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“He'd better not be late,” she said out loud. At the sound of her voice, Georgie gave up on “at ease” and made an
impatient dance, the sound of her claws on the wooden floor conveying her impatience.

“All right, sweetie,” Ginny said, putting down her phone. Getting up from “at ease” if Georgie felt the need was part of the training, so she didn't repeat the command. Besides, the dog was right: it was walk-time. “Half a cup so I don't walk into anything, and then we can go. Get your leash. Leash!”

Georgie disappeared to get her leash from where it hung on a peg by the door. By the time she returned, pink lead in her mouth, Ginny judged that she could get dressed and leave the apartment without being a menace to herself or the rest of humanity.

“Good girl,” she praised Georgie, snapping the leash to her collar. “Now stay here a minute, let me just throw on my sneakers, and we'll go.”

Georgie might not have the largest vocabulary, but she knew that “sneakers,” like “leash,” usually meant something good. She sat down on the floor, her backside quivering in excitement, and waited.

Ginny threw sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee over the tank and shorts she slept in, shoved her feet into socks and sneakers, and collected Georgie at the front door.

The air was cool and damp, promising that November was well and truly here, after a warmer-than-usual autumn. Human and dog both shivered and made short work of the morning obligations. Up and down the tree-lined block of her neighborhood, Ginny could see other human-and-canine pairs doing the same thing. She knew most of
them by now—there was nothing like sharing a morning poo-walk for breaking the ice among neighbors—but nobody seemed in a mood for conversation today. It was too cold and damp, and still a workday morning. TGIF only went so far, and didn't start this early.

Back in the apartment, Ginny unhooked the leash and put it back on the peg, and laughed as the dog made a beeline to the kitchen. Georgie knew what came after her morning walk. Ginny followed at a slower pace, filling Georgie's food dish and adding fresh water before escaping into a hot shower to finish the process of waking up.

Ginny normally dressed well when she was spending the day in the office, under the theory that clothes were part of the professional mind-set, but knowing that they were going on a client call today made her go for lightweight wool slacks and a silk blouse that were a little nicer than usual, although still not too nice if she had to run, sit on the ground, or play with a shelter dog. Not that she expected to have to do any of those things, but better to be prepared than look like an idiot. She stared at herself in the mirror after gelling her curls into some kind of style, and decided that today some foundation would not be amiss. More than that, though, was above and beyond the call of duty.

In the kitchen, Georgie was scraping at her dish as though the sheer force of her tongue could somehow produce another scrap of food. The rattle of the dish against the tile floor made Ginny remember a phone call she'd been putting off for almost a week now.

When it came to business, she sat down and did it. When it came to this, there were few who could procrastinate better.

“Oh, hell. All right, do it now, it's done,” she muttered, and—after checking the time—called her mother.

“Virginia?” Her mother, as always, answered on the first ring. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong, Mom. I was just calling to see what you wanted me to bring for Thanksgiving.”

It was a yearly tradition—her mother would then insist that Ginny didn't need to do anything, that she had it all handled, etc., and in the end would call her a few days before in a panic with a list of all the things that still needed to be done. Since it was only the three of them, it usually wasn't a big deal, but . . .

“Oh, Thanksgiving, oh, I didn't tell you?”

Those were words that never ended well. “Tell me what?”

“Your aunt and uncle. They're coming out. For Thanksgiving.”

Her aunt and uncle lived out of state, and the two families weren't particularly close. She hadn't seen them, or her cousins, in years. Literally years. “Why?”

Her mother sighed. “I don't know. But it's not going to be anything good.”

Ginny usually cringed at her mother's blunt commentary—especially when it was directed at her—but in this case she had to agree. Their family communicated in emails and occasional birthday cards, not actual visits, and she was perfectly okay with that.

“So we'll make more of whatever we make, and hide the booze. It's only one day, right? They're not planning to stay with you?”

“No, no.” Her mother sounded as though the idea would send her into a panic. Her parents had a nice apartment, but it wasn't really set up for four people to stay there more than overnight. “I just . . . I don't know what to
do
with them!”

