Gimme Shelter

Book 2: Layla Virtue Mystery

by Libby Klein

Genres: Private Investigators; Traditional Mysteries; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

This whip-smart, witty series packs an emotional punch within an engaging mystery as Layla Virtue, a 30-something recovering alcoholic and former cop turned party musician, finds a sideline in solving murders from her new home in a Potomac County trailer park…

An unforgettable mystery brimming with hilarity and heart for readers of Margot Douaihy, Jane Pek, and Darynda Jones.

As the song says, you can’t always get what you want. Maybe that’s why, instead of fulfilling her youthful dream of being a rock star, Layla Fortune is living in a trailer park while playing third-rate gigs, including a stint at a ʼ70s Abba brunch. Given everything else she’s been through lately, she’s not complaining (much) about satin ruffles and go-go boots. She has a squad of supportive new BFFs, and she’s reclaimed a relationship with her famous rocker dad. His recent diagnosis has brought them even closer—sharing the trailer park’s lake house, which he’s had remodeled in typically over-the-top style.

Layla’s dad loves his new community and the feeling seems mutual. So, why is one of them blackmailing him? It’s a mystery almost as baffling as the assignment Layla receives from her former Commissioner: look into the brutal murder of a mild-mannered school teacher. Archie Wilkins was bludgeoned with a candelabra, shot up with drugs, and stuffed into a church confessional. Not the kind of outcome expected for a guy reputed to be the world’s nicest.

Perhaps Archie had secrets. Perhaps everyone does, including Layla’s one-time cop colleagues. She’s been blaming herself for a deadly ambush that destroyed her career and her peace of mind, but as her new friends help Layla regain her memories, a different picture emerges, and it’s one that forces her to question so much that she’s taken as truth . . .

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

NOT EVEN AN ELECTRIC GUITAR CAN MAKE YOU LOOK COOL WHEN you’re playing square dance music dressed like a giant turkey. The Mighty Thumpers Thanksgiving luncheon gig was definitely not going on my résumé. I’d thought signing with a business manager would be just the thing to finally rocket my career as a musician to stardom. I was very wrong.

I glanced over at the grumpy pilgrim playing the fiddle and knew two things. I had clearly drawn the short straw in the costume department. And my manager, Paula, still hadn’t forgiven me for accusing her of murdering the birthday party clown a couple of months ago. She was obviously padding her fifteen percent with my humiliation by sending me to low-budget gigs that involved dressing like holiday poultry.

I couldn’t afford to say no to any gig since I desperately needed the money, and I’d rather be stuffed with breadcrumbs up the whoo-hah than let my dad bankroll me and launch my career with a record label. I did not want to be the next nepo baby on the Where Are They Now? circuit. It was bad enough Dad bought me a house behind my back.

No, strike that. Rich dads buy houses. Filthy rich dads buy entire developments. In this case, a mobile home park on a small lake in Northern Virginia where the land alone was worth as much as a platinum hit. As far as I was concerned, the tail feathers currently festooned over my derrière evened things out in the entitlement arena.

The banjo player, a plaid-wearing, gap-toothed man older than mud and obviously a charter member of the Mighty Thumpers and not a sub like I was, said I could pick a song about thankfulness to play for the luncheon. I chose Alanis Morissette’s “Thank U.” That, apparently, was not what he had in mind, and after bringing the festivity to a screeching halt, I was forbidden from leading a song for the rest of the gig.

He gave me a wink and called out “Turkey in the Straw” for the third time this afternoon. The fiddle player sighed, and we launched again into the crowd favorite as they took another promenade around the dance floor.

I blocked out the yellow Styrofoam claws pulled over my Keds, the scent of sage stuffing in the air, and focused on the clock hanging on the back wall of the Preston Woods Clubhouse. Fifteen minutes left in this nightmare. I tried to move the hands forward using mind powers fueled by desperation and heat stroke from my polyester wattle. I had to wrap up this ring-a-ding dingy of a luncheon and get home to meet the movers from LA. All the items Dad couldn’t live without from his mansion in Malibu were arriving this afternoon. If I left it up to him, they’d still be lying on the front lawn like at a head banger’s estate sale come nightfall.

Dad had to cancel the European leg of his world tour with eighties hair metal band Society’s Castoffs due to his recent diagnosis. TMZ reported that Don Virtue had moved in with his daughter, Layla Virtue, the product of a union from a very brief but explosive marriage to former groupie Barbara Collins to deal with fatigue. Sources say he’s getting extensive treatment from some of the nation’s best medical experts in New York City. Don will be recovering in his daughter’s sprawling penthouse overlooking Central Park.

