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Sick Puppy (Maggie #2)
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Praise for Pamela Fagan Hutchins
2018 USA Today Best Seller
2017 Silver Falchion Award, Best Mystery
2016 USA Best Book Award, Cross-Genre Fiction
2015 USA Best Book Award, Cross-Genre Fiction
2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Quarter-finalist, Romance
What Doesn't Kill You: Katie Romantic Mysteries
“An exciting tale . . . twisting investigative and legal subplots . . . a character seeking redemption . . . an exhilarating mystery with a touch of voodoo.” — Midwest Book Review Bookwatch
“A lively romantic mystery.” — Kirkus Reviews
“A riveting drama . . . exciting read, highly recommended.” — Small Press Bookwatch
“Katie is the first character I have absolutely fallen in love with since Stephanie Plum!” — Stephanie Swindell, Bookstore Owner
“Engaging storyline . . . taut suspense.” — MBR Bookwatch
What Doesn't Kill You: Emily Romantic Mysteries
“Fair warning: clear your calendar before you pick it up because you won't be able to put it down.” — Ken Oder, author of Old Wounds to the Heart
“Full of heart, humor, vivid characters, and suspense. Hutchins has done it again!” — Gay Yellen, author of The Body Business
“Hutchins is a master of tension.” — R.L. Nolen, author of Deadly Thyme
“Intriguing mystery . . . captivating romance.” — Patricia Flaherty Pagan, author of Trail Ways Pilgrims
“Everything about it shines: the plot, the characters and the writing. Readers are in for a real treat with this story.” — Marcy McKay, author of Pennies from Burger Heaven
What Doesn't Kill You: Michele Romantic Mysteries
“Immediately hooked." — Terry Sykes-Bradshaw, author of Sibling Revelry
"Spellbinding." — Jo Bryan, Dry Creek Book Club
"Fast-paced mystery." — Deb Krenzer, Book Reviewer
"Can't put it down." — Cathy Bader, Reader
What Doesn't Kill You: Ava Romantic Mysteries
"Just when I think I couldn't love another Pamela Fagan Hutchins novel more, along comes Ava." — Marcy McKay, author of Stars Among the Dead
"Ava personifies bombshell in every sense of word. — Tara Scheyer, Grammy-nominated musician, Long-Distance Sisters Book Club
“Entertaining, complex, and thought-provoking.” — Ginger Copeland, power reader
What Doesn't Kill You: Maggie Romantic Mysteries
“Hutchins’ Maggie is an irresistible train wreck—you can’t help but turn the page to see what trouble she’ll get herself into next." —Robert Dugoni, #1 Amazon Bestselling Author of My Sister's Grave
“Murder has never been so much fun!” — Christie Craig, New York Times Best Seller
“Maggie’s gonna break your heart–one way or another.” — Tara Scheyer, Grammy-nominated musician, Long-Distance Sisters Book Club
“Pamela Fagan Hutchins nails that Wyoming scenery and captures the atmosphere of the people there.” — Ken Oder, author of Old Wounds to the Heart
"You’re guaranteed to love the ride!" — Kay Kendall, Silver Falchion Best Mystery Winner
Sick Puppy (Maggie #2)
A What Doesn't Kill You Romantic Mystery
Pamela Fagan Hutchins
Copyright © 2019 by Pamela Fagan Hutchins
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To Eric, who’s still on the fence
about the brave new world of VRBOs.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by the Author
Other Books from SkipJack Publishing
One
Maggie brakes for a tumbleweed the size of a small pickup. The giant weed rolls across Highway 87, bouncing off a DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS sign before resuming its course south. In the rearview mirror, the New Mexico sunset is a Technicolor backdrop to the zombie chorus line the dead bush and its brethren form on a barbed-wire fence. They’re like the display of coyote carcasses Maggie’d seen a few miles back. If the hanging coyotes are a warning to predators, what are the tumbleweeds warning? By the brown, barren look of things, the fauna thinks the message is for them.
She rescues a whipping strand of hair from her ChapSticked lips. Lipstick and a headband had been out of the question when she left Colorado Springs without sleeping, in a hellfire hurry to get back to Giddings. Home. Her home.
She turns to the panting border collie–corgi mix in the passenger seat. The dog’s black-and-white hair is levitating, but the wind is hot. “This is as good as it’s gonna get, Louise.”
Louise whines, circles, then sticks her nose out the window.
Maggie’s phone plays a portentous series of chords on the seat beside her. She’d set new notification tones last night, as soon as she was out of Wyoming. Time for change, across the board. This sound is for a text, and it tells her two things. First, she’s back in the land of cell service. Second, her phone survived being thrown at the door of the bathroom stall in Raton, after flaunting a text from Hank, the love of her life and breaker of her heart.
Hank’s text had read: Was it something I said?
Something he said. Funny.
Defying death now, she presses the phone for his contact information. His picture pops up, and she enlarges it. He’s in profile, smiling and showing off his delicious dimple. A Stetson covers his dark hair. His shirt is open at the neck, right where she used to like to kiss him.
