Families are messy - 7

“One more day,” Casey told Duke, knowing the dog didn’t have a clue but needing to say it out loud anyway. He didn’t know why he was looking forward to seeing Marcia again, especially since he was still in the throes of his divorce, but he was.

Duke paused from his perusal of the local fauna in the park to look up at his master and Casey could almost swear the dog was asking, “What?”

“Never mind, just being silly.” He realized it was beginning to get dark when he saw the streetlights coming on. “Let’s go home,” he said, giving Duke’s leash a tug.

The dog seemed to think that wasn’t such a bad idea, taking the lead out of the park. Although the sidewalk was almost empty there was a fair amount of traffic on the street which didn’t surprise Casey. It was the main one connecting the eastern suburbs with the city proper and people were either still coming home from work or heading into town for the evening.

As they came to the corner Casey stopped, waiting for a break in the traffic so they could cross. He heard someone approaching behind him but thought nothing of it until he was bumped hard enough to propel him forward just as a car speeding towards him. If he hadn’t had Duke’s leash tightly around his hand, pulling him up short, he’d have been thrust right into the path of the car. As it was the car had to swerve to miss him. He turned angrily to see who the hell had shoved him only to discover the sidewalk was empty.

He scanned the area, trying to find the culprit, but saw no one. Then he stripped his shirt off and knelt down beside Duke. As he held it so that the bloodhound could sniff the back where the person’s hands had been he realized his own hands were shaking badly. He couldn’t do this because while Duke knew the rudiments of the command ‘Search’ he needed firm control in order to follow through on it and at the moment Casey was too shaken to be able to offer that.

With a sigh, he stood again, putting his shirt back on. “That was done on purpose,” he muttered angrily to himself. Then he tempered his thoughts. “Either that or the person realized what they’d done and ran scared,” he told Duke when the dog looked up at him questioningly. “Let’s get home. I need a good, stiff drink, or ten.”

* * * *

“You look like death warmed over,” Thomas said when Casey walked into the showroom the next morning.

Heading on to his office without stopping, Casey just nodded.

Thomas was right behind him when he opened the door. “Bad night?” he asked with some concern.

“Just couldn’t seem to get to sleep, and when I did I was restless,” Casey replied. He wasn’t about to tell Thomas why. He’d finally decided that the whole ‘accidental push’ had been just that, an accident and then the person running scared rather than staying to make certain he’d been alright.

“Bet that’s because of your date tonight,” Thomas said with a knowing smile. Casey had mentioned that he was going to the theater to watch auditions a couple days earlier and Thomas had managed to pry the reason why out of him.

“It’s not a ‘date’,” Casey told him yet again. “I’m just interested in seeing if she really is an actress or just a wannabe.”

“Umm, humm.” Thomas gave him a knowing smile before getting down to business. “The reports finally came back on Mr. De Klerk. He doesn’t and never has dealt in conflict diamonds.”

“Good. Then I’ll give him a call and set up an appointment to check out what he’s got that might interest us. Thank you for finding that out.”

Thomas shrugged. “It’s what you pay me a fairly substantial salary to do.”

“Still, thank you,” Casey said, trying not to yawn. He really hadn’t gotten much sleep and what he had had been fraught with nightmares where he ended up crushed under the tires of a car, or was thrown when one hit him, turning him into bloody pieces when he landed.

“I’ll be back with strong coffee,” Thomas told him, patting his shoulder before he left the office.

The rest of the day passed in somewhat of a blur as far as Casey was concerned, although by late afternoon he seemed to get his second wind. He still thought about not going to the theater after all, but as he didn’t have Marcia’s phone number he couldn’t call to beg off. He did check to see if he could find it but apparently she was unlisted, or just didn’t have a home phone.

As soon as it hit six he locked the showroom doors and went through closing chores with his employees. Thomas took charge of putting the stock into the walk-in safe as always while Casey did the day’s receipts and the others cleaned up and then left. By six-thirty Casey and Thomas were in the building’s lobby, ready to go their separate ways.

“Have fun,” Thomas said in parting as he took off.

“If I can stay awake,” Casey muttered as he headed to the parking garage.