Nina Wright - Whiskey with a Twist

If Susan’s goal was to make sure that I and, by extension, my company appeared to her husband as losers, then Odette was in a position to prevent that. Or at least reverse the impression. No doubt my star agent was selling Big Houses on the Prairie even as Susan sucked face.

Maybe Susan disliked me and her husband enough to want to punish us both. I shook myself like a wet dog. Why worry? Jeb wouldn’t care how pathetic I looked; he (mostly) loved me for the mess I was. Liam didn’t fancy Afghans, so he wouldn’t be here to witness my Walk of Shame.

I hurried from the exhibit hall, determined to quickly quiz Kori about Sandy Slater. Several handlers loitered near the door, most of them savoring the smokes they weren’t allowed to have inside. Kori was not among them. Figuring that even if every handler didn’t know every other handler, everybody knew Kori, I was about to ask if anyone had seen her. Then I saw her. Or rather, I saw a flash of bubble-gum pink and the tail end of her big blue dog disappear around the corner of the building. So I followed.

I expected to find Kori lighting up either a cigarette or a joint. I did not expect to find Kori imitating her aunt. Yet that was the scene I stumbled into: Kori kissing a tall gorgeous man. Once again, I knew both the players. But I’d had no inkling these two were acquainted, let alone familiar enough to taste each other’s tongues.

Finally I had proof that MacArthur was on site. He was also on Kori-pressing her to him with as much zeal as she was using to grab onto him. These two appeared to be even hotter for each other than Susan and the handler. Less inhibited, at any rate. I didn’t know why I was so stunned to find them in a clinch. Kori reminded me of my stepdaughter, and I already knew MacArthur liked her; she was tattooed on his arm for the whole world to see. He may have been the cleaner at work, but on his own time he liked the messy life.

While I stared at the lovers, the big Afghan hound looked discreetly away. He had better manners than I did, but then he was the one with the pedigree. He issued a low growl, no doubt as a reprimand for my gaping; Kori and MacArthur sprang apart like fighters called to their corners.

“Hey, Whiskey!”

MacArthur was faster than Kori at finding another use for his tongue.

“Hey,” I said. Why was I the only person blushing?

“Silverado doesn’t like you,” Kori said, indicating the hound, who was still growling.

“Neither does my dog. That’s why I’m here. At the show, I mean. Not here, here. I’m here, here by complete accident. Really. I never wanted to see that.”

I always babble when embarrassed. And it only embarrasses me more.

Kori said, “I thought you were trying to catch me smoking a joint. So you could rat me out to Susan. Again.”

“I never meant to rat you out! I don’t even like Susan!”

“Really?” Kori was wary, but I thought she might be warming to me.

“Really! You’ll never guess what I just caught her doing.”

“Making out with Matt Koniger? Yeah. I saw them when I went out the door. So did everybody else.”

Susan Davies had seemed so… Junior League. And yet she must have known that people would see her kissing the handler.

So that was Matt Koniger-Kori’s favorite handler-mentor and Brenda Spenser’s young stud, the one Susan had made the catty remark about just before breakfast. My, my.

“Whiskey, may I speak with you privately?” MacArthur’s brogue broke through my reverie.

“Uh, sure. In a minute. First, I’d like to ask Kori a couple questions.”

“I’m due in the ring.” She tapped her bright pink watch.

“This will only take a few seconds,” I said. “And it’s not about you. Or him.” I nodded toward MacArthur. “It’s about Sandy Slater.”

“What about her?”

“Any connection to Mitchell Slater?”

“What do you think?” Kori shot me a look that said I was a moron.

“Well, it’s kind of a common name,” I said defensively. “And you did tell me his ex-wife was in London.”

“His latest ex-wife, yeah.”

“There’s more than one?”

Kori held up several fingers.

“Four ex-wives?” I asked.

“Amazing! You can count.”

I probably deserved that. “Was Sandy the first?”

“Numero Uno. And the only one who never went away. No matter how hard Mitchell tried to push her. You already know she kept his name.”

“They’ve been divorced a long time?”

“Long enough for Sandy to have had a kid as old as Matt!”

“That would be more than twenty years,” I guessed.

“Try twenty-six. Matt’s a little older than he looks.”

“Is her kid around here?”

Kori snort-laughed and shook her head. Not in a way that meant “no,” but in a way that meant I was a dumb-dumb.

“Matt’s her kid! I thought you got that!” she said. “Matt’s father, legally, was a guy named Koniger. He died when Matt was a baby. He wasn’t into dogs, so none of the Afghan fanciers ever knew him. But judging from the way Matt turned out, Mr. Koniger donated his name only. No sperm.”

When I didn’t take the bait, Kori added, “Doesn’t Matt remind you of somebody? Somebody you just met?”

As brief as my time with Mitchell Slater had been, I could see the resemblance: same eyes, same jaw line, same mouth.

Interesting. Neither Matt Koniger nor his mother was grieving today.

While groping and kissing MacArthur, Kori had managed to never let go of Silverado’s lead. She also never stopped chewing gum. I couldn’t imagine deep-kissing around a rubbery wad, but maybe that was because I’d never tried it. Maybe there was an art to passing it back and forth, and that was what turned MacArthur on.

I didn’t want to think about it.

Now Kori popped her gum and the leash at the same time. Silverado gave her his full and eager attention. She may have been a lousy handler in the ring and a genuine thorn in Susan’s side, but she seemed earnestly connected to the stunning dog.

“Come on, boy. It’s show time!” she said.

He woofed softly and wagged his curled whip of a tail.

“I’ll cheer you on,” I told her.

“Yeah, that’ll help. The judge will be impressed that you’re on my side.”

Kori blew a kiss to MacArthur; then she and Silverado loped gracefully away.

That left me in the awkward position of making conversation with the cleaner, a man who earned his living by erasing the mistakes of others. Who erased his mistakes? Making out with one woman while shacking up with another seemed like kind of a whopper.

“I have one thing to say, Whiskey, and one thing only. I hope you’ll give me a wee moment of your time.”

His burry brogue melted my defenses. I could too easily imagine its effect on Avery and Kori… and who knows how many other women.

“What?” Try as I might to sound annoyed, the question came out innocently curious.

“Please do not try to find me while we’re here at the show. I do my best work when I keep a low profile.”

That was not remotely what I had expected. I said, “You think I was looking for you, and that’s why-?”

“No time to chat now! You need to trust me.”

Like Avery should trust him?

“But how can a bodyguard do his job if nobody sees him?” I said. “Nobody but Kori, that is…”

MacArthur brushed a lock of black hair from his forehead. “I didn’t say nobody sees me. And now I must get back to work. We have a killer in our midst!”

“Before Mitchell Slater died, you thought we had a messenger in our midst.”

“Indeed. And now we know what the message was.”

“What was it?”

“Somebody was going to die. Somebody close to Susan Davies.”