The reception area at Pretty Paws was packed full. Lexy tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for her turn. In front of her, a woman tried to keep the leashes of her two Yorkies from getting tangled as they zigzagged in between her legs. In front of the Yorkies, a man jerked the leash of his Golden Retriever to distract it from growling at the Great Dane that was in front of him.

Lexy had been taking Sprinkles to Pretty Paws for years now and she'd never seen it so crowded. Shannon, the harried woman at the reception desk, seemed like she could barely keep up.

"Are you giving away free grooming? I've never seen it so crowded here," Lexy said when it was finally her turn.

Shannon sighed, brushing wisps of hair that had escaped from her ponytail out of her face. "I know, it's been crazy. Guess I won't complain though because business is good." She frowned at Lexy. "What brings you back here?"

"I'm here to pick up Sprinkles. I dropped her off earlier, remember?"

"Yes, of course, but your sister picked her up about fifteen minutes ago."

Lexy's forehead pleated. "Sister? I don't have a sister. You must have me confused with someone else."

"Let me double check." Shannon rifled through some papers on the desk, pulling one out and handing it to Lexy.

"Yep, right here. Your sister Lavinia picked her up," she said as she motioned for the person behind Lexy to hand over their dogs.

Lexy frowned at the paper, her stomach sinking. Lavinia? Who the heck was Lavinia?

"No, really. I don't have a sister. This must be a mix-up." Totally understandable given the chaos that was going on right now, Lexy thought.

Shannon gave her an exasperated look as she tried to separate a Wheaton Terrier and Springer Spaniel that were having a spat.

"Honestly, Lexy. I distinctly remember handing Sprinkles to her. Medium height, fluffy dark hair. You can go back and check the kennels if you want." Shannon jerked her head toward the back of the store then turned her attention to the next customer.

Medium height? Fluffy dark hair?

An uneasy feeling crept into Lexy's stomach just as her cell phone went off. She yanked it out of her pocket. A number she didn't recognize flashed on the screen, but something told her to answer the call. She turned away from the reception desk and flipped the phone open.

"Hello?"

"Listen up, Baker. If you want to see your precious pooch alive, then do exactly as I say."

Lexy's heart twisted. She could hear Sprinkles barking in the background. "Who is this?"

The menacing laugh that came out of the phone chilled Lexy's blood. "Don't you recognize my voice? It's your old enemy ... and yes, that is Sprinkles you hear barking. Now, if you don't want her to get hurt, bring your wedding dress to six four three East Pearl at six-thirty p.m. Enter by the door on the side ... and come alone."

"My dress? Why would you want that?" Lexy's question was answered with the hollow click of the call being disconnected. But she'd recognized the voice and she knew who was on the other end. Ramona.

Panic gripped her as she shoved the phone back into her purse.

Sprinkles was in trouble!

She ran out to her car and called the first person she could think of to help-Nans.

Tears blurred Lexy's eyes as she looked through her cell phone contacts for Nans. Pressing the number, she could feel her heartbeat pounding with each ring. Please answer.

"Hi, Lexy I was jus-"

Lexy cut her off. "Ramona's kidnapped Sprinkles!"

Nans gasped. "What?"

"She pretended to be my sister and picked her up at the groomers," Lexy said.

"Why would she do that?"

"She wants me to bring my wedding dress to some building on the pier tonight. She says she'll hurt Sprinkles if I don't. What should I do?"

"Ahh. It all makes perfect sense now," Nans said. "Especially with what Millie just told me about the stones Philippe told her to sew into the gown."

"Huh? What stones? This doesn't make any sense to me," Lexy said feeling even more confused than before.

"Well I don't have time to explain it now," Nans said. "How quickly do you think Vera can sew up a wedding dress?"

Lexy felt her brows knit together. "I don't know. Why?"

"Because I have an idea on how we can catch our killer. But we'll have to hurry. We need to get Vera to work on the dress pronto and pay a visit to Detective Davies ... and we don't have much time."

Chapter Twenty Two.

Lexy's heart hammered in her chest as she stood in front of 643 East Pearl Street clutching the wedding dress decoy her mother had made. East Pearl was in the seedy section of town, the streetlights had been smashed years ago and she could barely make out the numbers in the dim light.

Resisting the urge to run, she reached out for the knob and turned. The door opened into a dark warehouse.

"Hello?"

"Woof!"

"Sprinkles!" Lexy's heart surged and she ran toward the sound.

"So, you made it." The voice came from the shadows behind her and Lexy spun around. Two figures with guns stood in the corner.

"Bring the dress over," Ramona said.

"I want to see Sprinkles first," Lexy demanded.

A light flicked on at the far end and Lexy could see Sprinkles snuggled in a dog bed inside a large crate. Sprinkles thumped her tail against the side of the crate.

