"Not great," I admitted, taking a small sip of coffee. "We're taking a bit of a break right now. He's not wild about my job change, but at least he hasn't asked me to pick between him and the dump."

Collin laughed, startling me so much I looked up at him. His eyes crinkled pleasantly at the corners, and he had a dimple in his right cheek.

It was the first time I'd seen him with a full-wattage smile. The effect was completely disarming.

"In that case, I feel for the poor chap," Collin said, still smiling. "It's tough to compete with decaying rubbish."

"Or heavy machinery," I added.

He raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm not going to touch that."

"Funny, I think he said the same thing."

Collin laughed again and put his glasses back on. I bit my lip, reeling a little from the effects of his smile. Straight-faced or snarling, Collin was merely attractive.

But smiling like that, he was actually kind of hot.

I made a mental note not to make him smile too often. That was the last thing I needed in my life at the moment.

TWO HOURS LATER, I cruised along in Shirley while contemplating life, love, and the proper techniques for crushing an armoire.

Strange as my career switch might seem to others, I knew I'd found the right fit. Okay, so I smelled a little funny at the end of a workday, and this wasn't how I'd pictured my life when I sat through advanced college courses on marketing.

But it was how I'd pictured my life when I was eight. Especially the pink hard hat. Maybe there's something to be said for trusting youthful instincts?

I considered that as I crushed a dead fern in a blue clay pot. Five years of stiff suits and important meetings hadn't made me half as happy as a couple days of running over garbage in a 150,000-pound machine. I knew there was an important life lesson in there somewhere.

I also knew I liked the people I worked with now a whole lot more than I'd liked my colleagues in the marketing department. True, there was something odd about a guy like Pete working as a secretary at a landfill, and Collin seemed mistrustful of me, but I saw no reason deep suspicion should interfere with good working relationships.

I thought about that some more as I ran over an orange rocking chair with a limp balloon tied to the back.

My mind found its way to my relationship with Daniel. It wasn't the first time in our relatively short courtship that we'd agreed to cool things off a bit, but it was the first time I'd been the one to suggest it. In the past, I'd been drawn to his protectiveness and the way he looked out for me. Now, that was what rubbed me the wrong way, particularly when it came to questioning my career choices.

I veered a little to the left, crushing a water-stained bookshelf and something that looked like a bag of meat.

I steered Shirley up a slight incline, feeling cheerful in spite of everything weighing on my mind. I had a great new job. I had fun new co-workers. I had my health, a loving family, a nice house, and an excellent cat. I had a very good life.

I ran over a rolled up carpet.

A shoe fell out of one end.

I gasped. The hair on my arms stood straight up, and I shut the engine off without thinking. My heart was pounding in my ears.

I sat there staring at the shoe, staring at the familiar outline of a shape inside the carpet roll. I blinked hard, trying to make them go away.

The radio on my belt crackled to life.

"JJ?" Burt said. "You okay over there?"

I swallowed and reached for my radio.

"Burt, you'd better come here." I barely recognized my own voice. "I think I just ran over a body."

CHAPTER THREE.

Burt was on the ground beside Shirley before I could say another word. My hands shook as I unfastened my seatbelt and pulled the key out of the ignition. Slowly, I stepped out of the cab.

"This carpet?" Burt said, nudging it with his boot. "This what you saw?"

I nodded as I grabbed hold of the rail and started down the steps. "A shoe fell out," I said, swallowing the lump that had lodged itself in my throat. "A silver stiletto. And I saw a shape I don't know what, but something's rolled up inside that rug."

"I didn't see anyone dump it," Burt said, stepping closer to the bundle. "Must've come in on one of the garbage trucks."

"What do we do?" I didn't like the squeak in my voice.

"We look inside. We call the cops if there's if there's anything to call them about."

We both stood there for a moment, hesitating.

"Is there a problem?" shouted a voice from above us.

I looked up at the edge of the pit. Collin was standing there beside the 4WD Ranger he used to make rounds between chemical monitoring stations.

"JJ saw something," Burt said. "We got a rolled up rug here with an unidentified object inside."

Collin crouched down and leapt gracefully onto a freshly compacted plot of rubbish. Slowly, he made his way to stand beside me. I felt the warmth radiating from his arm and shivered.

Burt looked at the bundle beside his foot. He scratched his crotch. Then he bent down and grabbed the edge of the carpet.

"Do you need me to back Shirley up a few feet?" I asked, my voice still shaking.

"No, it's not wedged under there too far. One good yank and it'll come out. Ready?"

I didn't trust myself to speak. I just nodded. Beside me, Collin nodded once.

"Here we go," Burt said.

And with one hard jerk, he pulled the carpet free. It seemed to unroll in slow motion, the rug unfurling away from us in a tumble of stained blue fuzz.

Then it was open. The three of us stared. A crow squawked overhead. None of us said a word.

"Son of a bitch," Burt said finally.

"What kind of sick joke is that?" I gasped.

"Why would you put shoes on your bloody inflatable sex doll?" Collin mused, cocking his head to the side for a better look.

