I'll Be Home for Christmas by Fern Michaels Page B

last time she changed the sheets? She couldn’t remember. She had the bed stripped and changed inside of eight minutes. “Just in case.”
    Downstairs, the dogs milled around inside the house, running back and forth to the waiting room and her tiny office area. Susy, a long-haired, fat, black cat, hissed and snarled by the door, her claws gouging at the wood. “Okay, okay, I get the message, something’s wrong. Let’s do one spin around the parking lot. When I blow this whistle, everyone lines up and comes indoors. Allow me to demonstrate.” She blew three short blasts. “Everybody line up! That’s the drill. If you don’t follow my instructions, you’re out for the night. Let’s go!” She stood to the side as the dogs and cats stampeded past her. She’d done this before, and it always worked because Beggin Strips were the reward when everyone was indoors. She waited ten minutes, time for everyone to lift their leg or squat, depending on gender. The floodlights blazed down in the parking lot, creating shimmering crystals on the piled-high snow. Now it was speckled with yellow spots in every direction.
    Andi blew three sharp blasts on the whistle as she stepped aside. One by one, the animals fell into a neat line and marched to the door. “C’mon Annabelle, you can do it!” Andi called encouragingly. “You can’t sit down in the middle of the parking lot. All right, all right, I’ll carry you. Move it, Bizzy,” she said to a cat with two tails. The cat strolled past her disdainfully. Andi gave one last blast on the whistle for any stragglers. Satisfied that all the animals were indoors, she walked over to Annabelle to pick her up. She noticed the folder then and picked it up. She stuck it under her arm as she bent to pick up the beagle. “I swear, Annabelle, you weigh a ton.”
    Inside, she did one last head count before she doled out the treats, the folder still under her arm. “My time now!”
    Andi did her best not to look at the clock as she set the table and layered tinfoil on the ancient broiler. Candles? No, that would be too much. Wineglasses? She looked with disgust at the dust on the crystal. How was it possible that she’d been here almost a year and a half and hadn’t used the glasses, much less washed them? That was going to change now. The wineglasses were special, and there were only two of them. She remembered the day her father had presented the Tiffany glasses to her mother and said, “When we have something special to celebrate we’ll use these glasses.” To her knowledge, nothing special had ever occurred. Well, tonight was special. She liked the way they sparkled under the domed kitchen light. Peter probably used glasses like this to gargle with every day.
    He was late. Again. Her insides started to jump around. What should she do now to kill time? What if he didn’t show up? “Oh, shit,” she muttered. No point in letting him think she was sitting here biting her nails waiting for him. Only desperate women did things like that. In the blink of an eye she had the dishes back in the cabinet and the wineglasses in their felt sacks with the gold drawstrings. She refolded the tablecloth and stuck it in the drawer. She eyed the manila folder as she slid the drawer closed. It must have fallen out of Peter’s car because it wasn’t hers and no one else had been at the kennel today.
    Eight o’clock.
    Andi moved the folder. She moved it a second time, then a third time. She watched it teeter on the edge of the kitchen counter. She brushed by it and it slid to the floor. Now she’d have to pick up the papers and put them back in the folder. When she saw her name in heavy black letters on the first page, she sucked in her breath. Her heart started to pound in her chest as she gathered up the seven-page report. Twenty minutes later, after reading the report three times, Andi