by Dale Mayer
Kona seems to be a happy coincidence in naming and landing in Hawaii. Any luck on your end?
Rather than trying to text back, he quickly hit Talk, and, when Badger answered on the other end, Greyson filled him in on what the detective had just said.
“That doesn’t sound very helpful,” Badger exclaimed. “The last thing we need is to have law enforcement gunning for the dog.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll start canvassing the entire neighborhood that I walked. There will be several hundred houses, but I’m not sure what else to do.”
“We’ll run down the rescue center and see if anything pops. No pops on the address you gave me earlier either. Sending you the deets anyway. Oh, and the truck license plate comes back as stolen.”
“Huh. Not good. We need to report that to the police. While you’re at it, can you run down the police report for the fender bender that happened?” Greyson said. “That’s the only odd thing in this scenario.”
“Only?” Badger said with humor. “We’ve got a War Dog that was supposed to go to Denver and ended up in Hawaii. Then it escapes from a rescue center, and now you’re thinking it has something to do with a fender bender?”
“What if the dog felt like someone was being threatened? Think about the road-rage scenarios that often happen. Look. I’m not saying that’s what happened here,” he said with a note of caution. “But what if the dog thought somebody was being attacked because people were arguing or something?”
“That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” Badger said doubtfully.
“It’s all a bit of a stretch at the moment,” Greyson said. “Another option is that the dog bolted because of the noise. In which case she’s skulking around in the dark, trying to survive and wondering what happened to her world.”
“Also not a good scenario,” Badger said, his tone firm. “Let me see if I can find anything on the fender bender. Also I have no notes on the dog having noise issues.”
“Right,” he said. “I feel like I need to go back to the damn center where the dog was, see if the front desk lady remembers anything else about the fender bender.”
“Did the woman go outside?”
“Yes, she did, although she didn’t say a whole lot about it.”
“I suggest you go grill her again and see if she can share more.”
“Will do,” he said. “At least if I could talk to the people involved in the accident,” he said, “maybe they saw the dog. If they didn’t, then we’ll know that’s the wrong direction to pursue.”
“I hear you,” Badger said. “We’re on it on our end. Let us know if you get any updates.”
With the call ended, Greyson hopped into his grandfather’s truck and headed back to the animal rescue. A look of long suffering came over the receptionist’s face when she saw him again. She didn’t get up but crossed her arms over her chest and relaxed back into her chair. “Now what?”
“So you heard the fender bender on the same day Kona went missing,” he said. “Do you know who was involved?”
“How would I know?” she said in exasperation. “I went outside because I heard the yelling,” she said. “But, other than that, I don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t remember you mentioning yelling before,” he said, leaning across the counter. He hoped it was a nonthreatening position, but his size often made others feel insecure. This woman didn’t look like she was at all intimidated though. In fact, she looked the opposite. Bored.
“I probably didn’t,” she said. “Why would I? It’s not like it would have had anything to do with the dog.”
“And yet, the banging of the two vehicles as they hit might have been enough to scare the dog out of the pen.”
“That fence is six feet high,” she said. “Surely she’s not jumping that.”
He stared at her in surprise. “Shepherds are well-known for jumping six feet from a standstill. How is it the dog wouldn’t have gotten out? I’m surprised you put her in a run with a fence like this.”
Immediately she went on the defensive. “We don’t have dogs that jump here,” she snapped. She bounced to her feet. “Now look. If you have any more accusations, maybe you should remember that we were willing to take the dog after the screwed-up circumstances brought her here. We aren’t the guilty party here.”
“I get that,” he said, “and I’d be happy to not have to come back just to ask you more questions, but that still doesn’t help me find who was in that accident.”
“What difference does it make?” she asked curiously. “It’s not like they would have had anything to do with the dog.”
“They might have though,” he said patiently. “They may have seen something too.”
She thought about it, shrugged, and said, “Well, the one was a young woman in a silver car. The other guy was in a truck.”
“And he was yelling at her?”
“Well, there was yelling,” she said, “but I don’t know if it was them or if it was the people stuck in traffic behind them.”
“Did you recognize any of them?”
“Well, Joe was a couple cars back. He was laying on the horn all the time. But then he’s always on the horn all the time,” she sneered.
“And who is Joe?”
“Joe Hinds,” she said. “He lives up the road about four houses.”
“Four?” he asked, looking out the window. “Which way?”
“Right,” she said. “His name is on the mailbox.”
“Let me see if I can talk to him,” he said. “And thanks.” He gave her a brief smile, then turned and walked out the door. He heard her mutter something behind him but got the gist of it. Something to do with good riddance and hoping he never came back. Unfortunately, until he got to the bottom of what happened to Kona, Greyson would be back. No way he would give up on finding Kona.
