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to come down, the roll-up door whips open and there’s Mr. Petersen, leveling a giant handgun right at my heart.
    I threw my hands up in the air and said, “I’m sorry! I swear! I didn’t mean to touch it!”
    His eyes pinched closed a bit and he lowered the gun. “Well, well, well. If it’s not the brain surgeon that lost the dog.” He unlocked the car and turned off the alarm.
    I guess my adrenaline was pumping pretty good, because my mouth popped off with, “Me? Who’s the guy who kept right on driving?”
    “Hey! Watch your mouth!” He tucked the gun inside the belt of his pants and muttered, “Like I don’t get enough of this from the Wicked Witch.”
    “Uh … that would be Mrs. Landvogt?”
    “You didn’t hear that from me.”
    “What’s she doing? Threatening to put you out of business, too?”
    He eyed me like I was a guppy swimming around his toilet. “She’s already pulled that one on me. What are you doing here, anyway?”
    I ignored the question. “But you’re still in business.”
    He kept eyeing me. “If you call slaving here twenty-four seven being in business, then yeah, I guess I am.” He shook his head. “Look, kid, I don’t know what you’re nosing around here for, but if you got any brains at all you’ll leave and not come back.”
    My brain was racing, trying like crazy to put some pieces together. “I’m … I’m not really nosing, it’s—” All of a sudden something clicked. “It’s just that anyone could figure out she’s got something on you.”
    “And why do you say that?”
    I scratched the back of my neck. “How else does a pedigree wind up on the cover of the Santa Martina calendar?”
    I could tell by the look on his face that I had hit the bull’s-eye. And it about made him short-circuit, because he says, “That witch sent you here to harass me! That’s what you’re doing here! Well, you can tell her it’s a sad day when you have to send a kid to do your dirty work. You can also tell her it’s not going to work. I’m not caving in to her anymore!” He went back inside, and I could see the grip of his gun sticking out of his waistband as he reached for a large chain dangling from the door. He yanked on it, and as the door rumbled down he yelled, “Get away from my shop, you hear me? And don’t ever come back!”
    As I watched the door clang closed, I realized that any chance I’d had of getting information out of him was gone.
    Royce Petersen had just flushed me down the drain.

SIX

    I thought about going back to the Pup Parlor to tell Vera what had happened, but there was so much stuff jumbling around in my brain that I needed a minute to think. So instead, when I got to Broadway, I looked both ways for Officer Borsch, then jaywalked across the street.
    I cut across the grass to the Senior Highrise and started up the fire escape, and for the first two flights I thought about Mr. Petersen and his temper and how scary he looked with that gun in his hand. But the farther away from him I got, the safer I felt, and by the time I was on the fifth floor, my stomach wasn’t flipping with fear anymore, it was hungry.
    So my brain was busy putting together a gigantic ham and cheese sandwich when I got to our hallway and remembered—no Mrs. Graybill to worry about. For once I got to go trucking down the hall and open the apartment door like I lived there.
    Grams was still dressed in her church clothes. She whispered, “Hello, Samantha,” over the receiver of the phone, then said, “That’s why the gal in Outpatients switched me over to you.” She listened for a minute. “Well, when is
he
supposed to be in?… When do you
think
he’ll return?”She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Fine. I’ll try around two o’clock.”
    She got off the phone and said, “They’ve lost her. Nobody seems to have any idea where she is.”
    “Who?”
    “Daisy!”
    That sounded like good news to me.
    Grams looped an apron over her head. “I’ve been