Page 132 of A Dead End Wedding

Oh, goody.

30

After I picked up my new puppy and all of her gear, we headed for home. She didn't agree with the safety concept of traveling in her new zippered travel bag, so she worked the zipper open, climbed out, and crawled in my lap. I tried putting her back, but she wasn't having it. If matching stubborn personalities make for good owner-pet relations, we were in great shape already.

As I drove up to my house, Emily and the kids were in the front yard, splashing in the sprinkler. When I held up the puppy, everybody started shrieking and running toward me. I had no place to hide.

"Awww, she's adorable! Can I hold her? What's her name?" Joker was jumping up and down with excitement, arms stretched up for the dog. "We want a puppy, but Mommy says no until we're big enough to be responsible for the poopy and stuff."

Ricky didn't jump on me, being a very mature six-year-old, but I could tell it was killing him. "Miss December, that is a Chinese pug. They come from China, which is a country where they speak Chinese," he said, looking exactly like a miniature professor.

I grinned at Emily, who was jumping up and down as much as her daughter, both of them dripping wet and in matching pink swimsuits. On anybody else, it would have been too cutesy. On Emily, it worked, somehow.

"Oh, let me hold her, let me hold her!" she begged.

I handed the puppy, whose entire body was wiggling in a frenzy of excitement, to Emily, who promptly sat down in the grass with her and let the kids pet her. "What's her name, Miss December?" Ricky asked.

I sighed. "Maybe you can help me with that. So far, the nominations are Pugsley and Razor Fang, and I don't like either."

Emily laughed as the puppy climbed up her shirt, frantically licking any human body part that came within range. "She isn't really a Razor Fang type, if you ask me."

Glancing at my watch, I realized I had less than an hour until my meeting with Sarah at the marina. "Emily, I have a huge favor to ask . . .

Forty-five minutes later, a dry and dressed-up Emily and I were on our way to the marina, leaving my new puppy in the loving and slightly sticky hands of Ricky and Elisabeth. Rick senior had said he'd take them all to the pet store for more supplies, if I didn't mind, and I'd thanked him about a dozen times.

Emily leaned back against the seat and sighed as we drove off. "You have the life. Nobody climbing all over you, peace and quiet all the time, no need to play in the sprinkler ever, ever again."

"I was actually thinking that very thing about you," I said. "Wonderful husband, great kids, and, of course, the poker champion thing. No pressure to pay employees a salary, no humiliating yourself in court, and definitely no finding dead bodies."

"What?" She jerked her head around to stare at me. "Dead bodies? What?"

I filled her in on the previous day's events as she stared at me, eyes wide and mouth gaping open. "Wow. Are you okay? No, that's stupid. Of course you're not okay. I'm so sorry."

"No, I'm not really okay. I keep seeing that poor man, and the way his neck . . . well. Let's just say that I hope the visual goes away really soon."

She shook her head. "I'm thinking playing in the sprinkler isn't so bad after all."

"Plus, you love it. Anybody can be around you for five minutes and know you love being a mom."

She grinned. "It's true. The little heathens drive me nuts, but I love them desperately. Sometimes I long for a free evening, though."

"That's easy enough. I'd love to babysit once in a while. Sitting alone in that house drives me nuts. Just tell me what to do. They eat real food, right? Nobody is in diapers?"

"Um, yeah. Real food, and nobody in diapers. That's a lovely offer, and after you've been around them a few more times, we might just take you up on that. Rick and I haven't been out to eat at a restaurant that doesn't offer crayons with the menus in longer than I like to remember."

"No problem," I said. "I'm a trial lawyer. How hard can babysitting a couple of kids be?"

She burst into laughter. "Oh, honey. You are so going to eat those words."

As we pulled into the marina parking lot, still chuckling, I wondered how I'd ever figure out which boat (ship?) was Sarah's. They all looked the same to me, but of course, I knew nothing at all about boats or ships or sailing. Kind of ironic, considering my dad was in the Navy for twenty-two years, but there you have it.

They were beautiful and screamed money, money, lots of money. I hadn't even realized normal, non-celebrity types could own boats that big. I scanned them as we drove by and realized I didn't have to worry about finding Sarah's. It was a pretty safe bet that the enormous one in the third slip was hers. The name TORTFEASANCE was my first clue.

That a woman with the same face as Sarah's picture on the Greenberg Smithies website stood on the dock in front of it, checking her watch, was my second.

"Okay, like we talked about," I said to Emily as I pulled the car into a parking space. "Anything at all you pick up will be helpful. Anything. But she's a trial lawyer, too, and one of the best, from what I hear. So if you get nothing, don't worry about it."

Emily shrugged. "I'm not sure if I'll be any help at all. My expertise is in a card game, not in a courtroom." She looked at the marina. "Or on a yacht. Is that a Hatteras?"

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