Dog Collar Knockoff (7 page)

“Huh, I’ll have to tell her she was right. Any idea how much they cost? I’m sure I can’t afford it, but I’m opening a new office and something about the artist’s work intrigues me. Just think. It could be my first big girl art purchase.”

“You are too cute, my little Lucie. The prices vary. Now, maybe Bart could work a deal with the Michigan gallery like he did for Lutz, but you’d have to ask him. I don’t know how he finagled that.” Keegan flapped both hands. “I about died—died!—when that painting was delivered.”

Finagled. Interesting word choice. “Who delivered the painting?”

“A courier service. And the sender wasn’t the Michigan gallery.” Keegan pinched his fingers in front of his lips. “Tick-a-lock, my little Lucie.”

“Of course, Keegan. But couldn’t whoever sold Lutz and Bart the painting have bought it from the Michigan gallery and resold it?”

He shrugged. “Possibly. It would have been a private collector though. From what I’ve heard, the Michigan gallery will not sell to other galleries. Now, of course, there are probably ways around it.”

He leaned closer and crooked two fingers. Assuming he was about to share something juicy, Lucie leaned and cocked her head.

Before speaking, Keegan glanced over her shoulder. Obviously satisfied the coast was clear, he brought his attention back to Lucie.

“The art world, little Lucie, is ripe with side deals. If you really want a Gomez, you should talk to Bart.”

Lucie opened her eyes wide, feigning excitement. Not hard, considering her shyster meter had once again tripped. Without a doubt, she needed to figure out how Bart had
finagled
that Lutz deal.

Above them, the tiny pitter-patter of doggie nails smacked against the floor and Lucie tracked the movement. In thirty seconds, Oscar would zoom down the stairs into the office and hit her with some morning Oscar lovin’. Like most males, Oscar woke up with sex on his mind and liked to give Lucie’s leg a hump before starting the day. If she had a nickel for every dog that humped her, she’d have ten Gomezes.

“Here comes your boy,” Keegan said.

Lucie turned to the open doorway. Oscar rounded the corner, stopped, stared right at her, kicked his hind legs, and charged.

“Get ready,” Bart hollered. “He just seduced the bed post.”

And here we go.
Oscar skidded to a stop, wrapped his front paws around Lucie’s calf and went to work.

“It must be brutal,” Keegan joked, “being objectified this way.”

“You have no idea.” Lucie looked down at Oscar, bucking away. “Off!”

Bart rushed in to haul his horny dog off her. “I’m so sorry, Lucie. I don’t know what it is with him when it comes to you.”

“Maybe it’s my enormous sex appeal.”

Keegan grinned. “You are too cute, little Lucie.”

Oh, whatever, Keegan.
She stepped over to the peg near the door for the leash. “Let’s hit it, Oscar. I have a busy day ahead.”

One that includes finding out where your owner got a Gomez.

*

Lucie had an
hour to kill. One measly hour before heading downtown to walk Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist and Mamie, the ever-regal labradoodle, who never got ruffled by anyone or anything. The dog had to have been the Queen of England in a past life. Totally unflappable.

After that, it would be on to Josie and Fannie, the Ninja Bitches. Thanks to Joey—when had she ever imagined saying those words?—who was handling Otis and Boots for her this morning, she’d get home early.

Even still, she’d fill her spare hour by meeting with Ro at the storefront to look at paint samples.

Lucie pushed through the glass door and found her BFF standing in the middle of the vacant space. She’d held strong to refusing to enter until the floor had been cleaned so Lucie hired a commercial cleaning company to come in and basically take a belt sander to the place. It still reeked of dampness, but it didn’t look half bad.

Just in case she’d be called into action and sent to the hardware store, Ro wore another hormone-inducing outfit: a revealing V-neck top and a short, red skirt. She’d finished the ensemble with multiple strands of beaded necklaces and a pair of her designer stilettos.

“Ro, you’re going to give that kid at the hardware store a stroke.”

“You know it, sister.” She waved her hand over the samples. “Look at these and tell me what you think.”

“Where’d the desk come from?”

