The Lost

by J. D. Robb

  Then I got the O Street property in Georgetown and sold it to a Chinese businessman who paid the asking price in cash. Huge commission, Mega Deal Maker of the Year, promotion—Sam’s cabin on the river. In the worst housing market slump in recent history, I was invincible.

  Then I drowned.

  Now Sam had to go back to a job he hated. Benny had to face first grade without a mother, and after school he had to go to Monica Carr’s house. Sam had to sell his beautiful cabin to pay the insurance bills. Everything was going to hell, and it was my fault.

  I might as well lie down in the street and get hit by another car.

  I would have, except just then Sam said, “Delia’s coming down tomorrow and we’re all going to Hope Springs to visit Laurie. You can come along, Pop, but you don’t have to. I know it’s hard to—”

  “No, I’d like to come. Thanks, Sam. For including me. I feel bad that I haven’t gone to see her more often.”

  I couldn’t remember Charlie visiting me at all. But this was great! “All” must mean the whole family—Sam would take me, too. They encouraged pets at places like Hope Springs—we were therapeutic!

  My God, this was it. The answer, the key. Tomorrow would change everything. I didn’t know how—I just knew it would. All I’d wanted was my family back, and in a way, a most peculiar way, I’d gotten it. It was time to get myself back.

  They didn’t take me.

  It took me until the last second to figure it out, when Sam stuck his foot across my chest, said, “No, Sonoma, you stay here. Stay, girl, we’ll be back. Guard the house,” and shut the front door in my face.

  Unbelievable. All my hopes, dashed in an instant. The capriciousness, the absolute tyranny of humans over dogs had never hit me before. If I hadn’t known it would make everything worse, I’d have hurled my sixty-pound body over and over against that obstinate closed door until one of us broke. Now I wouldn’t even see my sister!

  But worse, much worse, I wouldn’t see myself. And after conceiving the idea, I’d only grown more certain that that was the only way out. How it would work, exactly, I had no idea—how could I, when I didn’t know how this bizarre business had started in the first place?—I just knew I had to try. To reconnect. To reclaim myself.

  Which meant I had to escape.

  Stratford Road, our one-block-l ong street in suburban Bethesda, was such a safe, sweet neighborhood, sometimes we didn’t even lock the doors. Sam and I used to say we ought to do something about the basement windows, which were small, old-f ashioned casements set high in the walls, grimy and cobwebby, most of them rusted shut if nothing else—but we never got around to it. I knew which one was the most vulnerable: the one in the furnace room over the fuel tank. Last spring two oil company guys had come to service the furnace, and in the process they’d opened that window to pass tools back and forth.

  The hardest part was getting up on top of the fuel tank, slippery, stinky, rusty, dusty metal, four feet high, but where there’s a will there’s a way. What a godsend that the window opened outward on its hinges. All I had to do was pull the lever down with my teeth and push against the glass with my head. “All,” I say; I almost broke a tooth, and the gap I finally pushed open was so narrow, I scraped my backbone scrambling through it. But I got out. I stood on the hot driveway pavement, triumphant, and shook myself. Call me MacGyver.

  Hope Springs was in Olney, technically another Washington suburb but a really faraway one, twenty miles or so up Georgia Avenue from the district line. My best bet would be to take Georgetown Road to I-2 70, get off at the Beltway, follow it to Georgia, head north. In a car, that’s probably half an hour. On foot . . .

  Well, no point in thinking about it. Just put one paw in front of the other. Dogs can travel amazing distances—you hear that all the time—and they only have their senses to rely on. I had senses and an extremely clear and vivid mental map of Montgomery County, acquired from years of driving clients around to look at properties. Talk about a head start. I set off at a confident lope.

  At the corner of York and Custer, though, I paused. A car coming down the hill honked; I scuttled over to the right, into the Givens’ side yard. Something kept me idling there instead of heading left—my route, my way out. Some nagging little thing I couldn’t identify. Not until I turned right and trotted down the sidewalk a little ways and found myself—hey, how did this happen?—in front of Monica Carr’s house.

