Paco sneezes. It sounds like the human equivalent of someone tsking in disgust.
He unleashes the power of those big brown eyes on me. I’m so weak…
“Okay, okay. Just a little piece. But don’t tell Dr. Brooks.”
He barks and wags his tail. I break the edge off of a banana walnut muffin. He wolfs it down. Then he looks at the box again.
“Oh no. The rest of these are for the book club.”
Paco runs to the kitchen door.
“You want to go to book club with me?”
He scratches the door in response.
Why not?
Betty Jean is one of my regular customers, and she seems to really like Paco (one of her few redeeming qualities). “Okay, you can go, but you have to be good. No begging and no interrupting anyone when they’re talking. Unless you have something interesting to say about the book.”
He barks like he agrees.
I place the muffins in the back of my car, and Paco jumps in the front seat passenger side. It’s November, but the weather is Florida cool, not cold tonight, so I roll down the window on his side. Paco is my first dog, but I think sticking your head out the car window is one of those universal dog things.
I’ve never been to Betty Jean’s house, but I know where she lives. Her home is in an older residential neighborhood, just a few blocks from the city park. I come up to a four-way stop sign near the soccer fields when Paco starts barking violently. He lifts himself up by his front paws bringing half his body out the window.
“Paco! What are you doing?”
He turns to look at me and…oh no. There’s a familiar wild glint in his eyes. Before I can stop him, he jumps out the window.
Rats!
I swing my VW beetle to the side of the road, turn off the engine and run after my crazy dog.
“Paco! Come back here this instant!”
It’s dark, but the soccer field lights are on so I can see where he’s running. He turns his head to check and see if I’m following him, which of course, I am. Then he halts near the edge of a large palm tree.
I stop to catch my breath. “Bad dog! You could have gotten hurt jumping from the car! What were you—”
I stop mid-sentence.
Paco sits there calmly staring down at something.
My skin turns icy cold like I’m in some sort of déjà vu dream. Because that something is a man. And he’s not moving.
I kneel down beside him and nudge his shoulder. “Sir, are you all right?”
No response.
I gingerly place my fingers on the side of his neck to check for a pulse, but there isn’t one. I roll him over to see if he’s breathing and to start CPR.
Holy wow. It’s the guy in the blue hoodie.
But no amount of CPR is going to help, because he’s got a bullet hole right between his eyes.
Luckily, it takes the cops about three minutes to get here.
Unluckily, it’s Travis who responds. I wish it had been Rusty. He’s so much easier to manipulate… I mean, work with.