She jerked her thumb toward the back room. “I found it buried under a bunch of boxes in the back and dragged it out here.”

Lucie would have liked to witness her dragging that desk around in that getup. “By yourself?”

“Sure. It’s cheap so it’s light. When we’re done, I want it destroyed. No questions asked.”

Ro. The Queen of All Things Fabulous.

“There’s a bunch of junk back there we’ll have to deal with.”

“I know. I’ll get to it.” Lucie eyeballed the paint samples and held up two of the beige-ish ones. “I think I like these two.”

“Well”—she tapped her nail against the one on the left—“this one might have a bit too much yellow. We won’t know until we get it on the wall. I’ll run by the shop and get a quart of each and we can look at them tomorrow.”

“Good. Joey lined up a painter and a flooring guy.”

Ro eased onto the desktop and swung one long leg. “I’ll talk to them. See what we can do schedule wise.”

Such a good friend. From the time they were kids, Ro had always been there for Lucie, taking care of her the way Italian girls did for their friends. A gift really. “Thank you. You’re the best.”

The front door opened and in tromped Joey. In his massive mitts, he carried Boots, a Yorkie-Bichon Frise mix. The dog had the face of a Bichon and the body and coloring of a Yorkie, but all that craziness added up to massive cuteness.

“We got a problem,” Joey said.

A problem. Something new.
Not
. “What is it?”

“The flying nun.”

The cuteness known as Boots had goofy long ears that went up when he got excited. Only, they didn’t go straight up. They went sideways like airplane wings, leading Joey to nickname him the flying nun.

“What happened?”

Joey gave her a massive eye roll. “Are you kidding me?” He pointed to the dog’s right ear. “How do you not see he’s stuck in flight mode?”

Lucie lost it. Just bubbled up with laughter. What the hell was her brother talking about?
“What?”

“Luce, I’m serious. One ear won’t go down.”

Ro wandered over, cocked her head one way, then the other. “He looks like someone shot that ear full of Botox.” She nuzzled Boots’s head. “I know your secret now, kid.”

Growing concerned, Lucie scooped the dog out of Joey’s arms, tried to guide the ear down. Nothing doing. It shot right back up and she got a nice little lick for her efforts. “How long has he been this way?”

“Forty-five minutes. I showed up to walk him, his ears went up, he whizzed all over himself—he’s got to learn to control that—and when he calmed down, only one ear relaxed. I figured maybe he was still in some kind of quasi-adrenaline rush and it would wear off. No dice. What do you wanna do?”

How the heck should she know? “Maybe I should call his mom?”

Joey scoffed. “She’s not his mom—she’s his owner. And yeah, that’s probably a good start. Maybe this has happened before. Either way, I can’t be walking him in this condition. Bad enough I’m walking a pansy-assed dog, never mind one that looks like a freak.”

Who the heck was he kidding? If he wasn’t just as worried about that dog, he wouldn’t be standing in front of her. “You are so full of it, Joey. You’re always complaining about how scooping poop is bad for your image, and yet, here you are, schlepping all the way over here because you’re worried about Boots.”

“I’m not worried. I thought you should know. That’s all.”

“Un-huh. Got it.” She handed the dog back to Joey and dug her cell phone from her messenger bag. “Let me call the
owner
.”

Her brother. Such a dope. The big lug just didn’t want to admit that he’d fallen a little bit in love with the dogs. Day in and day out, he’d moan about his bookmaking business suffering because he was busy helping her run Coco Barknell and yet, he always showed up. Always. Still, he had to be a PITA and make it seem like he was doing this for her. That she should be grateful to him.

Which, in fact, she was. And that was saying something with their history of sibling battles.

She scrolled her contact list, found Boots’s mom’s number and clicked. “I’m glad you’re here. I need to talk to you both about this Gomez thing.”

“That lame painting again?”

“Yes. And it’s not lame.” She held her finger up after the phone’s second ring. “Let me leave this voice mail and I’ll tell you while we’re waiting for a call back.”