  And speak of the devil. Wouldn’t you know? Sunday was the day Gilbert, the ex-husband, got the twins, so what did Monica do on her one day off, the single childless day of the week she could’ve done anything she liked? Did she go shopping? Take a drive, go to a museum, a movie, visit friends, go on a date? No. She stayed home and perfected her already perfect front-yard perennial garden. It was all flowers, no grass—she grew an emerald green carpet of that in the backyard—and it was beautiful. I would like to say Monica’s garden was precious and too planned, or too artificially rustic, or too self-conscious and full of itself, but it was none of those. It was magazine-l ovely eleven months of the year, and in its off-month it had “winter interest.”

  There she was, deadheading the rudbeckia. In khaki shorts and a sleeveless top that showed off her tan and her tight runner’s body. I sat on the sidewalk and watched her through the spokes of the wrought-i ron fence surrounding the garden, surprised when a growl, low but definite, vibrated in the back of my throat. Could I be a violent dog? How interesting. I lifted my lips and bared my teeth, ex perimenting. Whoa. Rush of aggression!

  I heard the phone ring in the house before Monica did. She tossed her clippers down and ran inside, and that’s when I decided this was my chance. To do what? A dog’s strong suit isn’t planning ahead.

  Simple to get in—the gate was open. Inside, nothing smelled very interesting; squirrels and chipmunks probably took one look at all the pristine gorgeousness and went next door. Monica had everything: the flowers you’d expect in late August, gaillardia, daisies, asters, salvia, cosmos, and then dozens more you had no name for, everything beautifully banked and clumped and color-coordinated, all of it lush and alive. I was drawn to a perfect side-by-side harmonization of low verbena and feathery coreopsis, deep purple and butter yellow. So simple, so lovely. I had to kill it.

  The weed-f ree soil was, as you’d expect, rich and soft and loamy, and digging—I’d been a dog for almost a week now: How had the peerless, inimitable joys of digging in dirt eluded me? It was an all-encompassing feeling once you got going, once you figured out how much more efficient and satisfying it was to use all your appendages, all four feet and your snout. Thrilling, really, and so satisfying to see how high the piles of earth, stalks, stems, and flowers rose behind me, littering the brick walk, obscuring its tasteful herringbone pattern. Why stop at the verbena-coreopsis combo? Right beside it was a swath of ferns and hostas for green relief, and then came a spray of tall fountain grass—that would be a challenge. Excitement filled me. The first hosta plant came out so easily, I made the mistake of barking at it. Take that! Dead as a doornail. I started on its neighbor, one of the variegated kinds I’ve never liked anyway. And that! Die, you stupid plant, die like a—like a—

  “Hey!”

  Where did she come from? Monica had the phone in her hand. She stuck it to her ear, said, “I’ll call you back. There’s a dog in my yard, it—” She squinted. “Sonoma?”

  Busted.

  She made a run for me—I jumped out of reach. She tried another off-balance lunge; I dodged the other way. Great fun. She looked so silly, and I was grace on four legs, shifting and feinting at the last second. Loser, I taunted, juking out of reach just before she could grab my collar. She tried stalking me next, hand out, voice coaxing. “Here, girl, it’s okay, c’mon, Sonoma, c’mon, girl.” Up yours.

  We circled each other around the debris on the sidewalk. Then—too late—I saw that she’d gotten between me and the gate. A second later, she reached back and slammed it shut.

  Trapped.
>
  Screw you, I’ll jump over the fence. Watch this.

  But it was four feet high, and it had arrow-shaped uprights, sharp arrow-shaped uprights, between each iron post. I pictured myself half inside, half out, impaled in the middle.

  Okay, you got me, I told Monica, and lay down on the hot brick walk. Now what are you going to do with me?

  She put me in the bathroom. I don’t know why I let her. Exhaustion, partly, but also the growing suspicion that I wasn’t a violent dog at all, that growling was my whole arsenal, after which I had nothing. Well, barking, and some fast footwork, but that was it. I even kept an eye on Monica’s calf while she guided me into the house, imagining my teeth sinking into its tan firmness—her shriek of pain—the taste of blood. But I couldn’t do it. What was I, a vampire? No, I was a retriever.

