“Is she pretty?”

I just hope she’s human, I wanted to say, but instead I just shrugged.

Mom stepped back to admire me. “You look handsome,” she said. “Just don’t make an idiot of yourself.”

Unless I wanted to climb on the roof again, the only way into Crawley’s apartment was through the restaurant, which was closed this time of the morning. After knocking a few times on the front entrance, I went around back, where a custodian let me in. The restaurant was creepy in the off-hours. Chairs were stacked on top of tables, the floor was still wet from the custodian’s mop.

I climbed the stairs to the old, unused part of the restaurant and the big wooden door of the apartment toward the back. Even before I got to the door, the dogs began to bark.

“Get out of the way, you mutts,” I could hear Crawley gripe on the other side of the door. “Get back, or I swear I’ll put you in the gumbo!” Then I heard all the dead bolts snap open and he pulled the door just wide enough for me to squeeze in without letting the dogs out. I was attacked by fourteen tongues before Crawley grabbed a handful of treats from his vest pocket and hurled them back toward the living room. The dogs, who knew the drill well, took off.

“Who’s there, Grandpa?” I heard a girl’s voice call from deeper in the apartment.

“Just the dog walker,” Crawley said.

“Dog walker?” I said. “But I thought—” Crawley rapped me hard in the arm to shut me up. “Ow!”

“It’s the dog walker,” Crawley said again. “He’s here to walk the dogs.” Then he turned to me. “Where’s your friend?”

Usually I was pretty quick to catch on to things, but today I was a bit behind the curve. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. “Uh . . . he had to go to a funeral.”

“Oh, that’s so sad,” I heard Lexie say. At least her voice sounded nice. I could see her stepping out of the kitchen now, but Crawley kept the place so dark I couldn’t see her face.

Crawley looked at me. “I guess you’ll have to walk the dogs all by yourself, then,” he said. And repeated, “All by yourself.”

“Uh . . . sure, I guess,” I said.

And then Lexie said, “I could help.”

Finally I figured out what was going on here, and I felt like a moron for not catching on sooner. As soon as Lexie offered to help, Crawley smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. This was a setup. “I don’t know, Lexie . . . these dogs might be too strong for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous—they’re no stronger than Moxie, and if I go with your dog walker, I won’t even have to take Moxie along.”