at the hotel. I saw you.” Cisco barked again and I said sharply, “Cisco, sit!” He complied automatically, but his attention was on the opposite side of the ring and he licked his lips anxiously. I ignored him and looked back at the man opposite me suspiciously. “How did you find me?”
He put away his ID. “I spoke with the detective on the case, who told me you found Marcie Wilbanks’s body. And the gentleman at the hotel, Mr. Young, told me you were here.”
I knew if I checked my messages I’d find one from Miles. Still, I was cautious. “What were you doing with Marcie yesterday?”
An expression of such raw grief and regret crossed his eyes that I knew that whatever he said next would be nothing but the truth. He frowned a little, as though in attempt to hide the emotion, and his lips tightened. “I’ve been trying to bust a loan sharking ring for over a year now, and Marcie—Ms. Wilbanks—offered to help us set a trap. Over time… we probably became closer than we should have. Yesterday… we were within hours of closing in on them, and the stress was getting to her. No one expected her ex to throw a monkey wrench into the plans with the dogs, and she was upset.”
My head was spinning. “Wait a minute. Marcie was working with you? She wasn’t in debt to loan sharks and she wasn’t trying to fix the Standard Cup?”
He said, “It was a setup. We were trying to get the guys to tip their hand by actually extorting money from her. We didn’t count on them going after Kellog, but when they did… we rounded up every one of them within hours.”
My mind was busy trying to rearrange the puzzle pieces that had once fit together so well into an entirely different picture. I wasn’t having much luck. “But I don’t understand. I saw Marcie at dinner last night. I could swear she didn’t know anything about Neil being attacked, and she was as nervous as a cat.”
He nodded. “She knew it was coming to a head this weekend. We both did. But we didn’t learn they’d moved in on Kellog until the police were called after the attack. The hit man still had the bloody tire tool in his car.”
“Tire tool?” I repeated. “Not a lead pipe?” Was it possible Cisco had uncovered nothing of more significance than an old piece of construction debris? I’d been wrong about everything else; it hardly seemed far-fetched that I’d been wrong about this too.
He said, “I called Marcie to let her know it was all over about nine last night, and…” He shifted his gaze away, but not before I saw the jagged scar of pain there. “That was the last time I spoke to her.”
I said slowly, “But… if you arrested everyone who was involved in the scam, who killed Marcie?”
He said, “That’s what I was hoping you could help me figure out.” He gestured toward the bleachers. “Could we sit down? I know you’ve already gone over this with the police, but if you could tell me again everything that happened from the time you got back to the hotel last night until you found her this morning, maybe…”
The ring steward called, “Standard Open! Judge’s briefing in five minutes!”
Everyone started moving, hurrying to crate their dogs, put away their course maps, double-knot their shoelaces, pull back their hair, and reassemble in the ring. I felt a pang of jealousy. I’m ashamed of it, but I really did. One more run…
And then I saw Miles, leaning with one shoulder against the pillar where Cisco’s crate was set up, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his navy windbreaker, Atlanta Braves cap shading his eyes, waiting. How much of his time had been spent waiting for me since we’d met? And how much longer could I reasonably expect him to continue to wait?
I said, “Um, sure. Just a minute, though, okay? I need to put my dog away.”
I said, “Cisco, with me.” And we started toward Miles.
We’d gone less than a dozen steps when the inevitable happened. Brinkley sailed over the practice jump, made a perfect loop to return to Sarah, and Cisco thought it would be a great idea to join him. Completely forgetting about the leash that connected me to him, he spun around and lunged toward the practice jump and his best friend, jerking me completely off course and very nearly off my feet.
That