BOOKMARKED FOR DEATH (HARDCOVER)

Chapter 1

Jasmine had called Blackwood Cove home for most of her life, but something about the little town felt different as she returned. The cold air felt harsher and the smell of seawater felt stronger, as if everything she remembered about the town had been turned up to the max. She had only been away at college for a single semester, and it surprised her it felt this strange.

"Come on, Jasmine," she heard her dog Luffy say. He was already on the front porch of her parents’ house, waiting for Jasmine to knock on the door. "Your mom always has the best treats!"

"I know, I'm coming," Jasmine promised, rolling her suitcase along with her. She had left most of her things at her apartment, but she had wanted to see her parents again over winter break. She liked college, but no one could completely avoid homesickness. After a semester as eventful as hers, it would be nice to be home for a while and relax.

She knocked on the door, and it was open in an instant, as if her parents had been waiting for her to arrive. Her mom pulled her in for a hug instantly, and her dad gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. They started talking about how much they had missed her, but Jasmine found it hard to focus on what they were saying. Something was going on with Luffy.

Her dog would normally have cuddled right up to her parents, looking for that treat he had mentioned before. He wasn't doing that now, or even sitting to the side like he would when Jasmine was busy. He was pacing and smelling the floor as if he was on a mission.

"Do you smell something?" Jasmine asked, drawing her parents’ attention to her dog's strange behavior.

"Yes," Luffy said, sounding angry. "They've definitely had company."

Jasmine wanted to ask who Luffy was smelling and why he was so upset about it, but she couldn't think of any way to ask without alerting her parents to her unique connection with her dog. They couldn't hear him talking, and she didn't want them to think college had driven her insane.

"Have you guys had a lot of visitors lately?" Jasmine asked, addressing her parents since she couldn't really talk to Luffy. "You know how Luffy gets about unfamiliar smells."

"I think I may know what he's got on his mind," Jasmine's father said, a smile on his face. Jasmine's mother was smiling too, and Jasmine looked between them, trying to figure out what surprise they were hiding.

"Should I go get her?" her father asked, looking to her mother.

"I think you should," her mother said. "Give her and Luffy a formal introduction."

"Give me a formal introduction to who?" Luffy demanded, lifting his head from the ground. "I'm telling you, Jasmine, I don't like this smell. Not one bit."

"Who are you introducing Luffy to?" Jasmine asked her mother, repeating Luffy's question in a format the woman could understand.

"You'll see," her mother said, a twinkle in her eye.

A few seconds later, her father re-emerged from the master bedroom, carrying with him a little black puppy. It squirmed a little in his arms, but seemed to calm down once he stopped moving.

"Jasmine, Luffy... I want you to meet the newest member of the Moore household," Jasmine's father said. "This is Lulu."

"Is that another dog?" Luffy asked, though Jasmine was sure he already knew the answer. Jasmine herself was too stunned to say anything at all.

"She's a black lab, and she's really the sweetest little thing," Jasmine's mom said excitedly. "We got her a month after you went off to college."

"Wow..." Jasmine said.

"Wow, indeed!" Luffy whined. "Was I not enough for them?"

"We realized once you left that we missed having a dog in the house. Luffy was always your dog, but a pet changes the dynamic of the house. We didn't want to lose that at the same time as we were losing you."

"You weren't losing me," Jasmine reminded him. "I was just off to college. It's not like Luffy and I would never visit again."

"We know that," her mom said. "But we thought a dog might help us feel a little less lonely when you aren't around."

"We even sort of named her after Luffy," her dad pointed out. "If you take the Lu off the front of Luffy's name and repeat it, you get Lulu."

"Unbelievable," Luffy shook his head.

Jasmine understood where Luffy was coming from. This was a big change in the living dynamic, but it wasn't an insurmountable one. Luffy was good with other dogs — in fact, that had been a tenant of her dog-sitting side job before she left for college. She was sure they could all get along.

"Well, if he's been here a while, it's probably about time to get him trained," she said, trying to stay on the positive side. "Luffy and I could help with that."

Her mother pursed her lips and glanced at her father. Jasmine could tell in an instant that there was something they weren't telling her. She was good at reading people, but she didn't need to be talented to see the guilt behind their eyes.

