Spooky Business (The Spectral Files #3) - S.E. Harmon Page 0,115

in the front door, fresh from the hospital, only to find Walter lying on the couch. As if Walter knew it was his time to shine, he’d rolled over to display his junk to its best advantage.

“Nice manners, that,” I complained. “What, were you raised by wolves?”

It was a purely rhetorical question. I was pretty sure wolves would’ve elected to push Walter off a cliff as a lazy sacrifice.

“What… in sam hill… is that dog doing here?”

“I kind of adopted him,” I informed Danny. “Or we did, rather. He had no place to go. Valerie’s neighbor dropped him off at the pound.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Do you know what they do to dogs at the pound?”

“I have an idea, yes,” he said dryly.

“I’m renaming him Watson,” I said. “He deserves a fresh new start.”

He eyed Walter/Watson skeptically. “I don’t know how long that fresh start is gonna be.”

“Shh,” I hissed. “He’ll hear you. Watson’s got a lot of life left in him. You’ll see.”

Danny shuffled over to the couch and plopped down next to the dog. Watson wriggled over a tad, so his head bumped against Danny’s thigh. Obligingly, Danny scratched his ears.

“Too bad you didn’t name him Sherlock.” A small smile curved Danny’s mouth when Walter’s tail started whipping the couch frantically. “If he pooped on the floor, I could say—”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I supplied with a roll of my eyes. “Yes, yes, you’re very clever. But Watson is so close to Walter, he probably won’t even know the difference.”

“Leave it to you to have the dog of a serial killer.”

I beamed. “It’s truly… us, don’t you think?”

He laughed. “That it is.”

So that was the new addition to the household. He was a tad gassy, begged for table scraps relentlessly, and wouldn’t stay off the furniture. But I liked to look at Watson as a work in progress, much like myself.

“Rain, are you listening to me?”

I sighed to realize Dakota was still going on. “Yep, still here.” There were few things more annoying than listening to him prattle on about all things supernatural.

Ding, ding!

Except for that fucking bell. I’d given it to Danny so he could call me when he needed me. He’d tossed it on the nightstand and said he’d be fine without it. That was three days ago. He and the bell were now best friends, trying to entice me to commit murder in my own home.

The bell trilled again merrily, and I put the phone on mute. “Fuck off, McKenna,” I said loudly.

He tsked from one bedroom over. “Now is that something a future husband would say?”

I smothered a laugh. Hell, I had to be in love if taking care of the grouchiest patient on planet earth made me smile. “This future husband? Yes. What could you possibly want now?”

“Your mother is baking cookies again. I have the window open a crack, and I can smell them.”

“So?”

“So one of her oatmeal raisin cookies would go a long way to making me feel better.”

I sighed. “You know they have pot in ’em.”

“Shhh,” he said. “Plausible deniability is the phrase of the day. And last time I checked, I’m off duty.”

Fuck it, I was going to need one too if I was going to keep caring for His Majesty. “I’ll go after I get off the phone,” I said.

The bell rang again, and I growled. “McKenna—”

“I was putting it back on the table,” came his huffy reply.

He was lucky he was cute. And mine. My gaze dropped to the band on my finger, as it did at least five or six times a day. There was a wary part of me deep down inside, whispering and insinuating how dangerous it was to need someone quite so much. I couldn’t help but listen to that voice sometimes, but for the most part, I was still amazed we’d managed to put our broken relationship back together. Not only that, but we went all kintsugi on the cracks, making our love stronger than ever.

I took Dakota off Mute, and Jesus effing Christ, he was still going on. “I’ve done some research on ley lines, and I think they might be beneficial to you.”

I sat back in my chair. “They certainly might be if I knew what the heck they were.”

“They’re energy lines that intersect the planet. Almost like a doorway to the earth’s energy.” His tone indicated it wasn’t the first time he’d told me that. “You could use the proximity to a ley line to create