Chasing Her Tail (16 page)

“What?” Bridget finally asked, looking away.

“You coming back, mystery girl?”

She shrugged. “I’m always here,” she told him, still not meeting his eyes.

He made a sound that could have been a snort or a laugh. “Fine then. Be evasive.”

He rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. At the door, he turned to look at her.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

Hammer stayed awake for so long, his body curled around hers, that Bridget thought she’d have to go into the bathroom to change back into a dog. He was quiet but she could tell by the tension in his body that he wasn’t sleeping. Although she fought to stay awake, she dozed a few times, bringing herself back to consciousness with a jolt. It wasn’t until the gray light of dawn began creeping into the room that his breathing deepened into almost snoring.

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When he woke, snuggled up to the dog, Hammer jolted to a sitting position. Bridget sat up too and looked at him curiously.

“Whoa.” He stared at her with suspicious eyes. She put on her best blank and happy expression.

“You lend someone your collar last night, sweet pea?” She thumped her tail against the bed.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, Hammer groaned. “Fuck. Either I’m completely nuts or I had a sexy burglar in my house last night. One who thinks she’s a dog and knows an unnerving amount about me.”

Burglar?
Bridget thought indignantly.
I wasn’t burglarizing!
She did have to admit she was planning on stealing internet access but that was a far cry from taking the silverware. She was so distracted by mentally defending herself from burglary charges that she missed Hammer leaving the bed and heading for the bathroom. Giving herself a shake, she hopped off the bed and followed him.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, he grabbed a plastic box from his study and returned to the bedroom. Bridget trotted after him, full of curiosity. The box looked like a fishing tackle box but she had a feeling he wasn’t about to bait a hook and try to catch a fish in his bathtub.

He put the box on his nightstand and flipped open the top. Straining to see what he was pulling out, Bridget felt her stomach drop. Hammer was holding what looked like an old-fashioned shaving cream brush and a container of black powder. She’d seen these things before on a television police drama.

He was dusting for fingerprints.
Her
prints. She frantically tried to remember what she’d touched the night before. Could he get prints off bedding? That was all she remembered touching, except for Hammer. Could he get prints off his own skin? She whined.

“Sorry, sweet pea,” he apologized, dropping the brush next to the powder container. “You need your breakfast, don’t you? We’d better get to that first—this is going to take a while.”

Hammer wasn’t kidding. He dusted every hard surface in the entire house for prints, leaving black powder everywhere. Bridget couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t just sticking with his bedroom but then realized that he thought she’d broken in. She gave a soft snort. Anyone who tried to break into Hammer’s house was nuts. Not only 83

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would a burglar have to face down an annoyed Hammer but deal with the most technologically advanced security system Bridget had ever seen outside of spy movies.

She sighed, resting her chin on her paws, bored with waiting for Hammer to finish dusting the bathroom.

I could have told him not to bother. I used the yard this morning.
With another bored sigh, she closed her eyes for a short nap. She was tired today since she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.

“C’mere, sweet pea.”

Bridget opened an eye. Why was Hammer calling her over? Did he want to dust the dog for prints?

“Come on, puppy. Bring that collar over here.”

Ah.
He didn’t need to dust the dog—he needed to dust the collar. Taking her time, she pushed to her feet and stretched, trying to remember if she’d touched the collar.

When Hammer had said he’d liked it, he’d touched it but had she? Had she fingered it unconsciously?

“Get your ass over here,” Hammer snapped. With a resigned sigh, she walked over to him, pretty sure she hadn’t touched the collar.

Wait, what was she thinking? She’d wandered all over his house the night before last. Her prints were on his desk, his computer, everywhere. He’d find out who she was for sure.

“What’s with you this morning?” he asked, unbuckling her collar carefully, touching only the edges. “You’re acting like you haven’t slept all night when it’s me who should be—” He broke off, staring at her, and then shook his head. “Impossible,”

he muttered, glancing at her again. “And really, really wrong.”