Ginny sighed silently, knowing already where this was going. “Yeah, it's okay, Mom. I'll handle it. I'll get a list of things they might want to see or do, and arrange it all.” She did it for other people, she could do it for family. Anything to keep her mother from freaking out.

“Oh, Virginia, I couldn't—” her mother started, the relief clear in her voice.

“Mom, it's what I do for a living,” and never mind that her parents still weren't happy with that decision. “It's okay. And I have to go now, okay? Client meeting this morning, gotta get ready.”

She ended the call, aware that her mother's preoccupation with this invasion had saved her from the usual interrogation about her own life. A small gift, but she'd take it.

She loved her parents, but there were days she wished she hadn't been an only child. Maybe a sibling would have been able to give them the married-with-a-real-job happiness they kept trying to urge her into.

She'd done the real job thing, and the job had disappeared under her when the company was bought out.
Being her own boss suited her fine now. As for marriage . . . first she'd have to find someone she wanted to date more than a few times. The current guy seemed like he had potential, but she wasn't going to assume anything yet.

Cutting those thoughts off at the knee, Ginny poured herself another cup of coffee and went into her office. If she hustled, she'd be able to clear out her in-box, file the paperwork from yesterday's meeting with her lawyer, and maybe sort out last month's expenses before Tonica arrived.

*  *  *

“Mallard. No.”

She hadn't actually intended to bring the dog, but the moment she'd put her shoes and coat on to meet Tonica downstairs, Georgie had fetched her battered leash and sat by the door so patiently and expectantly that Ginny didn't have the heart to leave her home.

“It gives us a reason to be there?” she said in response, not meaning for it to sound like such a question. Tonica, thankfully, only sighed and waited while she convinced Georgie, once again, that the back of the coupe would not eat her.

Once they were all settled, and he started the car and pulled away from the curb, she asked, “So, you want a background, or do you want to play it blind? Not that I have much yet.”

“Blind, I think. We can compare notes after.”

Ginny got twitchy when she met someone cold, but that was how he worked and she wasn't going to screw with it, not so long as it worked. She tapped the screen of her tablet and studied her notes, but didn't share what was there. She hadn't lied, there really wasn't much. Animal shelters weren't big news, and nobody who worked there seemed to have much public profile. All right, she'd try to play this Tonica's way.

Most of the early morning commuters were already in downtown, and there wasn't any local traffic, so they pulled into the six-space parking lot in front of the old warehouse at exactly 9:58. Their appointment with Nora was for ten o'clock. The three of them—Tonica, Ginny, and Georgie—extracted themselves from Tonica's beloved vintage Volvo coupe and looked around. The old warehouse looked like it dated back to Ballard's heyday as a lumber town, and was a set on a corner lot, with a newer brick building pressing up against it on one side. It might have been renovated from its earlier use but didn't look very impressive even now.

The lot was empty, but Ginny had spotted a beat-up sedan and an SUV in the equally small parking lot around the corner of the building, probably the employee lot.

In the distance they could hear dogs barking, not very well muffled by the walls. Georgie lifted her head slightly but otherwise showed no interest.

“Think she remembers being here before?”

“Dogs don't have much long-term memory,” Ginny said. “Being hurt creates a basic fear of the source—a man, a car, the smell of the vet's—but they don't have specific
long-term memories the way we do.” She paused. “That's what our trainer says, anyway. So, no, I don't think she associates this building with where she lived before she came here. Might be different once we go inside, though.”

“Only one way to find out.” Tonica gestured for her to precede him, his muscular torso looking oddly different in a dress shirt and dark blue sport coat, rather than his regular sweatshirt or sweater. He was wearing the usual jeans and lace-up black boots, though, so she had decided not to rag him about it, especially since she had dressed-to-impress-with-competence, too. “Puppies first.”

