Paws off the Boss - Casey Griffin (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📗

body and tied the belt in a knot. Make that a double knot. “You’re a disgusting little weasel.”

“Wait! Don’t go. I haven’t tipped you yet.” Barney dug into his pocket, taking a moment too long to dig out a twenty-dollar bill. From the center of the couch, he held it up for her. “You’ll come back when I return from my vacation, right?”

“In your dreams, pal.” She cringed as the mental image of him actually dreaming about her that night popped uninvited into her brain. Shaking it off, she made a beeline for the front door.

“Wait. Wait! Here!” He reached back into his pocket again, this time pulling out more money. “Take it. Please.”

She hesitated at the edge of the room, eyeing the wad of bills in his hand. She imagined her landlord waiting outside her apartment for her to come home, to ambush her, demanding rent for that month. Could she go home empty-handed? Aiden wouldn’t pay her until Friday. She could take the money from Barney and still storm out and never have to see the slimeball again.

Then the pillow slipped from his lap, falling to the floor. She glimpsed what hid beneath and gagged.

Forget that, she thought.

Choking on her own disgust, Piper whipped back around to the front door and “accidentally” knocked the rococo mirror with her sword as she passed. A satisfying crack pierced the air as it hit the glass. A musical chiming tinkled as the mirror shattered and the pieces fell to the hardwood floor.

“Whoops.” She gasped innocently. “Did I just wreck the patina?” She wrenched open the door. “Don’t call me again!”

She slammed the door behind her and headed for her car. Reaching into her sporran, she pulled out her phone and texted Lindsey: I’m finished at B.M.’s. Getting in my car now. You can call off the squad.

Piper had worked out a system with the receptionist. She always texted before she went into Barney’s and again after she escaped safely. That way, if Lindsey hadn’t heard from her, she knew to tell the cops they could find Piper tied up and gagged in Barney Miller’s basement—she hoped not cut up into tiny pieces. She’d never thought he’d do it, of course, but the texts still made her feel better.

Barney had never laid a hand on her. His eyes, however, were another thing. The way they slithered up her body gave her the same gut reaction as if he’d reached out and grabbed a handful of butt cheek.

Over the last few years, she’d dealt with all sorts of harassment. Catcalls, whistling, handsy drunks. But singing for Barney Miller was the only time she felt like she was doing something wrong. Something more obscene than singing telegrams.

The second she jumped in the Bug, she locked her car doors. While she fastened her seat belt, her phone dinged. It was Lindsey’s response.

Safe for another week.

Safe forever, Piper replied. I won’t be going back there again. Don’t book me with him. Will tell you about it on Monday.

The good thing about the gig at Barney’s was that it had taken her mind off Aiden for a few hours, but once she returned home, she was still wound up, now even more so. She decided to use it to her advantage, to get some study time in. However, between the colicky newborn in the unit below her and the horny newlyweds above, she knew there would be no concentrating.

Hoping for peace and quiet, she drove to the rescue center with Colin. She often studied there. Even the library could be noisy after school let out. And Starbucks was too expensive, considering her chai habit.

Only three weeks left until her licensing exam. She’d worked too hard to let herself become distracted now. But even as she pulled into the center’s parking lot and dug out the spare key Marilyn gave her for the building, her mind was still running over the events of that afternoon at Aiden’s, trying to figure out exactly what it all meant.

There were moments when he could be so approachable, a regular guy she could walk in the park or eat samosas with. But then he would pull a Jekyll/Hyde on her. It drove her crazy. And while she would have thought his smooth, hard-shelled CEO exterior would be a complete turnoff, all she could think about was how to crack that egg.

Once inside the center, Piper groped her way through the dark to the light switches behind the desk. The dogs must have heard her, because they howled in unison. Who’s there?

She popped into the back to say hello and show them it was only her and Colin. Satisfied, they settled down and resumed their normal conversations with one another.

Piper had grown used to the barks, yips, and occasional growls. They were white noise to her, like the sound of crashing waves to a sailor or organ music to a minister. It felt like home.

Settling in for a study session, she put the kettle on for tea and opened the door to the back. Colin liked to come and go as he pleased, exploring and visiting the other dogs.

Dropping her textbook onto the reception counter, Piper plopped into the chair and attempted to put Aiden out of her head. To fill it so full of fleas and molting, tapeworms and ingrown toenails, of rabies and lesions, that it would squeeze out the thought of Aiden like a doctor would a tick burrowed deep in her brain.

But it wasn’t long before she stared into space, imagining that adorable bedhead hair, the way his dimple betrayed him when he tried not to smile, how affectionate he was with Sophie and Colin, and that rigid posture that she wanted to bend and contort in all sorts of positions in her bed—

Smash.

Glass shattered.

Bang.

Something hit the counter.

Her pencil case exploded, pens flying everywhere. She held up an arm to deflect the ballpoint shrapnel.

Strands of her hair shifted in a breeze as something flew by. A crash behind her.

Splash.

Piper whirled around. The chair went spinning across the room. Her heart throbbed in her chest, and her legs shook. She gripped the desk for support.

Colin was at her heels in an instant. He was shaking, too. In the back, the dogs were losing it, startled by the commotion.

It took her darting eyes a few moments to piece things together. The large fish tank behind the reception desk was spewing water out of a jagged hole in the glass. Her shoes squelched in a giant puddle.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement on the floor. Subtle flutterings and flip-floppings around her Walmart Special shoes.

The ladies.

“Oh, my God.”

Tiptoeing over the wriggling creatures, she ran to the dingy little kitchen and filled the first thing she could find with water: the coffeepot.

Scooping up the goldfish, she plopped them inside, one by one. While she hadn’t come across a chapter in her textbooks on emergency aquatic resuscitation, she didn’t think it was possible to give them CPR. But it would give a whole new meaning to the term “fish-lips.”

“Please be okay,” she begged. “Please be okay.”

After a few seconds, though a little lethargic, the goldfish began waving their fins, propelling themselves around their considerably downsized home. Their eyes seemed to be bulgier than normal, their mouths popping open and closed as if scandalized.

“Don’t worry,” Piper told them. “That’s better now, isn’t it?”

They swished their fancy ball gowns indignantly as Piper set them on the counter. It was still possible that she would lose more than one to the toilet bowl by morning, thanks to stress or injuries. She would have to keep a close eye on them.

With everyone rescued and accounted for, she added a couple drops of water conditioner to the coffeepot and went to check on the frantic dogs in the back. To soothe them, she offered some extra treats and spoke to them in a calm, comforting manner. She, however, felt anything but, and she could have used a treat herself.

Once the dogs were more or less settled, she searched for the source of the damage. She found it in the fish tank between the sunken treasure and the pirate ship. It was an odd bundle.

Cautious of the broken glass, she plucked the bundle out of the wreckage. Surprised by the weight, she turned it over in her hands. It was a brick. A piece of paper clung to it, held in place by an elastic band.

Piper focused on the front entrance, at the hole smashed in the door, the glass scattered across the linoleum floor. The path of destruction continued to where it hit the desk.

She touched the gouge in the old wood top. She’d been inches away from requiring her own first-aid treatment.

Carefully, she slipped the rubber band off the brick and removed the piece of paper. It was soaked with tank water, but when she unfolded it the message read loud and clear.

Get out! Or I’ll make you.