Double Dog Dare (13 page)

The names all sounded familiar after my conversation yesterday with Tom: Mason Payne was the CEO and founder of The Clone Arranger. His sister, Debby, appeared to be his second in command. Earl Knox, the dead guy, had been their chief salesman and all-around manager. Then there were scientists and P.R. types.

I was ready for this meeting. Or so I thought.

First, though, I took Lexie and Odin to Jeff’s, which, in Sherman Oaks, was closer than my home or Darryl’s Doggy Indulgence Day Resort. Then I headed for The Clone Arranger to meet Tom.

When I reached the secluded facility, Tom was waiting in the parking lot, dressed in a yellow Henley shirt and dark slacks. He looked good, especially when he gave me a big smile, which I returned. And a bigger kiss, which I didn’t . . . exactly. I didn’t want to seem unfriendly.

No potential cloning clients waited in the brightly decorated lounge today—a shame, since I’d hoped to run into Beryl Leeds and her Labs again.

Almost at once the inner door opened and Mason Payne entered. He was clad in a striped shirt and khaki cargo pants, and he immediately approached Tom and held out his hand. Then he looked at me, both recognition and confusion entering his gaze.

“Hi.” I headed toward him with my hand outstretched. “We met earlier this week. I’m Kendra Ballantyne. I was hoping to find out about your cloning program for a friend, so I’m afraid I used a little subterfuge. Now, though, since I was impressed, I’m here to learn more.”

More about his operations. His people. His—and their—motives for perhaps killing their comrade Earl.

And most especially, to learn if Jeff had actually been around, and if anyone here had something to do with his awful vanishing act.

“Well, welcome, Ms. Ballantyne. If you’re a friend of Tom’s, you’re a friend of ours. Please, come inside.”

Despite his kind words, Mason looked at me a little askance, his light brown eyes shadowed by shaggy silver brows. I smiled brilliantly at him, and he talked to Tom as we strolled into the inner sanctum.

The hallway we entered looked like a hospital corridor: gleaming composite floor, white walls with photos of generic outdoor scenes posted here and there—what, no doggy pictures?

We passed several closed doors that matched the walls. I wondered what was behind them.

Jeff?

Come on, Kendra. Stay cool. And sane
.

“I’ve got the dogs for you to examine in the usual room,” Mason said to Tom as we neared a bend in the hall. He looked quizzically at me.

“Can you show me any of your facility?” I inquired with an ingenuous grin. “I’d love to be able to tell my friend more about the cloning process, and whether it would be a good thing for her to continue with the idea of obtaining a duplicate of her dear dog.”

“There’s a lot that’s classified,” Mason said worriedly. “Most clients who come back here have already signed secrecy agreements.”

“I doubt I’d understand anything scientific,” I told him, trying to sound rueful. Legal, yes. Scientific, no. But though I wouldn’t hide the fact I was an attorney, I didn’t intend to volunteer the info.

Tom had no such compunction. “Her background’s in law, Mason, not science or technology.”

“Law?”

I gave a small shrug. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Mason said uncomfortably, as a door opened and two people emerged. Both greeted Tom effusively, then looked at me, as if expecting an introduction.

Which Tom quickly provided, before Mason could object. “Kendra Ballantyne, this is Melba Slabach, The Clone Arranger’s chief scientist, and Wally Yance, head of public relations.”

“How do you do, Kendra?” Melba said formally as she shook my hand. She was one tall lady, with dark hair pulled back severely from a face that suggested she wasn’t long out of school. A plain-featured face, with small blue eyes and dominated by a broad, blunt chin. Unsurprisingly, she wore a long white jacket that made her appear even more like a scientist on duty.

“Great to have you here,” Wally Yance said. He looked more military man than spin doctor, with short hair and stiff posture beneath a beige shirt and deep green slacks. His enthusiasm in shaking hands suggested he was all about appearances. Especially since he had no real idea who I was and why I happened to come calling.

“Glad to meet you both,” I said effusively. “I’m really interested in the idea of cloning and would love to learn as much about it as you’re able to tell a member of the fascinated masses. Is there some place we could talk while Tom tends to the dogs he’s supposed to examine?”