Despite her words, Ginny hadn't been sure exactly how Georgie would react to coming back here. Ginny had only been to the shelter once before, herself, to sign the paperwork that made Georgie hers. She had first encountered the half-grown shar-pei pup during one of Ballard's summer weekend street fairs, when the shelter held a “sidewalk parade,” accosting innocent passersby with pitiful-faced puppies and adorable kittens. Ginny hadn't intended to acquire a dog that day—or, in fact, any day—but twenty-four hours later she had been standing in front of this same building, more or less ready to change her life for the sake of big brown eyes and a ridiculous tail.

“C'mon, sweetie,” she said now, tugging on the leash.

“You had better be talking to the dog, Mallard,” Tonica grumbled. “I'm not your sweetie.”

“I only leash the things I love,” she shot back. Their back-and-forth used to be sharper; she put it down to the early hour. Tonica really wasn't a morning person.

The front door of the shelter was thick glass, with the name painted on it in white. No cute animal cartoons or slogan, just the name. Inside there was a small foyer, just enough room to let someone close an umbrella—or a dog to shake off the rain—and then another door, this one made of heavy, polished wood.

The receptionist, a chunky young woman with hair done up in a multitude of blond dreadlocks, looked up when they came in, and smiled. “Hi there! We're not open for animal visit yet, but if you'd like to make an appointment, I can arrange that!” She exuded a sense of professionally perky that bordered on the annoying, but when her gaze went from Ginny to Tonica and then down to the dog standing alertly between them, her poise slipped a little. “Oh. Hi. She's beautiful.” The tone of the girl's voice went from welcoming to slightly accusatory in those short sentences. Ginny blinked, wondering what they'd done wrong, and then realized what had happened.

“Isn't she though?” she said brightly, stepping forward and using the half excuse she'd suggested to Tonica. “I adopted her from the shelter last year, and I thought I'd come down and show off how well she's doing.”

Perky, and a little extra, swam back into the other woman's voice now that she knew they weren't here to abandon the dog. “Oh, that's so nice. We have a board for photos of our graduates; it would be great to add her. What's her name?”

“Georgie. Oh, she was originally named Lena.”

“I didn't know that,” Tonica said, slightly startled.

“Yeah. She just didn't seem like a Lena, to me, though. A Lena is . . . delicate.”

Georgie, almost on cue, let out a solid burp.

“Yeah, Georgie's a lot of things, but delicate ain't it,” Tonica agreed, grinning.

“I named her for George, in the Nancy Drew books.” Ginny said. “She was always my favorite.”

Tonica's eyes narrowed. “Those are detective stories, aren't they?”

“Shut up, Teddy,” she said, embarrassed, and then, “Oh,” directed to the receptionist, almost like an afterthought, “and Nora said to let her know when we came by?”

During their phone call, the client had suggested that they play it casual, rather than setting up an actual meeting, to keep anyone from suspecting anything. Ginny thought that Nora was being more than a little paranoid, but the first rule of being a concierge/problem solver was that the client was always right—to their face. You could do things properly once they were appeased.

“Oh.” Perky thought for a moment. “I saw her going into the back office this morning. Let me buzz her, and then I'll go get our camera. Hang on.”

Ginny, suspecting that this might take a while, went over to sit on one of the two battered sofas, Georgie obediently lying down at her feet, muzzle resting on her paws, eyes alert. If the dog had any hesitation going into the building she'd left a year ago, she didn't show it. In fact, reaching down to pet Georgie's head, Ginny thought she looked almost . . . pleased.

*  *  *

Teddy, feeling restless and not sure about the cleanliness of the sofas Ginny was sitting on so calmly, walked over to a corkboard up on the far wall, curious. It was filled with photos and rap sheets of the animals currently available for adoption. He scanned the papers, paying more attention to how they were posted rather than what was posted. It was well organized and professionally presented: someone was clearly doing there job here, at least. All the photos were well lit, with the animals looking directly into the camera, the sheets all generated on a computer form, but with handwritten notes in purple ink calling out specific comments—all positive—about each animal. There was a red dot at the top right corner of some of them, a yellow dot on others, and a green dot on yet others, and some of them had a mix of colored dots, while a handful had no dots at all. He puzzled over them for a while, before the receptionist returned, armed with a camera.