Free The Fright of the Iguana by Linda O. Johnston

me. “Are they out of town?”
    “So I gathered from Tracy. She was their pet-sitter and had no idea why Nya was even there.” Althea didn’t need to know that, but bouncing facts off this friendly and intelligent computer expert could only help me determine what other info I might need her to dig for.
    “I doubt I’ll find that online,” Althea said, looking at me with a small and irrepressible shrug, “but no problemo with the rest of the info. And I assume you need it in—” She looked down at the wide wristwatch on her slender arm. “Three seconds or less.”
    “Stress the less,” I told her with a smile.
    “I figured. So go away already and let me work.”
    “Sure thing. Oh, and when you see Jeff, tell him—”
    “Tell him yourself,” said a male voice from the direction of the office doorway. And this time, it wasn’t Buzz Dulear’s nice but not especially sexy tone that buzzed in my ears.
    I stood slowly, not wanting to appear too eager. After all, I’d seen him only yesterday. It wasn’t as if we’d had some huge, long absence between us making our hearts grow fonder.
    Was my heart growing irritatingly fonder anyhow?
    I faced Jeff, glad that, even though I’d dressed in office casual that day, since I hadn’t any law client meetings scheduled, my outfit consisted of nice crisp olive green slacks and an even crisper floral silk blouse. They didn’t exactly hug my bod and shove in his face what he was missing, now that we’d ceased having sex—but the suggestion was surely there.
    “I didn’t know you were coming to talk to Althea in person about the research you needed,” he said. His intense gaze that raked me up and down suggested that my duds were doing exactly as I’d hoped—inspiring him to look even deeper and use his sexy imagination to figure out what lay beneath.
    “I didn’t know I was, either,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t far away, so it was just as easy as calling.”
    “Good. You had lunch?”
    I blinked and pulled my cell phone from my large purse that I’d by habit slung over my shoulder. Sure enough, it was nearly noon.
    “Didn’t even realize it was lunchtime,” I told him. “But I haven’t been to my law office yet, so—”
    “Okay, we’ll do it another time. I just got back from a meeting and need to sit down at my computer and make notes. I’ll call you about getting together for dinner sometime soon. Okay, Kendra?”
    He didn’t even await my astonished and decisively chilly reply.
    “Something wrong between you two?” Althea asked softly from behind me as I stayed staring at the empty doorway.
    “There is no us two,” I told her from between my teeth. “Remind me to tell you one of these days about the really delightful veterinarian I’m dating. Charming, sexy, sweet, and of course he loves animals.”
    “I think you just told me,” Althea said wryly.
    “Could be. Well, I’ll give you a call later today and see if you’ve found anything yet to help me figure out why Nya Barston morphed last night from an outspoken pet-sitter person into a sorry, bat-beaten homicide victim, and whodunit. Or anything about the pet-nappings. Thanks, Althea.”
    I headed out as fast as my wobbly feet would carry me.
    And exactly what was the reason I’d decided to come to Jeff’s Westwood office in person?
    Damned if I now knew.

Chapter Seven

    OKAY, ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING lawyerly—at least officially so—seemed a total lost cause that day. No time. No state of mind that would suggest I could concentrate.
    Consequently, I made an executive decision. As the managing member of Critter TLC, LLC, I was, after all, an executive of sorts. While walking along the busy commercial streets of Westwood toward my Beamer, I called the representatives of the other side of my multiple personality—er, career—and reached, as anticipated, our dear and dingbatty receptionist Mignon.
    “I need to take a personal day,” I told her. “I don’t have any meetings or