I didn’t even hazard a glance toward the obviously hesitant Mason. And before the others could answer, another door popped open and a beautiful brunette around my own age sailed out. “Tom!” she exclaimed.

And suddenly she was in Tom Venson’s open arms, planting one heck of a huge and sexy kiss on his obviously eager lips.

Who the hell was she?

Chapter Ten

THIS WASN’T THE first time a guy with whom I’d formed some sort of romantic attachment had another lady in his life. Which of course simply supported my multi-exampled assumption that I had a huge chasm in my character when it came to choosing the right men.

Last time, it was Jeff. His ex-wife, Amanda, had barged back into his space, claiming she needed his expertise as a security guru to save her from a stalker. She’d eventually vowed to stay out of his life if I helped to clear her from suspicion in that same stalker’s murder.

At least with my old law firm lover, Bill Sergement, it had been no more than poor taste, naïveté, and misplaced ambition that had attracted me to him.

Now, I simply stood there, withdrawing as much as possible with my back pressed tightly against the unyielding wall, watching. The woman continued to kiss Tom so hotly that I thought they might drop their drawers right there, in front of The Clone Arranger staff who gawked along with me in that hallway that suddenly seemed a lot too skinny.

The woman’s moans of ecstasy seemed to reverberate everywhere.
Eeew! Let me out of here!

Mason Payne cleared his throat. When that wasn’t successful in separating them, he said, “Okay, Debby. Enough already.”

He apparently knew her. Of course he would, since she was here in this secure facility.

And then it dawned on me. I’d heard the name Debby before, most recently in my discussion with Althea. She was Mason Payne’s sister, an executive of The Clone Arranger.

Interesting development. Dr. Tom Venson, who acted as the organization’s chief vet, had more than a medical reason to be there: a relationship with one of its primary people.

Which got my mind racing in all sorts of fascinating directions, assumptions . . . and suspicions.

But before I determined how to direct them, the couple finally pulled apart.

I didn’t know Debby Payne, of course, but to me she seemed radiant. On second glance, I guessed her to be a year or two older than me, and a bit bulgy—well, curvy. Maybe not as attractive as I’d first thought, either, if I attempted to assess her rationally rather than emotionally. On a scale of one to ten, rated against me, I’d be about eight and she’d barely make seven. I always admitted to myself that although I wasn’t the ugliest person in the universe, neither was I the most gorgeous.

“I’m so glad to see you, Tom,” she gushed unnecessarily.

Tom glanced at me and had the grace to turn beet red beneath his widow’s peak. “Er . . . Kendra Ballantyne, meet Debby Payne. We were engaged last year but decided it wouldn’t work out.”

“We’re much more compatible when we’re not committed to one another,” Debby said with a girlish giggle inappropriate from someone of her advancing age.

Can the cattiness, Kendra
, I ordered myself.
It doesn’t become you, even when you keep it to yourself
. I walked forward and held out my hand. “Good to meet you, Debby. I identify with your attraction to Tom, but I’ll remember not to get too committed for fear it’ll end.”
Meow!
And I was infinitely exaggerating my current interest.

Oh, but I got a bunch of pleasure from the sour expression that appeared on her slightly flawed face—some unfunny laugh lines at the corners of her light blue eyes, the hint of divots punctuating the area around her mouth. But then she smiled. “Hey, I love to compete. How about you?”

“Back off, both of you.” That was Tom, who scowled and took several steps away from where Debby and I faced each other.

“Yeah, do that,” Mason chimed in. “Tom, please go see to those dogs I told you about. Kendra . . . er . . .” He obviously was uncertain what to order me to do.

I made it easy for him. “Like I mentioned, I’d love a tour of The Clone Arranger’s facilities—everything unclassified, of course. And I’d like to hear all that you can tell me about it.”

Mason appeared slightly panicked until his eyes lit on Wally Yance, the P.R. person. “Wally, could you show Kendra around the client areas and answer some of her questions?”

Oh, great. I’d definitely get the spin spun to the public from him. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t lob a lot of cogent queries at him. A few might stick enough that I’d get some only partially devious answers that I could follow up on.

