A Breath of Dead Air (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 8) by Nic Saint Page A

Rick Dawson Denounces President Jack Gnash.’
    Just then, Bo’s phone chimed, and her brow puckered into a frown. “It’s my dad,” she said, before picking up. “Dad? What’s…” She listened for a few moments, and then her face went ashen, her hands trembling violently. The phone fell from her grip, bounced on the table and dropped to the floor.
    “What?!” Felicity cried, jumping to her feet. “What’s wrong?!”
    “That—that was Dad’s secretary. Dad’s…” Her lip was quivering, big, fat tears freely rolling down her cheeks. “Dad’s… dead. He committed suicide.”

Chapter 13
    J erry pulled the door of Petra’s Pet Parlor closed behind him with a grunt of relief. He was bushed. Ever since starting work for the pet parlor’s eponymous owner he dreaded waking up in the morning. Not only was Petra Pearce a harsh taskmaster, she seemed to have developed a thorough dislike to humans in general, men in particular, and ex-cons more specifically. Petra loved all things canine, and she hadn’t taken kindly to the court order decreeing she harbor two dognapping crooks. Her antipathy had been instant and irrevocable, which made for a very disagreeable working environment.
    The two men formerly known as the Pet Bandits had left their petnapping days behind, and Jerry didn’t regret it for a single moment. The last time they’d tried to snatch a pet they’d gotten into so much trouble he hoped never to see his name associated with the now infamous moniker ever again.
    Unfortunately, in this day and age of Google searches, he realized that this particular blot on his reputation would never be completely expunged.
    Johnny, who stood idling on the curb, suddenly gave him an odd look. Jerry frowned. He recognized that look. Johnny had worn it when they’d snatched Mayor MacDonald’s parrot Moe, and again when they decided to grab Chazz Falcone’s dog Spot. Both endeavors had ended in disaster, and as a consequence they now found themselves snipping dog hair on a daily basis, which in his opinion was worse than knitting sweaters in Sing Sing.
    “What?!” he asked gruffly.
    Johnny didn’t respond but merely held up his smartphone. Jerry found himself face to face with a picture of some dumb mutt. There was nothing special about this dumb mutt. In fact it was indistinguishable from the seemingly endless procession of dumb mutts that passed by his pet grooming station every day.
    “Don’t tell me you’re gonna get yourself a dog,” he rasped irritably. The last thing he needed was for the room he and Johnny were forced to share at the Happy Bays Inn to become infested with some infernal happy yapper.
    “Someone sent me this picture,” Johnny explained. “Asks me if I’m interested.”
    “Tell him to go to hell,” Jerry suggested.
    Johnny thought about this for a moment but seemed disinclined to agree. “I think this is our chance, Jer. I think this is our opportunity.”
    “I think you should stop thinking,” Jerry growled.
    “But this will put us right back on top!”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “That thing we talked about? That plan of ours?”
    “What thing? What plan? There is no plan.”
    “Our plan to snatch Spot 2?”
    “That’s not a plan! That’s just some dumb idea I told you to forget about.” Alarmed, he stared at his partner. It was just as he thought. That dumb brick was actually planning to go through with this latest harebrained scheme of his. “Don’t you realize that if we steal another mutt we’re gonna end up spending the rest of our lives working for that evil witch Petra Pearce?!”
    “Yeah, but no one is gonna find out, Jerry. Not this time. That’s the beauty of it, see? I posted a message on the interwebs that we’re looking for a mutt that looks like Chazz Falcone’s mutt, and this guy came back with a very nice offer. Only fifty bucks, see? And no one is ever gonna find out because it’s on this app, see? This app that deletes