“The fire investigator seemed to think so. We’re looking for suspicious fires tied to an overzealous lover. We’re also looking at the European angle. There’s another trail, too. Warren got descriptions of this man’s dogs out of Christy. Looks like they are some sort of mastiff. She said they were valuable and difficult for anyone except Juan—her stalker—to handle.”

“That doesn’t sound like a mastiff,” I told him. “There’s a guy in the Montana pack who was breeding all sorts of big dogs. The mastiffs were mostly big sweeties.”

“I’m not sure she’d know a poodle from a sheepdog. But Juan Flores apparently took special pleasure in pointing out that both of his dogs outweighed Christy, who is a hundred and ten pounds.”

Hah. Christy was at least twenty pounds heavier than that.

“Hah.” Honey snorted with derision. “Christy is at least one thirty or one thirty-five.”

“Big dog,” I said.

Adam laughed. “I’ll let you know if there is anything new, and Mercy?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t do anything too interesting.”

He disconnected before I could reply.

“Don’t underestimate Christy,” Honey said. “She’s not nearly as helpless as she pretends to be.”

“I know that,” I said. I glanced at Honey, then looked back at the road. “I thought you liked her.”

She growled. “Helpless bitch had the whole pack—Adam included—hopping to her tune. Couldn’t mow the lawn, change a tire, or carry her own laundry up the stairs. Even Peter fell for it, and he usually had better sense. She didn’t like Warren—I thought at the time she was worried he was going to make a play for Adam, but mostly, I think, he didn’t fall over himself to be her slave. Darryl’s helpless against her, but at least he knows it. All that might not have been too bad, but she played them all off each other. I had my own private celebration when she left Adam.”

Her lips twisted. “I don’t like you,” she told me, but there was a lie in her voice, and she stopped talking, looking almost surprised. She started again, her tones softer than they had been. “I don’t enjoy change,” she said. “And you are change, Mercy. I am comfortable with the old ways, and you are tossing them aside whenever they don’t suit you, while Adam looks on with satisfaction. But one thing I’ve always known is that you were trying your best to make things better. Christy, she looked out for herself first. I don’t imagine that has changed. Only a fool would say the same about you—though I frequently disagree with your methods and goals.”

I cleared my throat. “So. Do you want to see a man about some dogs?”

5