We had a good laugh over egg rolls and moo shu pork from my sprawling single wide in the Lake Pinecrest Mobile Home Park overlooking the recycling bins that my neighbor Marguerite’s pet rooster, Steppenwolf, was bent on sparring with.

Dad’s manager, Jimmy, leaked the penthouse story to TMZ’s producer to buy us some privacy while we transitioned Dad into my world.

My sad little world.

That’s how I found myself at the bottom of a music career that I’d waited way too long to launch dressed in a costume that made Lady Gaga look normal.

It was a source of frustration for Dad that I refused his help to dig out of the crater I’d landed in when life blew up in my face. If it were not for his poor health, he would have returned to his plush life of extravagance two months ago instead of moving in with me. I was his only child and there was no one else to take care of him. God knows none of his ex-wives could do it. And as unstable as Dad and I were, we looked like the Waltons compared to my mother who, for most of my life, had been alternating between her tour of America’s finer rehab facilities and blaming me for her addiction issues. Apparently my birth got in the way of her short-lived tambourine career.

The banjo player strummed the final notes on his third encore and the square dancers gave a group bow to enthusiastic applause and boot stomping before do-si-do-ing back to their tables to fight over the tricolor corn centerpieces.

Strapping my guitar to my back and tucking my amp under my arm, I ripped off my wattle, crossed the dance floor, grabbed a whole pumpkin pie, and pushed through the double doors to the parking lot. Paula had better be Johnny-on-the-spot with this paycheck. I think I sweated out ten pounds roasting in that turkey suit. If she thinks I’m paying for the dry cleaning out of my cut, she has another thing coming.

I hit the remote start—my favorite feature on my new used Wrangler, stashed the pie on the back seat, placed my guitar in the case, and nestled it next to the amp in the back. I got a great deal on the Jeep because of an unfortunate custom paint job that left it the color of American cheese. I tossed the wattle in the back seat next to the pie and shoved myself, drumsticks and all, behind the wheel.

My anticipated rise to rock star status had been interrupted by an almost twenty-year career with the Potomac County Police Force. One that ended in an ambush killing my entire team, including my partner, Jacob—the man I’d thought I’d be spending the rest of my life with. Losing Jacob left a gaping wound in my soul that time had not even begun to heal. I’d only recently been able to accept that the disaster was not entirely my fault. Jacob had made some critical errors in judgment by not following protocol. Losing so many people who were important to me due to my own negligence was more pain than I could face.

After the Internal Affairs investigation, I left the force in shame with no plans to ever return. Something I’d been trying to get through to Detective Dayton Castinetto all week as he kept texting me that we needed to talk. A sentiment I did not agree with. I wanted nothing more to do with a badge or a uniform. I’d been off the force for months. I could barely sleep at night as it was.

When Dad bought me the trailer park we lived in—for what he said was my future financial security—he also got the original owner’s cottage in the deal. I hadn’t seen the inside of the abandoned little lake house since the day the deed was delivered, but I remembered that the large house had lain fallow for a long time and needed some small repairs, a little paint, and possibly a possum eviction, which Dad said he could handle. Hmm, doubtful.

And by handle, he meant that he’d call his interior decorator, Fawn, and she’d do a complete overhaul to make the home ready for us by move-in day. This would be my first time seeing what he’d commissioned. I hadn’t even been allowed to drive around the back side of the lake because he wanted everything to be a surprise. Dad was known for many things, some of them I’d been trying to live down for thirty years, but being understated was not one of them.

However, his last surprise was that he’d been diagnosed with dementia and that about ripped my heart out. So, at the very least, this had to be a step up from that.

I TURNED OFF THE HIGHWAY AT THE HIDDEN ENTRANCE BY THE paper birch trees. Their explosion of golden leaves had grown over the welcome sign into the park. Lake Pinecrest was originally a summer camp retreat, so the driveway cut through the woods like a squirrel high on crack planned the route. That meant it took twice as long to get down here as it needed to.

I cruised along the serpentine lane to the north side of the lake through the fallen leaves and roadside decay. Someone needed to clean this up. I guess that’s me now, isn’t it? Ugh. The pressure of responsibility smothered me like a sauna. Low maintenance was one of the reasons I’d moved into a trailer in the first place.

