Chapter Three
Something was wrong at Pampered Paws.
Eddy pulled into the gravel lot and cut the engine, scanning the building out of habit.
The "Open" sign hung crooked in the window.
The front blinds were drawn when they were usually up.
And the van—the cheerful pink-and-white van with the cartoon dog on the side—sat parked at an angle that suggested someone had been in a hurry.
River whined from the back of the truck, eager to see the woman who always had treats in her pocket and knew exactly where he liked to be scratched.
"Easy," Eddy murmured. "Something's off."
He'd been bringing River here for eight months, ever since Proof mentioned that the new grooming place actually knew how to handle a shepherd without getting bit.
The owner was pretty—he'd noticed that the first time, filed it away the way he noticed everything—but she had a boyfriend or a husband or something.
Ring on her finger, he'd thought, though now he couldn't remember if he'd actually seen one.
Didn't matter. He wasn't looking.
But something was definitely wrong.
The bell chimed when he pushed through the front door. The reception area looked normal—same cheerful posters about flea prevention, same rack of fancy dog toys, same faint smell of coconut shampoo—but the woman behind the counter didn't match any of it.
Penny Bradshaw had red-rimmed eyes and a smile that was trying way too hard.
"Hey there!" Her voice came out bright and brittle, the kind of cheerful that shattered if you touched it. "Here for River? Let me just—"
She moved toward the kennel door and stopped. Her hand hovered over the handle like she'd forgotten how to open it.
"Give me just a second," she said, that cracking smile still plastered on her face. "Had to rearrange some things back there."
Eddy watched her. The surface of him stayed still—it always did—but underneath, something started paying closer attention.
"What happened?"
"Nothing." Too fast. "Just some reorganization. Let me get your boy."
She disappeared through the kennel door before he could ask again. Eddy stood at the counter and listened to the sounds from the back—River's excited bark, Penny's voice going soft and steady the way it always did with the animals, the click of a leash being attached.
When she came back, River bounded ahead of her, tail wagging, seventy pounds of shepherd enthusiasm aimed directly at Eddy's legs. He crouched to catch the dog, hands sinking into thick fur, but his eyes stayed on the woman.
"Penny."
Her fake smile flickered. "River was great, as always. I gave him a brush yesterday, worked out some of those mats behind his ears—"
"Penny."
The second time, he said it lower. Quieter. The voice he used when he needed someone to stop talking and start telling the truth.
She went still.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. River sat at Eddy's feet, looking between them like he wasn't sure why the humans had stopped talking. The air conditioning hummed. Somewhere outside, a car door slammed.
Then her shoulders dropped, and the brittle smile finally cracked.
"Someone killed one of my boarders." The words came out flat. Exhausted. "Night before last. Strangled him with his own leash and left a note saying next time it wouldn't be a dog."
Eddy's hand stopped moving on River's head.
"Who?"
"My mother's boyfriend." Penny laughed, a wet and broken sound. "He runs some kind of pill operation, apparently. Wants to use my kennels as cover—dogs getting picked up and dropped off all day, nobody asks questions about the traffic. I said no, so he..."
She gestured vaguely toward the back. Toward the kennel section with the closed blinds.
"He killed Biscuit. A three-year-old golden retriever who never hurt anyone in his life." Her voice cracked on the last word. She pressed her hand to her mouth, breathing hard through her fingers. "Sorry. I'm sorry, you don't need to hear this—"
"What's his name?"
Penny blinked. "What?"
"The boyfriend." Eddy rose slowly from his crouch, River pressing against his leg. "What's his name?"
"Duane Kirby." She said it like a curse.
"He's been with my mom about eight months.
I thought he was just controlling, maybe a little creepy, but this—" She shook her head.
"I told her to leave him. She says she can't. Says he's got people, that he makes threats, that she's scared of what happens if she walks away. "
Eddy stood very still.
Kirby. The name landed in his head and connected to other things—Still's photos of pill traffic, the businesses along the lake corridor, the operation setting up in Ridgerunner territory without permission. Everything clicked into place like puzzle pieces he hadn't known he was missing.
"You went to the police?"
"They came. Took a report. Said they'd look into it, but—" Penny's jaw tightened. "But what are they going to do? I didn't see anything. The security camera got spray-painted over. And Duane's got connections, apparently. Knows people who know people."
"So you're on your own."
"Story of my life." The words came out sharp, more spine than self-pity.
She straightened behind the counter, that broken smile finally gone, replaced by something harder.
"I'm not running drugs through my business.
I built this place from nothing—a mobile grooming van and a dream, that's it.
No help, no safety net. And I'm not going to destroy it because some monster wants to use me. "
Eddy watched her. Watched the way her chin lifted when she talked about her business. The way her hands gripped the counter edge like she was holding herself together through sheer force of will.
