by Meg Muldoon
I wiped my wet hands off on my kitchen apron, and then went over to the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. I opened it, peering out into the blackness, the light from the porch no match for the dark winter night.
I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
“Come here Hucks,” I called. “Come along Chadwick.”
There was only silence.
“Hucks?”
Silence, again.
A bitter taste settled at the back of my throat as I stared out into the coal black night. I stepped out onto the deck in my socks, the blood suddenly pounding in my ears.
“C’mon, pooches,” I said, this time, my voice weak. “C’mon in—”
From somewhere out in the night, there was the sound of a car engine turning over.
I walked out into the yard, the damp grass soaking through my socks.
“Hucks?!” I called out, my voice now frantic. “Chadwick!?”
But there was only the sound of car wheels screeching, the noise echoing in the lonely night.
The barking had stopped for good.
Chapter 29
“Cin?!Cin, are you all right?”
He ran up to the porch, kneeling down next to me on the steps. He cupped his hands around my cold face, scanning my eyes for a response.
I’d spent the last hour wandering the woods around our house, calling out desperately for the dogs. It had started to rain, a bitter drizzle falling from the dark skies above. At one point, I slipped on a patch of melting snow, falling to my knees, staining the jeans I was wearing with mud.
But the woods had remained deader than dead. No sound, no response, no nothing other than my defeated cries at the end, when I realized that Hucks and Chadwick were really gone.
Somehow I had managed to stumble back to the steps of the front porch. I’d been sitting there numbly when Daniel’s truck pulled up into the driveway.
I had barely registered the fact that the headlights were shining in my face.
All I could think was…
I should have known better. After all those dogs went missing, I should have known better.
“Cin?” Daniel said, pulling me up. “What happened, baby?”
I stared up into his frantic, worried eyes, the rain coming down in sheets all around us. I started saying something, but the words came out choked and hoarse.
And then I lost it.
The tears came flooding down my cheeks and the next thing I knew, I had buried my face in his chest, my body convulsing with great sobs.
“They’re gone,” I yelled above the driving rain. “The dogs… They’re gone!”
Chapter 30
The coldness I felt in my heart the next morning when I woke up to the quiet and empty house was unlike anything I’d known before.
I rubbed my eyes, wishing I could rub away the image that had plagued me throughout my dreams.
The image of Huckleberry and Chadwick outside, shivering in some unknown corner of the woods, their coats dripping with rainwater and melted snow, the harsh winter wind howling into them. Scared and frightened and alone.
And I knew that that image wasn’t even the worst-case scenario.
Because the worst case scenario was much, much worse.
I sat up in the empty bed, looking out the window at the meadow.
The rain had turned into snow late in the night as an arctic blast hit the Cascade Mountains. A fresh blanket of white covered the grasses and the trees.
I shuddered, thinking about those poor pooches.
My mind racing with the same question that had haunted me the night before.
Why our dogs?
Chapter 31
“I’m so, so sorry, Cinnamon,” Tiana said, peering into my face. “I just can’t believe something like that would happen here in Christmas River.”
We were in the pie shop kitchen. I had just walked in after spending the better half of the morning wading through powdery snow, searching the woods around the house again for any trace of the two dogs.
But just as the night before, there was nothing out there in those woods. Just a cold, hollow emptiness that echoed the feeling inside my own heart.
When Daniel got home from his trip to Portland the night before, I’d been practically catatonic, sitting there on the porch. Unable to tell him what had happened.
Because I didn’t really know what had happened. All I knew was that I had put Huckleberry and Chadwick outside in the backyard for the last hour of the party. And that they’d been barking practically the entire time while they were out there.
Then the barking stopped. And shortly after there was the sound of a car’s engine turning over and wheels screeching against gravel.
That was it. That was all I could tell Daniel.
After inspecting the backyard and finding that the wooden gate appeared to have been tampered with, Daniel had made a sweep of Christmas River in his car, looking for the pooches. When he came back home, empty handed, he spent the rest of the night trying to console me. He looked tired from his trip. Dark bags clung to the bottom of his eyes, and his hair was matted with sweat. Yet despite being exhausted and coming home to crisis, he handled everything calmly. He held me most of the night, telling me that it was going to be okay. That he’d get to the bottom of what happened.
That he’d find Huckleberry and Chadwick, no matter what.
This morning, on his Sunday, his day off, he woke up early and went into work to figure out just what in the hell was going on in Christmas River.
Meanwhile, after a few hours of searching the woods again this morning, I found my mind racing with every terrible thought under the sun.
I needed distraction, something to do. Something to take my mind off of the fate of Hucks and Chadwick.
So I ended up in the only place that could offer me all of that: my pie shop.
Business was slower than usual for this hour on a Sunday. The crowds had officially migrated across the street to Pepper’s shop. I tried to ignore that and focus on baking the most difficult, time-consuming pies that I could. Ones like the Banana Mocha Pudding Pie, which took hours to make its three labor-intensive layers.