The owner’s cottage sat at the top of the lake. A boat ramp that I would probably never use on account that I didn’t have a boat, or money to buy a boat, or the desire to own a boat, jutted from the end of a flagstone walkway.

Slung in a graceful arc around the north shore sat the high-rent district—a row of double-wide mobile homes, including the park model and clubhouse. The occupants of the double wides considered themselves the dons of Lake Pinecrest—in charge of reigning in the disorderly and delinquent. Myrtle Jean Maud, Agnes Harcourt, and Clifford Bagstrodt. They were currently dotted around our yard, micromanaging the moving crew as they fought to take a king-sized mattress through the queen-sized door.

Two moving trucks blocked the entire street in front of our butter-colored-stucco cottage. Even from the road I could see that Dad had contracted a lot of custom work in two months’ time. The steeply pitched, cross-gabled roof was covered in hand-cut teakwood shingles set in a wave pattern, making the house look like it belonged in the Cotswolds. On the right, a higgledy-piggledy stone chimney looked like beavers had built it themselves. A pale green rounded arch door with long black medieval-looking scrollwork hinges had been propped open with a stone hedgehog next to a blue Adirondack chair. Two moving men were carrying a long skinny crate inside marked VENKMAN.

I pulled onto the cobblestone driveway and parked in front of a weathered garden gate covered in a twist of thorny vines, like the opening to a haunted forest.

I stood on tiptoe to see what awaited me in the backyard. Other than the lake and boat dock that were shrouded in mist, I could see a green-and-gold flagstone patio and a savage garden that I suspected hid a variety of destructive wildlife.

Barren vines climbed up the side of the house around diamond-patterned Gothic windows. I couldn’t tell if the house was cursed by a witch or built by the Seven Dwarfs.

A cacophony of barks greeted me, and Ringo, my black Lab, barreled through the open door with reckless abandon. His ears flapping in the afternoon breeze of freedom, his tongue lolling to the side. Pure joy that I had finally come home.

“Silly boy. I was only gone a few hours. How do you like your new house?” He wiggled back and forth on his back in the grass as I rubbed his belly, then he jumped and gave me a lick on the cheek as if to say he approved. I gave him a kiss and stepped inside what could easily have been a movie set.

Dad was just going to spruce up the simple lake house, maybe give it a lick of paint. Not gut and rebuild it for Disney to use as Tinker Bell’s fairy cottage.

The kitchen and breakfast nook were painted pale sage with deep turquoise cabinets. Dark teal glass tiles had been installed as a backsplash over a copper farmhouse sink and natural-edge wooden countertops. With a two-story vaulted ceiling of exposed wooden beams—omigod, the one over the window was an actual tree branch—the room had been plucked straight out of a Grimms’ Fairy Tale. Even the dining table looked like it was made by forest elves from a giant walnut tree. I ran my hand down the polished uneven edge. “Dad really knows how to lean into a theme.”

Ringo wagged his tail in response.

I blew my breath out and glanced over at a six-burner lavender range with two ovens that I had no idea how to use, and expected to see a white-haired granny in a checkered apron baking cookies for Hansel and Gretel. “Ringo, if some old lady tries to fatten you up with cookies you just say no.”

Ringo gave me a low “ruff.”

I walked through to the living room imagining singing bluebirds leading the way. The walls had been painted dark forest green to set off the pale wood floors and stone fireplace. The sliding door at the back had been replaced with French doors and floor-to-ceiling stained-glass arched windows in a pattern of roses and vines. Ringo flopped on a fluffy bear-shaped fur rug that lay in front of a roaring fire and gave me a smile.

Where is my couch? And why did Dad pick all this gingham? I tried to wrap my head around the riotous field of roses, and pillows, and chenille throws before me. Everything was poofy. Even the hardbound books on the built-in bookcases seemed poofy. This room was as far away from rock and roll as you could get. I felt my musician street cred shriveling with every step.

Myrtle Jean Maud, Lake Pinecrest’s resident busybody in support hose and sensible shoes, sailed in with a vase of peach cabbage roses and placed them on a wooden side table. “Layla, you’re home already.” She patted her silver cinnamon-bun hair and giggled. “Ringo, you were supposed to warn me. Well, what do you think? Wait until you see the loft upstairs. Your dad fixed it up for guests. But this room is my favorite. So cozy. Not too girly, not too masculine. I think it’s just right.”