  “Sam? It’s Monica.” She was out in the kitchen, but I could hear her plainly through the closed bathroom door. “I just tried you at home, but I guess you’re . . . Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. I won’t keep you; I just wanted you to know Sonoma’s here. Sonoma. No, here. Well, I guess she got out.” Light laughter.

  I waited for the ax to fall.

  “I have no idea; maybe you left a . . . Oh, she’s fine, none the worse for wear. I don’t know. I know, it’s so . . . No problem, I’m here all day, just pick her up whenever you . . . Sure, that’s fine. Okay, Sam, we’ll—You’re welcome, see you soon. Oh, please, don’t give it a thought. Bye-bye.”

  She brought me a bowl of water. She brought me half a piece of toast with peanut butter. After an hour, she let me out.

  Oh, such transparent manipulation. I wasn’t fooled for a second. I snooped around the house awhile, then lay down on the comfy couch in the living room, dirty paws and all. What are you going to do about it? She put her hands on her hips and shook her head in a cute, exasperated way. Uncharmed, I curled into a ball and took a nap.

  When I woke up, she was all sweet-smelling in clean clothes and fresh makeup, running a feather duster over the furniture. A feather duster. I rest my case. One whole living room wall was covered with framed photographs, mostly of the twins. She was a photographer, too? She looked at her watch just as the doorbell rang. I jumped off the couch.

  Benny! Sam! Benny! Sam! Joyful squeaking, ecstatic circling. They smelled like Hope Springs, but also like Delia. And pizza! I sat when Sam said, “Sit,” though, and didn’t shove my nose in his crotch, and I didn’t lick Benny on the mouth, another no-n o. It probably made no sense to be on best behavior now, but it was the only defense I had. I’d figured it out in the bathroom: Monica hadn’t told Sam on the phone about my adventures in the garden because she didn’t want to upset him while he was visiting his comatose wife. She’d tell him now, though.

  But it was Sam, not Monica, who said, “Benny, why don’t you take Sonoma out to the car? Monica and I have to talk about something.”

  “Okay,” Benny chirped, and patted his thigh for me to come, the way his dad did. “Come on, Sonoma!”

  I didn’t want to go. Instinct told me it would be better to be there when Monica lowered the boom. On the other hand, prompt, willing obedience was all I had left, so I trotted outside after Benny.

  A neat, empty rectangle of sour-smelling mulch had replaced the massacred flowers and hosta, and the brick walk had been swept clean, neat as one of Monica’s countertops. Nice of her to tidy up the scene of the crime, I thought sullenly. She probably had OCD.

  I wanted to hear all about the visit to Hope Springs. How was I? What was my prognosis this week? Did Benny cry? Was he sad? But for once my son was in a quiet mood. We sat in the backseat of the car with the door open for a breeze. Hot as it was, Benny didn’t mind when I sidled close and rested my cheek on his chest. Blub-blub went his heart, the best sound. Love filled me up. How wonderful to be back with my family again.

  But what was taking Sam and Monica so long? I didn’t like the look of them, standing too close in the doorway, talking in earnest voices too low to hear. Although at one point Monica clapped her hands at some comment of Sam’s and said distinctly, “Oh, that would be great.” What would? Having me put to sleep?

  At last Sam turned and started toward the car. Well, this was it. The moment of truth. I searched his face for anger, indignation, but he was smiling, no doubt savoring some bon mot of Monica’s. Who, just then, thought of something else she must say to him and jogged out to the car, too.

  “Oh, Sam, don’t forget the, um . . .” Suddenly she was tongue-tied. Sam finished buckling Benny’s seat belt, backed out, and closed the door. “The, um, you know.” She made a gesture with her hands, but Sam moved and his body blocked her. I couldn’t decipher it.

  “I won’t,” he said.

  “Don’t forget what?” alert Benny asked through the open window.

  “Don’t forget . . . to tell me how Sonoma got out,” Monica said, clearly improvising. She reached in to ruffle Benny’s hair. “Pretty smart dog you got there.”

  “She is really, really smart,” he agreed.

  Monica looked at me and lifted one eyebrow. She wasn’t trying to communicate—sending ironic signals to a dog was the last thing on her mind. But to me, that private, raised brow was as good as a wink.

  She hadn’t ratted on me.

