1 PAWsible Suspects by Chloe Kendrick

I pointed out, not waiting for pleasantries to be over. I wanted the spotlight out of my life, and I was in a hurry to get things back to the way they were before. I liked my low-key life.
    “Was is the operative word,” she said, now not looking so pleased to see me. “She hadn’t been a real aunt to me in ages.”
    “Why would you want to stay here? What did you hope to get out of it?” I asked, wondering about a person’s ability to continue to seek out pain and misery when new life could begin instead.
    She sighed. “You know she didn’t even recognize me. Granted, it’s been close to twenty years now, and yet she didn’t even know who I was. That made it so easy to stay here.”
    “But why would you do that?”
    “At first, I just wanted to see if she felt any remorse for what she’d done. I wanted to see if she would feel guilty for her behavior. But all she did was stay at home and watch those dogs. It was disgusting.”
    “Since she stayed at home, you couldn’t try to break in and steal her money,” I suggested, thinking that Ruby had not made it easy for a robber. She never left the dogs or her house unattended.
    She laughed, but now it wasn’t the coquettish titter of before. It was harsh and cold, and I wondered if this was my mother’s future if she didn’t get out. “Not at all. You’d think that those dogs were her children the way she coddled them. If she’d been kinder, she might have been a great aunt by now, but instead she kept bringing those dogs through the house.”
    “Dogs don’t disappoint you the way people do,” I said, knowing it to be true of my own life. Dogs are always glad to see you and never angry. They’d wag their tail and love you no matter what.
    “It’s disgusting. And you pretending to talk to the pets. That’s even worse. You’re taking people’s money for their stupid beliefs.” The attacks had become personal now, and I decided to get to the point.
    “Is that why you decided to help your brother kill your aunt?” I asked, dropping what I thought was my bombshell.
    “My brother? You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said, laughing at her own pun. “He had nothing to do with this. Nothing.”
    “You mean that you didn’t see him here the night of Ruby’s disappearance?” I was puzzled. I still needed a man who could lift people and who had come to my house.
    I heard a noise behind me and I spun around just in time to see a man with a cast on his arm raise a wrench over his head. That was the last thing I remembered before my world went black.

Chapter Seven
    When I awoke, I was in a van. I looked around and tried to figure out exactly where I was. My head hurt like a bitch, and I had trouble concentrating. I remembered being struck. I remembered being across the street from Ruby’s house. That was good. I knew events and people. It was still hard to think, and I closed my eyes again to rest.
     
    When I awoke again, I felt better. My head, though it still pounded in my ears, felt better and I could actually think now. I was still in the van. From the looks of the contents, it was a work van of some sort. There were tools on the wall and floor of the van, and I lay in the middle of the carpeted floor.
    My arms were bound behind my back, and my feet were as well. I couldn’t move, but the van certainly was moving. I tried to lean my head up to see if I could recognize any landmarks through the windshield, but I couldn’t move enough to see anything but carpet.
    I tried to go back over my deductions. I immediately saw the error of my reasoning. I assumed that the brother Gregory had to have tried to rob me, since he was the only man in the case. However, as flirtatious as Melissa was, she could easily have persuaded someone to help her. So my deductions about stealing the dogs were correct, except for my idea of which man was involved.
    Melissa had apparently recruited a man who wanted her and the money. As far as relationships went, I was