Well, not anymore.
She puts the phone down, stretches her eyes wide, and rolls her neck. With another vat of coffee, she can make it to Wichita Falls for a few hours—she prays—of sleep, leaving her an easy five hours tomorrow. Driving outside the hot hours is appealing, due to her broken air conditioner. And pretty much any hours the sun is out are hot in Texas in mid-September.
Maggie switches feet on the accelerator to give her aching right foot a stretching break. No air conditioner and no cruise control. Worst of all, her tush doesn’t appreciate the long hours driving. When a thirty-seven-year-old woman gets bucked off a muscle-bound draft horse six feet at the shoulder, it isn’t pretty, and Maggie had bitten the dust only the day before, courtesy of Hank’s Percheron Lily. A sad pang takes her by surprise. It’s not only Hank she’s going to miss. She’ll miss Lily. The mountains. The wildlife. Everyone at Piney Bottoms Ranch.
A lone woman walking on the shoulder of the highway catches Maggie’s attention. A long gray French braid hangs down her back. As Bess
and the trailer pass her, she turns and makes eye contact with Maggie. A shiver runs up Maggie’s arms. The woman’s face is ghostly white. A blue scarf encircles her neck. Maggie takes her foot off the gas. Should she stop and offer her a ride? But the pale woman wasn’t hitching.
Maggie powers on, regardless, restless dog beside her.
An hour and forty-five minutes later, the speed limit drops as she enters Amarillo. Maggie switches off Lucinda Williams, who’s rasping about why she “Changed the Locks.” She scans for radio stations on the new stereo in Bess, her vintage pickup. Magenta vintage pickup, a color never intended by the Ford Motor Company, Maggie is sure. But it suits Bess, and Bess suits Maggie. She loves every rusted spot on the underbelly and dent in the hide of the truck’s close-to-seventy-five-year-old body.
Maggie catches the tail end of a commercial that doesn’t sound like it belongs on Spanish-speaking, Christian, or talk radio, so she stops. The commercial ends, and a pop song with a hip-hop edge comes on. There’s something else to it, too. Steel pans, maybe?
Maggie groans. Her finger hovers over the scan button.
Louise makes retching noises.
“I know. It’s not my thing either.”
Over the wind and highway noise, Maggie recognizes the song and the singer. A hit from last year: “Bombshell” by the It Girl of the moment, Ava Butler. Maggie was the It Girl once upon a time, too, before she pissed it away. Maggie hates Ava Butler, and not just because Ava’s success makes Maggie feel like Jennifer Anniston reading an Enquirer article about Angelina Jolie’s perfect Brad Pitt babies. No, Maggie hates her because the two women costarred in a cheesy musical in Waco, Texas, and Ava stole Maggie’s part.
And Maggie holds grudges.
Louise retches again. Her sides begin to heave, and her legs quiver.
More than just good musical instincts? “Oh. Oh no. Louise, wait. Stop. No!”
Leaving the station as-is, Maggie puts her blinker on and veers across three lanes of traffic—setting off a barrage of horns—toward an abandoned building with a buckled blacktop lot. When she’s pulled in far enough that her trailer isn’t sticking out in the road, she grabs the leash and snaps it on Louise. She doesn’t want Louise blowing chunks on the driver’s side, so Maggie scoots across the bench seat, maneuvers over the stick shift and sick dog, and opens the passenger door.
“Ouch.” Her sore tush complains about the sudden activity. She gives the leash an awkward tug. “Come on, Louise.”
Louise doesn’t budge. Before Maggie can make it past the line of fire, Louise deposits two cups of soggy dog food and cheeseburger across the seat, the floorboard, and Maggie’s hobo bag, boots, and jeans.
In a voice more empathetic than angry, Maggie says, “Oh, Fucker.”
Louise wags her tail. In their one week together, Louise has decided that Fucker means “I love you” in Maggie-speak.
“Quit smiling at me.”
The dog flops down in the vomit, like she’s just too weak to stand another second.
“Oh no, no, nooo.” Maggie shakes her leg to dislodge vomit from her boot. She counts back the days since she’s slept. Three, maybe? She can’t take this. “So much for Wichita Falls.”
A police cruiser pulls up behind her truck, lights wigwagging.
“Perfect.”
The cop takes his time running her plates. Given her recent problems with the law in Wyoming, Maggie decides to sit tight and wait for him, half in and half out of the truck, instead of cleaning up like she wants to. A few minutes later, a stocky officer with red hair and a full but not bad-looking face saunters to the passenger side. Maggie doesn’t have to roll down the window, at least, which is good, since she’s managed to get dog barf on her hands.
“Good evening. I’m Officer John Burrows, Amarillo Police Department. Are you having a problem, ma’am?” The cop bends down to peer in the door, hand on his holstered gun. His voice is small-town West Texas. Give her five more minutes and she’ll place the county, ten and she’ll peg his town. Sound and Maggie are friends, and she’s great with accents, especially Texas ones.