Her father was the first to look at her again. "Well, like you said, we've had Lulu for quite a while now."

"Right," her mother agreed. "And we absolutely would have loved your help training her, but you were off at Wildwood."

"It was getting to be an actual necessity, or we would have waited for you," her father continued.

Jasmine thought she could tell where this was going.

"We hired a trainer to work with Lulu," her mom admitted at last.

The admission stung Jasmine, but she tried not to show it. She didn't really have any right to be upset — her parents were right; she had been at college, and with everything that had happened while she was away, she couldn't have come down every week to help train a puppy. It made sense for them to hire someone else, even if it hurt her pride a bit.

"Who did you hire?" she asked, trying to keep her tone friendly and bright.

"A man named Barry Brock," her father said. "He's good."

He might have kept talking, but Luffy cut him off by growling.

"Now I know what that awful smell is," he said. "Your parents have been hanging around Barry Brock."

Jasmine's reaction was not so dramatic as Luffy's, but she wasn't happy. Barry Brock had not only been her biggest business competitor but also a personal enemy. In between attempts to steal back whatever business she got, Barry Brock had made a habit of belittling her and her up-and-coming dog-sitting business.

"I told you guys how mean he was to me before, right?" she reminded them. "Why did you pick him?"

"He's the best dog trainer in the state," her father said with pride. "Maybe even in the nation."

"Honey, what about your daughter?"

"Right," her father corrected himself. "The best other than you."

Her mother sighed. "Really, your father just got a bit too invested in Barry's new reality show. He couldn't resist having a celebrity train Lulu."

"He's a superb dog trainer," her father said, putting Lulu down. "Here, watch, I'll show you. Lulu, sit."

Lulu sat obediently.

"Any twelve-year-old could have taught her that," Luffy pointed out, still sulking over not being the only dog in the house.

Luffy was right, but Jasmine didn't want to get into it. She didn't like Barry Brock with his smug smile and fancy facilities. She much preferred the more hands-on method she used with all her clients — with Luffy there to act as a translator, she could do more than train the dogs like circus show freaks. But no matter her personal opinions on the man, her parents still had a right to hire whoever they wanted.

"Looks like she's doing great," Jasmine said. "Why don't we let her and Luffy get to know each other for a while, and we can catch up."

"You're leaving me with her?" Luffy whined. "She's been brainwashed by Brock."

"That sounds great," Jasmine's father said. "We can get you unpacked and talk about how your first semester at college went. I know all about what happened with Lyle Bridges, but I want to hear about the rest of your school experience — the classes, the friendships, the apartment... Are you settling in well?"

Jasmine looked back at Luffy apologetically. She knew he didn't want to spend time with the new dog, but it would be good for him. It seemed like Lulu was here to stay, and the better the two of them got along, the easier things would be.

She spent the next couple of hours talking with her parents about how school had been and who all her new friends were. Luffy joined them after only about fifteen minutes of playing with Lulu, and he chimed in when he thought he had something important to add. Jasmine probably should have insisted he spend more time with the new dog, but they had passed a few minutes together, which was a start. Besides, she enjoyed having Luffy around, even when she was just talking to her parents.

It was still early when her parents went off to bed, though it was dark outside. Jasmine was used to an intense college schedule and still had a few hours of energy left in her. Unfortunately, Luffy was just as aware of that as she was.

"You know, we didn't really have time to go for a walk today," Luffy pointed out. "Between getting here and your super long talk with your parents, I've been cooped up inside all day."

"You really want to go out there?" Jasmine asked, leaning back in her chair. "It's like -20 degrees out there."

"I don't think it's really that cold," Luffy said.

It probably wasn't -20 degrees, but it was definitely cold. Winters were bitter in Blackwood Cove, and Jasmine would have to put on three coats just for a fifteen-minute walk. If it was anyone other than Luffy asking, she wouldn't even have considered it. Since his life was turned upside down by the recent addition to the family, she felt like she owed him a walk at the very least.

"All right," she said, shaking her head. "Let's get this over with."

