The Perfect Match

“Shots fired?”

“Not that we can tell. Help’s on the way. Wait for backup.”

“Like hell I will! My kids are in there.”

He swerved into the driveway and slammed on his brakes. He was out of the squad a heartbeat later, sprinting up the stairs to the front door.

He tried the door. Locked tight. Not the point of entry. But hadn’t Vinny said Charlie’s bedroom window was open? Cut the screen, then—bingo—an intruder was in. He keyed the lock, opened the door, making no sound, but the living room was empty. Whatever was going on, the action had moved deeper into the house, where he couldn’t see it.

He clenched his teeth against the sound of Mac’s panicked wails, along with the scream of the sirens in the distance. Sounds he’d heard on instant replay in his worst nightmares. He crushed the instinct to rush to his daughter, knowing surprise was his best weapon.

Cold sweat broke out on Cash’s body as he edged his way toward the hall, his pistol drawn, held at the ready.

The noise was coming from Charlie’s room. He crept toward it, back against the wall. Just outside his goal, he paused, readying himself to wheel into the doorway, draw a bead on whatever lowlife scum was in there.

His trigger finger itched, fury and fear warring in his belly as he counted in his head. One, two…three.

Ten years of instinct and combat training kicked in as he swung around, filling the door.

“Freeze! Police!” He shouted. His pistol barrel swept the room. Glimpses of Charlie, Mac, Vinny flashed past.

Vinny’s leg bent at a gut-churning angle where it should have been straight. Broken, Cash assessed with a combat vet’s skill. Charlie huddled in a ball, her back against the bed. God, no. Had she been hit? Sonofabitch, Cash would kill the rotten bastard.

“Cash!” Vinny’s voice, woozy as hell. “Put that damn pistol away. You’re scaring the kids.”

“The perp—” Cash snarled, everything feral in him wanting blood. “Where is he?”

Was Vinny actually smiling? A sick smile, a weak one. “Under the bed.”

Hell, Vinny was right. The surface of Charlie’s twin bed tilted wildly askew, even the headboard off the floor. It was moving…

Did the jerk have a gun pointed out at the room? Was that why the kid was shrunk up so tight in the corner?

Cash approached the suspect, every sense on alert. “You—scum bag—slide out from under there,” he ordered. He kicked the teetering bed savagely with his boot. “You mess with my kids, I’d as soon shoot you as look at you.”

“No!” Charlie shrilled, diving between Cash and the suspect.

Cash blanched, his daughter suddenly lined up in his pistol sights. He swung his pistol upward, so it was pointing at the ceiling. “Charlotte! Get out of the way!”

“Don’t shoot, Daddy! It’s my fault!” she screeched wildly.

His gaze locked on his daughter, Charlie’s face splotched red and white, soaked with tears, her whole body shaking under her Monkey Shines pajamas.

Mac wailed, scrabbling toward him across the floor, flinging her arms around his leg. “Pick me up, Daddy! Pick me up! Charlie sneaked—”

Sirens blared to a halt in front of the house. Backup, arriving at last.

“Damn it,” Cash ordered the perp again. “Get out from under that bed before I forget I’m a cop!”

The bed shuddered, the intruder still blocked from view by fallen comforters, scattered stuffed animals and Charlie’s quivering form. “Hands where I can see ’em.”

“He can’t put his hands up,” Mac said. “He doesn’t got any.”

The front door slammed open, the rush of footsteps thundering toward them.

“What?” Cash asked.

“The bad guy gots paws.”

“Paws?” Cash echoed, bewildered as his fellow officers stormed in.

“Lawless,” Evander’s voice broke in. “Where’s your perp?”

The mass of covers twisted, a face nosing its way out into the open through the loop of Charlie’s arms.

“Holy shit!” Evander swore as the perp dropped his weapon of choice. A chewed-up football plopped out of his mouth. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Destroyer,” Cash growled. He holstered his gun as the Newfoundland peered up at him with shame-filled eyes.

THERE WAS NO DENYING IT any longer. Clancy was gone.

Rowena sank into her desk chair and buried her face in her hands. She’d searched everywhere, scouring the streets from the moment she’d realized the Newfoundland had somehow escaped her fenced-in yard. She’d been so sure she’d find him—or that his stomach would win out over the adventure of wandering at will and he’d show up at her door, his pink tongue hanging out, his tail wagging and that sorrowful expression he got when he’d done something he knew was wrong. Head drooping, peering up from under his eyelashes as if begging forgiveness.

But two days had passed and hope was running thin.

“Maybe I should call Animal Control,” she thought, then canned the idea of asking them outright. Surely Mindy, the girl Rowena channeled her rescues through, would recognize Clancy even without scanning for his microchip. Mindy would call her, and then…

Then what? Wouldn’t the humane society have to enter in their logs somewhere that Clancy had, once again, darkened their doorstep? And what if they weren’t the people who picked Clancy up? What if a patrol car saw him “running at large” and nabbed him? Cash Lawless had warned Rowena at the Sheriff’s office that first day that if Clancy got one more strike against him, he’d be out.

Rowena swallowed a lump in her throat.

God, why had she taken Clancy with her to the Lawless house? Let the dog see Charlie again? Ever since that day, the Newfoundland hadn’t been himself. He’d carried his mangled football with him everywhere, barely putting it down to eat. An anxiety behavior if Rowena had ever seen one. She’d worked so hard to obliterate those from Clancy’s repertoire. But for some reason, Clancy’s encounter with Charlie had brought the dog’s insecurities flooding back.

Restless, whining, never settling down, Clancy behaved as if he knew as well as Rowena did how wrong things were with the solemn-eyed little girl and felt as if he should fix them.

Surely it wasn’t possible that the dog…what? Rowena brought herself up sharply. Logged on to Map Quest when she wasn’t looking and found Charlie Lawless’s address? Then had Shakespeare the cat boost him up over the fence so he could navigate the streets of Whitewater and knock on Charlie’s door?

Right, Rowena. Get real. There was no way Clancy could find the place, even if he wanted to.

And yet, it was as if the 175-pound dog had just vanished in a puff of smoke.

But she couldn’t spend another day trolling the streets, looking for him. She had a shop full of other animals that needed to be cared for. A business that had to be open if it was going to bring in any money. And, as Rowena often told the pets who clamored for her attention when she needed to be restocking shelves and such—dog biscuits weren’t free.

Rowena crossed to the nearby sink and splashed cold water onto her face. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and tried to paste on a smile to fool any customer that happened by.

Not that she had been able to fool her mother into thinking everything in Whitewater was going as smoothly as Auntie Maeve had predicted the last time Rowena and Nadine Brown had stopped by the hospital room before the Irishwoman had died.

Rowena winced, remembering her mother’s reaction, one that had only grown fiercer than ever since Rowena had moved to the town where her godmother had predicted her soul mate was waiting for her. Whitewater, Illinois… Maeve had said, pointing to a River Road tourist pamphlet someone had left in a magazine. Rowena, that is where you will find him…