He dusted the collar, stealing glances at her. Bridget tried not to look guilty as he lifted a number of prints from the smooth leather surface between the rhinestones and on the inside of the collar. After he was done retrieving the prints, he wiped off the powder and buckled it around her neck again.

His cell phone rang and he answered it with a short, “Hammer.”

After listening for a short while, he glanced at his watch. “Great. I’ll be there waiting when he gets out.”

He hung up and went back to dusting, twirling the small brush with the ease of someone who’s had enough experience to be comfortable with it.

“Our cheating friend, Mr. Carlson, has a doctor’s appointment this morning, so it’s not too late to follow him after all. I’ll even have time to clean up all this shit.

Sometimes,” he flicked the brush over the sink faucet, “things work out.”

Bridget just absently wagged her tail a few times, still going over the night before in her brain, trying to remember what she’d touched.

Something caught Hammer’s eye in the garbage. “I knew I wasn’t crazy,” he announced triumphantly, hurrying out of the room. He reappeared a few seconds later 84

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with one hand in a latex glove and the other holding an empty evidence bag. Reaching into the garbage with his gloved hand, he pulled out the used condom and tucked it into the bag. “There has to be something on this that will tell me who she is.”

Bridget stared in horror. She was trying to be safe! Was this what she got for being responsible? With a groan, she rolled over to her back and let her paws hang where they would. Could this day get any worse?

Pulling out his cell phone, Hammer dialed, waited a few seconds and then grinned.

“Hey, Mac.”

During the pause, his smile grew. “What do you mean ‘favor’? I never call when I need… Okay, so just a little one.”

He laughed. “Nope, not in jail. My place was broken into last night, so I need you to run some prints, possibly DNA evidence, and tell me who I’m dealing with here.”

After another pause, Hammer spoke again. “No, I’m fine. Nothing’s missing, it was…” Glancing over at him, Bridget was amazed that he was actually blushing. “It was a strange thing. I’ll give you all the details over a beer sometime.”

Hammer listened for a moment and then said, “I appreciate it. I’ll drop everything off this morning. You can meet my new dog.”

He laughed again. “Yeah, a dog. I’m getting all domesticated and shit. Thanks, Mac.”

Tired and anxious, Bridget moped for the whole car ride into the city. Even the smell of doughnuts didn’t cheer her up—completely, at least. Hammer brought her into the police station to bring the evidence to his friend. Mac was a tall, skinny woman in her fifties who smelled like peppermint gum and coffee. She gave an amazing ear rub.

Their next stop was an office park that housed, Bridget guessed, Mr. Cheater Carlson’s physician. Hammer backed into a parking space by the lot’s exit, within view of the building’s main entrance.

“Now here’s the boring part, sweet pea,” he told her, turning off the car. “Maybe I should have warned you when I invited you along that stakeouts aren’t very exciting.”

Bridget was too sleepy to care. Hopping over the console, she stretched out in the backseat. She must have whacked Hammer in the head with her tail on the way, since he was grumbling about inconsiderate, ungrateful, uncoordinated dogs. Thumping her tail against the seat in a halfhearted apology, Bridget let her eyes sink closed.

“Here he is.”

Eyes snapping open, Bridget sat up and peered through the windshield at the slight man crossing the parking lot. She recognized Bart Carlson from pictures Hammer had pulled up while researching the man the day before. Carlson climbed into a black sedan and backed out of his parking space.

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Bridget cocked her head curiously. Although the car was obviously a higher-end model, it was fairly subdued for someone who could afford anything. She stood, trying to get a better view of Carlson’s car as it left the lot. Hammer turned the key and shifted into drive, rolling forward once Carlson turned onto the main road.

As she jumped back into the front seat, she bumped into Hammer’s elbow and he jerked the steering wheel to the left before hitting the brakes.

He turned to glare at her. “Pick a seat, muttly,” he gritted from between his teeth,

“and stay there.”

Giving him her best limpid gaze, she turned her attention back to Carlson as Hammer turned onto the road in the direction Carlson had gone.

Hurry up! You’re going to lose him!
Carlson’s car quickly blended into traffic, camouflaged by the many other black sedans on the road.