Chapter 4
Back home again, Jessica quickly moved Danny inside, still asleep in his stroller, locked the doors, unpacked her few groceries hanging from the handles on Danny’s stroller, and put her son down in his bed for a nap. She wanted to lie down and rest herself, but she was still too keyed up. She just couldn’t get rid of that feeling of being watched. She stayed in her son’s room, until he drifted off to sleep again—after she had woken him when transferring him from his stroller to his bed—and then slipped across to her bedroom.
She stood at the windows at the edge of the curtains, studying the backyard. Nothing appeared to be there, and she realized just how crazy she sounded and was acting. If anybody saw her like this, they would wonder about her mental state. And what could she tell anyone? That she was afraid her ex was now all of a sudden after her and her son? That didn’t make any sense either since they had separated two years ago. From that room she went to the bathroom, then to her son’s room, checking out all angles, but she couldn’t see anything outside. She made her way downstairs and put on the teakettle. She quickly made a cup of tea when it boiled.
As she sat here by the glass window, she thought she saw something rustling in the bushes. She froze and stared out the clear window, certain she saw a tail flicking through the bush. Was it that dog? Was the dog responsible for the weird sensation that she was being followed?
She didn’t get it. Something was so bizarre about all this, and it was creepy. It was creepy to think that she thought she saw a man’s face in those bushes earlier, but it was also creepy to see the dog in the bushes too. Was the dog dangerous? She couldn’t get past the idea that maybe it was, and that wasn’t anything she wanted to deal with either. But how was she supposed to avoid it?
When she heard a ruckus outside, she raced out to the backyard and went over to the neighbor’s fence—a big wooden fence between her and him—but she thought she heard barking in his yard. When her neighbor came outside, he started yelling.
She called out to him, “What’s going on?”
“Damn dog! Looks like he got into my garbage!” he roared.
She hurried down to
the back alley, where he kept his cans, and went through the gate. It was probably a foolish thing to do, but she wanted to catch sight of the dog. Up ahead, around the corner, she thought she saw something dark sweep down the alley and out the back. She groaned. “I don’t know if it’s him or not,” she muttered.
Her neighbor poked his head over the gate and glared. “How come he didn’t go after your garbage?” he snapped.
What was she supposed to say? She didn’t put food in her garbage out here. She didn’t have enough money to waste food like he did. He was the type who put out pizza boxes with half a pizza still in it, all of it into the outdoor trash bin.
With a shrug, she stepped back into her fenced yard. She shut the gate and walked back up to the house, entering through the two French doors at the rear. She’d just left her house for a minute or two, but she couldn’t help but run up to her son’s room to make sure he was still there. Thankfully he was sleeping.
She made her way back downstairs to find the front door slightly ajar. She froze on the bottom step and stared at it, hard. Surely she wouldn’t have left the door open when she came in earlier with the groceries? And wouldn’t she have noticed it if she had? She’d been downstairs making tea, but she’d been distracted.
Afraid that somehow the door had opened by someone else’s hand, she sneaked back upstairs again and stood on the top step, worried sick. Since she had already gone out to the backyard, whoever had opened the door could have sneaked inside and come upstairs too. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she raced across the hallway to her son’s room. He was still in bed, sleeping. She put her hand to her mouth, wondering what she was supposed to do.
She bent down and checked under his bed to find nothing there, then checked his closet. She went to the bathroom and found the same thing, nothing changed from the normal. With shaky hands, she pushed the door to her master bedroom wide open to make sure nobody was behind the door. She stood here listening, hoping nobody was in her house, still terrified.
When her sister called a few minutes later, Jessica hurriedly shut off the ringer, but it was too late. If somebody was in the house, they would also know she was inside. She wanted to laugh because, of course, she was inside; they would have seen and heard her already.
She forced herself to check her bedroom, the closets, and the en suite bathroom. Nothing was there. With relief washing over her enough to put tears in her eyes, she impatiently brushed them away. Sure that the upstairs was clear and free, she headed downstairs again. Quickly checking those rooms, she shut and locked her front door and phoned her sister back.
“Hey,” her sister said. “What were you doing?”
“I found the front door open,” she said, “so I was checking to make sure nobody was upstairs.”
“What?” her sister cried out. “Jesus Christ, Jessica! Call the damn police!”
“Why? Because I’m an idiot and left the door open?” She wandered around the lower floor, still making sure nobody was here.
“You already know that your ex-husband is psychotic and that he could be after you.”
“No, I don’t know that,” she said. “I don’t fully understand anything at the moment. Did you have a reason for calling, besides all my drama?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “Though it kind of qualifies as your drama,” she said with a chuckle. “It’s Mom. She’s really upset.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“She wants you to apologize.”
Jessica gasped in disbelief. “Me apologize to her? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“She’s worried that you’ll do something stupid, like accuse your ex-husband of all this,” her sister said tiredly.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “I’m sure as hell not calling her and apologizing for something like that.”
