Hounding the Pavement Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Teaser chapter

  “A star on the rise!”—Teresa Medeiros

  Praise for the Novels of Judi McCoy

  “Judi McCoy dazzles!”—Rachel Gibson

  “Fabulous . . . lighthearted whimsical romantic fantasy.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Thoroughly enjoyable. . . . I found myself captivated. . . . McCoy weaves a wonderful little contemporary romance with just a touch of myth and magic [and] a great mix of humor and love.”—Wild on Books

  “Judi McCoy’s stories are always fun to read and One Night with a Goddess is no exception. . . . Sparks fly . . . a lighthearted story with some very tender moments . . . pure entertainment.”

  —Kwips and Kritiques

  “An overall lighthearted whimsical romance.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Fast-paced adventure, skillfully interspersed with moments of great humor and tenderness.”—Booklist

  “Refreshing and entertaining, Judi McCoy’s debut novel promises great things of this tremendously talented author.”—WordWeaving

  “This was a totally delightful fantasy tale that had a little bit of everything tossed into the mix—fantasy, humor, sensuality, and a bit of a heart-wrenching tearjerker ending. . . . Couple this along with a well-defined set of secondary characters, a couple of cute kids, and you’re in for a very entertaining read.”

  —Romance Designs

  OBSIDIAN

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, March 2009

  Copyright © Judi McCoy, 2009

  All rights reserved

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  To Rudy, the best dog in the whole world. We’ve

  been together

  thirteen years, little buddy. If God is willing, we’ll

  be together many more.

  To my sister, Nancy, for selecting a title for this

  first book and

  hashing over plots for a dozen others.

  To Helen Breitwieser, agent extraordinaire.

  Helen, do you realize we’ve been together for

  eleven years? Thank you

  for accepting a total newbie as a client, and a

  bigger thank-you

  for believing in Rudy and Ellie as much as I do.

  Acknowledgments

  This book is a labor of love, written to support Best Friends Animal Society, the country’s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals. To become a member of Best Friends, go to www.bestfriends.org, or write them at 5001 Angel Canyon Road, Kanab, Utah 84741. All donations of twenty-five dollars or more will entitle you to a copy of their monthly magazine, plus bulletins and updates on their latest rescue ventures.

  Thank you to Jordan Kaplan, owner of the ultimate dog-walking business in Manhattan: Petaholics, 1375 Broadway, New York, New York 10018 (www.petaholics.com/866-910-5430) for his advice, quips, and fascinating stories about dog lovers and the things they do for their canine pals.

  As a writer, I used my imagination for many of the scenarios depicted throughout this story, so please don’t blame the two very patient and informative detectives from the Central Park precinct (They said I can’t use their names. . . . Hmm, I wonder why.) who spent several hours answering my questions and giving me details on how a murder/robbery might be investigated in the Big Apple. Any mistakes on proper police procedure are mine and mine alone, but hey, the book is a great read, so who cares?

  Prologue

  “Psst. Down here.”

  Ellie jumped at the almost childlike voice dancing in her brain. Standing alone in the holding area of her local ASPCA on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she’d come to celebrate her first day of real freedom in ten years, she gazed at the kennel housing orphaned dogs of all shapes and sizes. Did the elation of signing her divorce papers cause her to hear voices when no one was there?

  “You’re lookin’ in the wrong direction, Ellie. I’m about five feet lower.”

  She glanced down, but all she saw was an adorable gray-and-white bundle of fur, its head cocked, its big brown eyes staring at her as if she was a king-sized Milk-Bone. Smiling at the pooch, she squatted and read the information card attached to his pen.

  Breed: Yorkshire terrier/poodle mix

  Age: Approx. one year

  Name: Unknown. Found in alley behind building

  Temperament: People friendly, intelligent, nonaggressive

  Standing, she scoured the room, noting the cameras she’d originally thought kept an eye on the dogs. With all the reality shows on the air these days, the possibility that one might be filming here was feasible. They might even be
taping scenes for Animal Planet’s Funniest Video series or some other inane happening, and she’d just become the show’s latest star.

  “You’re still not getting it, Ellie. I’m down here.”

