“IS THIS… a kind of job that you guys normally take on?” I asked, holding the leash of a small corgi that walked in front of me as if he was the one leading me down the sidewalk. I’d never thought much about how I felt about dogs, but this one had stolen my heart the moment we’d picked him up from the breeder.
I wished I could take him home with us, but I imagined the guys would have something to say about that. And he was kind of essential to our plan.
Julius shook his head where he was walking by my side. “Not on a regular basis. It’s definitely not within our typical range of services. Only for special circumstances like these.”
Like a genetic scientist who didn’t happen to have anyone she wanted chaotically murdered as payment for her services. I couldn’t suppress a laugh, and the corgi looked over his shoulder at me without slowing his pace. He ran into the back of Garrison’s heel and stumbled over his sausage legs before correcting himself and walking a few paces behind Garrison.
Garrison shot the dog a look, but from the twinkle in his eye, I didn’t think I was the only one taken with this bundle of brown fur.
“It seems pretty simple for the complex work she’s going to be doing for us,” I had to point out.
Garrison snorted. “For her, sequencing DNA is a piece of cake. We had to locate a dog that’s a near-perfect match for hers, and now we’ve got to sneak it into her ex-boyfriend’s house and retrieve the real one without him having a clue. It’s a stealth mission that takes a lot of skill and prep-work, so I’d say she’s getting one hell of a discount for our services.”
At his tone, I couldn’t resist gazing down at the dog and sticking out my bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “And you’re sure that we can’t keep him?”
Julius looked over at me, and a chuckle escaped him. “He’s already been assigned to a home, Dess.”
I sighed. “Fine. But don’t blame me if I find I’m unable to stop myself from bringing a different one back to the apartment one of these days.”
Garrison shook his head, but his lips twitched with amusement. I glanced around at the quiet suburban neighborhood through my sunglasses, still alert within my disguise even though traffic cams were in shorter supply here. We had no idea how close our enemies might be to finding us, so we’d pulled together this job as fast as we could.
But at the same time, a sense of calm had settled over me, taking the edge off my nerves. We’d all worked together, making a convincing case for dog ownership when we’d picked up the pup, driving out to the edge of the suburbs while keeping our charge in a good mood, and now approaching our target’s home like a group of friends out for a stroll. It was like nothing had changed, despite our argument a couple of days ago. No matter what our enemies might have in store, that knowledge filled me with relief.
“That’s the house,” Julius said without looking at it as we crossed the street. “Three down from the corner.”
I took it in from the edge of my vision as we ambled by. It was one of the larger buildings on the residential street, white with beige shingles and a big porch. “Got it,” I said.
We made a longer circuit, coming around to where Talon was waiting in our getaway car. Julius nodded to him, and the other man started the engine to drive over to the house on the opposite side of the block from our target’s. Garrison headed back around to the front of the house, while Julius and I followed Talon on foot.
“You’re sure you want to do the inside work?” Julius asked me.
I nodded. “I’m the smallest out of all of you—it’ll be easiest for me to stay unnoticed. And he seems to like me.” I bent down to scratch the dog behind the ears. “Hopefully his counterpart will too.”
“All right. I’ll be waiting by the fence for the handoff. Get in there as soon as you hear Garrison at the door.”
We walked up the driveway of the house that backed onto our target’s backyard as if we belonged there. We’d already confirmed that the owners and their neighbors would be at work. Too bad we couldn’t say the same for our target, but apparently one of the reasons our client had broken up with him was that he’d decided to laze around at home all day playing video games while living off an unexpected inheritance.
Unfortunately, that’d also made it impossible for her to get the dog herself. He’d paid for one of its vet bills once and had found some lawyer who’d insisted he could make a case to sue if our client tried to take the dog with her, even though the dog had been hers for years before they’d ever met. I knew all about vindictive pricks, even if I’d never been in a relationship with one, and this guy was clearly a massive one.
I scrambled over the wooden fence with the help of a lawn chair, and Julius handed the corgi over the top to me. The dog squirmed a little when I tucked him under my arm, and I made a soft clucking sound that had seemed to soothe him in the car. When he went still, I gave him a quick pet. “Good boy.” Then I stole across the overgrown lawn to the back door.
At least it looked as if this dude didn’t treat the current doggie resident too badly. There were a few toys scattered in the yard, and when I peeked through the window in the back door, I made out a full water dish and a food bowl that looked recently cleaned of its contents.
