Too late. Couldn’t blink away the afterimage.
“Where’s Glenn?” I asked.
“In town,” Taylor answered, just as Robby asked, “Where’s the principal?”
“I need to talk to Glenn,” I said.
Doghouse, sitting at a desk across the room, lifted the receiver of a landline and held it out to me.
I walked over, took it, dialed Glenn’s number, and mentally prepared myself to quit—right here, in front of both of my nemeses—and ignoring all the questions in my head. Would Glenn yell at me? Would Robby and Taylor gloat to see me fail? Was I forfeiting any chance at London?
My body felt as tight as a wire as I waited.
But Glenn’s phone went to voicemail.
“It’s good you’re here, anyway,” Robby said, as I hung up. “We’ve had some activity on the Stapleton property.”
I shook my head. “The shots? That was just his dad hitting bottles in the ravine.”
“No,” Robby said then. “At his place in the city.” Then Robby glanced toward the monitors. “Taylor, pull it up,” he said. All business. Like a liar.
But what she pulled up on the monitors made me take a step closer.
Then another.
“What the hell?” I said.
“Yeah.”
They were images from the cameras around Jack’s Houston house. All the first-floor windows had been spray-painted with pink hearts and the name “Jack” over and over.
I studied different footage from different angles. “Every downstairs window, huh?”
Robby nodded.
“Was it the Corgi Lady? Do we know?”
“We’re ninety-nine percent sure it was,” Robby said.
Taylor switched to footage from earlier of a woman in the act.
“That’s her? Did we get a face ID?”
Robby shook his head. “No, but she left gifts.”
“Gifts?”
“Yep. On the front porch,” Robby said. Then he added, “In gift bags.”
“What were they?”
Robby checked the texts on his phone. “According to Kelly, it was a handknitted sweater with a remarkably photorealistic image of Stapleton’s face on the front, an album of snapshots of her new litter of puppies, and a batch of nudes.”
“A batch of nudes?” I asked. “Nudes of who? Nudes of the principal?”
“Nudes of the corgi breeder.”
Jesus.
“She also left a handwritten note welcoming Jack home to Houston—and reminding him that her biological clock is ticking, and she’d really prefer him to impregnate her sometime this spring, if that works for his schedule.”
Robby handed me a tablet so I could scroll through the photos Kelly had sent.
“So,” I said, thinking out loud. “Does this mean we’re we at threat level orange?”
“I think, given the puppies and hearts, we’re still at yellow.”
“The nudes are a little menacing.”
“Point taken.”
Taylor piped up. “No threats, though. Not from her, anyway.”
“Other than…” I thought about what on earth the term for it would be. “Coerced impregnation?”
“That part’s worrisome,” Robby agreed.
“And the fact that she now knows he’s in Houston,” Taylor said.
“And knows his address,” I added.
We psychoanalyzed the Corgi Lady for a little while, trying to assess the danger she posed, and then we adjusted protocols at the Houston house. Kelly had already filed the police report and begun proceedings for a restraining order. We’d need to switch out the Range Rover for a different color and make, as well.
By the time I left HQ, it was getting dark.
I hadn’t even made it to the Stapletons’ gate when Robby shouted after me. “Hey!” he called. “Glenn’s on the phone.”
I’d forgotten about Glenn. But it was pretty late now. Connie would be up from her nap, and she’d need something in her stomach before her next round of meds.
“You know what?” I said. “I’ll call him later.”
And that’s how, without even realizing it, I decided to stay.
* * *
I WAS HALFWAY down the gravel road to the house, sweeping my eyes back and forth for any signs of cattle, when I saw Jack running—actually running—out to meet me.
He reached me without even breaking stride and enclosed me in his arms.
“Where were you?” he asked, squeezing tight. “I was worried.”