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home. If I was going to house a dozen or so beauty-queen wannabes—and, yes, that included ACB—I’d better do some serious cleaning.
    I saw Ty and Blondie jogging around the grounds. She looked so beautiful with her tail wagging and her blond hair shining in the morning sun.
    Ty didn’t look so bad himself. It was cool this morning—about sixty degrees—and he was in navy blue sweats. His long strides looked effortless.
    I, however, was breathing hard with my short, choppy steps. I vowed that when the New Year began in four short months, I’d exercise more, and not just kid myself that the Silver Bullet Shuffle was my aerobic workout.
    And I had to cool it with the carbs. For every dinner roll that came out of the oven, all hot and begging to be smeared with a couple gobs of butter, I must have eaten fifty.
    I waved to Ty, and he jogged over. “I suppose you want our dog back.”
    Blondie wiggled and looked like she was about to jump out of her skin. Squatting down, I hugged her and got a load of puppy kisses in return.
    “If you have more exciting things to do with her, please keep her. I’m only going to clean for a horde of Miss Salmon pageant contestants.”
    “What?”
    “There’s no room in the inns or the trailer parks in the vicinity, so the Big House is going to be sorority central for a while.”
    He laughed. “Yikes!” Then he snapped his fingers and raised a perfect black eyebrow. “Beauty contestants, huh? Need any help?”
    “Sure, Ty. The ladies who entered from theSandy Harbor Golden Age Apartments need wheelchair transportation. How sweet you are to volunteer! I’ll write you in.”
    “Oh . . . um . . . okay. Anyway, I was going to take Blondie to the dog park. She can run around and play with the other dogs, and I can read on a nearby bench.”
    “Blondie will love it.” Then I thought about Nick and our quest to find him.
    I should probably tell Ty about Nick being missing. “I want to tell you that Antoinette Chloe and I went to Nick’s place to see if there were any clues as to where he might be—you know he’s missing, right?”
    “Of course. ACB called yesterday.”
    Ty shared my abbreviation for Antoinette Chloe Brown’s name.
    He shook his head. “She also filed a missing-persons report.”
    I nodded. “She must’ve called it in right after we left his place. We couldn’t find anything. No notes. Nothing. And the place was so clean and sterile that every worker in the Health Department and Housing Codes Enforcement would cry in happiness.”
    “I hit the computers, but no luck,” he said. “He hasn’t used a credit card; he hasn’t used his cell phone. He hasn’t reserved a plane or a bus seat. We are all keeping an eye out for him.”
    By
all
, I knew that he meant all three deputies of the Sandy Harbor Sheriff’s Department. Yeah, that’s right: three.
    “His car and his motorcycle with the sidecar still attached are in the garage.”
    “I know. I checked.”
    “How? ACB has the key.”
    “It was as simple as looking in the window, Trixie. After all, I am a detective.” He said it sarcastically, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
    Okay, I deserved that. “I didn’t mean to insult your cop-ness, Ty, but he’s been missing for a long time.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Nick’s been missing two weeks, not two days. ACB is beside herself with worry.”
    “Then she should have called us earlier. I can imagine she’s upset, but I’ve already kicked up the investigation a notch,” he said.
    “How so?”
    “I put Nick’s information in on the New York State Police system. The troopers are looking for him, too.”
    “Oh, good!”
    “What? Do you think that all I do is jog and hang out with Blondie all day?”
    “Of course not. You eat three meals at the Silver Bullet, too.”
    He patted his flat stomach. “You need a diet menu.”
    I laughed. “I’ve been meaning to get around to that.”
    Looking over at the lake, I thought about how I