“I don’t understand,” Quentin said stiffly, drawing himself upright as best he could. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“That’s what I ask myself every time I wake up,” North said.

Shaw elbowed him again. Harder. “Where might Donovan be? He wasn’t at the A-frame, but we know he’s close by, using a golf cart to get around the area.”

Quentin shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. We don’t own the cabin; some friends are letting me use it for the weekend. It was supposed to be an escape. Donovan must have been . . . he must have been following me. There’s no way he could have known I’d be out here.”

“And these Lo Mein dogs?” North said.

Shaw covered his face. “Löwchen.”

“That’s a business?”

“Yes. We breed them. All the paperwork is in my name, though; I started the business before Donovan and I got married. Now he’s trying to get the whole thing. He’s absolutely insane. And I think he’s hurting . . . I think he’s hurting Brickle.” This last statement dissolved into sobs.

“That’s the dog,” North said. “Told you he wasn’t diabetic.”

“Just because it’s the puppy’s name,” Shaw said, “doesn’t mean he’s not diabetic. Quentin? Are you diabetic?”

“What are you two talking about? I need to find Brickle. I need to call the police and stop Donovan.”

“Where’d Donovan go?”

“He heard you coming back,” Quentin said through sniffles. “He was hurting me, demanding I sign the papers he’d brought. He got away on that stupid cart. He’s going to come back. He’ll find me anywhere I go. He’ll keep hurting me until I sign the papers.” Quentin came apart in another flood of tears.

“Lock the doors,” Shaw said. “And then get inside a bedroom, lock that door, and put something heavy in front of it. We’ll take care of this.”

“Normally we ask a flat rate of—” North began.

Shaw elbowed him a third time and dragged North outside; the deadbolt went home behind them. The afternoon simmered with swampy, Midwestern heat, and sweat broke out immediately across North’s forehead; the simple tee he wore clung to the hard lines of his chest and shoulders. Humidity wasn’t supposed to be sexy, Shaw thought, but North McKinney could make the inside of a trash compactor look like a wet dream.

“Stop being a perv,” North said, adjusting the damp collar of his shirt and exposing a muscled inch of shoulder.

“I was thinking about the case.”

“Yeah?” North said, slapping Shaw’s crotch. “If that semi is from thinking about dog breeding, we’re going to have a serious talk.”

Shaw coughed, covered himself, and wondered if his face could spontaneously combust. He shuffled to the end of the porch and, still covering himself, pointed with his chin. “Golf cart tracks.”