  Well, great. Just great. What was I supposed to do, thank her? And for a second, actual gratitude welled up in my retriever heart. I yawned at her. I grinned. I licked my lips.

  Then I got a grip on myself. What naïveté. How could I fall for such a slick trick? I wasn’t one of those dogs you could smack around and then give a bone to and everything was hunky-dory. Forgive and forget—that’s what dogs do, but I was still Laurie. If I wanted to keep my family, I had to hang on to what I knew: Monica Carr was not my friend.

  “I wonder why she came over to your house,” Sam said, settling in behind the wheel. “Although I’m glad she did—she could’ve gotten run over on Wilson Lane.”

  “Maybe she’s in heat,” Monica suggested. “You should think about having her spayed.”

  “I’m going to. I’ve just been too busy. I’ll call and make an appointment tomorrow.”

  “Ah-r oooooo!” Oh, noooooo!

  Monica thought that was a riot. “Ha ha ha! It’s like she heard you!”

  At home, somebody had stuffed a large white envelope through the mail slot in the door. I got a whiff of a familiar smell, and just before Sam snatched it up, I recognized the preprinted logo in the return address: S&L. Of course—the familiar smell was Ron, my boss at Shanahan & Lewis. Funny, until now I hadn’t even known Ron had a smell.

  Normally I’d have gone with Benny when he ran upstairs to his room, but something about Sam, a new dejection I could sense even though he didn’t say a word, didn’t even sigh, made me want to stay with him. When he went into the den, I followed.

  He was pulling paper-clipped pages out of the envelope when his eye caught the blink of the answering machine light. He tossed the papers on the couch and punched the button.

  Ron’s voice. “Hey, Sam, it’s Ronnie. Sorry I missed you this afternoon. I should’ve called first, but you were right on my way home, so I took a chance and stopped by. Anyway, good news—we got a bid on the cabin. As you can see from the offer there, it’s not the asking price, but it’s close. It’s no insult. So you think about it and let me know. We can go up ten or fifteen percent with our counter, I’m thinking. This guy’s a lobbyist. He lives in D.C., wants the cabin for hunting on weekends with clients. He says he’d hire someone for the rehab, wouldn’t do it himself—not the way you would have, and that’s a shame, but . . . Anyway, he seems like a pretty sure thing, no, uh, financial liabilities or anything like that, obviously. So, you’ve got the bid and the deposit check there, so now you think about it and just let me know. Hope you’re keeping well, you and Benny. We’re thinking about you. Everybody in the office—well, we just miss her like hell. Okay, talk to you soon.”

  What a mensch. At the end, Ronnie’s voice wavered a
tiny bit, and that put a lump in my throat, too. Sam dropped down in the desk chair and put his head in his hand. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. Whatever had happened today at Hope Springs, which couldn’t have been good, this just made it worse. Sam’s beautiful cabin, going to some rich guy who wanted to use it as a base for shooting our deer, our birds.

  I put my head on his knee. Sam. I nudged his elbow so he had to uncover his face and look at me. Oh, Sam, I’m so sorry. He gave me a twisted smile of affection, absent-minded at first but gradually focusing. “You,” he said—and my heart stopped. Did he see me? Did he know me? Sam. He leaned closer, stared harder. “How the hell did you get out?”

  They say you don’t know what you have until you lose it. I found out in that moment that that includes the ability to cry.

  Sam gave my head a pat and stood up slowly, his shoulders slumped. “Hungry?” he said, and headed for the kitchen to start dinner.

  I followed a few minutes later. Not quite as hungry as I had been.

  “Daddy, what does ‘spayed’ mean?”

  We were in my favorite place, at my favorite time of day: on the couch after dinner, when Sam read the paper and Benny got to watch TV for half an hour if anything suitable was on. Tonight was Sunday, so it was The Simpsons. Which may or may not have been suitable, but since I didn’t have a vote anymore, I tried not to make judgments. I just enjoyed.

  Funny, when I was myself, I usually grabbed this interval between dinner and Benny’s bedtime to get some work done, phone clients, schedule appointments, do a little paperwork. I’d thought of it as Sam’s time with Benny. Which didn’t make much sense, I saw now, since Sam had Benny all day while I went to work.