Page 129 of A Dead End Wedding

Max caved first. "Absolutely! Little Puggsley will be a sweetie. And I bet she'll even be helpful onpro bonodays. She can play with the kids while you talk to their parents."

Mr. Ellison shrugged. "Sure. I take her for a walk, I'm gonna score big time. Dogs are babe magnets."

Max and I both shuddered. "Only if you promise no details," I said. "Now what's her name?"

"She's only about four months old, and doesn't really answer to any one thing. She's been called about a dozen different baby talk names," he said.

"Well, she needs a name. What about Puggsley?" said Max.

"Euwww. Pugsley for a pug? No, that's too ordinary. What about Brennan, after Supreme Court Justice Brennan?" I asked. "She even looks like him."

Max and Mr. Ellison both booed. "None of your fancy-pants name, December," he said. "If I'm gonna have part custody, she needs a manly name."

I looked down at the tiny ball of fur in my lap. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

"I've got the perfect name," he said. "Razor Fang!"

Razor Fang picked that exact moment to stand up, yawn, and pee in my lap.

After Max and Mr. Ellison took our still-unnamed puppy off for the pet store to buy supplies, and I finished rinsing my skirt out, I sat down just as my phone rang. "December Vaughn."

"It's Sarah Greenberg. I wanted to . . . apologize for the way our first conversation went and make a kind of peace offering," she said, sounding like she was swallowing broken glass.

I'm guessing apologies don't come all that easily to her.

"That's very nice of you. I wasn't all that happy about the way we started off, either. I was hoping we could cooperate on these cases," I said, willing to meet her halfway.

"Great! I have a little boat out at the Orange Grove marina. Why don't you meet me out there at seven and we'll have drinks and get to know each other a bit?" I could hear the relief in her voice, which made me wonder why it was so important to her I'd agreed.

"I'm not that sure of my evening plans. How about lunch, instead?" I didn't have any plans for the evening, but I didn't want Sarah Greenberg to see the Pink Mobile, either.

"No, lunch won't work. I have a memorial service for one of our associates today. Tragic, really. He committed suicide. I guess the law was too much for him. So, drinks at seven? See you then."

"Okay, we?—"

Click.

She didn't exactly sound all broken up about her colleague's death. I did a mental shrug and wrote a note on my calendar. I was curious enough about Sarah and what exactly was going on with her, Addison Langley, and the insulin cases to get out there at seven. What I needed was a way to read her devious little mind, and . . .

Emily. I needed a psychic, and one lived next door to me.

Before I could pick up the phone to call her, it rang again. When I answered, I felt a prickle on my neck. I'd inherited the prickle from Aunt Celia, who claimed it meant trouble was on the way. The prickle was usually right.

"This is Matt Falcon."

Hmmm.

"Hello, Matt. How are you? What can I do for you today?" I used my calm and collected voice, hoping that through some bizarre fluke of physics or universal time warp, he hadn't heard about my idiotic performance in court yesterday.

"I'm fine. Mostly, I was wondering if I could help you. I heard about yesterday."

So much for calm and collected. "So did the rest of the Orange Grove bar, I'm assuming. Look, I don't know where that stuff on the Founding Fathers came from. I took some cold medicine, and I think it affected my brain. That's it. It was the cold medicine! I?—"

"December? I'm talking about the murder at MOSH. Are you all right?"

"Oh. That. Isn't that outside of your jurisdiction?"

"Yes, more's the pity. We never get any good murders in Orange Grove," he said, voice filled with regret.

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