“Is that why there are three bear statues on the coffee table?”

Ringo gave me a look I interpreted as Be nice.

She looked around with a satisfied grin. “Your dad wanted everything to be perfect for his baby girl.”

“Does he know I’m not seven anymore?”

Myrtle Jean put her hand on a gnome statue and tried to slide it behind her.

I nodded toward the French doors. “What’s out there?”

Myrtle Jean’s face pinked with excitement. “Wait till you see it. Don had a gorgeous greenhouse patio with an outdoor kitchen built. And you have a private porch with a swing of your very own just off of your bedroom. It’s darling.” She wrapped her blue cardigan tighter around her. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Ringo and I followed her to an enclosed stone patio with two-story windows and a glass greenhouse ceiling. One side had a pink couch and matching rose-print comfy chairs, a stone coffee table, and way too many green viney plants that I hoped came with a gardener because I sure didn’t know how to take care of them. I had more than I could handle with just me and Ringo. “Is that tree growing inside the room?”

Myrtle Jean giggled and spoke in reverent, hushed tones. “It is, yes. That’s a miniature weeping cherry tree in a Chinese ornamental pot. I think it was expensive.”

Ringo’s lack of shock told me he’d already seen the inside tree. “Don’t pee on that, okay?”

Ringo’s mouth snapped shut and he looked at the tree like he hadn’t considered that before now.

I pointed to the brick opening on the far wall. “What’s that?”

Myrtle Jean clapped her hands. “An outdoor pizza oven. Don’t you love it?”

I was normally so good at locking down my expression from years of being a cop, but my contorted smile may have given her the idea that I thought she was crazy. Also, I was thinking that she was crazy.

Her smile faltered for a brief moment, and she pointed to the pecan wood cabinets that ran along the back of the house. “There’s plenty of storage for your takeout menus in the drawers by the sink there.”

“Thank God for that or we’d starve.”

I got the feeling that the room had been designed with elaborate parties in mind. Parties that I did not want to throw or attend. A rustic branch chandelier with amber glass globes hung over another long table surrounded by tan leather chairs. The emerald-and-cream marble counter hosted a full bar, and for a moment it caused my heart to stop until I realized that all those fancy bottles were flavored syrups and alcohol-free mixers. No matter what Dad got confused about, at least he remembered that we were both alcoholics in recovery.

Ringo felt left out and shoved his snout into my hand for attention.

“I know, buddy. It’s like the Magic Kingdom in here.”

Myrtle Jean ran her hand across the dining table. “Isn’t it beautiful? I helped Don pick it out. It’s called claro walnut.”

I was about to ask where Dad was, when Agnes Harcourt, self-appointed homeowner association gestapo, hollered from the other room, “Don’t put that there! C-3PO goes in Don’s room.”

As much as Myrtle Jean was soft and fluffy, Agnes was pointy and prickly. She stood next to a spiral staircase leading to the loft with a cigarette hanging off her bottom lip. Thanks to Miss Clairol, her chocolate-brown hair was caught up in a Rosy the Riveter bandanna that matched her red leather pants. She threw her arm in the direction of the double doors next to a French rococo armoire straight out of Beauty and the Beast like she was posing for a rebellious fifties housewife magazine shoot. “Through there, honey.”

Agnes had figured out that my father was Don Virtue of Society’s Castoffs long before anyone else had. Apparently, they had been at Woodstock at the same time. Dad was the guitar shredder tripping out on stage and Agnes was the rabid fan flinging her bikini top in circles around her head while tripping out in the mud.

Agnes spotted me and sent her gravelly voice purring in my direction. “Layla, you finally come home to help? Your father has been directing traffic for hours.”

I seriously doubted that. One, my father didn’t lift a finger to do anything as long as he could pay someone else to do it. And two, Agnes loved bossing people around and she’d be lost if someone took the reins from her. “How long have you been here?”

“Since about noon. Clifford posted as lookout to let us know when the van arrived. It’s a good thing too since they were early.”

“What’d you need a lookout for? You live next door.”

Myrtle Jean giggled. “The Cleaner was on. We just love that Greg Davies. He’s like a giant Winnie the Pooh.”

Agnes shrugged. “Clifford needs to keep busy anyway. A person has to have more hobbies than bird-watching and complaining about water usage.”

Dad called from beyond the double doors, “Is that you, baby girl? Come see my room and help me decide where to put my flux capacitor.”

