Page 26 of Rekindle My Heart

She cocked her head. “They are good dogs and just needed to realize I’m a friend.”

“She has a fucking death wish,” he muttered under his breath as she raised her hand over the fence.

The beasts’ flat-back ears twitched.

His finger itched as it hovered over the one button. Waiting. Ready.

A whimper sounded. Ryan blinked. Was that the giant dog?

It gave a short bark, then jetted his mammoth head toward Erica.

Ryan braced for action but couldn’t believe his eyes as the two dogs whimpered again and rubbed their huge heads against Erica’s hand.

“See, they just want some love.” She slowly reached out her other hand and rubbed both dogs. Tongues rolled out and their vicious expressions morphed into that of happy, attentive, lap dogs.

“How? Did you channel the dog whisperer?” Ryan stayed rooted to his spot by the vehicle.

Just then, a tall skinny man propped open the door. “Who are you? And what the hell did you do to my dogs?” He whistled, and the two dogs bounded up the stairs and into the house.

“Beautiful dogs.” Erica moved to the gate. Ryan joined her. From the corner of her mouth, she whispered, “Chicken. Buck, buck, buck, bugawk.”

Ryan bit back his smile. There was the Erica he grew up with. He pulled out his badge as they stepped into the yard. “Sir, I’m Detective Daniels, and this is Firefighter Randall. We are looking into the fire over on Industrial Boulevard last Sunday.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” He leaned a shoulder in the doorjamb.

Ryan took this as a sign to continue. “I’m looking for a potential witness. Salvador Ruiz. We understand he’s your cousin and was staying here.”

“Not my cousin. My wife’s. I threw his lying ass out two weeks ago. I told him no drugs or he was out. I have young kids.”

Now that they were closer, and the hellhounds were back inside, Ryan spied a pink bike leaning against the backside of the railing.

“Do you happen to know where we could find him?”

“Nope. Just glad he’s gone.” He muttered something in Spanish and spit on the ground.

Ryan didn’t have to be fluent in that language to catch the meaning. He asked a few more questions, then thanked him for his time and ushered Erica back to the vehicle.

She buckled her seatbelt and turned to him. “Now what? Back to knocking on doors?”

He checked the time. “Let’s grab some food. Then we can go hit the rest of the street before it gets too late. I have some other casework to do this afternoon.”

She nodded. “Oh, Mrs. White gave me a description of the man driving the Tahoe.” She rattled off the details. “You might be able to get her to work with a sketch artist.”

“Sounds like a plan. Food first.” A loud grumble erupted in his torso. “Weng’s?”

Her eyes lit, and she licked her lips. “I love their egg rolls.”

He remembered. Oh, did he remember.

Ryan had just finished his paperwork for last week’s vehicular manslaughter case and had opened the social media account to check for any new DM’s or comments on his posts, when Amy’s blonde head popped over his cubicle wall.

“Did you send in your report on the drunk driver case?”

“Logging it in now.” He tapped the submit button.

“Cool, are you done for the day?” She sauntered into his space and plopped into the spare chair.

“Got a couple more things I was going to do. What’s on your mind?”