Most of the dogs had converged on him now, nearly forcing him to the ground with the combined weight of their greeting.
Daniel came around the car and opened the door for her, then offered his hand. She sighed, irritated, and got out on her own. Her shoes crunched on the gravel, but the dogs didn’t seem to notice her.
“Arnie,” Kevin called over the sound of the happy dogs. “This is my brother, Danny. He’ll be staying here. And, um, a temporary… guest, I suppose. Don’t know what else to call her. But guest seems kind of over-positive, if you know what I mean.”
“Your hospitality takes my breath away,” Alex murmured.
Daniel laughed, then climbed the stairs in two quick steps. He offered his hand to the stone-faced man, who didn’t look as tall standing next to Daniel, and they shook.
“Nice to meet you, Arnie. My brother’s told me nothing at all about you, so I look forward to getting to know you better.”
“Ditto, Danny,” Arnie said. His voice was a rumbly baritone that sounded as if it wasn’t used often enough to keep it running smoothly.
“And that’s Alex. Don’t listen to my brother; she’s staying as long as she wants.”
Arnie looked at her, focusing now. She waited for a reaction to the mess of her face, but he just regarded her coolly.
“A pleasure,” she said.
He nodded.
“You can move your stuff inside,” Kevin told them. He tried to walk toward the stairs, but the dogs were weaving around his legs at high speed. “Hey, boneheads! Attention!”
Like a small platoon of soldiers, the dogs immediately backed off a few paces, formed an actual line, and froze with their ears up.
“That’s better. At ease.”
The dogs sat down in unison, tongues lolling out in sharp-fanged smiles.
Kevin joined them at the door.
“Like I said, you can grab your stuff. Danny, there’s a room for you at the top of the stairs on the right. As for you…” He looked down at Alex. “Well, I guess the room at the other end of the hall will work. I wasn’t expecting extra company, so it’s not fitted up as a bedroom.”
“I’ve got a cot.”
“I don’t have any stuff,” Daniel said, and though she listened for it, she didn’t hear any sadness in the words; he was putting up a good front. “Do you need help with yours, Alex?”
She shook her head. “I’ll only take a few things in. The rest I’ll stash somewhere outside the fence.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows in confusion, but Kevin was nodding.
“I’ve had to run out in the middle of the night before,” she explained to Daniel, pitching her voice low, though Arnie could probably still hear. She had no idea how much he knew about Kevin’s old job. “Sometimes it’s not so easy to get back to pick up your things.”
Daniel’s brow creased. Some of the sadness she’d been expecting before flickered across his expression. This was a world not many people entered on purpose.
“You don’t need to worry about that here,” Kevin said. “We’re secure.”
Kevin was one of those people who had chosen this life, which made his every judgment suspect to her.
“Better to keep in practice,” she insisted.
Kevin shrugged. “If that’s what you want, I know a place that might work.”
? ? ?
THE HOUSE WAS quite a bit nicer on the inside than the outside. She’d expected moldy wallpaper, 1970s oak paneling, sagging couches, linoleum, and Formica. While there was still an attempt at a rustic theme, the fixtures were new and state of the art. There were even granite countertops on the kitchen island under the elk-horn chandelier.
“Wow,” Daniel murmured.
“But how many contractors were inside this place?” she muttered to herself. Too many witnesses.
Kevin heard, though she hadn’t meant him to. “None, actually. Arnie used to be in construction. We got all the materials from across the state line and did the work ourselves. Well, mostly Arnie did it. Satisfied?”
Alex pursed her balloon lips.
“How did you two meet?” Daniel asked Arnie politely.
She really ought to study Daniel, Alex thought, practice his ways of interacting. This was how to act like a normal person. Either she’d never really known how or she’d forgotten completely. She had her lines down for waitressing, for cubicle jobs; she knew how to respond in a work environment in the least memorable way. She knew how to talk to patients when she was doing her illicit doctor gig. Before that, she’d learned the best ways to pull answers from a subject. But outside of the prescribed roles, she always avoided contact.
It was Kevin who answered Daniel’s question. “Arnie was in a little trouble that related tangentially to a project I was working on a while back. He wanted out, and he gave me some very valuable information in exchange for my killing him.”
The silent Arnie grinned widely.