Fifty Shades of Greyhound (The Pampered Pets Mystery Series) by Sparkle Abbey

As we made the turn at the corner, I could still see Malone shaking his head and grinning.
    As for Zelda and I, we headed back to Laguna Beach to retrieve our regular clothes and, I hoped and prayed, our sanity.
    IT PROBABLY SOUNDS anticlimactic after the adventures of the day, but I needed a little less drama in my life. All I wanted was an escape, so I spent the rest of the evening reading in bed. Thelma and Louise, my trusty felines, and Dogbert, my wonderful mutt, cuddled against me.
    Finally, I gave up trying to concentrate and turned off the light, but sleep didn’t come easily.
    My mind kept looking for answers. Who was Victor Lustig, and why had he been killed? What was the FBI was doing watching Eugene’s friend’s house? And, when I wasn’t trying to sort those things out, I kept torturing myself with the picture of Detective Malone’s mirth as we’d driven away.

Chapter Eight
     
    THE OFFICE WAS quiet when I arrived the next morning.
    Verdi had left me a note. The day’s appointments were filled. She had contacted each of the people on the Greyhound aftermath list, and, surprisingly, most of them wanted to be seen. I wasn’t sure if they really had dog issues or if they wanted to know if I knew any details about the murder. The media had stopped reporting on the whole debacle, I supposed because there hadn’t been any sort of break in the murder case. They’d moved on to other news: gang fights, stock market reports, celebrity rehab details. Life went on.
    I picked up the files I needed for the morning. In addition to the Greyhound parents on the schedule, I had a house call nearby in the Village, with Brandi, a new client. And then a short visit in the lavish Ruby Point gated community with Davis Pinter and Huntley, his Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. It would be a full morning.
    The appointment with Brandi and her dogs took very little time. Brandi was a well-heeled Laguna resident who lived in the southern part of town where she was able to have a big yard. She answered the door and invited me in, moving easily in her wheelchair.
    Brandi had two dogs, both rescues: Katy, an eleven-year-old blue heeler whom she’d had since the dog was four months old, and Bailey, a two-year-old brindle-colored Border Collie.
    As you know, I’m a big sucker for a Border Collie. They’re really smart dogs and very teachable, often even learning words. The breed is ranked number one in several texts that rank the intelligence, of dogs and they’re typically extremely energetic and acrobatic.
    I’d had one growing up and would have ten today if I had the room. Bailey was a little spitfire and, as Brandi explained, was an all-star player in the ball-fielding department.
    Katy, the other dog, was a little more aloof and was not as quick to get to know me. She was all business and clearly wondered why I was there. If there were a canine version of Neil Simon’s Odd Couple, Katy would be Felix Unger. Though we commonly refer to them as blue-heelers or red-heelers, the breed is actually the Australian Cattle Dog. Though I worried about two in-charge herding types in one household, it was clear it worked well for Brandi and her family.
    I, much like Katy, wondered why I was there.
    Brandi, as it turned out, wanted to talk to me about Miss Katy and her reaction to storms. We don’t get a lot of rainstorms in southern California, but when they occurred, it seemed to create a lot of anxiety for Katy. It wasn’t the noise because SoCal storms aren’t the big loud gullywashers like we get at home. There’s nothing like the sudden fury and pounding rain of a Texas thunderstorm.
    I asked Brandi to describe the dog’s behavior. After hearing a few of her accounts of Katy’s pacing and running from room to room, and their unsuccessful attempts to calm her, I thought I had Katy’s problem pegged.
    It wasn’t so much the dog was feeling fear. She was simply protective of her herd, which was Brandi and the rest of her family. I