Hammer seemed calm, keeping his speed even, gradually passing other vehicles until Bridget spotted Carlson’s car in their lane, with just a station wagon separating them.

“Little close,” Hammer muttered, allowing a hybrid to squeeze in between his car and the station wagon.

Bridget wagged her tail and whined, the excitement of the chase flowing through her, thrilling both her human and canine parts.

Hammer grinned at her. “Yeah, this is the fun part.” He reached over to rumple her ears. “It’s nice to have company, now that you’ve finally woken up.”

Ignoring the last part, Bridget kept her eyes on the black car ahead of them.

He switched lanes! Hurry, switch lanes!
Bridget yelled in her head but Hammer, looking completely relaxed, waited several minutes before moving over into Carlson’s new lane. Now Hammer was three cars behind the one he was following but that didn’t seem to bother him. It was making Bridget very anxious though.

“Well, he’s definitely not going to the office,” Hammer commented. They were headed to the industrial section of the city, passing abandoned warehouses that were a little too far away from the downtown area to be remodeled into upscale lofts.

If the girlfriend lives here, he’s not a very generous sugar daddy.
Bridget glanced out the window, puzzled.

Carlson turned right onto a side street and Hammer swore. “Of course he picks an empty street,” he complained and drove right past the turn.

Bridget stared at him.
What are you doing? We’re going to lose him!

“Hang on, sweet pea,” he warned as he took a sharp right at the next street. He drove slowly along it, checking each block for any sign of Carlson or his car. The neighborhood was deserted. When the street they were on ended, Hammer swung another right, heading toward the street Carlson had turned onto.

At the intersection, Hammer checked both ways but the street was empty.

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“Shit!” He began to crisscross the blocks, carefully checking for any sign of Carlson’s car, but it was as if he’d vanished.

“Motherfucker’s getting a GPS tracker on his car next time,” he muttered, scowling as he headed back to the main road. Yanking out his cell phone, he hit a button and held the phone to his ear, still grumbling to himself.

“Mrs. Carlson, it’s John Dexter from Hammer Investigations,” he said, interrupting his own stream of profanity.

“Well, somewhat successful,” he told her after a pause. “I have a quick question for you. Do you or your husband own property anywhere near Marsh Street and Twenty-Eighth?”

He nodded, listening. “That’s what I thought. Any idea what he might be doing in this area?”

Hammer gave a bark of laughter. “Yeah, that’s probably right. Thank you, Mrs.

Carlson. I’ll call back once I have something to report.”

He hung up. “His wife thinks he has a girlfriend holed up here but that doesn’t seem right, does it, sweet pea?”

Nope.

“Well, there’s nothing more to see here. Might as well go back to the office and get some work done.” Making one right turn and then another, he headed back to the main road.

Once they got to the office, Bridget slept on the insanely comfortable couch while Hammer worked. It was late afternoon before she wandered into the back part of his office. Standing by his chair, she leaned into him, yawning hugely.

His hand stroked down her back. “Shit, we’ve got to run.” He saved the last article to the already enormous file he’d put together on Bart Carlson and shut down the computer. “Company tonight. Plus our cute loony might be by again.”

Company?
A horrible thought occurred to Bridget. Was this a
date
?

Hammer was flicking off the lights. “You’ll like them, Sweet Pea. I don’t like many people but I do like them.”

“Them” is good
, Bridget thought with relief. Unless he was having an orgy, “them”

meant some friends were coming over and there was no special lady—or guy—

involved. She immediately felt guilty. She should be happy for Hammer to have a person in his life. She was a temporary dog and occasional sex burglar—that was all.

Glancing at his watch, Hammer swore. “I was going to swing by the pet supply store on the way home to pick up some dog food but we don’t have time. Guess you’ll just have to make do with steaks tonight.” He slanted an amused glance her way.

“Think you can handle that?”

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I’ll try.
The thought of steaks did cheer her up a little, although the reminder that her situation was temporary made her ears and tail droop as she walked with him to the car.