need to slow down,” I blurted.
“What?”
“You. Me. I just think we might be moving too fast, that’s all.”
There was a beat, and the silence made me wince. When he spoke, his tone was guarded. “What brought this on?”
I licked my lips. I wished I’d never spoken. “It’s just… you don’t even know me. I don’t know you. We hardly know each other. I don’t think we should rush into anything, that’s all.”
“I hadn’t planned to.”
“Good.” I swallowed. “That’s good.”
He said, “Is there something about me that you just discovered you don’t know?”
I was taken aback. “Well, no. I was just thinking… Look, it’s not something we have to talk about now…”
“Because we’ve been not knowing each other for over six months now, and this is the first I’ve heard you complain.”
“I’m not complaining. It’s just—”
“Are you mad because I left this afternoon?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be silly.” That was sincere, and he could tell it.
“Then it must be something I said.”
I hesitated a split second too long. “Listen, Miles, let’s not do this now, okay? I’ve got to be up at six and I’m really tired.”
He said, “You know I’ll figure it out, don’t you?”
I was actually squirming. “Really, I’ve got to get some sleep. Good night, okay? And don’t call back, please, because I’ll be sleeping. You should sleep too. Good night.” I hung up quickly and sat there for another half-minute or so, staring at the phone, willing it not to ring. It didn’t.
Good.
I took Cisco out through the sliding doors to the courtyard for his last toilet break of the day, changed into my nightshirt, and was in bed by nine. I tossed and turned for ten or fifteen minutes, hearing every noise from the corridor outside, wishing the conversation had gone differently with Miles, but exhaustion and the gentle rhythm of Cisco’s soft snore eventually lulled me into a dreamless sleep.
What seemed like only moments later, I was jerked awake by the shrilling of the bedside telephone. I rubbed my eyes open, staring at the red numbers of the digital clock. 11:45. Cisco stood beside the bed, tail wagging, wondering if it was morning. “Miles, you wouldn’t dare,” I muttered as the phone rang again. I fumbled for the receiver and snatched it off the hook.
“What?” I said ungraciously.
“Miss Stockton?”
I frowned. The voice on the other end was male, but it wasn’t Miles. “That’s right.”
“This is the night manager. I’m afraid there’s been a problem with your credit card. We need you to come to the front desk and clear it up.”
I blinked, looking again at the clock. “Now?”
“Yes, ma’am. You do have a dog in your room, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. So does everyone else in this wing.” I reached out to stroke the canine in question. “Do you know what time it is?”
“If you could just confirm your room number for me we might be able to straighten this out over the phone.”
Alarm bells started to clang belatedly, and I sat up straighter. “Who is this?”
The connection was broken.
Most people who travel on the dog show circuit are women, and most of them are traveling alone—except, of course, for their built-in canine bodyguards. Fortified with a mostly false sense of confidence born from the fact that their traveling companions were only a few thousand years ago tearing mastodons limb from limb and could, theoretically, still do the same to a human, they engage in what might otherwise be considered risky behaviors: walking in deserted areas after dark, loading and unloading their cars in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, fumbling over door keys with their arms full, and worst of all, leaving their room doors propped open with the latch while they run down to the ice machine or take their dogs out to pee “just for a minute.” They are natural targets for savvy con artists or worse, and every year you hear one or two tragic stories. Fortunately, you also hear about all the latest scams, and this one, now that I was awake, was starting to feel a little obvious to me.
I dropped the receiver back into the cradle and fumbled in the dark until I found the switch for the bedside lamp. My throat felt a little dry as I pulled the phone closer and squinted at the numbers printed there. I dialed the front desk.
A pleasant woman’s voice answered, and I asked to speak with the night manager.
“This is the night manager,” she said.
My head started to