Dog-Gone Danger

by Linda Joy Singleton

  “Uh…maybe. But I’d need fantastic new shoes too.”

  “All right, a dress and shoes.” I can’t clearly see Mom’s face, but her voice is smiling. “We’ll make it a lunch date, and you can choose where to go. How does that sound?”

  “Great! Can we go this weekend?”

  “Your father and I will be house hunting. How about the following weekend?”

  “The dance is next Friday.” I frown.

  She’s quiet for a moment. “Then we’ll go tomorrow afternoon. I’ll call the school and arrange for you to leave early. Be sure to get your assignments from your teachers. I’ll take off early from work and pick you up at noon.”

  “You won’t get too busy?” I ask.

  “I’ll be there. I promise.” She leans in to kiss my cheek. “There’s no way I’d miss taking my beautiful youngest daughter shopping for her first school dance.”

  At noon the next day, I stand outside the school.

  I wait and wait and wait for Mom.

  But she never comes.

  - Chapter 4 -

  Missing Mom

  Eventually, Dad comes to get me. He drives up, rolling down the window. “Hop in, Kelsey.”

  I dump my backpack in the backseat and fasten my seat belt. My stomach is knotted so tightly that I’m sure I can’t speak. I want to explode with anger. When I finally gave up on waiting for Mom and went to the school office to call her, I got her voice mail. Leave a message after the beep. Well, you can bet I left a message. One she will never forget.

  “Kelsey, what’s going on?” Dad asks as he pulls out of the school parking lot. “You didn’t make much sense when you called. Why didn’t your mother pick you up?”

  “She forgot me.” I stare out the window, anger morphing into hurt.

  “She must have gotten busy at work. Again,” Dad says, not in defense but with bitterness that matches my own feelings. “I don’t understand what’s going on with her. If I could just talk to her…”

  I turn from the window to stare at Dad. “Didn’t she call you?”

  “No.” He slows for a red light, glancing at me with a guarded expression. “Why? Was she going to?”

  I nod. “She said she’d call you this morning.”

  “Well, she didn’t. And when I tried to call her, it went to voice mail.” Dad taps his fingers on the steering wheel like he’s impatient for the light to turn green. He glances at me curiously. “Why are you out of school early? Do you have a doctor’s appointment?”

  “No appointment…Mom and I planned to do some shopping.”

  He scowls. “She has time to shop but not to return my call?”

  Dad slows the car to the speed limit, then looks sheepishly over at me. “Sorry, Kelsey. It’s your mother I’m mad at. Not you.”

  “I’m not happy with her myself,” I admit. “But she might have a good excuse…an emergency at work, or maybe her truck broke down.”

  As I’m saying this, Dad’s cell phone dings. Since he’s driving, I grab his phone. “A text from”—I glance down and my heart leaps—“Mom.”

  “About time,” Dad says sharply, but there’s relief in his tone. He asks me to read the text out loud.

  Leaving for few days.

  Need time alone.

  Don’t call.

  It’s Mom’s familiar phone number and icon with her smiling face—but there’s no smiling in the words. I reel with hurt. Last night when Mom and I talked, I felt really close to her, pleased that she was confiding in me. But she didn’t say anything about leaving.

  Did I only imagine our closeness?

  I feel even worse for Dad. He calls her back but gets her voice mail and retreats into a silence that has weight and substance like thunderclouds. I was so sure Mom would work things out with Dad and they’d find us a great new house so our family would be together again.

  He doesn’t say anything as he drives me to my grandmother’s house, only a curt bye as the door bangs shut behind me.

  Gran Nola is busy with a client in the exercise room. I hear her instructing Lift your leg, Hold that stretch, and Reach higher as I stomp into my bedroom. I drop my backpack on the floor. Inside are pages of homework—the assignments I collected from my teachers since I left early. What a waste of time. I should have stayed at school for lunch and my last classes. I even canceled my plans for a CCSC meeting with Leo and Becca after school. Instead of hanging out with my friends at the Skunk Shack, I stood on a curb waiting alone.

  Scooping up Honey, I curl up on my bed and stare out the window at an endless gray sky.

  How could Mom forget me?

  My gaze sweeps around the room. Mom’s running shoes rest on her black leather suitcase where she kicked them off. Her makeup case, brush, and wire-rimmed reading glasses are on her nightstand. And the faint scent of her shampoo lingers on the air like the ghost of Mom is still in the room.

  She promised, I think, as a tear slides down my cheek and onto Honey’s thick orange fur. Holding Honey close to my heart, I’m comforted by her rumbling purr. Hurt shifts into anger, and I come to a decision. Mom may have ruined our plans, but I won’t let her ruin my day.

  Leaving Honey on the bed, I go into the living room where Gran Nola usually has her phone charging. As the youngest in a large family, I don’t have my own cell phone. So I borrow Gran’s phone to text Becca and Leo:

  Meeting on.

  C U @ SS

  Biking along the bumpy trail to the Skunk Shack always feels like I’m traveling deep into the woods. But our clubhouse is only a short uphill walk from Becca’s home at Wild Oaks Animal Sanctuary.

