Shee suffered a flash of dread.
Maybe everyone else had gone running to Mick.
Maybe something happened, maybe his condition, whatever it may be, had worsened.
She hit the elevator call and, as if the lift had been waiting eons for her arrival, the doors slid open.
Shee found herself staring at a group of people and a tiny dog.
Well, hello there.
Four people in the elevator, but only three sets of eyes staring back at her, if she didn’t count the dog. All but one of the people opened their mouths a crack, as if startled to see her.
One didn’t register any surprise at all because he—judging from the men’s slippers dangling from the carpet in which he was rolled—was probably dead.
Dead, or enjoying a friendly game of human burrito.
It wasn’t Mick in there, she was relieved to note. Not unless her father had both ankles replaced by a black donor.
Shee might not have noticed the dead guy, except when the doors opened, the youngest woman fumbled her side of the rolled carpet. Feet slid out, but the fast-thinking giant holding the opposite end bent his knees to reverse the plane and stop Dead Guy’s slide to the ground.
The big man with the barrel chest and keg belly wore a tropical shirt and khaki shorts that made him look like a friendly giant. He easily supported three quarters of the rug’s considerable weight.
Doorman located. Check.
At the opposite side of the rug, the young woman recovered from her shock and propped her end. For letting her side slip, she flashed an apologetic glance at the giant and then locked her attention back on Shee.
Shee’s attention moved to the last breathing human in the group—a woman clutching an impossibly small, black-and-rust-colored dog against her bosom.
The woman looked like an older, very surprised version of Angelina.
“Angelina?” Shee heard herself say, but the word had hardly left her lips before the doors slid shut and the elevator headed back up.
Shee wasn’t sure what had kept her from thrusting her arm between the closing doors, but she’d made no effort to stop them. Her reluctance might have been caused by the shock of seeing Angelina again after so long.
It might have been the dead guy.
&&&
Chapter Twelve
Shee remained in the same spot, nose nearly brushing the elevator doors, until they slid open again to reveal only Angelina, her trademark four-thousand-watt smile outlined by blood-red lips.
A newcomer, who hadn’t just witnessed Angelina supervising the removal of a body, would have found the woman composed and relaxed, as if she’d been upstairs at a day spa.
Shee noted her old family friend had been crying. She clocked a thin smear of makeup reaching toward Angelina’s eyebrow, where she’d presumably swept her melting kohl-black eyeliner to avoid looking like a raccoon. The dark smudge on her index finger confirmed this. The sheen of sweat at her brow line suggested she’d deigned to help carry that human burrito after all. Maybe in the rush to get him off the elevator. The woman’s pulse pounded in her neck like an African djembe drum.
“Shee?” Angelina flung out the arm unburdened by a dog and clamped it around Shee’s shoulders like a toddler demanding to be picked up. Shee resisted the urge to carry her from the elevator, but tugged her into the lobby as the elevator doors bounced off her shoulder and threatened to pinch them even closer together.
“Hey, Angelina.”
The dog placed its front paws on Shee’s shoulder to lick her right cheek. Angelina planted what Shee suspected to be a smeary cherry lipstick kiss on her left.
Well. Both those things were unnecessarily wet.
Angelina gave her a bonus squeeze before taking a step back, her pointy heel nearly slipping into the metal slot between the elevator and the lobby. She tip-toed safely away from the makeshift bear trap as the doors slid shut.
“You came back,” she said. Her eyes rimmed with tears and she slid the already black-stained knuckle of her index finger upward to wipe them away.
Shee pointed at the elevator. “So that guy in the carpet—”
Angelina’s shoulders relaxed and the smile returned to her lips. Even her slow-blink stare said nothing to see here.
“Hm?”
Shee couldn’t help but smile.
Angelina. Ever the poker player.
She decided to circle back to the dead guy later.
“Once you shot my drone with a tracker I figured you wanted to see me,” she said instead.
Angelina strode to the concierge desk and placed the dog into the black, sparkly disk.
Ah. Not Norma Desmond’s hat. A dog bed.
Angelina spun and shook a finger as if scolding a child. “Putting the tracker on the gopher tortoise was mean. You had poor Croix stalking that thing to get her equipment back.”
Shee scowled. “What’s a Croy? Half crow, half boy?”
“Croix. Like the island of St. Croix. I think it’s pretty.”
Shee hooked a thumb toward the elevator. “The girl?”
Angelina nodded.
Shee moved to the dog that was now standing like a miniature soldier, all eyes and bird-chested attitude. As she neared, its butt wiggled, tongue lolling. The strain of telepathically begging Shee to come pet me had apparently broken its little brain. Shee scratched the dog’s neck as if it were made of furry china, amazed something so tiny could act like a real dog.
“This can’t be Harley.”
“It is. Harley Two.”
“You named a new dog Harley?”
Angelina flicked her wrist as if batting away the question. “I didn’t want to go through getting this one registered as a therapy dog and I still have Harley One’s paperwork. Plus, I had a lot of collars and whatnot with her name on them...”
“Strangely, that makes sense.”
“Of course it makes sense. Why wouldn’t I make sense?”
Shee’s gaze shifted to the elevator as
