Red Sole Clues by Liliana Hart Page A

run around this damned athletic center searching for someone to help.
    She curled her hands into fists, felt the prick of her nails against her palms. Dammit. She shook her fists in front of her, that fierce anger waging war against her nervous system and needing some kind of release.
    Then she started swinging. Maniac that she was, she stood in the empty hallway, drumming her fists against an imaginary wall. One that wouldn’t give her a few broken digits. A few seconds in, her heart rate kicked up and her mind zoomed in on an image of Otis.
    Yes. Get all those endorphins working.
    She stopped swinging, closed her eyes and took an enormous gulp of stale air. Sucked it all in as her body hummed and the panic scouring her mind subsided.
    “I’ve got this.”
    She opened her eyes and studied the chipped paint along the edge of the security office door.
    Forget Kurt. If she couldn’t find him, she’d find someone else. The event organizer even. Anyone who could locate him, make an announcement, whatever, to get Kurt back to the office.
    She hobbled along on her maybe-broken toe, doing a goofy limp-run-walk routine until she reached the main hallway and mowed through clumps of people. “Pardon me, excuse me. Injured person coming through.”
    An older man about her father’s age with dark wavy hair came toward her holding his hands up in the classic stop signal. “Are you all right?”
    No time for that, Mr. Good Samaritan. She had a missing dog to find.
    “I’m fine. Thank you.” She kept moving and the man fell into step beside her.
    “You appear to be upset.”
    Old man, you have no idea. She let out a harsh, painful laugh. Upset might be the understatement of the decade.
    “My dog is missing. A woman stole him. Walked him right out of the building. Now I need to find security and I just kicked the stupid wall and broke my stupid toe and Otis is still gone.”
    Lucie stopped, lowering her hands to her knees, because— holy cow —that rush of words and the huge burst of oxygen it took combined with her throbbing toe sent the room spinning.
    Don’t pass out.
    “Who?” the man asked. “Kurt?”
    Lucie lifted her head. “You know him?”
    “I should hope so. He’s my son.”

Chapter Four
    K urt’s father may have just saved the day, and Lucie contemplated smacking a big wet kiss on him.
    “Thank God I ran into you,” she said, following the older man and Kurt into the security office.
    “I was coming to tell my son goodbye and saw you. The way you were limping, I figured you needed help.”
    She needed help all right.
    Moments later, Kurt showed up and slid into his chair, nudging the computer’s mouse to fire up the system. “Thanks for calling, Dad.” He pecked away at the keyboard. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
    “I don’t understand people,” his father said. “Stealing a dog. That’s awful.”
    “You’d be surprised,” Lucie said, “my friend is a detective. For months he’s been working a case involving show dog thefts. People steal the dogs and then sell them. It’s horrifying.”
    “And your dog is a show dog?”
    At that, Lucie laughed. “No. He’s way too stubborn for that. He was in the talent show. And he’s not really my dog—I’m the dog walker. But he’s…special. I love him and I have to get him back. I have to.”
    Lucie and Kurt’s father huddled at the back of the chair and peered over Kurt’s shoulder. “I’d say cue it up to around 9:40. We should be able to see her walking out the door.”
    Kurt clicked a link and a black and white image of the outside door popped up. A bar appeared on the screen and he clicked again, dragging the little icon until the time stamp read 9:40.
    He hit play and sat back, folding his arms as he watched.
    Any second the woman—barring some kind of insanity that was fairly typical in Lucie’s world—should be walking right through that door.
    The door swung open and out bounded Otis, as usual thinking he was the alpha dog