by Nan Rossiter
Bailey swished her tail tentatively and anxiously licked Birdie’s salty cheeks. “Iloveyootoo,” she whispered, wiping her eyes and suddenly realizing her nose was running. “Ineetagetatishoo,” she said, lurching forward as she tried to stand. She grabbed the table to get her balance, bumped it, and then watched in horror as her wine glass rocked back and forth. Finally, in seemingly slow motion, it tipped over, splashing its contents across her laptop. “Damn!” she blurted, trying to reach for the glass, but for some reason, her hand seemed to have a mind of its own, and at the very same moment, Bailey, startled by Birdie’s sudden outburst and odd behavior, scrambled to her feet, bumped the table again, and sent the bottle flying, spilling more precious wine just as the glass hit the floor and shattered. “FUDGE!” Birdie shouted, causing poor Bailey to scamper off the porch with her tail between her legs.
Birdie stood up straighter, trying to focus on the mess. Then she closed her eyes and tried to stop swaying. She held on to the back of the chair for support and then walked slowly and purposefully toward the house. Moments later, she came back with a dustpan and a towel. She knelt down, picked up the wine bottle, and holding it up to the light, saw there was a little left. She wiped off the outside of the bottle, set it aside, and began picking up the shards from the broken wine glass. There were hundreds of pieces, though—all swimming in the puddle of wine—and she couldn’t decide what the best way was to pick them up—sweep through the wine with the broom or wipe up the puddle with the towel? She sat down on the porch, considering her two options, and then got on her knees and started sopping up the mess with the towel. The towel, however, quickly became heavy with the red liquid, and when she folded it over and started to wipe again, a piece of glass sliced into her palm. She cried out in pain and tried to stand up, but she couldn’t seem to get her balance so she crawled across the wooden floor and when she got to the door, tried again. This time she was able to stand, but as she walked across the kitchen, she had to hold on to the counter to keep from falling.
She rinsed out the cut, made sure the glass wasn’t embedded in her palm, and stuck a Band-Aid on it. Then, remembering she needed a garbage bag, she reached under the sink. She went back outside, finished wiping up the puddle, and dropped the glass-filled towel into the garbage bag. She placed the rest of the broken glass on top of it, looked down and realized the knees of her white slacks were now burgundy and gray—not to mention there were burgundy splatters everywhere. She unbuttoned them—they were getting too tight anyway—and clumsily stepped out of them, almost falling over in the process, and then dropped them into the bag, too.
Now, what to do with the bag? She heard a car pull onto the road and, in a sudden, sobering panic, picked up the wine bottle, dumped the remaining liquid over the railing, dropped the bottle into the bag, grabbed her laptop, and hurried into the house. She heaved herself up the stairs, stuffed the bag and her laptop in the back of her closet, and pulled on a pair of old shorts, almost falling over again. Then she blinked at her flushed reflection in the mirror, and hearing footfalls on the porch, headed back down the stairs, holding tightly to the railing, but when she walked in the kitchen, she immediately sensed that something was wrong. Did David know? Had she missed something?
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her heart pounding.
He gave her a puzzled look. “Where’s Bailey?”
She swallowed, her heart pounding even faster. “She was just outside. . . .”
CHAPTER 40
Sailor climbed into Piper’s Honda Element and pulled several more flyers out of the folder she’d tucked between the seat and the console. She looked at the picture centered in the middle of the page—it was an old photo of Bailey so her face wasn’t white, and she was wearing felt Christmas antlers. It wasn’t the best picture of her, but it was the only one she had. “Want to hang some over there?” she asked, motioning to the parking lot of the Salt Pond Visitor Center.
“Sure,” Piper said. She turned onto Nauset Road and immediately turned right into the parking lot. “You should’ve brought your bike so we could put some up along the bike trail.”
“I should’ve,” Sailor agreed. “Want to do that this afternoon?”