"Yes!" Luffy exclaimed, wagging his tail in excitement. He paced back and forth in front of the door, waiting for Jasmine to put on all her layers. She didn't pay any attention to how she looked and piled on as many coats as she could. She didn't cherish being out in the cold, especially after dark. Winter was even rougher after the sun went down.

When she was finally ready, Jasmine opened the door to let Luffy outside. Luffy was out in a flash, but Jasmine had forgotten her gloves on the entryway table. She paused in the doorway to grab them, and in that moment, Lulu darted out the door and into the street.

So much for already being trained.

"Catch her Luffy!" Jasmine urged. "Get her back here."

She slammed the door shut behind her, probably too loudly, and ran after the dogs. Both of them were faster than her, and she lost sight of them before she made it to the end of the street. She assumed they had kept running, and tore ahead, putting her head down to trade her vision for speed.

If she lived in a busier town, her reckless abandon may have gotten her run over or looked at disapprovingly by passersby. In Blackwood Cove at night, she figures she was safe, and she was mostly right.

"Whoa!" came a voice out of the darkness. "Slow down there."

As she looked up, a figure stepped out of her way. She hurried to stop, but the ground was slick with ice from a long-forgotten storm. The figure reached out and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, steadying her. Her first instinct was to pull away from the touch and back away entirely. She had been around one murder too many to trust a stranger on a dark street.

But when Jasmine got a better look at the figure, it wasn't a stranger at all. In fact, it was an old friend.

"Brandon!" she exclaimed, surprised and delighted to see him again.

"Jasmine Moore," Brandon said, a smile taking over his face. "I guess you got a new dog?"

He nodded down at his arms, and Jasmine noticed for the first time that he was holding Lulu. He must have gotten to her before Jasmine could and calmed her down. She looked happy in Brandon's arms, rubbing her head against his coat.

"Actually, Lulu is my parent's," Jasmine said. "Luffy is--"

"Right here," Luffy said, running up beside them. "I got distracted by the stench of Barry Brock off the road."

"Right there, huh?" Brandon said, nodding at Luffy.

"That's much more like the Jasmine I remember. You two still as inseparable as always?"

Jasmine nodded and reached down to scratch behind Luffy's ears. "We've got a kind of special connection."

"One you don't have with this little runaway?" Brandon asked, smiling as he held Lulu out. Jasmine took the puppy herself, holding her to her chest.

"Right. Not yet at least," Jasmine said. In reality, probably never. Luffy was the only dog she had ever communicated with in this way, and he would probably always be the only one.

"It's good to see you again," Brandon said. He seemed awkward now that he wasn't holding the dog, as if he didn't know what to do with his hands. "Do you want to grab lunch sometime or something?"

"Is he asking you out again?" Luffy asked, poking his head up from the snow. "I can bite him if he didn't get the message the first time."

Jasmine couldn't tell if he was asking her out. They had a bit of a complicated history, but for most of it they had been friends and nothing more. If it wasn't for Brandon's perpetual crush on her and his brief attempt to ask her out before she went to college, she would have assumed the request was innocent. She didn't think this one was anything more than that, but there was enough doubt in her mind that she wanted to make her position explicitly clear.

"Look, Brandon--"

It was as if he could read her mind, and he immediately cut her off. "Don't worry, I'm not trying to ask you out or anything. You made it clear that you weren't interested, and I've moved on. I just want to get lunch as friends. Can we do that?"

Jasmine grinned. "We can."

Lulu was squirming, and Jasmine had no choice but to pay her some attention. Once she had the dog mostly calmed down, she looked back up at Brandon.

"Lulu looks to be getting restless," she said. "I should probably get her home. I'll see you at that lunch, okay?"
"Sounds perfect," Brandon said, shoving his hands into his pockets. He walked away then, down the street towards his house. Jasmine lingered for a moment, watching him go. It was weird to see him again after being so long apart. Things felt different.
She shook off the feeling, then looked down at Luffy.

"You ready to be done with this walk?" she asked, holding Lulu a little tighter.

"Do I have a choice?" Luffy asked.

Jasmine knew that if he had a choice, they would never go back inside. "Come on. Let's get you two home."