A Little Christmas Jingle (2 page)

“Jack …” Virginia prompted.

“Kat—” he began, but before he finished, Virginia gave a delighted, joyous little clap. “Jack! Look up.”

She pointed and Jack's gaze automatically followed, registering the mistletoe he'd been avoiding all night, especially after Alice Foster almost caught him underneath. Kat's deep brown eyes widened and her lush, inviting mouth formed a shocked O.

“Kiss, dear, it's tradition,” Virginia commanded. She gave Kat a helpful push, and Jack drew her into an embrace, steadying her. His fingers sizzled as they touched her bare forearms. Then she wobbled on her stilettos and fell against his chest as a startled breath burst forth. His heart raced, and as need pulsed through him, he knew he had to taste her lips. Just one quick taste to get it out of his system …

The kiss lasted mere seconds, but even that one feathery touch sent a shock wave of desire to his already tight pants. He stepped back, having only a moment to register Kat's dazed expression before Virginia grabbed his arm and propelled him onward. “Find him after the photo, hon,” she said. “You can reconnect then.”

However, later, when Jack—despite his earlier intentions to escape—went to find Kat, she was gone.

#

Four weeks later

“Tis the season to be jolly …”

Detective Jack Donovan's fingers tightened on the steering wheel of his SUV—a poor attempt to quell the urgent need to change the station to KSHE 95. All he had to do was press the button beneath his left thumb …

“Fa la la la la, la la la la!” his partner for the week chorused, his grin splitting ear to ear as the song finally ended. Jack hit the steering-wheel control and let out a contented sigh as Metallica's “Nothing Else Matters” started blaring through the speakers. “What? Tired of Christmas music?” Mike teased.

“It's only been playing since mid-October. ‘Tired' is an understatement.” Jack glanced at the GPS then made a left turn.

Mike laughed. “Where's your holiday spirit, Scrooge? Mr. December needs to lighten up.”

“Not happening. It's going to be a long thirteen months.”

“What's wrong with representing Christmas? Or being famous?”

“Nothing.”
Everything.
Jack bit back the rest of his retort. While he'd grown cynical, he wasn't rude. Besides, he'd known Mike since the academy, and high school before that. So although this was Mike's first ten-day stint on the Animal Cruelty Task Force, he could take liberties where others wouldn't dare—both men were equally ranked and good friends. “December's my least favorite month. Doing that calendar didn't help. Made me out to be a Christmas lover.”

“Ha-ha. You are a witty Scrooge.” Mike slapped the dashboard. “And come on, admit you love all the women hanging up your photo and sending you fan letters. How many this week?”

“I don't. And one hundred and three. It's embarrassing. My mother also sees this as a grand opportunity to finally get me married. ‘You're thirty,' she keeps harping. Thirty. As if that's the end of the world.”

“Well, she isn't considered the neighborhood matchmaker for nothing. She helped me meet Suze, and we've got a baby on the way. And she's got your sister's wedding in a few weeks, and she just wants you happy …”

“Yeah, well, thank you for that dissertation Captain Obvious. I love my mom, but once she gets an idea in her head, she's as tenacious as a bulldog with a bone. I am not a project.”

“That could be debatable,” Mike returned. “And marriage is a good thing, buddy. Julie just wasn't your Mrs. Right. Whoever she is, I'm sure she's out there. You just have to find her.”

“I don't have time,” Jack replied, tightening his grip on the wheel as he turned into the alley. “So my mom's already searching for my wedding date.”

“Maybe you need to date.”

“I do not have time,” Jack repeated.

“So find a temporary date,” Mike suggested. “Someone you can just bring to the wedding to get your mom off your case.”

“If you take any woman to a wedding, she gets the wrong idea. And we're here.” Jack threw the SUV into park, ending the annoying conversation. The only woman for whom he'd felt a flicker of interest had disappeared without a trace—not that he'd share that with Mike. “Eyes open.”

Twenty feet ahead a small crowd had gathered behind a row of four-family apartment buildings. Jack's processing of a scene was such that he noticed everything, right down to the kid who wore sneakers so clean they had to be new. Had he bought them last night, when the stores had opened on Thanksgiving Day at six?

