Free Double Dog Dare by Linda O. Johnston

then drove up the short driveway to my carport. That’s when I saw a stranger working in the yard. I parked, exited my vehicle, and headed up the front walk toward my rented-out mansion.
    I’d called Rachel to alert her, and she immediately opened the front door. As she exited, so did an excited Beggar, who ran to me as if expecting my usual dog accompaniment, but I hadn’t yet retrieved Lexie and Odin from Jeff’s house. Obviously disappointed, the gorgeous Irish setter commenced loping around the yard. She stopped beside the stranger, who didn’t appear to be gardening. Nor had I noticed the usual gardener’s beat-up truck along the street.
    “Who’s that?” I inquired.
    The guy didn’t look much older than Rachel, late teens or early twenties. He wore a white muscle shirt and frayed jeans, and his bronze skin, black hair, and jutting cheekbones suggested a Hispanic background. And it wasn’t weeds he appeared to be pulling up with a big basket on a stick, but doggy do-do.
    “He’s with our new poop-scooping service,” Rachel said, regarding the eye-candy guy with appreciation. “I’d heard some of the neighbors talking about it. It’s called What’s the Scoop, and when I was walking Beggar, I saw the guy who appears to be the owner talking to Phil Ashler.”
    My silver-haired senior citizen neighbor had recently adopted a medium-size mutt named Middlin from one of the animal shelters. I’d worked with them a little to help ensure Middlin was potty trained properly. He was a sweet-natured rescue dog, and I adored Phil for taking him in.
    “Phil told me what a great job the new scooper was doing for Middlin and him. He recommended the new outfit, so I said I’d give them a try. The owner sent his helper here this afternoon.” She gestured toward the young guy now scouring the yard for errant piles of poop. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”
    “I’ll bet,” I interjected dryly.
    Rachel’s gaze was irritated as she added, “I mean, since I’ve let him onto the property. I think he’s doing a good job.”
    “We’ll see how many piles he misses,” I retorted. But I felt too distracted to perform any poop patrol and figured I’d let Rachel do any feces reconnaissance. I had pet-sitting to complete this evening, my own canine and Jeff’s to go home to hug—and that same man to stew about. Again. Still.
    I’d call Althea again to see if she’d gotten any additional leads for me to follow regarding some connection among Jeff, Lois Terrone, The Clone Arranger, and the death of Earl Knox.
    What if Jeff was still alive and he’d staged his own vanishing to hide that he’d been about to off Knox for reasons of his own?
    I considered that absurd allegation as I headed my car back toward his home an hour later, after my evening pet-sitting visits to Abra, Cadabra, and Stromboli, and a quick visit to Meph, Stromboli’s neighbor and my clone cohort, and his human mama, Maribelle, just for fun.
    I’d decided to spend some time the next morning taking Stromboli and Meph, along with Lexie and Odin, to a dog park. They deserved some extra exercise and attention.
    And I deserved some additional distraction. Assuming it would get my mind off Jeff.
    But for now, my brain kept brimming over with questions and ideas that led . . . nowhere.
    Where could I go next in my investigation into Jeff’s disappearance?

Chapter Six
    I’M A CONFIRMED listophile. A listaholic. That was how I handled all of my litigation. My pet-sitting. My life. But I had no idea how to list a plan of attack to locate Jeff.
    That night before bed, I sat on Jeff’s white sectional sofa, in his sunken living room, surrounded by sympathetic dogs. Lexie’s head was on my lap, and Odin’s butt abutted my leg on the other side. I held a pad of paper and a pen in my hands, and the news on Jeff’s big-screen TV near the huge stone fireplace was on mute. I’d turned it on in case there was something more about the murder at The Clone