DOGGIE DAY CARE MURDER

Alice and I took seats in the waiting area. All the while, I kept watching the door in the back wall. I was expecting Steve to come bustling through it like he’d done the day before.

So when a woman on the other side screamed, a sound so shrill and panic-stricken that it made the hairs on the back of my neck rise, I was on my feet and pushing through the door before the sound had even died.

Candy was standing in the hallway. Her face was white; her mouth, half open. Her hands were raised and clasped tightly together in front of her chest as if in prayer.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

She looked at me with stricken eyes but didn’t answer.

“What?” I said again.

I was striding toward her as I spoke, and then, all at once, I saw what she’d seen.

Steve’s office door had been pushed partway open. Just inside, a body was lying on the floor. Steve’s face was turned upward and his eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. A dark pool of blood surrounded his head like a viscous halo.

Steve wouldn’t be making our meeting this morning. Or any other meetings for that matter.