Ringo’s tail started to wag as soon as he heard Dad’s voice. He led the way to the rock and roll inner sanctum that apparently had erupted from the bowels of middle-earth. In the center of the room, Dad had a king-sized four-poster bed made from hand-cut birch trees. His walls were white-and-tan brick, and crossing his ceiling were branches dripping with green leaves and ivy. Dad sat on a brown leather club chair with his feet on the matching ottoman, a walkie-talkie in one hand and a Coke in the other. A workman in overalls hustled around the room doing his bidding. Replace the Coke with a beer and this was a scene straight from my childhood.

He was still a looker at his age—so I’m told. His gray hair flowed in waves past his shoulders, and his blue eyes were bright and sparkled with a bit of mischief. Several tattoos, including one of a naked woman surfing a Gibson Flying V, peeked out from the sleeves of his white silk shirt.

“So, what do you think, baby girl?”

“The walls are beautiful. Is that real stone on the floor?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“And a bamboo mat?”

Dad shrugged. “I dunno. I told Fawn to run with the storybook theme.”

I looked around, nodding. “Uh-huh. Sure. Sure. And how exactly does Venkman’s Ghostbusters uniform fit into that?”

Dad snorted. “I mean, I gotta have my stuff.”

Agnes led in two men carrying Indiana Jones’s Ark of the Covenant. “Where you want this, Don?”

Dad looked left then right. “How about next to the Droid? I can use it for my socks.”

I ran my hands over Ringo’s soft ears and chuckled to myself. That movie prop probably cost more at auction than most of the trailers in this park, and he was making it a sock cabinet. I squatted down to face him after Agnes led the men back out for another run. “So, this is the stuff you couldn’t live without?”

Dad gave me a wry smile. “This is the stuff I remembered I had.”

“Did you at least have Jimmy pack your winter clothes?”

Dad scanned the recesses of his brain for a moment. “I don’t think I have winter clothes. Wait. Do I have a house in Canada?”

I nodded. “You have a little farmhouse on an island near Vancouver.”

His eyebrows shot up. “I bet I have winter clothes there.”

Ringo gave Dad’s arm a snoot and I patted his knee. “I’ll put a call in to your manager to have someone send things down for you.” I watched the workman hanging one of Dad’s custom guitars next to three gold records over the gas fireplace. “And I think we need to have Ronnie install a better security system since that wall is worth more than this entire campground.”

“Who’s Ronnie?”

“Ronnie Voa. Your new head of security? The guy responsible for saving your butt when you forget that crowds of people will trample you to get an autograph.”

Dad gave me a one-shoulder shrug and mumbled, “Okay.”

His walkie-talkie beeped. “Mr. Virtue, where do you want us to hang the tulle?”

Dad made a face and answered back, “What kind of tools?”

Marguerite’s voice came through in her lilting South American accent. “Gimmie. Is like wedding veil, Don. Where you want it?”

I had a growing unease unfurling around my stomach as I remembered a disastrous stint in elementary ballet. “Why would we need tulle, Dad?”

Dad’s eyes lit as recognition dawned and he clicked on his walkie. “I think that goes around the girl’s bed, doll.”

“Sure thing, Don.”

The walkie let out a squeeze of static and Dad dropped it to his lap. He grinned, and the hairs on the back of my arm stood to attention. Ringo nosed his way between us and rolled his eyes to mine.

“Dad, I hope you didn’t do anything crazy in my room. I’m just a simple girl. An ex-cop trying to be a musician twenty years too late.”

Dad waved his hand and shooed my concerns away. He took a sip of his Coke. “You’re gonna love it, honey. I told my gal all about you and she designed the perfect house.”

I sighed. “Did you tell her I was almost forty?”

Dad grinned. “Wait till you see your bathroom.”

I had to prepare myself emotionally, much the same as I had to do for a visit to the gynecologist. “Just remember that we have a neurologist appointment tomorrow, so you shouldn’t overdo it today.” Judging from his current level of exertion I’d say the danger level was very low.

Dad closed one eye and squinted at me through the other. “Speaking of the crazy doctor. Are you dressed like a turkey or am I hallucinating?”

I looked down at the bulbous brown suit I’d completely forgotten that I was wearing. What does it say about me that not one person seemed shocked enough to mention it before now? I ripped off the foam claws, pulled the zipper down my wishbone, and climbed out. “I’m going over to the trailer to pack up whatever decor we left behind.”

Dad grimaced. “If it’s gray, leave it there.”

