Innocent Prey (A Brown and de Luca Novel) Read Online Free Page B

“classic”—aka old—black Monte Carlo. He pulled it over, shut it off, locked it up and got out while we stood there. Myrtle was wiggling her backside in delight, knowing it was him and overjoyed about it. (She’d have wagged her tail, but bulldogs don’t really have tails. So they wag their entire asses, which I think is a much more accurate depiction of extreme enthusiasm. Myrtle agrees.)
    Mason approached her first, crouching down low to rub her head on either side of her face, and she closed her sightless eyes and basked in his attention. I do the same thing when he touches me like that.
    Then he stood up again, but instead of kissing me hello—which would’ve been hopelessly goofy anyway, so I don’t even know why I was hoping for it—he said, “I need your help.”
    I sighed my disappointment away. “Hi, Mason. I’ve been having a great day. Thanks for asking. Yes, I slept just fine after you left. Myrtle is a blanket hog, but not as bad as you are. And yes, as a matter of fact, we are enjoying our walk.”
    He lowered his head, raised it again, grabbed my shoulders and pulled me in for a long, slow kiss. I let go of Myrt’s leash and got all mushy inside, sliding my arms around his shoulders and really getting into it.
    Then he let me go, and when I straightened my knees tried to go jellyfish on me, but I snapped them straight again.
    “I missed you,” he said.
    I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud, don’t be so emo.”
    But inside I was grinning like a kid.
    “So what was the lunch meeting about? Or should I ask what you need my help with first?” I picked up Myrtle’s leash, and we went off the road and down toward the shore. This was one of Myrt’s favorite things. The water was still cold, but she loved to put her paws in, and drink and sniff around.
    Mason came and stood beside me. “It’s the same answer to both questions. A judge’s twenty-year-old daughter is missing. He thinks she’s just throwing a tantrum and wants me to find her discreetly. Off the books. I want you to help me.”
    I nodded slowly. We’d had this whole “police consultant” conversation before. He thought I should work with the Binghamton PD officially. But I wasn’t about to put “uncanny sense of what other people are thinking and feeling” on the application. And I would rather be drawn and quartered than labeled some kind of psychic. Besides, I already had a career. A nice lucrative one, thank you very much.
    “It doesn’t sound like anything you can’t handle on your own.”
    “You can handle it better.”
    “Why?” I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it, because I knew that was exactly what he wanted. And now I’d opened the door. Shit.
    “Because she’s blind, Rache.”
    “Oh, for the love of—”
    “Drunk driver hit her car last fall. September. Doctors just told her in March that there was no hope of ever getting her sight back. She’s not dealing with it very well.”
    “ No one deals with it very well.”
    “I just want you to come with me to where she was last seen. Walk through the moments before she vanished with me. How bad is that?”
    I heaved a sigh. “Myrtle needs her walk, you know. That evil lying vet of hers still insists she’s overweight.”
    “He has a death wish. I’m sure of it,” Mason said, and then he shrugged. “Actually, walking is exactly what we’ll be doing. We can bring her along. You’ve already got her leash.”
    “You know perfectly well she does not ride in a car without her designer goggles and matching scarf.”
    He jogged up to the road to his car, opened the door and leaned in. When he came to the edge of the road again, he held up his gift. “Doggy goggles.”
    They were hot pink with black peace signs all over them. I almost loved them. “Did you get those on the way over?” It took some doing, but I convinced Myrt to come back up the slope away from the water. Mason handed the goggles to me. Even the lenses were tinted