Here to Stay by Margot Early Page A

Five, a polydactyl. He was going to look into adopting Whiteout, though. As he’d dressed for this party, he’d been able to smile because of the memory of the malamute’s hot-dog-eating escapade. Whiteout would make him laugh, and he needed laughter.
    Of course, he had to admit, even more often than his thoughts had turned to the malamute, they’d lingered in bemused admiration on Sissy Atherton, giving a murderer what-for. You’re a terrible person. It still made him smile. She’d nailed that one, all right.
    Yes, she was the same Sissy he’d known.
    He didn’t want to think about it, about any of it. I let her go.
    He’d let her go because he’d been sure that he didn’t have what was required to hold her. For the first time he wondered if any man really did. She’d always been a bit willing to do the slightly dangerous, slightly unconventional thing.
    He said, “So you’re worried that your dislike of terriers is greater than your love for your fiancé?”
    She sighed, apparently unwilling to admit that much. “My parents want me married, I’m a problem to them, you know. I studied theater at Sarah Lawrence, and they think I came home with funny ideas. Clark is their idea of the perfect son-in-law. I mean, we met at a show. What more could you ask for?”
    “To meet in the German shepherd breeding ring?” Elijah suggested.
    “Ha ha,” she said mirthlessly, then shifted topics again. “So, are you married, Elijah?”
    She must know he wasn’t. No ring, for one thing. He shook his head.
    “Girlfriend?”
    Another shake of the head. His nerves were thrumming faintly like guitar strings. “I’m thinking of getting a dog.”
    “Lucky’s gone?”
    He was touched she remembered the name of his pet.But it was because of Sissy that Lucky had survived. He told Sissy about Five, whom he believed to be an unusually intelligent feline. Then he confessed he was thinking of adopting the dog they’d used that day.
    “What is it?”
    “It’s a malamute.”
    “Not that dog that got away and ran into the Yorkie ring? The one with airplane ears?”
    “Yes,” Elijah admitted. “What’s wrong with him?”
    Sissy made a slight face. “Well, I think malamute is a loose description. He looked like a mutt to me. I mean, I guess he’s all right. You’re not really into purebred dogs.”
    Elijah had to admit that he wasn’t. “Not like Clark,” he couldn’t help murmuring.
    She stared at him, and he thought she was going to make a snotty rebuttal. Instead, she again shifted the conversation away from her fiancé. “I’ve been writing plays. They’ve put on two of them in Echo Springs.”
    “Really?” Elijah tried to remember if he’d heard anything about this. His mother and the rest of his family still lived in Echo Springs, all but his brother Frank, who was in the army.
    Sissy said, “That was a very bad man they caught today, wasn’t it?”
    “And a bad woman,” Elijah agreed, because the dog thief’s partner, the groomer, had also been apprehended.
    “What did he do?” She sounded curious, but seemed to know what she might hear would be awful.
    Elijah shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “Maybe you can’t,” she said. “I mean, if it’s confidential.”
    “It wasn’t a nice case, Sissy.”
    “I didn’t want to come here tonight,” she admitted. “I just wanted to be with Teddy—he’s at Clark’s house with our other dogs. But Teddy doesn’t know he almost got stolen.”
    “How did he get that name?”
    “The whole litter was named for kinds of bears. Polar, Kodiak, Black, Panda, you know. Teddy was Theodore, and we thought we were going to sell him as a pet, but he’s the best dog I’ve ever had.” A moment later, she said, “It seems like your life’s kind of lonely, Elijah.”
    He didn’t know how to answer; she was right. He dated, but undercover work of any kind was stressful. He had become reclusive, and he never wanted to talk about the