1 Dog Collar Crime (2 page)

Joey craned his head in her direction and a slow, filthy smile seeped across his face. He’d better not start with the poop scooping jokes.
Not today
. She squinted and tried to put a little nasty into it. Not easy for a girl known as the good one in the family. But if she stared hard enough, maybe her older brother wouldn’t start. “Don’t say it, Joey.”

In typical Joey fashion, he remained stretched on the sofa. He ran his tongue along his perfect top teeth—a total giveaway of the act of terrorism to come—and Lucie squeezed her butt cheeks together.

He could be a real hater.

Frankie stood and moved toward her with his hands extended. “Luce.”

No
.

“How’d it go?” her brother asked, his voice light and menacing. “The poop scooping?”

And there it was. His ever-present need to goad her into a fight.

The cackle erupting from Joey’s wide-open mouth banged around inside Lucie’s already pummeled and aching skull. She scrunched her nose so hard the pain shot through her cheeks.
Be strong
. But after the day she’d had, the screeching laughter pounded at her.

“Luce,” Frankie said again, but Joey’s laugh burned her like a hot pipe. Suddenly she was eight years old again, when he’d left her hanging from a tree branch after challenging her to a pull-up contest. Even at eleven, he’d been a jerk.

Be a big girl, be a big girl, be a big girl.

Frankie stepped closer. “Don’t snap.”

Forget snapping. The thing going on inside her was an implosion. A veritable war between her crazy and
un
crazy self. At this moment, crazy had superior firepower. Even with Frankie’s family sitting in the kitchen.

Better luck next time, Uncrazy
.

Lucie launched herself across the back of the sofa and landed on Joey. She might have been screaming. She wasn’t sure because all she heard was the cackling. That cackling, mixed with the increasing closeness of the walls, ignited her.

What did it matter? After this rotten day, all she wanted was to punish someone. That someone happened to be her brother.

Joey put his hands up to protect his head, but his laughter continued.
Kah-kah-kah-kah-kah-kah.

Such a bastard. A bastard with a stupid, stupid laugh.

Plus, he outweighed her by a good hundred and thirty pounds—why did she have to be the petite one? He could easily toss her off, but this was his demented idea of fun.

She feinted right, went left and whopped him on the side of the head.

“Ow!” he hollered, half-laughing.

He made a move to harness her wrists in his giant hands, but she swatted at him and dug her knee into his thigh. He winced—success—and she bared her teeth at him.

Then she went airborne, her legs bicycling as Frankie hauled her backward. “Easy, killer.”

Her breaths came in halting, rib-fracturing bursts, but she kicked out one last time and missed. “You’re an idiot, Joey.”

She squeezed her eyes closed and concentrated on the feel of Frankie’s steadying arm. His calming presence poured into her, settled her rioting brain. Even now, after all this time, she loved it when he touched her. When his hands were on her, she came alive, every nerve ending exploding with a fierce pleasure and longing to get closer.

Thank God for the magic of Frankie.

After a minute of prepping to face her brother, Lucie exhaled and opened her eyes. “I’m okay. You can let go.”

“Hmm. Too bad,” Frankie whispered in a way that meant he was feeling frisky.

And wasn’t it typical of him to be thinking about sex at a time like this? Although, he pretty much thought about sex every ten seconds, so why would this moment be any different?

“You are a freaking lunatic.” This from her brother still sprawled across the sofa.

Mom stepped into the room with Frankie’s mother and father trailing. “What is all the yelling?”

Joey picked up the television remote and flipped the channel from the basketball game. “Your daughter is a whack job, Ma.”

“Joseph, that’s not nice.”

Not. Nice. Her mother was clueless when it came to Joey. And of course, this scene unfolded in front of Frankie’s parents.

Mom came closer, brought Lucie in for a hug, and the smell of her almond shampoo penetrated the wall of anger and humiliation. Theresa Rizzo, at fifty-five, despite her cluelessness concerning her son, was an excellent candidate for sainthood. Always home. Always consistent. Always available.

Unlike Lucie’s other parent.

Lucie pulled back and stared at her mother. For years now, she’d worn her chestnut hair shoulder length with wispy bangs to hide her wide forehead. Her heart-shaped face held hard fought frown lines, but her mother’s eyes…they were special. Not brown, not green, but something in-between, and when she turned them on someone, her mood wasn’t hard to distinguish. Those eyes now held concern.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Finally, Lucie faced Frankie’s parents. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Falcone. Sorry about that.”

“Eh,” Mr. Falcone said. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen siblings fight.”

Frankie rolled his eyes as his parents headed back to the kitchen. “Nice, Pop.”

“Dinner in ten minutes,” Mom said. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up?”

An escape. Sainthood for Mom. Stat. “Good idea. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Mom started to turn, but stopped. “By the way, I spoke to your father today. He put you on the list for next week.”

The list.

“And if you don’t visit him,” Joey said. “He’s gonna fry you.”

Frankie and Lucie both spun on him. “Shut up.”

Mom, as usual, ignored Joey and leveled her gaze on Frankie. “You’re on the list, too.”

“Uh-oh,” Frankie said.

Lucie grinned. “Looks like he heard.”

Joey laughed. “I didn’t tell him.”

Probably true. Joey never seemed to care whether Frankie and Lucie were broken up. Frankie had been his friend all their lives and that would never change. That friendship sat at the root of why Lucie kept ending things with Frankie. He couldn’t tear himself away from the life she so desperately wanted to leave.

The break-ups never lasted though. There was this pesky thing called love between them, and she could never completely let him go.

Lucie brought her eyes back to her mother. “Does Dad know we broke up?”

Her mother shrugged. “This falls into the what-he-doesn’t-know-won’t-hurt-him category. That category seems to be expanding rapidly.”