"She's fine," Ramona said. "Now give us what we want."

Lexy walked slowly over to the corner, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. She sucked in a breath as the other person stepped out from behind Ramona.

"Eddie?"

"That's right; me and Eddie and Stu were all in on it together. Bet you and your nosey grandma didn't figure that one out," Ramona said. "Now hand over the dress."

She held the hand without the gun out and Lexy shoved the dress at her.

"What's so interesting about the dress?" Lexy asked, hoping that Ramona didn't inspect it too carefully-Vera hadn't had much time to make it and it was a barely passable copy of Lexy's gown.

"You didn't figure that out?" Ramona squinted at the top of the dress, and then held it up toward Lexy. "It's these stones. They aren't regular rhinestones-they're diamonds."

"Diamonds?"

"That's right," Eddie cut in. "We planned the heist at the Telbourne, and paid Philippe to sew the stones into Veronica's dress."

"Except we didn't know they were making an identical dress for you." Ramona glared at Lexy.

"And somehow the dresses got switched," Eddie said.

Lexy's brows creased. "So that's why my dress didn't fit as good on that last fitting."

"Right-o!" Ramona said.

"And you were all in on this together?" Lexy asked.

"Umm ... yeah, I think we already covered that," Ramona said.

"But why sew them into a dress?" Lexy asked.

"It was the easiest way to smuggle them out of the country," Eddie said. "With Stu and Veronica getting married in Paris, it was perfect ... Until Stu started trying to get more than his share."

"And that's why you killed him," Lexy said.

Eddie nodded. "And we had to take care of Philippe too. He knew too much. I just wish I didn't have to kill Veronica. She didn't know anything about it."

"Well, you dirty rotten scoundrels," Lexy said.

"What?" Ramona and Eddie both scrunched their faces at her.

"I said ... you dirty rotten scoundrels." Lexy repeated louder this time as she glanced behind her.

Where was Davies? Hadn't she said the right code words?

"Okay, now that we have the dress, what do we do with her?" Eddie jerked his head in Lexy's direction.

Ramona's laugh turned Lexy's insides to mush.

"The joke's on you Eddie," Ramona said as she pointed her gun at him.

"What the heck?" Eddie pointed his gun at Ramona.

"I took the liberty of relieving your gun of its bullets," Ramona said.

Lexy saw Eddie's face turn hard and he squeezed the trigger. Lexy flinched but the gun only made a dull clicking sound. Ramona really had removed the bullets.

"I figured that with Stu out of the way, I might as well keep the profits for myself," Ramona said.

"How are you going to do that?" Eddie asked.

"That's easy." Ramona gestured with her gun for Eddie to stand next to Lexy. "It turns out you couldn't live without Lexy ... couldn't stand to see her marry another man."

"What?" Lexy asked. "No one is going to believe that-we didn't even know each other until two days ago."

"Oh, they'll believe it." Ramona snickered. "Especially once they get the letter Eddie sent to you saying that if he can't have you no one can, and begging you to meet him here."

Lexy remembered the strange letter she'd found in the previous night's mail and her stomach churned. Had Ramona really gone that far?

"Oh, and if they don't believe that, wait until they find your panties at Eddie's house and his necklace at yours."

Eddie looked down at his chest. "So that's where my necklace went-you took it!"

Ramona nodded.

"Wait. How'd you get my panties?"

"It was me that broke into your house," Ramona said proudly.

"You broke into my house to steal my panties?" Lexy stared at Ramona incredulously.

"Actually I broke in to get the dress, the panty stealing was just extra," Ramona said. "And, of course, I took the opportunity to plant the necklace."

"Now, all I have to do is make it look like Eddie killed you, then turned the gun on himself." Ramona shrugged. "Stuff like that happens all the time. And since I left the video tapes showing Eddie and Stu stealing that scepter at the Telbourne, the police will be so happy to catch their thieves and the killer they won't even look any further ... and I'll be on my way to Rio with the diamonds."

"You won't get away with this you dirty rotten scoundrel!" Lexy yelled the code words that Davies had given her.

Ramona shoved her into a corner and lifted the gun, the barrel pointing right at Lexy.

Lexy squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears just before she heard a deafening bang.

"Hold it right there!" Lexy heard Davies yell. She opened one eye in time to see Ramona whirl around just as the Brooke Ridge Falls Police Department swarmed the room.

Before she could even get her other eye open, Davies had Ramona face down on the floor and was slapping handcuffs on her. John Darling was doing the same to Eddie. And Jack was scooping her up into his arms.

"Are you okay?" Lexy melted at the concern in his honey brown eyes.

Lexy nodded then tore herself out of his arms.