I rummaged through the kitchen like a mad woman, trying to keep my hands busy, and therefore, my mind busy too.
At one point I glanced up, and caught Tiana studying me while I feverishly crushed a package of Snickerdoodle cookies with a rolling pin for the pie crust.
There was a frightened expression on her face, which faded into a look of grandmotherly concern when she saw that I’d caught her looking.
She cleared her throat.
“Maybe I’m just not as smart as some,” she said. “But who would do such a thing, Cin? Who would be taking dogs like that?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know, Tiana,” I said. “I just…”
I thought back to what Brad had said, about the dog kidnapper.
Like Daniel had said: it was a good theory. Save for the fact that as far as I knew, none of the owners had heard from the thief yet. Julianne Redding’s dog, Harley, had been missing more than a week now, and she hadn’t heard anything from anybody as far as I knew.
Neither had Billy Jasper heard anything about the police dog. Neither had Pete Burgess about his pup, Daisy.
It was as if all those dogs just vanished into thin air.
I shuddered to think that Huckleberry and Chadwick would join their sad ranks.
“Cin?” Tiana said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Do you think that you should go home and rest?”
I shook my head.
“I’m just saying that you’re looking like you didn’t get a single wink of sleep last night,” she continued. “And, well, I think we’ve got enough pies to fill the case for the day. Nobody’s asked for one of them Banana Mocha Pudding Pies for a while now. I don’t think you need to make them.”
I didn’t say anything. I just kept attacking the plastic bag of cookies with the rolling p
in.
“Cin, I really think…”
“This is the only place that I can be right now, okay?” I said.
I winced.
It came out harsher than was necessary, and I immediately regretted it. For a second, Tiana’s face fell, a flash of pain coming across her brown eyes. She quickly forced them down, and started vigorously stirring the filling for the Whiskey Apple Pies.
I bit my lip hard.
That had been uncalled for. Tiana had only been trying to help, and I had just bitten her head clean off, for no good reason.
“Aw, hell, Tiana. I’m sorry,” I said, sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“No, I know,” she said.
But she kept her head down and wouldn’t look up at me.
“I’m crazy right now,” I said. “I’m just… I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything. Guilt wormed its way through my insides as I looked at her fallen expression.
She was right. I really should have been at home. Clearly, I wasn’t in any shape to be around anybody else.
I let out a deep sigh, and put the rolling pin down. I went over to the window, staring out at the woods behind the shop. The ground was coated in a thick layer of powder, and the trees swayed in the stiff breeze.
It was cold out there. Tonight, it would dip into the single digits for sure. The wind chill would put it into the negatives, easy.
All I could think of were those poor little dogs, somewhere out there in that cold. Shivering and scared and alone.
The silence that hung over the kitchen was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Chapter 32
“It’s my fault this happened,” I said, burying my head in the sleeve of his leather Sheriff’s coat. “I should have checked on them. I should have…”
We were in Daniel’s office. Aside from Billy, who was sitting out in his cubicle, Daniel was the only one working this Sunday.
“You’re saying that it’s your fault somebody broke into our backyard and kidnapped the dogs?” he said. “Cin, that’s crazy, and you know it.”
“But I knew that something strange was going on, all those dogs disappearing,” I said. “I should have been paying better attention to them. I shouldn’t have just left them out there.”
He shook his head.
“Cin, you couldn’t have known this would have happened.”
I bit my lower lip.
“This is just a stupid day,” I said. “A useless, stupid day.”
I thought back to how rude I’d been to Tiana, and I cringed.
I’d been at the pie shop all afternoon, unable to think of what else to do other than make the Banana Mocha Pudding pies and worry. Finally, I decided to give it up, leaving Tiana alone to close up the shop.
I was sure she was glad to have me out of there.
I’d driven over to the Sheriff’s Office, hoping against hope that Daniel had some good news.
But he hadn’t any. In fact, there was worse news.
A beagle named Dog Holliday that belonged to Anna Stevens, a librarian at the Christmas River Public Library, had also disappeared a day earlier. The dog had disappeared from Anna’s van while she was shopping for groceries at Ray’s. Anna couldn’t remember if she’d locked the van or not. But when she got back, her arms full of groceries, the dog, who had cataracts in one eye and arthritis in his hips, was gone. The van door was wide open.
Daniel said he was almost certain Dog Holliday’s disappearance was related to the others, bringing the total count up to six missing dogs, including Chadwick and Huckleberry.
Six dogs gone, and not a trace of evidence as to where they went.
A useless, stupid day indeed.
I tried to fight back the tears.
“Shh,” Daniel whispered, pulling me up and wrapping his arms around me. “It’s okay. Okay? I’m going to find them.”
“But it’s like they all just vanished into thin air,” I said. “Where do you even start looking for them?”
“You gotta trust me.” he said. “This is what I do. I’ll find them. You have my word.”
