I Shall Not Want by Debbie Viguié Read Free Book Online

his fists. “Just me. The only other person who had it was my personal assistant, Derek, and he was killed yesterday.”
    “Derek had the code?” Cindy and Mark asked in unison.
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Is there anyone he would have given it to—a housekeeper, dog sitter, girlfriend, anyone?” Mark asked.
    “No, absolutely not.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “Yes.”
    “Could it have been someone at the alarm company?” Cindy asked.
    “No. I entered the code after installation. No one at the company knows the code.”
    “If someone from the company had used an override, it wouldn’t look like this,” the officer explained.
    “Was anything taken, Vince?” Mark asked.
    Vince—it was a good name for him, Cindy decided.
    The officer shook his head. “We’re still searching. Whoever this was probably knew exactly what they were after. Electronics, files in the office all seem to be undisturbed.” Vince shifted his eyes to Joseph, “Sir, if you could help us check to see if any valuables like jewelry, cash, anything readily portable is missing, we can move this along.”
    “What about the puppies?” Cindy asked.
    “Ma’am?”
    “The puppies, are they safe?”
    Vince shook his head. “We haven’t seen any pets at all. Where would they be?”
    Joseph pushed past him and sprinted into the house. Cindy and Mark followed as he passed the staircase and headed to the left. At the end of a hallway a door stood open, and they followed him inside.
    The room was tiled. The left front corner of the room was covered with newspapers. In the back left corner there were food and water dishes. The right side of the room held a comfy-looking old couch, a couple of arm chairs, and almost a dozen different dog beds scattered around. In and on everything were a variety of dog toys. It was a dog’s dream pad without the dogs.
    “Where are the puppies?” Cindy asked again.
    “Where is Clarice?” Joseph asked.
    “It really was about the dogs,” Mark muttered.
    Vince joined them inside the room.
    “Did you or anyone else open this door?” Joseph asked.
    Vince shook his head. “I was the first one in the house, and I can tell you this door was open already.”
    “All right, let’s spread out and search the grounds for any sign of those dogs,” Mark said.
    Mark and Vince left the room. Cindy watched Joseph. He stared vacantly at the sofa, and she wondered what it was he was seeing. She stepped forward and touched his arm. He jumped and turned to look at her.
    “Is there anywhere Clarice would go if she was upset? Somewhere she would hide?” Cindy asked.
    It was a long shot, but making off with a puppy was one thing, making off with a full-grown standard poodle was quite another.
    He nodded and left the room, walking back toward the foyer. Outside she could hear men calling and whistling for dogs that weren’t coming. She followed him upstairs and into what was probably his bedroom. Like the guest room, it was also large and elaborately decorated.
    Joseph got down on the floor and peered underneath the giant four-poster bed. “Clarice?” he called.
    He stood up, a look of desperation on his face. “This is where she hides when she’s upset about something. She’s not here. She’s gone.”
    “If she ended up outside the house, where would she hide?” Cindy asked.
    “There’s an old work shed close to the tree line. She likes to crawl underneath it. I caught her hiding out there a couple of times when she was a puppy.”
    “Then let’s go check it,” Cindy said.
    She had to keep Joseph thinking, moving, otherwise he was going to lose it. She recognized the look of despair on his face. She had seen that look in the mirror before and knew that she had to keep him busy for as long as she could.
    They made it downstairs, where he grabbed a flashlight and a leash from the kitchen. Then they jogged across the lawn. After a minute they reached the shed, and Joseph flashed his light