  She gave the room another careful scan. It had been tough giving up her dog when she’d married her ex-husband ten years ago, but at the time the dickhead had insisted he was allergic and couldn’t live with canines, even those that didn’t shed. She’d left her pup with her mother and gone on her honeymoon, and Georgette had greeted them on their return holding a sealed wooden box. Rudy had run from her mother’s brownstone and into traffic, where he’d been plowed down by a speeding taxi. Ellie hadn’t been able to live with another furry friend since.

  Until today.

  After a third inspection of the room, she again focused on the dog in front of her. She’d never had a psychic experience before, so she had no idea if that was what was happening now, but lots of people conversed with animals, though most didn’t expect an answer. Neither did she, not really, but she did want to take a better look at the dog in the pen.

  “Are you talking to me?” she asked jokingly.

  “Do you see anybody else in this prison?”

  With a hand on her heart, she dropped to her knees on the cement floor. Staring at the dog, she shook her head. “This is not possible,” she muttered, “unless I’m going crazy.”

  The terrier mix rose on its hind legs and licked the fingers anchoring her to the cage door. “If you ask me, you were crazy when you married Larry Lipschitz and left me with your dingbat of a mother.”

  He knew about Georgette? “What . . . how?” Could getting a divorce be so liberating that it allowed her to open her inner self to animals? Or was she really losing her mind?

  “Come on, Triple E. It’s me—Rudy,” the pooch continued, his eyes bright and attentive. “Don’t you recognize me?”

  Okay, this was too weird. The dog’s muzzle was creased upward in a grin. “Rudy?” She opened and closed her mouth. “But—but you’re . . . dead.”

  “Er . . . not really. I mean, the old body’s been gone for a decade now, but somebody must have known it was time for us to get back together and sent me here to wait for you. I have to admit, there were a couple of close calls where I was almost adopted, but a few snarls kept that from happening. I had a feeling you’d be here soon, so I just kept hangin’ on.”

  “And I can hear you . . . understand you? And you can understand me?”

  “Don’t ask me to explain it. Besides, as long as it works, who cares?”

  Inhaling a breath, she pressed her forehead to the mesh. “Oh, Lord, this is absurd. I’m talking to my dead dog.”

  He gave her fingers another sloppy lick. “So, you gonna bring me home or what?”

  She read the information card again, then rose to her feet. She’d come here to find a companion that would treat her with respect . . . compassion . . . kindness. A friend that would be more trusting and truthful than her ex. The gray-and-white mix was the perfect size and age, and seemed to have the right temperament. Who gave a damn whether he talked to her or not? She was looking for a pal, and this guy was ready, willing, and able to fill the bill.

  Ellie checked the room a final time, in case she’d missed the video cameras, tape recorders, and reality-show spies. Or the men in white coats. Positive she was alone with only dogs to witness her folly, she nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter 1

  She scooped poop for a living.

  If Ellie didn’t know it to be true, she would never have believed it. A few months ago she’d marched into the ASPCA on Ninety-second Street looking for a pet, and the search had led her to a dream job as a professional dog walker on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And not only that. Her pet had become somebody she could talk to: a best friend who cared about her as much as she cared about him.

  She put her hands on her hips and gazed at the dog nuggets, a by-product of her best friend Vivian McCready’s Jack Russell. This was the downside of the job, she thought, picking up the leavings with a sandwich-sized plastic bag. But the profession made perfect sense. She loved dogs. She walked Rudy and Twink several times a day. How difficult could walking a couple more canines be?

  She’d already devised a few rules for her business, the most important of which was: dogs of fifteen pounds or less, only. Small pups meant small poops, and if she was going to do this right, small was the key to her success. Of course, Rudy had to approve of the each pooch she agreed to walk, but he liked playmates, which make her work all the easier.

  Ellie deposited the bag in a plastic grocery sack and slid the larger receptacle into the side pocket of her coat. “You fellows need to keep your paws crossed that I’ll earn enough to pay the mortgage so we can continue this profession,” she reminded her companions out loud. “It’s an added plus that, according to everyone but my mother, I’m providing an important service—to both man and dog.”

  “Hey! Hey! Hey! Stop the chatter. Mr. T is dyin’ down here,” said the hyperactive Twink.

  She grinned at the Jack Russell, now doing a trampoline act at the end of his leash. It had taken a while, but she’d learned to live with the amazing phenomenon. No one, not even Georgette or Vivian, knew it, because she still had a difficult time believing it herself, but she could hold honest-to-God lengthy and somewhat intelligent conversations with dogs.