He held me tighter. I breathed in deeply.
“Listen, I’m sorry I wasn’t there yesterday,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t home last night, Cin. I should have been. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
I looked up into his eyes. They were full of sincerity.
“I’ll find them,” he said. “Don’t worry, Cin. I’ll find them.”
I believed him.
I hugged Daniel hard, digging into his lean frame. He stroked my hair and hugged me back even harder.
“It’s all going to be okay,” he said. “But you can’t fall apart on me here. I need you to be strong now, all right?”
I smiled up at him, wiping away my tears.
I nodded.
“I can do that,” I said, pulling away.
Something suddenly fell out of Daniel’s jacket pocket, floating down to the carpet floor.
And that’s when I found the receipt.
Chapter 33
I wandered the cracked and snowy streets of Christmas River in the dimming dusk, clutching onto a stack of flyers.
Feeling hopeless.
It had been more than 72 hours since Huckleberry and Chadwick went missing. I knew if the dogs were people instead of pooches, investigators would be looking for bodies by now. Finding anyone alive was almost an impossibility this far into their disappearance.
The sick, nauseous feeling of fear that had settled in the base of my stomach had evolved into a deep ache now, as the thought that I might not see my little Hucks or that moody little Chadwick ever again became more and more a reality.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Hucks.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Chadwick.
I couldn’t stop thinking about…
That receipt.
I closed my eyes, the sequence of events playing over and over in my head, the way it had been for the past two days.
Me, leaning down, picking up the crumpled-up receipt that had dropped from his pocket. About to hand it back to him when the font at the top of the paper caught my eye.
Staring down at it, unable to quite believe what it said.
“Cin,” Daniel had started saying, seeing the train wreck that was ahead and trying to put the brakes on. “It’s not what…”
But it was too late.
I had seen it. And immediately, the hurt hit me with all the force of an avalanche barreling down the side of a mountain peak.
I struggled to find the words but they had all dried up on me.
“You don’t understand. Yesterday evening I—”
But I couldn’t hear his explanation. All I could focus on were the words at the top of the receipt.
“Pepper’s Pies, Pastries and Other Pick-Me-Ups.”
Daniel had been there. Just before getting home from his trip. Right around the time the two pooches disappeared from our backyard.
“It’s… uh… well…” he stammered. “Cin, I wouldn’t have gone there unless I absolutely had to. You see, that place was the only coffee place open down here last night, and it was offici…”
He looked as guilty as I’d ever seen him look.
“I…”
If I couldn’t depend on my own husband not to go to Pepper’s pie shop, then I couldn’t depend on anyone.
He had tried to say more, to offer up a better explanation.
But we both knew there wasn’t anything more he could say.
He hadn’t cheated on me. He hadn’t lied to me.
But it was a betrayal nonetheless.
Recalling it now, I felt a sharp chill run up and down my spine.
The thought of him going in there, to that shop, drinking a cup of her coffee, eating one of her pastries, sitting at one of those wrought iron tables… it all made my stomach ache even more.
Maybe I was overreacting. Hell, it wasn’t just a mayb
e. I knew I was. All Daniel had done was get a cup of coffee and a turnover at Pepper’s Pies and Pastries, for goodness sakes, after a long, cold day of working and driving. How could I blame him for that?
But I did.
I couldn’t help how I felt: cold, betrayed, and alone.
Maybe that’s why I had decided to wander these snowy streets tonight by myself, putting up missing posters for Huckleberry and Chadwick.
Daniel was working late tonight, and I had found that there was nothing I could do to get my mind off of the two missing pooches. Or off of that receipt that had been stuffed in Daniel’s coat pocket. Or off of the fact that sales at the pie shop had taken a plunge since Pepper’s Pies opened for business. Or off that hurt look in Tiana’s eyes from the other day when I snapped at her.
My mind was racing, out of control with pain and guilt and sadness. So I did what I always did whenever I felt overwhelmed by things.
I took a long, long walk. Through the BrightStar area, where the other dogs had disappeared. Through the Jingle Bell and Ridgeview subdivisions that bordered the woods and meadows. Then through downtown. Killing two birds with one stone by papering areas with missing posters of Huckleberry and Chadwick.
And then, when the sun had gone down, I went to the Pine Needle Tavern.
Chapter 34
The bar was hot and crowded when I walked in, a large fire crackling in the room’s woodstove.
That pervading sense of jolliness, typical of the Pine Needle Tavern in December, hung thick in the air like smoke. There was laughing and shouting and every once and a while, the sound of something crashing on the rough pine floors. Bruce Springsteen sang about Santa Claus coming to town over the speakers, and everywhere I looked, people were smiling, inebriation making their cheeks glow as bright as the fire in the stove.
I pushed my way through the masses and found an empty corner seat at the bar. It took me a few moments to get Harold’s attention, what with so many people he had to wait on.
“Bourbon,” I shouted above the noise. “Two fingers please. Two generous ones, if you would.”