Piper nodded. They got out and stapled lost dog posters on every available post. They even put some on the windshields of cars. Then they climbed back in and continued driving around, scanning yards and driveways and stopping at almost every telephone pole so Sailor could put up another poster. “I only have one left,” she said, looking in the folder. “I’ll have to print more when I go home to get my bike.”
“Print a ton,” Piper said.
Sailor nodded and reached into her pocket for her phone. She called Birdie’s cell phone but when her sister didn’t answer, she tried her at home. Finally, she tried David’s cell, but it just rang, too.
“She said she’d call if they found her,” Piper said, looking over.
“I know, but their number is on the poster and if they’re not answering, how are we going to know if someone calls?”
“You should’ve put our numbers on the posters.”
“Maybe I’ll change it on the next batch.”
“Good idea. Why don’t you try calling Nat and see if he and Elias need more, too.”
Sailor pressed Nat’s number, and even before it rang on her end, he answered. Piper listened as Sailor talked to him, gathering from her sister’s end of the conversation that he and Elias had plastered downtown Orleans with posters, they needed more, and they hadn’t seen any sign of Bailey. Finally, she heard her sister make arrangements to meet at Birdie’s in an hour with sandwiches from Box Lunch.
Sailor ended the call and looked at the time. “This is going to take more than an hour,” she said with a sigh.
Piper pulled into the Eastham Superette. “Put the last one up in there and then we won’t even bother getting your car—I’ll just go with you. I already have my bike on the back anyway.”
Sailor climbed out, hung the flyer where everyone could see it, and came back out. “The cashier said she saw a black Lab near the elementary school this morning.”
“We were just there.”
“Do you think we should go back and look again? It’s on the way.”
Piper pulled up to the light and nodded, tapping her fingers impatiently. “C’mon! This light takes forever,” she grumbled.
When it changed to green, she turned left and headed up Route 6 again, and just past the visitor center, turned right and then left toward the elementary school. She slowed down, turned into the deserted school parking lot, and they got out and walked behind the building and around the playground, but there was still no sign of Bailey. Piper shook her head. “Where the heck can she be?”
“I don’t know,” Sailor said, “but we better keep moving or we won’t be back to Birdie’s in an hour.”
They drove slowly through the neighborhood, still looking and calling, and then finally turned onto Route 6 again.
“Did Birdie ever say why she thought Bailey took off?” Piper asked. “She’s so old—I just don’t get how she could get lost.”
“I know,” Sailor said, shaking her head. “You’d think she’d know her way home by now, and Birdie didn’t really say what happened. She said she was sitting on the porch and knocked over a glass of water—which broke and startled Bailey—and after she cleaned it up, she realized Bailey wasn’t in the yard.”
Piper frowned. “Birdie was drinking a glass of water?”
Sailor chuckled. “I know, right?”
“Where was David?”
“He’d gone to Mashpee to release an owl. . . .”
“And Birdie didn’t go?”
“No, she said she didn’t want to go.”
“This is all just so odd. Bailey wouldn’t have just taken off unless something really upset her.”
“It is odd,” Sailor agreed, “and when I talked to Birdie, she was absolutely beside herself. She said she will never forgive herself
if something happened to Bailey.”
“Oh my goodness! Can you imagine if we don’t find her?”
Sailor nodded. “Just keep praying!”
“I am!” Piper said.
Without realizing it, they both started looking along the side of the road, praying they wouldn’t see a lump of black fur.
An hour later, they pulled into Birdie’s driveway and found Nat and Elias walking around the yard, calling Bailey’s name, but no big black Lab came trotting out of the woods, wagging her tail. It made the yard seem very lonely. Sailor and Piper climbed the steps to the porch, carrying sandwiches, wraps, and drinks, and set everything on the table. “Come and eat!” Piper called while Sailor tried to reach Birdie again. This time, she answered.
“Where are you?” Sailor asked and then nodded. “We’re back at your house with lunch. Can you stop here? . . . I know you’re not hungry, but you should have something to eat and then we’ll keep looking.... Okay, well, David’s probably hungry. . . .”