“I know,” she said, “and I don’t want you to. But you need to know that she’s on the rampage.”
“She’s always on the rampage,” she said. “How is it that she is still so heavily involved in my damn business?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “If you had stayed with him, maybe she’d be off your case.”
“So are you telling me that I should have stayed?”
“No, but she’s wearing me down,” her sister snapped. “It’s terrible, and I’m so tired of all of it.”
“I hear you,” Jessica said, “but that’s hardly an answer for me.”
“I know,” she said, “and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.”
“Well, yesterday you were all about telling Mom to pound sand. Now you’re telling me that I need to make up to her.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I can’t talk to her right now,” she said. “I’ve got enough problems on my plate right now.”
“Anything new?”
“No,” she said, not wanting to share her fears with her sister and have her carry tales back to her mother. That would just compound the issue.
“You take care,” her sister said. “I’ll try to hold Mom off.”
“Tell her that I don’t want to talk to her,” Jessica said. “That’ll piss her off even more.”
“You want her pissed off?”
“Sure, that way she’ll leave me alone,” she said. Hanging up with her sister, she walked back into the kitchen, realizing she’d let her tea get cold. Rather than warming it up in the microwave, which would make it taste disgusting, she put the kettle back on.
She sat at the kitchen table, waiting for her son to wake up, listening to the sounds of the house creak around her as she tried to figure out what the hell she would do. She currently had another two weeks of vacation days left, and then she was supposed to go back to her job. She managed a small business in town, and it was just barely enough to make ends meet, particularly when day care was so high.
She’d hoped for a job she could do from home, while she was here with her son, but hadn’t had any luck in finding one. It seemed wrong to be taking vacation days to look for work, yet she didn’t know what else to do. Everything hinged on her finding a better solution, so she could raise her son with a little more money and more time with him. She picked up the newspaper again and circled jobs to apply for. She always did the online searches first, but this was a small town, and, if she could find something closer or part-time or could work from home, that would be more ideal.
One ad was looking for somebody to work as a personal assistant from home with the occasional meetups. She wondered if that would work. She quickly noted the contact information and put it down on her list.
By the time she’d gone through the newspaper and had completed her online search for the day, she heard Danny upstairs, just waking up. She hopped to her feet and walked upstairs. When she stepped into his room, her little boy was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. She scooped him up into her arms and gave him a big hug, as she walked him over to the bathroom and put him on the toilet. When he was done, she showed him once again how to climb up the step stool and wash his hands. Then she scooped him up in her arms and carried him downstairs.
“Hungry,” he muttered against her shoulder.
She nodded and kissed him on the forehead. “Let’s get you a snack.”
As she walked downstairs and across the room, she glanced out to the backyard through the double glass doors and froze when she saw a man out there. Her breath caught in the back of her throat, and she raced over to the French doors. If somebody had been there, he wasn’t in sight from that angle now.
She walked quickly into the kitchen and thought she saw a head duck around along the side. She followed in the same direction until she got to the front door. Opening the door, she stepped outside in time to see a man running down the hedge. She swore gently under her breath.
“Mommy?”
She kissed Danny again and said, “Just somebody running by,” she said cheerfully.
He rubbed his eyes again and nodded, obviously not caring one way or the other. Now if only she didn’t care either.
She headed back inside, shutting her front door securely and locking it, and made him a small snack. “What would you like to do today?”
“Want to go park,” he said, while he was busy taking peanut butter and toast, mangling it up and shoving it into his mouth.
When he was done, she cleaned him up, got him dressed, and said, “Let’s go out to the park then.”
She put him into the stroller, and they headed down the block to a nice little park with lots of other adults. They were in luck, as two other women were here with kids Danny knew well. Immediately the kids cried out their greetings, and she helped Danny out of his stroller and over to the sandbox, where he climbed in and started playing. She walked over to join the other two women.
“You okay? You’re looking a little frazzled,” Mary said.
“I am,” she said. “I found my front door open earlier today. When I went to pick up Danny from his nap,” she said, “a stranger was in the backyard again.”
The other woman gasped, leaned closer, and said, “Do you know who it was?”
Jessica shook her head. “No. No clue,” she said. “But it’s been enough to unnerve me.”
“And, of course, with your ex not being around,” she said, “it’s even worse, isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s definitely more of a vulnerable feeling,” she said, not wanting to get into the irony of that statement. “But I certainly don’t want a man around just for protection.”
“Men have a lot of uses,” Heather said, waggling her eyebrows.
“Maybe so,” Jessica said with half a smile. “But I wouldn’t want to jump back into another relationship just because of that.”
“No,” both women nodded. Mary continued, “That’s not smart.”
“You should probably make a police report,” Heather said. “What if somebody is stalking you?”
“The problem is, I don’t know what the police can do about it,” Jessica said slowly. “At least not until something worse happens.”