Now past noon on Black Friday, the amount of gawkers would actually make Jack's job easier as everyone was in one place to interview. “Ready?”

Mike nodded, drew a deep breath. “As I'll ever be.”

“Your job is interviewing. Facts. Opinions. Anything we can use. I want to know what happened so I can arrest who did it.”

“Got it.”

Jack grabbed his camera. “And whatever you do, don't get sick.”

“Sick?”

“You're about to find out why I hate December. Let's go.”

Mike's eyes widened, but Jack slammed the door. Immediately his cop's senses cataloged everything, including a young boy around seven of mixed ethnicity who stood between him and the crowd. The boy looked Jack and Mike up and down, not intimidated by the fact that both men topped six feet. “You cops? You don't dress like cops.”

“Well, we are.” Jack indicated the badge attached to a leather belt that held up a worn pair of button-fly Levi's. His red flannel shirt and gray windbreaker were a testament to the unseasonably warm November weather. “But I work with animals.”

The boy nodded, satisfied. “Pup's over there. He's Billy's dog. Got him as an early present last week.”

“Early Christmas present?” Mike asked.

Fingers dug into back pockets. “Yeah. He'd always wanted a dog. Said his dad bought it for him.”

The pounding started behind Jack's right eye. Giving animals as Christmas presents was always a bad idea. “Where does Billy live?”

The boy pointed a few buildings down the alley, and Jack made a mental note. “He lives on the second floor with his mom and aunt, and there's some others who come and go. You gonna arrest him?”

“Cops don't arrest innocent people.”

“Marvin says you do.”

Jack wasn't going to argue with Marvin—whoever he was. But he would arrest the guilty party, Jack determined. It was one of the reasons he'd accepted the job of heading up the St. Louis Police Department's Animal Cruelty Task Force. Animals were innocent, loving creatures, and he'd seen hideous things—burns, beatings, and hoardings—and with his memory he couldn't forget any of them. But he could honor those cruelly treated animals and ensure justice was done. Since June, he'd made eighteen arrests out of the sixty abuse cases he'd investigated.

The boy tagged along at Jack's heels as he approached the ten-deep crowd. His gaze took in each person, cataloging that they ranged from an elderly white woman to a well-dressed but shell-shocked Asian woman. This area of South Side St. Louis was diverse and solidly middle class. A few people had decorated their back porches or balconies with strands of Christmas lights—the green cords visible although the lights were off.

The group parted like the Red Sea, and a five-foot-four woman with pure white hair clutched her terrycloth bathrobe between gnarled fingers. “Terrible,” she kept repeating. “Terrible. Who would do such a thing?”

“We're going to find out,” Jack promised. He squatted next to the overflowing neighborhood trash Dumpster. The 911 calls had reported an injured dog, but the information ended there. Between the back Dumpster wheel and the chain link fence lay a badly burned puppy, his brown fur pink and blistering.

Jack bit back an expletive, bile rising in his throat.

Behind him, Mike made a gagging noise; Jack forced down his earlier cheeseburger. As the lead investigator, he'd seen heinous things, but none like the horror before him.

Jack let the buzz of voices fade and concentrated only on the puppy's shallow breathing. A choke collar around its neck led to the metal leash attached to the fence. Black ash from an accelerant had charred the corner of the Dumpster and the ground. The dog opened deep brown eyes, long enough for Jack to feel as if a fist had squeezed his heart. No animal deserved this. “It's going to be okay, buddy,” Jack told him as the dog whimpered. Then he barked out orders. “Mike, bolt cutters. Burn blanket. Call for backup.”

Photos were essential for prosecution, especially if the animal died.
Although he was not going to let that happen to this puppy.
Not without doing everything possible.

“Get an arson investigator, too,” he called back.

He snapped several photos, making sure he had what he needed. Mike handed him the bolt cutters and he cut the dog loose and wrapped the dog gently in the blanket. He would make whoever did this pay.

“Unit's two blocks over. Rescue group is about fifteen minutes out,” Mike said.

The puppy whimpered again, and Jack's fury grew. “I can't wait that long. What partner clinic's closest?”