She frowned and looked at her phone. “She hung up on me.”
“Just eat,” Piper said, unwrapping sandwiches and setting them on paper plates. Suddenly, a napkin blew off the table, and when she reached to pick it up, she felt something sharp cut into her finger. She cried out in pain and surprise, and looked down to see blood spurting from her finger. She wrapped a napkin around the cut and held it tightly while she looked down at the wooden floorboards. “Don’t walk over here,” she warned. “There’s glass everywhere . . . and that stain doesn’t look like water,” she said, pointing.
“Maybe it’s old,” Sailor suggested.
“Yeah, right,” Piper said. “I need a Band-Aid.” She walked over to the door and turned the knob. “Geez-Louise, she locked the house! I knew we should’ve met at Whit’s End.”
“I have a Band-Aid,” Nat said, digging out his wallet and pulling out a Band-Aid.
Piper eyed the faded wrapper skeptically. “Is it sanitary?”
“Why wouldn’t it be sanitary?” he asked. “It’s been in my wallet.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you want it or not?” he asked.
“I want it,” she said, holding out her finger.
Nat wrapped the Band-Aid around her bloody finger. “It looks like you might need stitches....”
“I don’t have time for stitches,” she said, reaching for a bottle of iced tea and popping it open.
“Did you get a Caesar salad wrap?” Elias asked, coming up onto the porch.
“We did,” Sailor said, smiling, “but you can only have it after you give your favorite aunt a hug.”
“Hi, Aunt Sail,” Elias said, dwarfing her as he wrapped his arms around her. “Where’s Aunt Remy?”
“She’s on her way to Vermont for a class reunion.”
“Oh,” he said, looking puzzled.
“She doesn’t know about Bailey. We were afraid she wouldn’t go.”
He nodded and Sailor held him at arm’s length. “You look like you grew six inches since the last time I saw you!”
He smiled sheepishly.
“How’s flying?” she asked, handing him his wrap.
“Good.”
“School?”
“Good.”
“The women in your life?”
He laughed as he took a bite. “Fine,” he said with his mouth full.
“You’re about as talkative as your old dad,” she teased.
“Hey!” Nat said, coming up the steps with a broom. “You can drop the old part.”
“I was just teasing,” Sailor said, popping open her coffee and taking a sip.
Piper watched Nat sweep up the glass with the broom. “Was there a dustpan in the shed?”
“No, but there’s probably a piece of cardboard in the truck.”
Piper went to look and came back with a piece of thin cardboard and a paper bag. She handed it to him and opened the bag. “It looks like a wine glass to me,” she said. “The shards are very fine.”
Nat didn’t say anything. He’d never been one to judge, but he did raise his eyebrows and press his lips together—which was a statement in itself. His facial expressions always spoke volumes.
Piper sighed, knowing exactly what he was thinking—Birdie wasn’t being entirely forthcoming about what had happened last night.
They finished their lunch, threw all the trash in the bag, and while Nat lifted their bikes off the back of Piper’s Honda, Sailor divided up the new flyers.
“Do you have something we could carry these in?” she asked.
“I have a backpack,” Elias offered, “but it’s full of stuff.”
“Would you mind emptying it?” Piper asked.
Elias went around to the passenger side of the truck and pulled all his pilot gear—headset, charts, and his iPad—out of his backpack.
“Sorry ’bout that,” Piper said, looking over his shoulder at everything on the seat.
“No big deal,” he said, handing her his empty backpack.
She handed him half of the posters and slipped the other half into the backpack, along with the staple guns and tape, and then slung it over her shoulder and took her bike from Nat. “Okay, so, we’re gonna ride toward Coast Guard Beach since a woman saw a black Lab over by the elementary school this morning and it’s pretty much the only lead we have.”
Nat nodded. “I guess we’ll head toward Skaket again. I just find it so hard to believe she’s across Route 6.”
They pushed off on their bikes, waved, and realized the sky was getting dark and the wind had picked up. “I bet we get caught in the rain,” Piper called.
