Her house. She felt all the tension ease out of her. Her home.

Einstein barked at her for attention, and she remembered Tina. She dropped her purse and the bag from the drugstore on the floor and dialed her sister’s number, absentmindedly scratching behind Einstein’s ears while she listened to the ring.

“Tina?” she said when the ringing stopped, but it was Tina’s machine, so she left a message. “This is Lucy. I wanted you to know, I just beat up a mugger. I really did, and it was wonderful. And don’t worry, I’m okay. In fact, I’m great. You were right. I love you!”

And then she hung up and relaxed into the threadbare softness of her chair, hugging herself.

She really did feel wonderful. Sort of tired, but wonderful. Good tired.

Her gaze fell on the drugstore bag where she’d dropped it, and she stood, swooping it up as she straightened.

“Look at this,” she told the dogs. “I went to the store to get disinfectant for my cheek, and right there, in the checkout line, was a big display that said ‘On Sale! Discontinued! 1/2 Off!’ and it was this!” With a flourish, she pulled a box out of the bag. “So I bought it.”

Einstein squinted at the box, decided it wasn’t biscuits, and collapsed with disappointment. Maxwell contemplated the air. Heisenburg rolled over onto his back.

Lucy ignored them to study the photo on the box: the model’s hair was a rich cloud of midnight curls and she looked sultry and provocative. “This is the new me,” she told the dogs. “It’s time I changed. I just made a mistake with this blonde mess because I didn’t think it through. I’m not the blonde type, you know?”

Maxwell and Einstein looked at each other. Heisenburg stayed on his back.

“Oh, you may laugh. But I’m changing my hair and I’m changing my life. No more mousy, timid brown or brassy, tacky blonde. I’m going to change into a whole new Lucy. I’m going to be a brunette. Dark, fascinating, dangerous. Independent. All men will desire me. All men will fear me.”

Einstein sighed, Maxwell scratched, and Heisenburg stayed on his back.

Lucy looked back at the picture on the box. “Well, maybe not. But they won’t ignore me or stare at my hair in disbelief. And I feel tougher with this hair. I’ll take chances. I’ll date exciting men.” She remembered the last exciting man she’d been attracted to, the one who had mugged her in an alley. “Well, maybe not. You know, I don’t have very good taste in men. Maybe I’ll hold off on the dating for a while.”

Like maybe forever.

She looked down at the dogs who were staring at her now with adoration. Even Maxwell’s usually glazed eyes were shining with puppy love, and Heisenburg had let his head fall back so he could worship her upside down. “I should just stick with you guys. You’re the best.”

Okay. No men for a while, no matter how lonely she felt. But she could still change. She could still be independent and control her life. She could do it.

“I’ll tell you something else,” she told the dogs. “I’m really being independent. I’m even taking back my maiden name. In fact, I already did. I just signed a note with it. And not only that, later, when I’m done, we’ve got real fun. Do you know what we’re going to do?”

Einstein and Maxwell cocked an ear at the lilt in her voice. Heisenburg lay doggedly on his back.

“All right, all right,” Lucy said to him, giving in to canine blackmail. “Dead dog?” Heisenburg jumped up, delirious at finally being noticed.

“You are spoiled rotten,” Lucy told him. “Now as I was saying, do you know what we’re going to do?”

The dogs waited.

“We’re going to get rid of Bradley!” Lucy said, flinging her arms wide.

The dogs went wild with joy.

“My sentiments, exactly,” she told them and went upstairs to start transforming herself.


AN HOUR AND A HALF later, Zack pulled up in front of the address Lucy Savage had left on the patrol-car windshield.

It was in an older neighborhood, close to the university and in the throes of gentrification. Some of the big old Victorians were completely restored, some hadn’t been touched, and some were in transition. The Savage house was one that someone had begun to make an effort with.

Zack sat in his car and checked the place out. The three-story cream brick house, like all the others around it, was on a hill bisected by the cracked concrete driveways that consumed the narrow side yards separating the houses. A small blue Civic, its windows rolled up tightly in the February cold, sat in the driveway to the left. The drive to the right was empty.

There was no one in sight.

Great. This is why he needed a partner with him so he could say, “It’s quiet…too quiet.” So where was Anthony? Chasing brunettes. You couldn’t trust anybody these days.

He got out of the car and climbed the concrete steps to the house.

He twisted the knob on the antique doorbell, and its hellish scream echoed through the big rooms of the house, followed by the barking of what seemed like a thousand dogs.

His grandmother had once had a doorbell like this one, and he remembered how wonderfully godawful it had sounded, the kind of ring that went right up your spine and out the top of your head. Then one day, his grandmother had had enough and put chimes in instead, and he hadn’t felt the same way about his grandmother’s house since.

Or his grandmother, for that matter.

And now Lucy Savage had the same godawful doorbell. It figured. Savage woman, savage doorbell.

He twisted it again. A thousand dogs barked again.

The door opened.

She was a brunette, sort of. Actually, she had the blackest hair he’d ever seen in his life on anyone. Or anything. It was the kind of dead, dull black that seemed to absorb light and air, and her face was surrounded and overwhelmed by it. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure it was the same woman, and then he recognized the pointed chin and the big eyes, now widening in startled recognition. She started to slam the massive wood door, but he put his foot in it to block her. forgetting that he was wearing canvas shoes, not leather. She slammed the heavy door into his foot and yelled, “Go away. I have vicious dogs. I’m calling the police!”