She left a message and clicked off. Ro had moved back to sitting on the edge of the desk and Joey parked himself next to her, stretching his long legs in front of him. Today he wore baggy shorts and a loose T-shirt, his normal summer work attire and Ro rolled her eyes at him. Clearly, she expected better.

Lucie had seen Joey and Ro together hundreds, maybe thousands of times, but right now, sitting side by side like that, it hit her why they’d had a fling. They were stunning. All dark hair and olive skinned, they were a perfect match.

“Tick-tock, Luce,” Ro said. “I have a meeting with my lawyer in thirty minutes.”

“Right, sorry. I talked to the sales guy at the gallery about the painting. With the thing about only the Michigan gallery being able to sell Gomez paintings, he’s not sure how Bart ‘finagled’—his word, not mine—the sale.”

“He said
finagled
?”

“Yep. Sounds a little fishy to me.”

“It does.”

Joey shook his head. “You two nutty broads think you’re Charlie’s Angels. Forget this crap.”

Ro huffed. “And what? Risk your sister going to prison?”

“Come on with the drama,” he said. “She’s not going to prison.”

“She could. Art fraud is a big deal. Especially if this Gomez guy is big time. She could get ten years for selling knockoffs.”

Ten years? Holy cow. She’d never survive prison. Someone would make her their bitch and it would be all over. “Gee, thanks, Ro.”

Joey waved that off. “How the hell do you know?”

“I looked it up last night. I was bored and had already polished off a quart of Chocolate Passion. If I keep that up, my rear won’t fit through the door. I needed something to distract me.”

At that, Joey smirked and Ro elbowed him. “What’s that smirk?”

“Listen,” he said, “even if your ass didn’t fit through the door, I’d still love it.”

In a Joey sort of way, that was awfully sweet.
Ew.

“I love your attempt at charming,” Ro said, “but focus here.” She turned back to Lucie. “Go ahead, Luce.”

Where was she? She’d lost track after that whole Ro’s giant-ass conversation. If her brother started hitting on Ro, Lucie would lose her mind. Just go insane. In the last sixty seconds, she’d become someone’s prison bitch and listened to them flirting gorilla style.
Welcome to my life.

“The Gomez,” Lucie said. “Ten years. I think I need to drive out to this gallery in Michigan and check it out.”

Joey threw his hands up. “What’s that gonna do?”

“I have no idea. But if I go there, I’ll be able to see a real Gomez up close. Maybe I’ll pretend to be a student, like Lauren, doing research.”

“Nah,” Ro said. “If you’re going undercover, you need to be a buyer. That’s when you get the good dirt. I’ll go with you. It’ll be fun. We can get all dressed up and pretend we’re loaded.”

Easy for her to say. She was the one with the designer shoe collection. But this idea might have merit. “The most expensive piece of clothing I own is the dress I bought three months ago for that date with Frankie. It cost what? A hundred bucks?”

“Then I’ll be the loaded one. You can be my beleaguered assistant. I’ll even go out and buy a new outfit. Maybe melt my rat-bastard husband’s credit card.”

“Remind me,” Joey said, “to never marry and divorce you. You are wicked, girl.”

“You know it, brother.”

Boots wiggled around and Joey set him on the floor to wander, his one ear still poking straight out.

“That ear is screwed,” he said before turning back to Lucie. “I don’t like you two going alone.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just feels off.”

Oh, no. He wasn’t about to talk her out of this. No way. She folded her arms, narrowed her eyes trying for intimidating. “Then you’ll have to come with us because I’m going.”

Ro smacked her hands together. “He could be our driver.”

“Just shut it, Roseanne. I’m not playing chauffeur.”

But Ro, in full-on excitement mode, hopped off the desk and stood next to Lucie, staring him down. “Think about it. We throw you in a suit and you drive my Escalade. Luce and I will ride in the back. If I’m going to be rich and have an assistant, I’d definitely have a driver. And we wouldn’t be alone. Problem solved.”

He rolled his bottom lip out. Considering it.

At this rate, they’d be arguing over this all day and Lucie didn’t have time. Or patience. “Joey, I don’t care what you do. With or without you, I’m going to Michigan.”