“I bet you’re right,” Sailor called back.
An hour later, Piper was hanging a poster outside the ladies’ room at the Coast Guard Beach while Sailor was using the ladies’ room. “I shouldn’t have had that coffee,” she said as she came out, drying her hands on her shorts.
Piper chuckled as they walked down the boardwalk. “I know what you mean. Coffee goes right through me—I don’t think it even bothers entering my bloodstream.”
Sailor laughed, too, glad that she wasn’t the only one with the problem.
They stopped at the information board, which was regularly updated by the lifeguards with the water temperature, the times of high and low tides, and any rip current—or shark—warnings. “Do you think the lifeguards would mind if I put a poster up here?” Sailor mused.
“Go for it,” Piper said, reaching into Elias’s backpack. “The worst they can do is take it down.”
Sailor taped it to the board and it fluttered in the wind.
“You better staple it, too.”
Sailor stapled all four corners. “It’ll probably still blow away.”
They stood there looking at the picture of Bailey with her ears back and her eyes worried. “She didn’t like wearing those antlers,” Piper said.
“No. She tolerated it just long enough for me to take the picture.”
Piper sighed. “She is such a sweetie pie. I hope that we find her.”
They walked down to the beach and stood looking out at the waves. Every once in a while, a shiny black head popped up out of the dark water and peered at them curiously for a few minutes before disappearing under the surf again.
“I don’t remember there being so many seals when we were kids.”
“I don’t, either.”
They heard barking and both their hearts skipped a beat. They looked down the beach and saw a young boy picking up a tennis ball while a big black Lab bounced up and down on the sand, waiting for him to throw it. The boy leaned back and threw it as far as he could, and then, the Lab charged after it.
“That dog has too much energy to be Bailey,” Piper said, sounding disappointed.
They both felt raindrops on their arms, and Sailor shivered in the wind. “I guess we’d better head back.”
“I guess so,” Piper agreed.
CHAPTER 41
“This is beautiful,” Remy said as John pulle
d into the parking lot of the Lilac Inn. Earlier in the week, Remy had called to book two rooms at the Middlebury Inn, but because she’d waited so long, there weren’t any rooms left—never mind two. She’d hung up and called John, hoping he’d agree that it would be best if they just stayed home, but he assured her he knew of a place in nearby Brandon.
They climbed out of Remy’s car—which she’d happily let John drive—and he lifted out their luggage and set it on the ground. Remy, accustomed to doing everything herself, reached for her bag, but John picked it up first. “I’ve got this, miss,” he said with a smile that made her heart skip a beat.
“Well, if you insist,” she teased.
“I do.”
The drive to Vermont had been more than pleasant. Remy’s fear that they wouldn’t have anything to talk about was quickly forgotten—they’d talked about everything from their favorite local Cape Cod artisans to their shared love of reading. They also discovered they were both Red Sox fans—Remy admitting that she really only watched because Jim had loved the Red Sox.
John was also very interested in hearing all about the goings-on in the lives of Remy’s children, Payton, Eliza, and Sam, and Remy found herself chatting away cheerfully while John laughed at all of the anecdotes and funny antics of her grandchildren. More than once, she started off by saying, “This probably won’t be of any interest to you. . . .” but John always assured her that it would be.
In Hanover, New Hampshire, they stopped for lunch, and over soup and salad, John regaled her with stories of his time at Dartmouth.
“To think you were right here while Jim and I were in Middlebury is just so . . . unbelievable,” Remy said.
“It is a small world,” John agreed, smiling.
They’d been quiet for the rest of the ride, each lost in their own thoughts, but the silence hadn’t been awkward—it had felt like the easy, comfortable silence of two old friends.
They walked up the front steps into the elegant lobby of the inn and were immediately greeted by a big black Lab, who, Remy thought, looked just like Bailey. As the innkeeper showed them to their rooms, he told them about all of the local attractions, but John explained that they were there just for a college reunion.