Something shifted under his surface. Something he didn't have a name for yet.
"You board my dog," he said.
Penny frowned. "I... yes?"
"You board a Ridgerunner's dog." He let the words settle. "That makes you connected to us. Means what happens to you matters to the club."
Her eyes widened slightly. He could see her processing—the leather cut he always wore, the patches she'd probably never looked at closely, the implications of what he was telling her.
"I'm not asking for help," she said carefully.
"You're not asking." Eddy scratched behind River's ears, his surface perfectly still. "I'm offering."
"Why?"
Because Kirby's operation was a threat to club territory. Because Still had just told him to find information and she had it. Because a man who killed dogs to threaten women was exactly the kind of problem the Ridgerunners solved with bullets.
Because she was standing in front of him with red eyes and a spine of steel, and something under Eddy's calm surface was churning in a direction it hadn't moved in a long time.
"Because you board my dog," he said again. "And nobody threatens mine."
The words hung in the air between them. Penny stared at him, lips parted slightly, and he watched the moment she understood that "mine" might mean more than just the shepherd.
"I don't—" She shook her head. "I don't even know your name."
"Eddy." He pulled a card from his wallet—just a phone number, no name, nothing traceable—and set it on the counter. "You need anything, call that. Day or night."
She looked at the card. Looked at him. "Eddy," she repeated, testing it.
"Call it tonight. Tell me everything you know about Kirby's operation—where he works from, who he runs with, how the pills move. Can you do that?"
"I..." She picked up the card, turning it over in her fingers. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
"Good."
He tugged River's leash and headed for the door. At the threshold, he stopped and looked back. She was still standing behind the counter, card in hand, watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
"Lock up when I leave," he said. "And don't open for anyone you don't know."
Then he was through the door and into the parking lot, River trotting beside him, his phone already in his hand.
Still answered on the second ring.
"Talk."
Eddy leaned against his truck, watching the front door of Pampered Paws through the windshield. Penny was moving behind the counter—he could see her shadow through the blinds. Locking up, like he'd told her.
Good.
"Found your pill operation," he said. "Guy named Duane Kirby, running distribution through small businesses on the lake corridor. Eight months in, using storefronts as cover for traffic."
"How'd you find him?"
"He killed a dog."
A pause. "Come again?"
"Woman who runs the grooming place where I board River. Kirby's dating her mother, wanted to use the kennel business as a drop point. She said no, so he strangled one of her boarders and left a note threatening worse."
Silence on the line. Eddy could picture Still at the bar, coffee in hand, bootlegger patience working through the information.
"He kill people too, or just animals?"
"Don't know yet. But he's got a network—distributors, couriers, enough muscle to make the woman's mother too scared to leave him."
"And this woman. She connected to us?"
Eddy watched Penny's shadow move past the window. "She boards my dog."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Bringing her into club business?"
"She's already in it. Kirby made sure of that." Eddy's grip tightened on the phone. "She didn't ask for help. Stood there with red eyes and told me she built her business from nothing and she's not letting some monster destroy it. She's got spine, Still. And she's got information we need."
"What kind of information?"
"Kirby's using her mother. She knows where he operates, who he runs with, how he's structured. I told her to call me tonight with details."
The silence stretched. Eddy waited, watching the grooming shop, River panting softly in the truck bed behind him.
Finally, Still spoke. "A man who kills animals to threaten women. Operating in our territory without permission. Leveraging vulnerable people to run his product." A low sound, somewhere between a grunt and a growl. "That's the kind of problem we solve permanent."
"That's what I figured."
"Find out everything she knows. Map the operation. When we move, I want it clean and complete." Another pause. "And Eddy?"
"Yeah?"
"The woman. You keeping her close?"
Eddy thought about red-rimmed eyes and a spine that didn't bend. About a cheerful pink van and a business built from nothing. About the way she'd said his name, testing it, like she was deciding whether to trust him.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm keeping her close."
"Good. Bring me something solid by end of week."
The line went dead.
Eddy pocketed his phone and watched Pampered Paws for another long moment. The shadows had stopped moving. She was probably in the back now, checking on her remaining boarders, holding herself together with the same stubborn strength she'd shown at the counter.
Nobody threatens mine.
He hadn't meant to say it like that. Hadn't meant to say it at all. But the words had come out, and he'd watched her understand them, and something under his calm surface had said yes.
River whined from the truck bed.
"I know," Eddy said quietly. "Complicated."
He climbed into the driver's seat, started the engine, and pulled out of the lot. In the rearview mirror, Pampered Paws got smaller and smaller until it disappeared behind a curve in the road.
But he could still see her standing behind that counter. Spine straight, eyes red, refusing to break.
He was definitely keeping her close.