At one end of the generous foyer, a door stood ajar. Del went to it, leaving wet shoeprints on the marble.
‘Is my naughty little fur ball in the powder room?’ she asked in an annoyingly cute, coddling tone of voice. ‘Hmmmm? Is my bad boy hiding from his mommie? Is my bad boy hiding in the powder room?’
She opened the door, manually switched on the lights, but the dog wasn’t there.
‘I didn’t think so,’ she said, leading Tommy into the living room. ‘That was too easy. Though sometimes, he knows easy works because it’s not what I’m expecting. Lights on.’
The large travertine-floored living room was furnished with J. Robert Scott sofas and chairs upholstered in platinum and gold fabrics, blond-finished tables in exotic woods, and bronze Art Deco lamps in the form of nymphs holding luminous crystal balls. The enormous Persian carpet boasted such an intricate design and was so softly coloured, as if exquisitely faded by time, that it must be an antique.
Del’s vocal command had switched on mood lighting that was low enough to minimize reflection on the glass wall and allow Tommy to see outside to the patio and the boat dock. He also had a glimpse of rain-dimmed harbour lights.
Scootie was not in the living room. He wasn’t in the study or the dining room, either.
Following Del through a swinging door, Tommy stepped into a large, stylish kitchen with clear-finished maple cabinets and black-granite counter tops.
‘Oh, him not here, either,’ Del said, cooing again as if talking to a baby. ‘Where could my Scootie-wootums be? Did him turn off the lights and quick-like-a-bunny run upstairs?’
Tommy was riveted by a wall clock with a green neon rim. It was 1:44 in the morning. Time was running out, so the demon was sure to be seeking them with increasing fury.
‘Let’s find the damn dog and get out of here quick,’ he said nervously.
Pointing to a tall narrow section of cabinetry next to which Tommy was standing, Del said, ‘Get me the broom out of there, would you, please?’
‘Broom?’
‘It’s the broom closet.’
Tommy opened the door.
Squeezed into the broom closet was a huge midnight-black creature with teeth bared and fat pink tongue lolling, and Tommy bolted backward, slipped in his own wet shoeprints, and fell on his butt before he realized that it wasn’t the demon leering out at him. It was a dog, an enormous black Labrador.
Del laughed delightedly and clapped her hands. ‘I knew you were in there, you naughty little fur ball!’
Scootie grinned out at them.
‘I knew you’d give Tommy a good scare,’ she told the dog.
‘Yeah, just what I needed,’ Tommy said, getting to his feet.
Panting, Scootie came out of the closet. The space was so narrow and the dog so large that it was like a cork coming out of a wine bottle, and Tommy half expected to hear a pop.
‘How’d he get in there?’ Tommy wondered.
Tail wagging furiously, Scootie went directly to Del, and she dropped to her knees so she could pet him and scratch behind his ears. ‘Him miss mommie, did him? Hmmmmm? Was him lonely, my fuzzy-wuzzy baby, my cutie Scootie?’
‘He couldn’t step in there and turn around,’ Tommy said. ‘Not enough room.’
‘He probably backed into it,’ Del said, hugging Scootie. ‘Dogs don’t back into things any more than motorcycles do. Besides, how did he get the door shut after he was in there?’
‘It falls shut on its own,’ Del said.
Indeed, the broom-closet door had slowly closed after the Labrador had squeezed out of confinement into the kitchen.
‘Okay, but how did he open it in the first place?’ Tommy persisted.
‘Pawed it open. He’s clever.’
‘Why did you teach him this?’
‘Teach him what?’
‘To play hide-and-seek.’
‘Didn’t teach him. He’s always liked to do it.’
‘It’s weird.’
Del puckered her lips and made kissing sounds. The dog took the cue and began to lick her face.
‘That’s disgusting,’ Tommy said.
Giggling, Del said, ‘His mouth is cleaner than yours.’
‘I seriously doubt that.’
As if quoting from a medical journal, she pulled back from the Labrador and said, ‘The chemical composition of a dog’s saliva makes its mouth a hostile environment for the spectrum of bacteria that are harmful to people.’