Mike hit a button on his phone. “Checking.”

“Whatcha gonna do?” the boy asked.

“Take the puppy to the vet.” Jack stood and cradled the bundle to his chest. “Can you assist Officer B?” After shortening his partner's name, Jack paused for the boy to supply his. “Peter. I'm Peter,” he said helpfully.

“Nice to meet you, Peter. You can be a hero, okay? Just show Officer B where Billy lives so I can take care of his dog. I want to make sure this puppy lives.”

“Me, too.” Peter's head bobbed. “I can do that. He was a good dog.”

A white police cruiser with flashing lights but no siren churned gravel as it parked behind the SUV. Two uniformed officers jumped out.

“Chippewa Animal Clinic,” Mike said.

“Aren't they having legal issues? I got a complaint letter about an unpermitted shelter and dogs in their own waste.”

“They passed the application and site visit with flying colors three weeks ago. Jeff did the inspection. The vet clinic is aboveboard. And it's practically right around the corner.”

Jack touched the dog, avoiding its singed skin. The dog's shallow heartbeat made him deeply protective. Timing was crucial. He'd already planned on investigating Monday. “Call and tell them I'm inbound, and cancel the rescue group. While I'm gone, start processing the scene. I'll be right back.”

One of the uniformed officers took one look at the dog's blistering face, and his own blanched. He covered his gagging mouth with a hand. “Jesus.”

The dog trembled as Jack placed him tenderly in the cage in the back of the SUV. “Yeah. Some kid's early Christmas present.”

The patrolman's face grew red. “Some people deserve to go to hell.”

Jack couldn't agree more.

#

Kat Saunders reread the legal notice before turning the offensive missive over, as if the plain backside of the cream-colored paper would magically erase the mess she found herself in.

When she'd bought the Chippewa Animal Clinic five years ago, she'd used all of her savings and even secured a hefty loan to purchase the business, which was grandfathered into a well-established and sought-after neighborhood. Houses in St. Louis Hills were some of the most coveted on the South Side.

Problem was, she had the occupancy permits to run a veterinarian practice but not the ones necessary for the no-kill shelter now also occupying the premises. She'd never intended to run a shelter; a couple years ago she'd taken in a few strays until she could find new owners. Then there were a few more. And then a few more—up until recently, no one had complained.

Now she was the subject of a neighborhood association witch hunt. Her clinic's reputation was under attack, as well as Kat personally. The association, led by Fred Fennewald, had complained about almost everything. She'd been investigated for noise violations—when the dogs were outside in the yard, Fred maintained they were too loud and disturbed the neighborhood. The association had filed a suit against her—stalling the permit process. Fred had alerted a newspaper reporter, and while the story had been factual, the online comments had contained lies saying she didn't care for her animals. They'd insinuated she kept them standing in filth, that she starved them. Kat had lost several clients as a result. She didn't know what she'd done to make Fred so disagreeable. Her clinic was her life's dream—she'd sacrificed everything to make this place work, including her nest egg. Now she needed a miracle to keep the city's zoning board from shutting the shelter down. If it closed, where would the homeless animals go? She was all in. Her parents—both doctors—had thought she'd follow in their footsteps, but she'd forged her own path. She couldn't back down now. Her vet tech, Angela, poked her head in. “Your phone's on silent.”

“Again?” How many times a day did she accidentally push the button on the cordless receiver? “What's up?”

“The animal task force called,” Angela said. “Our first case is on its way.”

Kat's heart jumped erratically, and her gaze drifted to the stack of ten charity calendars sitting on a bookshelf. Since the ball, she'd admittedly peeked at Jack Donovan a few times. While sculpted abs, low-rise black jeans, and nothing but a Santa hat oozed sex appeal, he was devastatingly handsome in a tux. When she approached him at the gala, he looked like a slightly pissed-off James Bond. He'd had great hair—a shaggy blond mane that she'd itched to touch—an urge she'd blamed on two glasses of champagne.
And that kiss!
Suddenly she'd been too hot, and the band's next song—urging heated revelers to take off all their clothes—had hit a little too close to home.