.”
I stored the books in my truck, locked the door.
“How come BeBe is here? I thought Ursula was dog-sitting?”
At the sound of her name, BeBe’s head snapped up, her tail thumped, and the drool flowed.
Eww.
I told Tam about Mr. Cabrera.
“Do you think Ursula and Donatelli will get back together now?”
“I don’t know.” But I hoped so. The two belonged together.
Her gaze lingered on BeBe. “Hey, why don’t I take BeBe back to the farm with me? She can visit with her brothers.”
Ian Phillips, Tam’s new love, bred English mastiffs, and had raised BeBe from a pup.
She went to check with Kit, and I took the pictures out of my back pocket, unzipped the Baggie. There were three pho-tos, taken at night. There must have been a full moon because the lighting was great.
I looked up at the Grabinsky house and decided that who-ever took them—and I believed more and more that it had been Greta—had spied from the upstairs bathroom window.
The one that overlooked the Hathaways’ backyard.
221
In the pictures, Dale Hathaway was participating in a little nighttime nookie, poolside.
And I had to say, the man not only had amazing cheekbones . . . but cheeks as well. It was hard not to notice. The pictures seemed to be focused on his bare behind. Maybe Greta had a thing for cheeks too.