“I am the police!” Zack clenched his teeth against the pain. He shoved his badge in against the shoe-width crack in the door. “Do you know the penalty for assaulting a police officer?”

“What?” She stared at his badge and then slumped against the doorframe, letting the door fall open. “I don’t believe this. I just don’t believe this.”

“Believe it, lady. Can I come in, or do you want to beat on me some more?”

She stood back so he could go in, her eyes wide in her woebegone face, and Zack would have felt sorry for her if he hadn’t been in so much pain.

“Thank you.” He limped past her into the vestibule. She closed the door behind him and then opened the vestibule door, and the dogs attacked.

The big sheep dog was the first to reach him. It immediately leaned heavily against his leg, shedding all over his jeans and drooling into his shoe. The little skinny brown one draped itself over Zack’s uninjured foot and stared off into space at nothing in particular. And the one that looked like a floor mop barked at him once and then rolled over onto its back with all four short legs in the air and lay there, motionless.

“These are vicious attack dogs?”

“I thought you were a mugger.” She shoved her impossible hair out of her face. “And they sound vicious.” They both looked down at the dogs. “Sort of.”

“What’s wrong with the mop?” Zack asked.

“He’s not a mop. That’s Heisenburg and… Never mind. Am I under arrest for beating you up?”

“You did not beat me up, lady. The only reason you hit me at all is that I wasn’t defending myself because I didn’t want to hurt you.” Zack looked down at Heisenburg. “Is he sick?”

“No,” she said. “It’s a dog joke. It’s the only one he knows.”

“A dog joke.”

“Yes. You feed him the setup, and then he does the punch line. Like a knock-knock joke.”

“You taught this dog a joke?”

“No.” She looked down at the mop with pride. “He thought it up on his own.”

Zack looked around the spotless vestibule and through the open door. The next room was spacious, with high ceilings and hardwood floors covered with worn Oriental rugs. It was Ml of sunlight and comfortable, threadbare, overstuffed furniture, and he could hear a fire crackling cheerfully somewhere close. He looked at the woebegone brunette gazing down at her three dogs, and at the two dogs gazing back adoringly. And finally he looked at the third dog, Heisenburg, waiting patiently on his back for his setup line.

If this woman was a crook, he was Queen of the May. He grinned at her so suddenly that she blinked. “You’re not a criminal, are you?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“Not unless you arrest me for mugging you. I deserve it. I know I deserve it. But you scared me.” She frowned. “Why did you drag me into that alley?”

“We need to talk.” Zack held out his hand. “I’m Detective Zachery Warren.”

She took his hand and shook it. “I’m Lucy Savage, and I’m really sorry I beat you up. Your lip looks awful.”

“You didn’t beat me up. Would you feed this dog his line so we can go sit down?”

“Oh, no!” Lucy said, with so much enthusiasm that Zack looked to see what was wrong. “Dead dog?”

Heisenburg rolled over and jumped to his feet and barked.

Zack looked at Lucy. “That’s a dog joke?”

“What did you expect? ‘That was no lady, that was my wife’?”

“I don’t know,” Zack said, confused. “Can we go sit down? My foot is killing me.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions before I explain about the alley,” Zack began when he was finally sitting on the rose-colored love seat across from the blazing fireplace in the living room. So far, he’d turned down coffee, tea, soft drinks, aspirin, and ice for his foot from Lucy, and affectionate approaches from Heisenberg, who wanted to sit in his lap. Now he was anxious to cut to the chase and get some answers before one of the other dogs began a soft shoe or tried to sell him magazines.

“Sure,” Lucy said. “Whatever.”

She was sitting next to him in a big, ugly olive-green chair that didn’t seem to go with the rest of the house, and she looked swallowed up by it somehow, her knees higher than her waist, her shoulders bowing in a little like folded angel wings.

“Are you all right?” Zack said. “You seem… depressed.”

“I went to court to get divorced today, and my ex-husband stood me up. Then my sister decided to change my Me. Then a drug dealer tried to mug me, so I beat him up, and I thought, at last, I’m doing something right, and then he turned out to be a cop. You.” She blinked. “I’m having a bad day. I’ll get over it.”

“You didn’t beat me up. I wasn’t even trying to defend myself.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Zack gave up. “Tell me about Bradley. Everything you know.”

“Bradley?” Lucy sat back, confused. “That’s what you said on the street. Why do you want to know about my ex-husband?”

“If he’s the man we’re looking for, he embezzled a million and a half in government bonds from the bank where he worked.”

Lucy’s mouth dropped open and she sat up straight. “He embezzled from his bank?”

“Banks are the best places to embezzle from,” Zack said. “They usually have the most money. Now, when and where did you meet him?”

“He picked me up at the library,” Lucy said, still dazed from his announcement. “I was working on some lesson plans, and I looked up, and there he was, and he asked if he could sit down, and he talked to me and bought me a juice from the vending machines, and then he walked me to my car, and two months later we were married.”

“That fast?” Zack said, writing everything down.

“Well, I had my reasons.” Lucy sank back in her chair and closed her eyes. “They were the wrong reasons, but I didn’t know that then.”

Zack wasn’t listening. This could be it. The dates matched. He looked over at Lucy, sitting lost in an ugly green chair, and he felt a sudden protectiveness for her that was totally out of character for him. The poor helpless kid was just an innocent bystander. That rat Bradley…

Bradley.

Zack started to tap his notebook again. “And exactly when did you meet him?”

“And besides,” Lucy went on, still lost in her own train of thought, “there was the second law of thermonuclear dynamics.”