No sign of the actual dog, though…
I couldn’t see the supposed owner, but chances were he was camped out in the living room in front of his widescreen TV jabbing at a controller. Stroking the dog’s fur comfortingly, I used my other hand to quickly pick the lock so I’d be ready to move as soon as I got the signal.
All good, I texted Garrison.
A minute later, the doorbell pealed out. The floor creaked as the occupant must have walked over to answer it. I eased open the back door at the same moment.
It let out a faint squeak, and I froze. But the guy was already swinging open the front door and didn’t appear to notice. I slipped into the mudroom and set down the new corgi.
“You stay right there,” I murmured to him, setting a few treats in the food dish. As he started gobbling them up, I stalked farther into the house.
“Here, Terry, Terry, Terry,” I whispered, careful to keep my voice much lower than those carrying from the front of the house. I wasn’t sure what story Garrison had come up with to keep the guy distracted, but it obviously involved a lot of talking. I clucked my tongue under my breath for good measure and waggled the toy that the client had told us was his favorite with the faint jingle.
To my relief, the click of little claws reached my ears a few seconds later. Another corgi, which did look remarkably like the one we’d picked up, came trundling over to meet me. I’d have thought our original one had left the mudroom if it wasn’t for the collar around this one’s neck.
“Good boy,” I told him, and jingled the toy for him to follow me back to the mudroom.
There was an abrupt silence from the front. I halted in my tracks again, my nerves prickling, prepared to simply snatch up the dog and run for it. But then Garrison’s laugh pealed out, the other guy’s echoing it, and my breath rushed out of me.
We were okay, for now.
It took some wrangling and a couple more treats to get the original corgi to allow me to unbuckle his collar, and the new one huffed as I fixed it around his neck. Then I was darting out the back with a different but equally cute doggo under my arm.
The dog gave a small woof just as I closed the door, which Garrison must have heard because all of a sudden he gave a loud exclamation to draw the guy’s attention. I dashed across the yard, narrowly avoiding tripping over a rubber bone, and lifted my cargo so Julius could take him over the fence. I clambered after him, and we both loped down the drive to jump into the waiting car.
I rubbed under the corgi’s chin as we swung around to pick up Garrison farther down the street and shot a teasing glance at Julius. “Are you sure I can’t keep this one?”
He gave me a mock-glower. “I think our client might have a few complaints about that.”
No doubt Julius had been right, because the client was absolutely ecstatic from the moment she opened the door and saw the corgi in my arms. She took him from me, whirling around with him like he was her soul mate, and peppered kisses all over his furry head for the better part of a minute.
“That’s right, Terry,” she murmured. “You’re back with Mommy now. No more meanie Kevin. You’re all right.”
The dog’s tail was wagging so hard I was surprised it didn’t fall off his body. Clearly he was happy to be back with her too.
Finally, the woman sat down at the desk in her living room and looked up at us. “There’s no chance my ex will realize Terry is gone?”
We shook our heads. “We found a suitable replacement,” Garrison said with a smirk. “From the sounds of things, he won’t notice the difference.”
She let out her breath. “Perfect. He was being such a scumbag about it.” Then her face settled into a more professional mask. “I guess it’s time for my side of the bargain. Whose DNA am I sequencing?”
I stepped forward and then stopped, not sure what she needed from me. “Mine.”
She nodded and set the dog down at her feet with a fond pat. He stuck close to her legs as she retrieved some equipment from a case under the desk.
“I’ll just need a small sample of your blood for the most accurate sequencing. I’ll have to wait until I have the lab to myself for a long enough time, but I should be able to manage it in the next couple of days. After that, you want me to send it to the man who set up the exchange, if I understand correctly?”
“That’s right,” Julius said. “We appreciate your assistance.”
“I appreciate having my dog back.”
She motioned for me to hold out my arm. I tensed a little as she swabbed disinfectant over the vein she meant to use, my body automatically rejecting the idea of being handled by a stranger. I’d been pushed around so much during my time in the household that any touch I hadn’t sought out felt like an imposition.
But I needed this. This was my ticket to finding my family. At least, it’d better be after the lengths the crew was going to on my behalf.
The woman knew what she was doing. The needle gave only the smallest pinch as she inserted it. The tube attached to it quickly filled with the dark red blood she was drawing. The whole process was over in an instant.
“There you go,” she said, smoothing a bandaid over the spot. “I hope you find what you’re looking for with this.”
“So do I,” I replied, and I’d never meant anything more.
