Page 51 of The Summer Guests

“Not if we think someone’s in imminent danger.”

“Who? Who’s in danger?”

“You tell us, Farley.” She glanced at Mike and nodded.

Mike pulled out his handcuffs.

Farley bolted into the woods.

“You’vegotto be kidding me,” Jo groaned, and she sprinted after him.

Farley led her into underbrush so thick that it snagged her ankles, clawed her pants. He was only a few paces ahead, making no better headway through these brambles. Then he pivoted to the left and headed toward his driveway. Toward his pickup truck.

Behind her, Mike stumbled and crashed to the ground. Yelled out an uncharacteristic oath. Farley wasn’t wearing any body armor, didn’t have a radio weighing him down, and he was pulling ahead. If he made it to his truck, if he got the engine started ...

She slammed through a tangle of vines and stumbled onto the driveway. Any second now, she expected to hear his truck roar to life, see his taillights flicker off into the distance, but all she heard was her own breathing, hard and fast. Where was he? Had he doubled back into the woods?

Then she saw the figures moving toward her. In the fading twilight, they were faceless silhouettes, an ominous platoon marching information. The figure in the lead stepped forward. Locked in his grasp was a squirming, cursing Farley Wade.

“I take it you wanted this gentleman returned to you?” said Ben.

She’d always thought that Ben Diamond, with his perpetual glower and his shaved head, had a strong streak of thug in him. Now he lived up to that image by dropping Farley at Jo’s feet with the ease of a seasoned bouncer.

Farley moaned. “This is police brutality!”

“We’re not the police,” Ben growled.

“Then who are you?”

Jo snapped handcuffs around Farley’s wrists and whispered into his ear: “You don’t want to know.”

She locked Farley in the back of Mike’s cruiser, now parked in Farley’s yard, then she and Mike stood outside the double-wide, considering what to do about their next problem: the dog. Jo had only to reach for the doorknob when the barking started inside, loud and deep. This was not a dog she wanted to tangle with.

Mike pulled out his weapon.

Oh no.Jo thought about her own dog and how it would break her heart if anyone ever harmed Lucy. No, they were not going to shoot the animal. It wasn’t the dog’s fault its owner was a jerk.

“Let’s think about this,” she said.

“The girl could be in there. We’ve got to get inside.”

“I know, I know.” She went to Mike’s cruiser and leaned in. “Want to call off your dog?” she said to Farley.

“No.”

“It’d save everyone a lot of trouble if you cooperated.”

“That’s why I’m not gonna cooperate.”

“Look, Farley, I don’t want to have to shoot it.”

“I don’t care. He’s not my dog. He was my grandmother’s.”

“And you don’t haveanysentimental attachment?”

“Dog food’s expensive.”

She felt a tap on her shoulder. “Excuse me,” said Lloyd Slocum.