“Everything is gray, Dad.”

I’d moved into my trailer at rock bottom and did very little to decorate it. And by very little I mean nothing. Dad had turned up unannounced for a surprise visit, so he had no right to judge, but he still said it was like staying in a concentration camp, which I thought was rather dramatic.

“I’m taking Ringo with me so don’t panic when he’s not here.”

Ringo started to thump his tail against the leather chair like the beat of a drum, which is exactly how he got his name in the first place.

Dad lifted his hand and clicked on his walkie-talkie to sing me offstage. “Good-bye, Lay-la, it’s been nice, hope you love your par-a-di-se …”

“Okay then.”

He was still wrecking Supertramp when Ringo and I left Rumpelstiltskin Manor. You know you’re in trouble when a spinning wheel and a troll tie all the elements of a room together.

I opened the door of the Jeep for Ringo to hop in and threw the turkey suit in the back. Ringo took an immediate fascination to the pie, and I handed it to one of the moving men. “Please put this in Snow White’s kitchen for me.”

He was whistling “Heigh-Ho” as he headed into the house.

I cranked the Jeep to life and backed out. I was really hoping to run into Nick while I was across the lake. It wasn’t that far away, I could walk it in an hour, but I had things to do and a leisurely walk around half the lake wasn’t one of them.

Nick had moved to the trailer next door to me a couple of months ago and quickly became one of the most important people in my life. We had an instant attraction to each other that would have resulted in an amazing fling, but I was still mourning the loss of Jacob, and Nick was battling his own demons.

Neither of us were ready for a long-term relationship so we’d chosen to develop a meaningful friendship instead. A friendship that was complicated by the fact that Nick could see right through me. Nick was the first one to recognize that I was struggling. As a Marine Corps vet with three tours in Afghanistan, Nick was very familiar with PTSD.

I hadn’t seen him for several days. I knew he was some kind of government computer whiz because he had a tech setup that would fill Mark Zuckerberg with glee, but even hackers come up for air once in a while. I thought maybe he was sick, or out of town. His car was still there this morning when I left for the square dance gig, but he could have Ubered to the airport.

Many of the park trailers were decorated for fall. It wasn’t just festive it was a requirement. Agnes and her park beautification henchmen put pressure on everyone. Colorful mums, polyester scarecrows, pumpkins, hay bales. You’d think this was Kansas and not just some place Temu delivered cheap crap to. Donna, my former neighbor and one-time almost-friend across the street, had even strung orange lights around her patio to appease the dons. Frankly, I didn’t see the point. Aren’t the dead leaves on the ground fall decoration enough? They’re the embodiment of autumn.

Donna glared at me through the blinds of her front door. That relationship smoked out just like most of my attempts to have a gal-pal usually did. There was a definite pattern. Invitation to hang out, followed by the discovery of my father’s stardom and accompanied wealth, then the expectation for me to donate some manner of goods and services that almost always included Dad under a spotlight in leopard-print leather pants. When I couldn’t or wouldn’t accommodate those requests, the relationship would end in accusations of my entitlement. Donna did not fail to disappoint me.

Ringo got excited when we pulled into the driveway. He’d only ever known life on this side of the park. His tail started to thump against the seat, and I noticed he was looking at Nick’s trailer next door. Still dark.

Nick had not given in to the festivity protocol. He hadn’t even taken his trash cans back from the curb, and that infraction would get you one of Clifford’s homemade tickets to clean the grills down by the lake. A peach-colored reminder about the mandatory meeting tomorrow night was taped to his door along with the fall spirit flyer that had been delivered two days ago.

I put my hand on Ringo’s back. “Let’s go see if he’s home.”

Ringo jumped out of the Jeep, and we crossed the yard. He sat patiently on the front step while I knocked.

Silence.

Ringo whimpered and scratched at the door, so I knocked again.

“Go away!”

A trickle of dread inched across my shoulders. Something wasn’t right with Nick. I hadn’t known him for long, but he was the kindest, most patient man I’d ever met. This wasn’t like him.

“Well, at least we know he’s home. Nick! Open up. It’s Layla and Ringo.”

“It’s not a good time. Come back later.”

Ringo dropped to his belly and grumbled. He rolled sad eyes to mine.

I squatted next to him and ran my hand down his back. “I’m sorry, buddy.” My chest tightened as the thought occurred to me that Ringo might rather live with Nick. Did he miss him? It’s not like he understood. . .