The Great West Detective Agency Read Online Free PDF

to wrap his arms around such a delightful package as presented by Amanda Baldridge. He frowned a little when he came to the quick conclusion there was more than the woman was telling.
    â€œWho is this missing gentleman? How long has it been since the kidnapping?”
    â€œYesterday morning,” she said, taking a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbing at her eyes. For the life of him, Lucas saw no tears yet the woman sniffed and continued to brush her eyes, carefully avoiding any ruin to her makeup.
    â€œWhy don’t you give me the full details?”
    â€œAre you going to write all this down?” She looked at the bare desk. Not even pen and ink marred the vast expanse of polished wood.
    Lucas tapped the side of his head and smiled in encouragement. Amanda nodded in understanding.
    â€œWhen I awoke yesterday morning, he was gone. He is always beside me in bed, under the covers.”
    Lucas listened less to what she said now and concentrated more on her lovely features. Although she didn’t wear a wedding ring, that meant little in these modern times. What distressed him was the longing in her voice for her missing paramour.
    â€œI thought he had gone outside for breakfast.”
    â€œOutside?”
    â€œIf I haven’t prepared something special for him, he goes out to kill something. He’s so cute.”
    â€œYour husband is cute when he is killing?”
    Amanda looked up, startled. Then she smiled wanly and dabbed away some more nonexistent tears.
    â€œHe is not my husband, Lucas. I cannot imagine what you were thinking! He is my puppy. Tovarich is a Russian wolfhound.”
    â€œYour dog?”
    â€œMy itty-bitty little puppy.”
    â€œThe police wouldn’t look for a lost dog?”
    â€œThat is right. It is so cruel of them, because Tovarich was stolen. He was spirited away by evil men. I just know it.”
    â€œWas anything else stolen from your room?”
    â€œNo, nothing. Only Tovarich.”
    Lucas refrained from asking if there was something special about the puppy. The love in Amanda’s voice almost approached reverence.
    â€œDo you know anyone who would steal your dog?” He left it unsaid what men on the frontier would have taken rather than the dog if they had sneaked into her bedroom and found her asleep.
    â€œNo. I have driven myself quite crazy trying to imagine who might have stolen my puppy dog.”
    Lucas held back his opinion that, no matter how lovely she was, Amanda was crazy as a bedbug. The dog had run off or, more likely, become the morning meal for a coyote or a pack of wolves. Although wild animals avoided Denver because of the influx of people, they also came to live off the garbage. Nosing through a pile of rotting meat from a slaughterhouse was easier than tracking down your own four-legged meal. And only the night before he had seen two rats which would prove a match for any small dog.
    â€œHere is my address. It is a boardinghouse.”
    She fumbled in her purse, found what she wanted, and passed over a scrap of paper with an address written on it in pencil.
    â€œThere might be a neighbor who saw a man or men with your Tovarich yesterday morning,” he said, not believing a word of it. Lucas tucked the paper into his vest pocket and stood. “I hate to be abrupt, Amanda, but I was on my way out.”
    Her nose wrinkled, and she dabbed more at her eyes. All the while she studied him from head to toe.
    â€œYou are going undercover?”
    It took Lucas an instant to realize how disheveled he was after his late-night escape from the rancher and his henchmen. His pants were torn in places, and his once elegant coat had been smudged in more places than he could count. A good cleaning would return it to respectability. And he ought to tend to that right away since he wanted to look sharp for Carmela Thompson’s debut that night.
    He wanted to look sharp for Carmela. After too many brushes with her in the