Spring Break. Charlotte Douglas

Remembering Darcy’s parting instructions, I added, “Of course, there’s the small matter of a retainer.”

      Jolene retrieved her purse from the chair and snapped it open. She extracted a checkbook, wrote a check with a flourish and handed it to me. “This should take care of it. And here’s my cell number.”

      She rattled off the digits, which I scribbled hastily on the pad on my desk.

      I rose and walked her to the door. “I’ll call as soon as I have something for you.”

      After Jolene left, Darcy came in. “Did you get her autograph?”

      “The best kind.”

      Darcy’s eyes almost bugged out when I showed her the check for $10,000.

      Later that morning, after fighting my way through tourist traffic to Pelican Beach, I checked with security at the condo where Jolene owned her penthouse and confirmed that Gracie had indeed departed by cab late Sunday night with Roger in tow. A viewing of the surveillance tape had given me a look at Gracie, who was short, plump and dowdy with cropped straight gray hair and wire-framed glasses. Roger was short, plump, smush-faced and light brown with a black face and ears.

      I left the beach and headed to the address in Largo where Gracie’s relatives lived. What should have been a straight shot down Fort Harrison Avenue and Clearwater-Largo Road became a rat’s maze of work zones and detours. If you’re anywhere in Florida during tourist season, you can bet the shortest distance between two points is under construction.

      Just south of Bay Drive, Largo’s main drag, I found the road where Frank and Ellen Lattimore, Gracie’s aunt and uncle, lived. The street’s frame bungalows, built in the thirties and forties and shaded by massive live oaks draped in flowing Spanish moss, were small but well maintained, and the lawns were neat and tidy. I pulled onto the crushed-shell driveway of the address Jolene had given me. There was no vehicle in the carport, and with its shades drawn, the house appeared deserted.

      On the off chance that Gracie was inside, hiding out, I climbed out of my twelve-year-old Volvo, went up the front walk and knocked on the door to the screened porch. When no one answered, I knocked again, louder, thinking surely Roger, if he was there, would have made some noise.

      “They’re not home.”

      At the sound of the loud voice in my ear, I almost jumped out of my skin. I whirled around to find an elderly man standing directly behind me. Dressed in baggy shorts, a sweaty T-shirt and grass-stained sneakers and holding long-handled loppers, he had a short, wiry build and was as brown and wrinkled as a raisin. A battered straw hat covered his head.

      “If you’re selling something,” he said, “or one of those come-to-Jesus people, you’re wasting your time.”

      “You their neighbor?”

      “Yup, and you are?”

      “Maggie Skerritt. I work for Gracie Lattimore’s employer.”

      His leathery face twisted into a grimace. “The actress.”

      I nodded. “Have you seen Gracie? I have a message for her.”

      “You’re out of luck. She arrived late last night, but the whole bunch took off early this morning. Even the dog.”

      “The dog?” At least Gracie hadn’t ditched the pooch after she left Jolene’s.

      “Ugly little mutt. Gracie had it on a lead, and they packed a dog carrier along with the rest of the luggage.”

      “They were taking a trip?”

      “Yup. I promised Frank I’d look after his place while they’re gone.”

      “Did Frank say where they were going?”

      The old man shrugged. “Said they were traveling across country to see the sights.”

      I was good at tracking, but not that good. It’s a hell of a big country. “Did he leave a contact number, some way he can be reached?”

      “I can give you his cell phone.”

      “That would help. Thanks.”

      He turned and walked toward the house next door. I trailed along.

      “I hope Gracie knows what she’s doing,” he said over his shoulder, “dragging her pet along.”

      “Why is that?”

      “Frank hates dogs. Gracie’ll be lucky if he doesn’t make her leave that mutt on the roadside in the middle of nowhere.”

      Great, I thought. It looked as if I was going to need the FBI and the SPCA if I intended to find Roger.

      After obtaining Frank’s phone number, I drove to the nearest shopping center and found a pay phone inside Publix, the grocery store. Bill had been harping at me for years to buy a cell phone, but I hated the idea of everyone being able to reach out and touch me 24/7. For the first time in more than twenty-two years, I was enjoying life without the annoyance of a police radio or a beeper. And, so far, I’d always been able to locate a phone when I needed one.

      Locating Frank Lattimore was another matter. Either his cell phone was out of range or he wasn’t answering. I hoped I could contact him before he dumped the dog. Although I’d never owned a pet—my meticulous mother wouldn’t have one in the house when I was a kid, and, as an adult, I was never home—I loved animals. With his roly-poly body, a gait like a drunken sailor, and a face like an aging prizefighter, Roger was cute in a grotesque way. I didn’t want him to end up lost or hurt. But then I’ve always been a sucker for kids and animals.

      By now, it was late afternoon, so I called Darcy. When she reported no messages or other business, I cut her loose from the office and drove toward home, where I intended to spend my evening trying to reach Frank Lattimore.

      My stomach was growling with hunger. I’d skipped lunch, knowing every food vendor and restaurant would be thronged with spring break crowds, creating at least an hour’s wait to be served. If Bill hadn’t planned to stay overnight in Sarasota, I could have mooched supper off him. He loved to cook and could produce a fantastic meal out of practically thin air in the galley of his cabin cruiser. The Ten-Ninety-Eight, named after police radio code for “assignment completed,” was where he lived at the Pelican Bay Marina. I, on the other hand, considered my refrigerator stocked if it held a couple of Diet Cokes.

      The sun hung low over the waters of St. Joseph’s Sound when I pulled into the parking space at my waterfront condo. I tossed my blazer, purse and keys onto the foyer table, removed my gun and holster, kicked off my shoes and crossed the living room to open the sliders that overlooked the water. Fresh, salty air, a perfect complement to the natural wicker and rattan furniture and the blue-green sea colors I’d chosen for paint and fabrics, filled the room. Bill called my decorating style Florida tourist hotel, but I liked the soothing atmosphere. Until my job as a police detective had ended two months ago, I’d spent too little time at home in the twelve years I’d owned the place. Now, working as my own boss, I hoped that would change.

      I tried again to reach Frank Lattimore’s cell phone with no luck and was headed to my kitchen, hoping supper would miraculously materialize in the refrigerator, when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door to find Bill standing on the front porch.

      I don’t know which I was happier to see, him with his thick white hair, smiling blue eyes, and deeply tanned physique that would put any college boy to shame, or the two bags of Olive Garden takeout he was holding.

      “I thought you were spending the night in Sarasota,” I said.

      “I missed you. Besides,” he said as he hefted the bags, stepped inside and headed for the kitchen, “I knew you’d be hungry.”

      “You know me too well.”

      “Not half as well as I intend to.”

      “What if you discover I only love you because you feed me?”

      “Then