will go in this game… I wondered where I could get a banner with Cisco’s name on it before tomorrow.
From where I stood I could see the parking area with its line of minivans and SUVS with the back hatches open, part of the dog walk area and play field, and the corner of the jumpers-with-weaves ring, which was empty now. In less than an hour, Cisco and I would be making our second and last run of the day in that very ring. I saw Brinkley and his handler, heading toward the field with a Frisbee, and waved. She waved back and called, “Congratulations!” and I returned, “Thanks!” I wasn’t sure whether I should ask her to make sure to keep Brinkley out of sight during our next run or offer to pay her to stand with him at the finish line.
That was a joke, of course. I would never cheat in agility.
But the thought, along with a glimpse of Neil Kellog’s girlfriend, Marcie, taking one of her border collies out of a crate in the back of a minivan, reminded me of something that had been nagging at me all afternoon. I turned back. “Say, Miles…”
But his phone buzzed just then and he held up a finger as he glanced at the screen. “Need to get this one, babe.”
I rolled my eyes—he knows I hate it when he calls me “babe”—and he answered, “Miles Young.” He edged past me through the gate, brushing a kiss across my eyebrow as he did so, and took the call outside.
I made sure the gate was closed firmly behind him, settled Cisco down with a chew bone, and dug into my bag for my own phone. I sank back into my chair and enjoyed the video of our win one more time, then pulled up the other video Miles had sent. I watched Flame zip around the course as though she’d memorized it herself. I watched her stutter at the finish line and turn back, clearly frustrated, to return to her handler. I watched it again. I slowed it down. I zoomed in. I froze the action. By this time Miles had returned and I called him over.
“Look at this,” I said.
“Honey, no offense, but I’ve seen it.”
“No, seriously, look.” He bent to look over my shoulder, and I made him watch the last few frames of the video in slow motion and then froze it at the point at which Flame was almost to the finish line and Neil, half turned from the camera, extended two fingers down toward the ground. “I saw him make that same hand signal this afternoon, and Flame came right to heel. Ginny said all his dogs are trained to hand signals, that’s how he can send them around the course without saying a word—as long as they can see him, of course. So when he fell, he started calling the commands—but he never told her to take the last two jumps. She was trying to do that on her own, until she made the turn at the last jump and he was suddenly in her line of sight again. Then, here…” I pointed. “He called her back with a hand signal no one could hear.” I frowned. “That must be what Marcie meant when she said, ‘I saw what you did.’ And why she was so mad—apparently they have some kind of contract about the dogs, and she was claiming he was in violation. But why in the world would he do that? Flame is partly his dog, too.”
“Easy,” Miles said, straightening. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“Didn’t you just say he co-owns that dog? That means he has to split any winnings on it fifty-fifty.”
I scowled, not because his theory didn’t make sense, but because it did.
“Their contract probably calls for due diligence,” Miles added, “so he couldn’t refuse to handle the dog and do his best to win—or at least make it look that way.”
“But if he doesn’t go to the Standard Cup, he doesn’t get the money, either,” I pointed out.
“You’d be surprised what a man will do to screw his ex out of alimony,” replied the man who’d been divorced three times.
Apparently I couldn’t keep the suspicion out of my eyes because he held up a quick hand in self-defense. “Present company excepted, of course.”
Then he said, “Listen, hon, as much as I’m enjoying it, I’m going to have to cut out on this shindig a little early. I’m meeting