  Not that she was a true-to-life Dr. Dolittle or anything. As far as she knew, her mental gymnastics worked with canines alone, and only those with which she shared an intimate bond. And not all the time, either, except for her own pooch, who was the first she’d actually heard in her head.

  She gave a sideways glance at the pedestrians going about their morning routines, and noted that, as usual, no one paid a bit of attention to her banter with Rudy and Twink. This was the Big Apple, after all: a perfectly normal city for a woman to converse with herself, a squirrel, a tree, or a trash basket, even on the corner of Eighty-eighth and Third. Hearing a dog speak in her head and talking to him out loud was downright acceptable compared to some of the things people did in this town.

  Gazing at the terrier, she said aloud, “You’re watching too much TV Land, so drop the Mr. T jargon. And why aren’t you through with business?”

  Twink lunged on his leash. “Mr. T’s gotta get to that tree over there. It’s just beggin’ to be sniffed . . . fool”

  “Hey, easy on the insults,” Ellie ordered. Just what she needed. A dog who thought he was the canine version of a character from the A Team. “What do you say, Rudy? Think Buddy and the others will mind if we’re a few minutes late?”

  The twelve-pound Yorkiepoo peered at her with a knowing grin. “Time is relative, a dimension not a reality.”

  Before she could respond to his outlandish remark, Twink shot her a snotty look, gave a jerk, and, with Rudy at his side, dragged her across the street like a torn kite on a balmy day.

  Ellie led her canine pals to the Davenport, an upscale Fifth Avenue complex housing all her pooches, including Buddy, an adorable Bichon owned by Professor Albright. She’d befriended the professor a few weeks earlier when she and Rudy were sitting on a park bench near Sixty-sixth. Buddy had hit it off with Rudy, and his master, realizing she had a way with dogs, had encouraged her to try dog walking.

  So the Bichon had become her second customer after Twink, even though Vivian, her best human friend who lived in Ellie’s own building, didn’t pay for the walks. Through them and the Davenport’s doorman, she’d picked up a few more customers and now looked forward to a bright and rosy future.

  “Hey, Randall,” she said when the elderly doorman escorted her into the building. She gave a nod to the red carnation in his lapel. “You’re looking spiffy this morning. Anything new on the dog walking front?”

  “I sang your praises to the new tenant in 3-G. Hazel Blackberg moved in over the weekend with the cutest little fellow. I believe she called it a Maltipoo.”

  “Tha
t’s a Maltese/poodle mix, the perfect size for me. Did you know Jessica Simpson has one? It’s made the Maltipoo a very popular, and very expensive, designer dog.”

  “I’m sure Ms. Blackberg had no hardship purchasing the pup, and neither Eugene nor Bibi have gotten to her yet. I told her you’d stop by today, around six. She’s usually home by then.”

  Ellie considered it a good-luck omen that Randall was the doorman here when she and her mother had lived in this very building with her father fifteen years ago. As soon as Randall spotted her coming in to walk the professor’s dog, they’d held a reunion of sorts, and he was now one of her allies. It helped that he didn’t much care for Eugene and Bibi, the two dog walkers who took care of the rest of the building’s clients, either.

  “Thanks. You’re a peach. Has everyone left for the day?”

  “All but the professor,” he answered. “Do you want me to keep the boys?”

  “Not today. I think it’s better if we’re together when Sweetie Pie is introduced to Twink, but thanks for the offer.” She went to the elevator with her hand in her pocket, on a hunt for her key ring. The keys were her lifeline to success, and she guarded the bits of metal as carefully as she would her wallet. Pinpoint organization, coupled with the keys entrusted to her by her clients, would keep her business ticking like a Swiss watch.

  Exiting on the correct floor, she strode down the hall to the apartment of Barbara Jaglinski, CEO of a major advertising firm, and one of Vivian’s referrals. Ms. Jaglinski’s devotion to her Westie, a snow-white terrier with unbridled energy and a happy disposition, never wavered. She so loved the animal, she paid twenty dollars a walk, the same exhorbitant price all New York City dog walkers charged, to see that her pup was taken out twice a day, which made her a potential prized client.

  “Sweetie Pie,” Ellie called after unlocking the door, “you ready to go?”