Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

mean, you don’t want to put on a business card... I work mainly on referrals, and the thing is, people need answers, you see, and I do the research necessary to help them find out what it is they need to know. Understand?”
    “And tonight?” He reached out and took my hand. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”
    He’d figured it out. Or so he thought. I had changed my mind about the meaningless roll in the hay and didn’t know how to say it
    I took my hand back.
    “I don’t know who is doing this. I don’t know when it’s going to happen next. I suggested the poker game because it seems evident that men are the targets here. And when I couldn’t keep it going any longer—” I turned toward the window, but the sun hurt my eyes. I looked back at Chip. “When you got up to leave, I thought that if anything happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.“
    “Rachel—”
    I held up my hand like a Supreme. “Let me finish,” I said. ‘That’s very sweet, really, that you’re a PI and you’re going
    to protect me.” He couldn’t hold it in any longer. He was laughing out loud now. “Maybe vodka’s not your drink,” he said. “Anyway, you’ve forgotten about Betty.”
    “No, I haven’t.” I was really annoyed now, and it must have been evident, because Chip had stopped laughing. “Dashiell will protect Betty.”
    “No, I mean I have Betty to protect me.”
    “See if you can follow this,” I said. “I was a dog trainer. I’m no longer a dog trainer. I’m an unlicensed private investigator working undercover. I know it’s pretty complicated, a lot to absorb at once, so how about if you don’t worry your pretty little head about any of this. I’ll do the thinking for both of us.”
    “Seriously, Rachel.Enough kidding around. Even if what you say is true,” he said, and I could see that he was humoring me, “you don’t need to protect me.”
    “I do,” I told him. “Look, we only have a few hours. You take the bed. I’ll curl up in the chair. Just make believe I’m not here, okay?”
    I moved over to the chair to try to catch some sleep. Chip sat there in the window seat, nervous as a mouse in the terrier ring, not knowing what to make of this. I closed my eyes, trying not to think about the way he smelled, like taking a walk in the woods early in the morning, when the mist is just lifting and everything is fresh. Oh, hell, it was probably aftershave.
    I heard him get up and hoped he’d get into bed. But he didn’t. He had come over to where I was and he was leaning down over me, his hands on the arms of the chair. I opened my eyes and looked into his, moss green with flecks of brown in them. And for just a moment I thought of something I’d left in my room, carefully wrapped in tissue paper that had been sprinkled with rose water. Less is more, I thought. And less of what I was thinking was exactly what I needed.
    I tried to push him away. I thought I’d go back to where I’d been, sit in the window seat, looking out at Central Park. It would help me to keep my mind where it belonged. But Chip’s arms stayed, put, and when I tried to duck under one of them, he stopped me with a hand on my collar, like a mother dog picking up an errant pup by the scruff of its neck.
    “I listened to you. Now you listen to me.”
    “I don’t think there’s anything else to say. I know you think I’m full of hot air, so—”
    “It’s not about that, Rachel. It’s about me, about us.”
    I sat up straight, my back pressed against the back of the chair. “There is no us, Chip. You’re a married man.”
    Who was I fooling? Certainly not Chip.
    He squatted in front of the chair, his hands on my knees. “Remember I told you at Westminster I’d gotten divorced? I’m still divorced.”
    ‘Well, so what? That’s just a technicality, isn’t it? You’re living at home again, what difference does it make if there’s a piece of paper or not?”
    “No difference at all.”
    “So, then what is this all about?”
    “Rachel, I’ve tried to talk to you so many times this week, and you just keep blowing me off.”
    “You said what you have to say. That you’ve gone back to your family, and I’ve wished you good luck, so what else—”
    He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to tell you. That’s not the end of it. That was the beginning, what happened right after I saw you last time, when I said I’d call you. I moved back in with Ellen and the kids, that’s true,