Mike started to move away, but then turned back and sweetly kissed her cheek. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
“Yeah, sure,” she said and tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it.
Mike jumped down from the low branch, and got Sara to fall into his arms. He tried to make a joke about her nearly knocking him down, but when he looked at her expression, he stopped.
He quickly led her around the hedge and back past the house to get to his car. He unlocked it and held the door open for her. When he saw that her hands were shaking, he fastened her seat belt for her, then got in the driver’s side.
They were halfway back to Sara’s apartment before either of them spoke. Mike wanted to give Sara as much time as she needed to digest what she’d heard. For him, he wanted to call Lang and thank him. From here on, Mike would start the process that would end in his telling Sara the truth, that the man she planned to marry only wanted her because … He hadn’t yet figured that out.
He glanced at her, sitting silently in the seat next to him. Her pretty dress was covered with leaves and twigs, and there was a tear at the shoulder.
“Sorry about your dress,” he said.
“Do you think Greg was trying to get Merlin’s Farm for me?”
“You can answer that better than I can.”
“Greg might have done what he could to get Mr. Lang to leave, but he wouldn’t kill the dogs. I think that must have been a coincidence of timing and Mr. Lang put them together without any evidence.”
It was too soon for Mike to tell her what he knew. When he was younger, he’d learned the hard way not to tell too much too soon. On his first undercover case, right away, he’d gleefully told a woman her husband was an arms dealer and that he had two mistresses. In his naïveté, he’d thought the woman would be grateful for the information. But she’d had the opposite reaction. She’d called Mike a liar and had stood by her husband to the very end. When she was being led off to prison, she spit on Mike. Yes, he’d learned to be cautious. “Are you sure you know him well enough to be able to say that?”
“Greg may not be the most honorable person on earth, but he is a good man.” Sara was silent for a moment. “I know Greg does some things I don’t like, but—”
“Like what?”
She told him about Greg switching the dress sizes. “But that was just to make the women feel good. It’s a far cry from poisoning dogs.”
“I didn’t say they were poisoned, and I don’t know that they were. What made you say that?”
She hesitated for a full minute. “The owner of Edilean Drugs told me to remind Greg to be careful with the rat poison he bought.”
Mike gritted his teeth, as this was something she hadn’t told him. “I take it you don’t have a rat problem?”
“When I asked him about it he said there was a nest of them in the back wall of the store. It made sense that he’d buy poison.” She took a breath. “Even though I still don’t think Greg would do something like that, I wish I could replace Mr. Lang’s dogs.”
Mike grinned at her. “Now there’s where you’re lucky.”
“Why?”
“On this case, I’m working for the federal government, and you know why we put up with their delusions of their own grandeur?”
“No.”
“Money. They have lots and lots of greenbacks. Tell me what kind of dogs Lang had and we’ll replace them.”
“I was only a child when I saw them so I don’t know what breed they were. But I thought they were beautiful. My mother once said that they were Irish.”
“Would you recognize them if you saw a picture of them?”
“Maybe.”
He handed her his phone. “Text Tess to send you photos of Irish dogs.”
“You always remember your sister but you forget that she’s married to my cousin. How about if I text Rams to tell me what kind of dogs Mr. Lang had?”
“Even better.” He smiled at her.
“What’s that look for?”