Burt nudged it with his toe. "She's not inflatable. See? Foam rubber. Thick stuff. Heavy, too. The shoe probably shot right off the end of her foot when JJ ran her over."

"You're right," Collin said, nodding approvingly. "Nice how the knickers match the brassiere."

I sank down on the edge of the compactor, my heart still in my throat. I couldn't believe it.

"That's like the oldest landfill cliche in the book," I sputtered. "A dead body in a rolled up carpet. I was sure that's what it was. Why would someone do that with a sex doll?"

Collin's expression was actually sympathetic. "Maybe some poor chap didn't want the wife to see it," he suggested. "Or his mum. You have to admit, it's rather dodgy business trying to dispose of a used love doll. Can't very well stuff her in your roll-cart and wheel her to the end of the driveway."

"I feel like an idiot," I said, balling my hands into fists.

"Don't," Burt said, stepping away from the bundle and patting my shoulder with a gloved hand. "I would have done the same thing. Besides, it's good that you're paying attention. That you're noticing stuff like this."

"A sex doll," I muttered. I stole a glance at Collin to see if he was laughing at me. He wasn't, and for once he wasn't staring at me with suspicion. I considered that progress.

"Here," Burt said, stooping to pick something out of the rubbish at his feet. "A flower to cheer you up."

He held out a piece of tattered fabric and I opened my hand to catch it. The orange-red rose fluttered into my palm.

"Kate Spade," I sniffed, looking closely at the design.

"What?"

I held up the fabric scrap, turning it sideways for a better look. "A handbag designer. This fabric is from her Baton Rouge line."

"Huh," Burt said, not sounding very impressed.

I looked down at the heap where Burt had found the fabric. "Hey," I said, leaning down to retrieve another piece of material. "This is Coach. And this looks like something from Gucci. And this-"

"Is that egg salad?" Collin surveyed the scrap I'd just picked up.

"These are fakes," I said, holding up a piece of faux leather bearing an equally faux Louis Vuitton logo. "Bad ones, judging from the quality of this fabric."

"I think Ernie has a bunch of those fancy purses up there in the thrift store," mused Burt. "They turn up here pretty often and people are always showing up to buy 'em."

"Tell her to get rid of them," I said, standing up with my fistful of colorful fabric. "Buying or selling knockoffs is terrible. It's just like stealing from the designer."

"I've seen the prices they charge for luxury purses," Collin muttered, eyeing the filthy fabric in my hand. "Charging $1,000 for a bloody purse seems like stealing to me."

I glared at him, my heart still thudding in my ears from the dead body scare. "My sister is a handbag designer," I informed him. "You wouldn't believe the blood, sweat and tears required to create an original design, and then to have someone just steal it like this-"

"You're right, you're right," Collin said, holding up his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, protecting intellectual property is quite important. I wasn't thinking of it that way."

"Besides, most counterfeit luxury goods are made in third world sweatshops by children kept in deplorable conditions and-"

"I'm sorry really," Collin said, clearly ready to be done with the conversation. "I do apologize."

I glanced back down at the ground, watching the colorful scraps of fabric swirling around the edges of the stained carpet.

Burt made a snorting sound and spit something over his shoulder. Then he toed the sex doll.

"How much you think Ernie could get for this?"

I HAD GOTTEN past the body scare by Friday evening when I got ready to meet Pete at Lori's shop. Despite the fact that we were going to be choosing a gift for his girlfriend, I still wanted to look nice.

"What do you think, the blue cashmere V-neck or the purple blouse?"

Blue Cat stared at me from his perch on the floor of my closet. Then he went back to sniffing the orange safety vest I'd tossed in the corner.

"A lot of help you are," I muttered, holding up the shirts for my own benefit. "The blouse," I said aloud. "The V-neck is a little low-cut. I don't want him to think I'm trying to seduce him while we're shopping for his girlfriend."

Blue Cat blinked at me.

"You're right," I said, hanging up the purple blouse. "I'm in coveralls and decay all day long. Can't hurt to look a little girly, show some skin. V-neck it is."

I pulled the sweater over my head and began digging in the back of my closet for my favorite Marc Jacobs pencil heels. I slid them on and checked myself out in the mirror. Sexy sweater, designer jeans, nice shoes. I was aiming for classy-casual. I hoped I'd succeeded.

My cell phone rang, and I stopped touching up my lipstick to glance at the number.

"Hey, Lori," I said as I tucked the phone against my shoulder and tried to remove a bit of dried mascara beneath my eyebrow.

"When are you getting here?"

"I'm walking, so thirty minutes.."

"This should be fun! Macy really wanted to be here, but she had to run."

"Sweden this time?"

Lori laughed. "Actually, I showed her those pictures you texted me of the counterfeit handbag scraps. She got all fired up about it, said she'd do some sleuthing."

"Sleuthing?"

"I didn't want to ask. With her family connections though-"

"Right. Not that we know for sure about the whole mob thing but"

"Sure, if there's something criminal going on, I guess she'd know where to start looking."

"Exactly. Okay, Lor, I'm hanging up now. I'll be there in a few. Don't slobber all over Pete if he gets there before me."

"That cute, huh?"