A Black Baker Found a Billionaire’s Lost Dog… She Never Expected This to Happen

Chapter 3

“What are you looking for?” James asked, though he didn’t expect an answer.

Bowie pressed his nose harder against the wood.

James knelt, pulling the drawer open. Inside, beneath a stack of yellowed letters and faded photographs, something shifted with a faint metallic sound.

A key.

The next morning, I arrived at the mansion carrying a paper bag filled with dog treats and one replacement breakfast sandwich.

“This one is mine,” I told Bowie, who was waiting at the front gate like he’d been expecting me.

He stared at the bag.

“That was not an invitation.”

James appeared in the doorway, dressed in another immaculate suit—this one charcoal gray, paired with a crisp white shirt and no tie. Marcus stood behind him, car keys in hand, expression as unreadable as ever.

“Good morning, Miss Brooks,” James said.

“Immani.”

“Immani.”

Kesha arrived moments later, slightly out of breath, wearing paint-stained overalls and a grin. “Did I miss anything?”

“Just the formal introductions,” I said.

Before anyone could say another word, Bowie slipped past James, squeezed through a side gate that had been opened by a gardener, and sprinted down the driveway.

James stared after him. “That gate has a security sensor.”

Kesha adjusted her bag. “Your dog has a better escape plan than most movie villains.”

We followed Bowie through narrow streets, past storefronts and cafés and clusters of people who barely glanced at the golden retriever weaving between them. He moved with purpose, like he knew exactly where he was going.

He stopped outside an old community center in the Tenderloin.

The building sagged in the middle, its roof patched with mismatched tiles, its windows boarded up. A faded sign above the door showed smiling children, elderly residents, and a woman holding a younger Bowie.

James stopped beside me, his expression unreadable. “My grandmother funded this place.”

A gray-haired woman opened the door before we could knock. She looked at Bowie, and her face softened immediately.

“I wondered if you’d come back,” she said.

James stepped forward. “I’m James Harrington. I—”

“I know who you are.” Her voice wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t warm either. “We were told the Harrington family ended the program.”

“I was told the center had completed its work.”

The woman glanced at the boarded windows, the peeling paint, the garden overgrown with weeds. “Buildings rarely complete their work by losing their roof.”

Inside, the center was worse. Dust covered every surface. Chairs sat stacked in corners. The walls, once painted with murals of dogs and children, were now streaked with water damage.

Bowie scratched at an old desk in the corner.

Kesha crouched beside him, running her fingers along the drawer. “New lock. Old dust.” She looked up at James. “Someone’s been here recently.”

The caretaker showed us a stack of unpaid bills—electricity, water, repairs. Funding had stopped six months after James’s grandmother died.

James pulled out his phone, dialing quickly. His voice turned cold. “This is James Harrington. I need the finance department. Now.”

He listened. His jaw tightened.

“The company still transfers money monthly,” he said finally, lowering the phone.

I held up one of the bills. “Then the money is taking a vacation without telling the charity.”

Bowie shoved his nose beneath the desk, digging at a loose floorboard.

“Bowie, stop,” James said.

The dog dug faster.

Kesha crouched beside him. “He reviewed your management style and rejected it.”

Beneath the floorboard lay a brass key tied to a faded blue ribbon.

The caretaker stepped closer, recognition flickering across her face. “Your grandmother used colored ribbons for Bowie’s training games. Blue meant follow a familiar route.”

James turned the key over in his hand. “A route to where?”

Bowie barked once, then sat as if the answer should be obvious.

Marcus scanned the room, his gaze sharp. “Someone changed this lock. Whoever redirected the money may know records are still here.”

I looked at James. “You need an outside auditor.”

“I need proof before I go to the board. Otherwise, this gets buried under twelve committees.”

Kesha nodded. “Nothing disappears faster than responsibility in a conference room.”

James straightened, slipping the key into his pocket. “I’ll investigate quietly. Marcus will drive. Bowie will lead.” He paused, glancing at me. “Miss Brooks will help interpret his behavior.”

I raised a hand. “You skipped the part where you ask.”

He blinked. “Will you help?”

“Better. Add normal eye contact, and someday you’ll pass as approachable.”

Kesha pointed at herself. “And me?”

“You may return to your bakery.”

She looked genuinely offended. “I was a veterinary nurse for four years. I noticed the lock, identified Bowie’s stress response, and stopped you from touching a rusty nail.”

“I wasn’t going to touch it.”

“You leaned toward it with confidence.”

Marcus opened the rear car door. “Ms. Monroe may be useful.”

Kesha smiled. “Was that praise?”

“An operational observation.”

“Careful. Keep talking like that, and I’ll think you have a personality.”

We climbed into the Mercedes. Bowie sat between Kesha and me, the blue ribbon tucked safely in James’s pocket.

As Marcus started the car, I noticed a silver SUV across the street. The driver lifted a phone, aiming it at the building, then pulled away.

“James,” I said. “Someone was watching us.”

Marcus locked the doors immediately. “Did you see the plate?”

“No. But they photographed the building.”

Bowie stood, hackles raised, growling at the disappearing car.

James studied the brass key in his hand. “Then we’re not the only ones following my grandmother’s route.”

Kesha fastened her seatbelt. “Good. I hate joining mysteries after all the interesting people have already left.”