“Of course, Mason,” the man said smoothly, almost gliding up to me along the shining hallway floor. He was a little shorter than I’d initially thought, but his military mien lent him the air of more height. “This way, Kendra.”

I aimed a glance toward Tom to see if he, too, was being accompanied around the facility—by his obvious admirer Debby. In fact, he was—along with Mason. The three of them headed in the opposite direction from the way Wally led me. Melba joined us—a potentially helpful thing, if I could get the group’s head scientist talking. Maybe I’d learn something about why the cloning system hadn’t worked for Lois. What it was that Jeff had been investigating. What he’d possibly learned that he shouldn’t have . . . assuming someone here had something to do with his disappearance.

That, I couldn’t ask. But I could assume some ingenuousness and address what had happened and had been on the news.

As we walked down the hall, the P.R. guy and the lady scientist on either side of me, I suddenly felt a frisson of unease. Tom knew I was here, but he was more a part of this group than I’d known. Althea understood I’d be coming here, and Lois, too. But if I happened to disappear like Jeff, who would know? Who would care?

Especially now, when I was more than a little aware that Tom’s allegiances most likely didn’t lie with me.

But so far, my fears were unfounded . . . I hoped. I decided to pretend they didn’t exist. Still, I’d absolutely stay alert.

“You know,” I said in a conspiratorial tone, “I met that poor man Earl Knox when I was here the other day. I was so surprised to hear that he had died—and even more that he was
murdered
.” I stressed the word as if I was some naive member of the public impressed by the news I heard. “Do either of you know what really happened to him?”

“If we did, we’d have told the police,” Wally said, as if he was being as truthful with me as with the cops . . . or the media. His expression looked utterly frank as well, as if he was on camera. “But of course we can’t help thinking it was the woman who’d been talking about suing us because her dog died before her cloning was successful.”

“Yes, it was really unfortunate,” Melba said, sliding her hands into her lab coat pockets and shaking her head somberly. “But the poor thing was already elderly when she brought her here, and we weren’t successful in our DNA extraction the first time. The client was so angry. . . .” The woman jutted her blunt chin out as if she were totally defensive and distraught about what had occurred.

I decided this was a good time to change this particular subject, or at least skew it, since I didn’t want them, or anyone else, to zero in on Lois as the sole suspect. “That’s what the news implied,” I said. We had reached a closed door that apparently opened onto something not verboten for nobodies like me to see, since Wally reached beyond me and turned the knob. “But I also heard speculation that some people who worked with Earl didn’t really like him. In fact, some were upset by the way he was telling some untruths to the people he was trying to sell cloning services to.”

Wally froze and leveled a very non-P.R., angry stare at me that made me swallow. “Who told you that?”

“Oh, I heard it on one of the TV channels,” I said airily. “Were you one of the people who didn’t like him?” Though nervous as an animal about to have DNA extracted, I made myself smile as if half joking.

“Earl and I got along fine,” Wally asserted.

I threw my glance toward my other side, where Melba stood and fidgeted. “You, too?”

“If it’s any of your business,” she said icily, “yes. Earl and I were friends. I didn’t talk to those horrible media people who hung around here, but they really should look into Earl’s real enemies, like his awful ex-wife. Or the guy who owns the company he worked for before he came here, who claimed he stole some of their proprietary technology and turned it over to us. Which he didn’t, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.
Yes!
I thought. Now we were getting somewhere other than in Lois Terrone’s locale. “Interesting that the media didn’t find out about those. Does his ex-wife live around here?”

“I doubt it’s your business,” Melba said in a tone filled with utter irony, “but yes. Her name is Edwina Horton. And before you ask, the company Earl used to work for is CW Ultra Technologies, located in Arcadia. Its founder and CEO is Clark Weiss. Now, do you want to see our facilities or not?”

“Absolutely.” I made a detailed mental list of what I’d just learned. Sure, it was finger-pointing in a direction to thrust any suspicion away from them or anyone at The Clone Arranger, but these were new avenues to explore.

Now, if only I could ask if they’d been explored before.