Have Mercy. Jo Leigh

Drina and the damned diamond dog collar.

      Drina, he surmised, was going to steal the thing. Fine. What he couldn’t figure out, however, was what she was planning to do with it, after she had it. The collar was undoubtedly insured, and since it was such an unusual piece, the police would notice if it suddenly came on the market. He doubted any reputable fence would take the thing, at least not for a few years.

      Besides, it wasn’t a smart move. That made him more uncomfortable than anything else. Drina was not a stupid woman, and she didn’t make big mistakes. Was she losing it? Or was there something about this collar that he hadn’t discovered yet?

      His money was on the latter.

      “Mr. Desmond?”

      So Karl had gotten his name. Smart kid.

      “Mercy doesn’t have a boyfriend, no. She spends all her time at PetQuarters.”

      Will bit back a smile as Karl leaned in and told his tale as if he was spilling the beans to Jason Bourne. All very hush-hush.

      “She’s very tight with Gilly, who works with her, but that’s about it. Word is she’s doing everything she can to get her big bonus so that she can move to a place of her own.”

      “Big bonus?”

      He nodded. “She’s trying to get enough day business so Piper will turn the building next door into a huge pet facility. If Mercy does it, brings in enough revenue, she gets a bonus. I’m not sure how much, but I can probably find out.”

      “No, that’s fine, Karl, thank you.”

      “Sure thing.” The young man smiled and turned to help his other customers.

      Just before he was out of earshot, Will said, “Karl, one more thing.”

      “Sir?”

      “You know anything about that crazy dog collar? It’s a fake, right? It has to be a fake.”

      Karl shook his head. “Oh, no, sir. It’s no fake. Everyone knows about the diamond collar. It was even in the paper. It’s worth, I don’t know, almost a million dollars. At least, that’s what I heard. Can you imagine? Putting that kind of money on a dog?”

      “Well, I’ll be damned. I never would have guessed.”

      “You’d be surprised the kind of crazy stuff that goes on in a hotel like this. I could tell you stories—”

      “I’ll bet you could. Tell you what, though. Let’s refill this glass, first.”

      Karl nodded and headed for the bottle.

      Will got comfortable. He probably wouldn’t learn anything useful from Karl’s tales of hotel life, but it was worth listening nonetheless. It wouldn’t hurt to get an insider’s view, and besides, he’d learned young not to let any opportunity slip by.

      Just the fact that all the employees knew about the collar was something that might come in real handy.

      His smile fell as he thought about Mercy. He’d been right about her. She wasn’t being coy with those blushes. She’d had enough trouble in her life to want to keep it to herself. That should have made him happy. So much easier to get what he wanted from a woman with big issues. But all he felt was tired.

      He wanted to go home. He wanted…

      Shit, he didn’t even know what he wanted.