No joke there. They’d been hiding a lot from her father since his incarceration almost two years ago. Despite living in a conservative home and not throwing money around on flashy cars and clothes, her father had long ago drawn the interest of federal prosecutors. They wanted Joe Rizzo, mob boss, but they couldn’t get any organized crime charges to hold and settled for a minor tax problem involving the three Italian beef restaurants he owned. Most people would have walked away with a fine, but not her father. The government wanted Joe Rizzo to pay for his sins. Whatever they were.

Lucie shook off thoughts of explaining to her father why she wouldn’t marry Frankie, whom her father adored, mostly because Frankie’s father was her father’s closest friend. Thus, the reason the Falcones came for dinner twice a month even though her father was locked up. Lucie also suspected these family dinners meant her mother received an infusion of cash—her father’s cut of whatever nefariously raised money the mob guys came up with—from Mr. Falcone to help with expenses while her father was away. Talk about a tangled web.

She walked to the stairs where she’d left her duffel. “I’ll deal with visiting Dad later. I need to get this stuff unpacked before it wrinkles.”

Frankie sidled next to her. “I’ll take that up.”

No. Last thing she needed was to be alone with Frankie. In her bedroom. “I’ve got it.”

He leaned forward, wrapped his hand around hers on the handle of the bag and the heat from his palm seeped into her. Hoping he wouldn’t move, she stayed there for a second. With Frankie around, the speed of her world slowed and reminded her of summer strolls on the lakefront. The Frankie Factor.

A crooked grin spread across his face. “I’ll take care of it.”

No sense arguing with him. He’d just do it anyway. “Thank you.”

She marched up the worn carpeted stairs, mentally groaning over the red and green floral wallpaper dating back to the eighties. She spied a streak of black that had become part of the décor twelve years ago when she had tumbled down the stairs with a permanent marker in her hand.

A noise pulled Lucie from thoughts of adolescence, and she looked over her shoulder to find Frankie staring at her butt. What there was of it anyway. Too bad some of the flesh in her ginormous boobs couldn’t have landed on her rump.

“Stop looking at my butt.”

“Can’t help it. It’s in my line of sight.”

The trademark Frankie smile appeared, the one that could put General Electric out of business. Who needed light bulbs when Frankie smiled? Even his presence illuminated a room. He kept his dark hair short, but with enough length that it curled around a face full of yummy angles. When he chose to pleasure a woman with a look from his coal-black eyes, he did it with a focused intensity that made her feel like she was the only one in the county.

Unfortunately for Lucie, Frankie’s massive good looks left people wondering what he was doing with
her
, Miss Completely Average. She wasn’t ugly, for sure. Her blue eyes were a plus, but her drab brown hair and lack of hips didn’t usually attract hotties. Nope. The only curves Lucie had were in the chest area. Luckily, Frankie was a boob guy. Then again, she hadn’t met many men who weren’t.

They reached the top of the stairs and she made a left into the first doorway into her childhood bedroom. The curtains had been changed, but the white swirly-cornered furniture and light green wallpaper still remained, somehow, in pristine condition.

She hated that wallpaper.

Franked nudged her. “Are we going to stand here all day?”

“Uh, sorry.” She stepped into the microscopic room and he pushed by her to drop the bag on the bed. The two of them, in there together, made the room beyond small. It didn’t help that Frankie wore her favorite faded Levi’s that clung to his lean body as if they were tailor-made for him. The Levi’s did it for her every time.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’ve been edgy since you got home.”

Edgy. Good word for it. With his protective nature, he’d love this one. “After my trunk show, I had a couple of dogs to walk. One of them got stolen.”

He abandoned the duffel and spun to her, his face turning to stone. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

She waved off his concern. “I’m fine. I was walking Miss Elizabeth and some goon knocked me over and grabbed her. I hit my head, but it’s not bad.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

He stepped toward her, but Lucie held out her hand. “I called 9-1-1 and they sent a squad. The cop said there’s a dog theft ring operating in the city. It could be related.” Lucie pressed her palms into her forehead. “God, Frankie, that poor dog. I’m so scared for her. Plus, Mr. Darcy was bawling when I told him. He adores her.”

“Screw the dog, Luce. You should get checked out. You could have a concussion.”

He extended his arms to wrap her in a hug, but hesitated before folding them across his chest. She blew air through her lips. They simply stunk at being in limbo. As much as she wanted to draw comfort from him, it wouldn’t be fair. To either of them. “I don’t think it’s a concussion, but I made a doctor’s appointment. The cop said they’d call me if they find Miss Elizabeth. I’ll have to wait. I keep having visions of that dog being tortured. She was in my care and I let her get taken.”

“It’s not your fault. They’ll find her.”

He knew her too well.
So not going there right now
. “Anyway, the trunk show went well this morning.”

He unzipped the duffel and opened it. One of her handmade dog collars caught on the netting inside the bag and Lucie gently pried it loose. “I sold all the rhinestone studded items. The coats with the fur collars also went. Otis loved the camo shirt.”

“He tell you that?”

She smacked his arm. “I could tell.”

Of course, Otis was a dog. An Olde English Bulldog to be exact. Lucie had been walking him for five months and understood the flow of his moods. The dogs, with their unabashed love for her, had become the bright spot over these past months. Keeping on schedule with dogs wasn’t easy, but she looked forward to walking them each day. With the winter months over, she found joy in the crisp spring air, cleansing her of the negativity that surrounded her current life situation. The dogs had become her sanctuary.

She held up the paisley collar still in her hand. “It’s unbelievable how much these rich people will pay for dog accessories. I sold that pink triple rhinestone deal for a hundred and fifty dollars.”

Frankie whistled. “Who needs investment banking when you’ve got Coco Barknell?”

“Coco Barknell?”