Who Let the Dog Out? by David Rosenfelt

you’re wrong, and somebody else is after that dog, for whatever reason? Won’t Stephanie and Zoe be in danger?”
    “No. We’ve got Marcus watching her, so now he’ll be watching them. No one is in danger when Marcus is on the case.”
    “So Marcus is going to follow them?”
    I nod. “Me and Marcus. Me and Marcus can handle anything.”

 
    Professor Charles Horowitz was tired of being scared. He’d been living in a perpetual state of fear ever since Michael Caruso had been killed, and it had only gotten worse when Eric Brantley went on the run.
    Actually, if he were to be honest with himself, he would admit that he had been afraid ever since Brantley came to him with the idea. At first he hadn’t taken it seriously, hadn’t thought that Brantley and Caruso could pull it off. But then, when it took shape and became real, he had encouraged them, even prodded them, to pursue it. And he had enthusiastically signed on as their partner.
    Horowitz was an introspective person, and could detach himself enough to be amazed at how the prospect of wealth had changed all of them. They were academics, which by definition meant that they had never pursued the big payoff. But this was going to be so large that they got caught up in it, and never looked back.
    Until it was too late.
    Horowitz was sure they knew about him, knew that he was part of it. Brantley said that he told them that. He said they were all going to be partners, and they should know who their partners were.
    He wasn’t sure what happened to destroy the arrangement, what Caruso and Brantley had said or done to result in the disaster it had become. They must have done something to make themselves seem like a threat.
    Horowitz didn’t want to go to the authorities; that would just result in his own imprisonment. He was out of his league with this, but sensed that his only chance would be to make the people they were dealing with understand that he was not a threat at all, but rather that he was willing to keep his end of the bargain.
    So he had contacted them, leaving a message in the manner that Brantley had once described. He felt uncomfortable doing so, not wanting to say anything incriminating into a tape that could then be used to cause his undoing.
    He wrote out what he was going to say, and then read it into their machine. He said that he did not want to cause anyone any trouble, that he merely wanted to deliver on the promise that he and “his partner” had made.
    The truth was that he really wanted out, that no money was worth the fear he felt. But he believed they wouldn’t accept that, and might see him as a continuing threat. So he was willing to go along, because it was essentially the only card he had to play.
    And then he waited. And waited some more.
    But there was nothing. Not a word. He almost saw it as comical; perhaps he had called a wrong number, and left the message on some old lady’s voice mail. Since then she’s been playing it for her friends, and they’ve all been wondering what it could mean.
    But, of course, very little about this was comical for Horowitz. Not provoking any reaction was incredibly disconcerting. Did it mean they accepted his terms? And if they hadn’t accepted the terms, why had they not come after him?
    He didn’t know that world, had no idea how they operated. Maybe this was standard operating procedure, or maybe they were out of the country, and hadn’t even heard the message. Or maybe they had washed their hands of him, and had moved on. That would be the ideal situation, but Horowitz had no way of knowing if it was fact.
    So for the time being, he led a very careful life, only going to work and then going straight home. But the fear was ever present; he likened it to soldiers walking on a trail, knowing a sniper could be out there. Or perhaps they might step on and detonate an IED. They could die in an instant, without ever realizing it. Every moment could be their last.
    That was his fear, and one