Maggie points at Louise. “My dog just barfed all over the place. And me.”
He coughs and steps back. “Are you aware you made an unsafe lane change before you exited the roadway?”
Maggie sighs. “I used my blinker.”
“You cut off traffic.”
“Louise had just done her Linda Blair-in-the-Exorcist impression.”
His expression is stony. Maybe he hadn’t seen the movie. The vomit scene. Or maybe he has zero sense of humor. “License and insurance, please.”
“Do you have a paper towel or something? My hands are covered in dog puke.”
He lowers his Ray-Bans and squints friendly green eyes over them at Maggie, Louise, and the vomit. “Sorry, no.”
“The longer I sit here, the worse it’s going to smell. I have dirty laundry I could use for cleanup, but it’s on my utility trailer. Can’t you just write me a ticket while I get out and start scrubbing?”
“That’s not protocol, ma’am. I need you to hand me your documentation and remain in the cab.” He slides his aviators into his shirt pocket.
“Of course you do.” She wipes her hands on her thighs and slips open her bag, trying not to transfer barf from the bag to her person while she does. The officer’s attention is on a flip pad of ticket forms. She swipes her license through the vomit before she holds it out to him. “License.”
He takes it without looking up. When he notices the vomit, he grimaces, pulling one finger at a time away from the license. Then he glares at her.
She pretends not to see him as she rummages in the tiny glove box for her insurance card. When she finds it, she manages to leave a perfect set of puke prints on the paper. Her lips twitch. “Here you go, sir.”
He pinches it by one corner. “Wait here.”
“Can I please clean up now? I know my license matches the registration you pulled on the truck, along with my clean driving record and up-to-date insurance. Please?”
Louise wags her tail, each sweep stirring up wet chunks and sending them flying.
“Fine.”
Maggie retrieves dirty laundry and wipes down the interior, the dog, and herself—not that it does much good—while still maintaining the presence of mind to flip off two truckers and a carload of teenage boys who honk and shout at her as they pass. She rebags her dirty laundry and tucks it under the trailer tarp, then fastens the bungee cords.
The officer reappears by the truck bed as she’s walking toward the cab. “I’ve written you a warning.”
“Really?”
“Really. Sign here.” He taps his ticket pad, handing it and a pen to her.
She verifies that everything on the ticket is correct, then signs her name.
He tears off the ticket. “Please be more careful.”
“Yes, sir.” Maggie salutes as she takes it.
“Also, my sister and her husband own a hotel. The Sundowner. They take pets. You can clean yourself and the pooch off better.” He offers her a business card. “Tell her I sent you.”
“Thank you. I might do that.”
“It’s downtown. Right next to Pumpjack’s. And tonight is karaoke night there. It’s a big draw. Fun.”
“I’m not feeling much into fun.”
His jaw flexes, eyes sparkle. “I know who you are. Maggie Killian. You’re famous for fun.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Lies, all lies. I promise.”
“Think about it. Seriously, it’s the place to be on Thursday nights in Amarillo.”
It hits her. “You’re going, aren’t you?”
Finally, he grins. “I am. And I would really love it if you’d sing ‘Buckle Bunny.’”
Her music seems a lifetime ago to her. A really long, hard lifetime. “Maybe. And thank you. For only giving me a warning, and for the info about the hotel. I’ve had a really bad week.”
He nods in sympathy. “I read the articl
e online.”
The “How the Mighty Maggie Killian Has Fallen” article posted on an entertainment blog last week had made her sound like a train wreck. Correction: an even bigger train wreck.
She doesn’t bother telling Burrows that the article isn’t a fraction of what made her week bad. That she spurned a Unabomber-type fan—Rudy—in Wyoming, where she’d gone to win Hank back, under the pretense of shopping for junk at estate sales. That the fan then used a tire iron to bash in the head of Chet, the cowboy she’d had a one-night oops with after Hank introduced her to his much younger, Sunday school–teaching girlfriend, Sheila. How Bess broke down, leaving her stranded at Hank’s ranch, where the police zeroed in on her as the murder suspect and basically put her on house arrest in Wyoming. That meanwhile in Texas someone vandalized Flown the Coop, her antique shop, at the very same time the crazy fan invaded her Wyoming cabin and stole Hank’s rifle and her two most treasured possessions—Hank’s Frontier Days bull riding champion belt buckle and a guitar strap embroidered by her mother. That the same rifle was used to kill a neighboring rancher—Patrick, who had taken her out to dinner—and to shoot Hank while he was out riding with Maggie. How Maggie managed to run for the crazy fan’s cabin, find the rifle, buckle, and guitar strap, shoot the crazy fan, leave him for the sheriff, and get help for Hank in time to save his life. Then, just when Maggie thought she and Hank might have a chance, Sheila announced a baby on board and her engagement to Hank.