  It was Becca’s idea to turn the old shack into the CCSC clubhouse. Cleaning it was a challenge because birds and other wild creatures had nested there for years. But after lots of scrubbing and sweeping, and after we painted the walls a sunny shade of yellow, our clubhouse now looks great. We keep a few pieces of furniture we found there: a stained table, chairs, a cabinet for storing supplies, and an antique grandfather clock that Leo repaired. Now the clock chimes musically every hour.

  Becca’s bike isn’t propped against the tablesized stump, but Leo’s gyro-board leans near the clubhouse door. When I step inside, I find Leo sitting at the table, staring down at something metallic in his hands. This is the first time Leo and I have been alone since the robot convention, and I smooth back a loose strand of my hair, hoping he doesn’t ask about the dance.

  “Where’s Becca?” I try to sound normal.

  Leo doesn’t look up. “I assume she’s on her way here.”

  “What’s that?” I peer over his shoulder. Wires twist down into opposite sides of a pen-like device. He creates cool inventions like the dragon drone, a tiny dragonfly drone that flies high for covert spy missions. And his key spider—a metal circle of adjustable keys—can pick almost any lock.

  “A poly-truth pen.” Leo proudly lifts the gadget. “When it’s finished, it’ll assess three indicators of lying: respiration, heart rate, and skin conductivity.”

  Curious, I lean in for a closer look. “Like a lie detector?”

  “That’s my objective. I wanted to show it to you at lunch today, but you left school early. Becca said you had an appointment with your mother.”

  “I did.” I sink into my lopsided chair at the table. Before I can explain what happened, I hear the familiar braking of Becca’s bike.

  Becca rushes in, out of breath like she pedaled at superspeed. She wipes sweat from her brow and pushes away a loose strand of pink-streaked hair. Even sweaty, she looks cute and stylish in black jeans with leopard-patterned pockets and a zebra-striped jacket over a silky white blouse.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Becca plops into her chair. “I was teaching Buggy to eat puppy food. She’s stubborn…but I’m stubborner, so she finally ate.”

  “Stubborner is not a word,” Leo says.

  “Well, it should be.” Becca flashes a wide grin. “Totally fits me when I’m working with animals.”

  “I
can’t wait to see Buggy again,” I say. “I was hoping you’d bring her.”

  “She’s sleeping, but come over after our meeting and you can cuddle her. She’s so sweet. If I didn’t already have a zillion animals, I’d keep her. Mom is positive she’s a purebred pug and thinks she must have wandered away from her owners. Did your mother show you the newest missing-dog reports?”

  “No.” Anger rises hot to my cheeks. “She didn’t pick me up from school.”

  “Seriously?” Becca flips her ponytail over her shoulder.

  Leo frowns. “What happened?”

  “Mom forgot me. I waited and waited, only she didn’t come,” I say, my throat tight. “Since I don’t have my own phone, I had to go into the school office to call her. But all I got was her voice mail. Finally, I called Dad.”

  “Oh no!” Becca’s hand flies to her mouth. “She’d never just forget you without a good reason. Did something happen to her?”

  “I worried about that, but then she texted Dad. She told him she needs time alone so she’s leaving for a few days.” She didn’t even mention me, I think, my eyes welling up.

  “Your mother left?” Becca asks in disbelief.

  Leo wrinkles his brow. “Where did she go?”

  “I have no idea. Somewhere far away from us, I guess,” I add bitterly. “She told Dad not to call her.”

  Becca’s forehead creases. “But when we talked at school, you said your mother was going to work things out with your father and move back to the castle.”

  “That’s what she told me. She also promised to pick me up from school. She lied.”

  “Parents don’t always behave like adults,” Leo says. “Before my parents separated, they argued like my house was a war zone. But now they get along great.”

  “My parents are not separating,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “Of course they aren’t.” Becca reaches over to squeeze my hand.

  “We were going to have a special day, just the two of us…” My throat tightens. “But I guess it didn’t matter to her.”

  “Or something happened to her.” Leo stares off toward the shuttered window, tapping his poly-truth pen on the table like each tap is a thought bubble ready to pop. “Are you sure the text was from your mother?”

  I nod, then repeat what the text said, cringing at the I need time alone part.

  “Has she ever done anything like this before?” Leo asks.

  “No.” I swallow a bitter lump of hurt. “She’s always on time or early.”

  Becca frowns. “What if she hit her head and lost her memory?”

  “Highly improbable,” Leo says. “Amnesia is more common in fiction than in reality.”

  “Kelsey, you need to talk to your mom to find out what’s going on.” Becca takes her phone from her pocket. “Call her.”

  “I’ve already tried that.”

  Becca holds out her phone. “Try again.”

  I press my lips tightly as I tap in the number. I’m torn between wanting to scream at Mom and wanting to make sure she’s all right. When the rings change to voice mail, I toss the phone back to Becca.

  “Clearly she does not want to talk to me,” I say angrily.

  “She could be in an area without cellular signal, or maybe she mislaid her phone,” Leo suggests. “My mother used to lose hers until I attached a tracking app.”

  “Mom never leaves without her phone, but apparently she’s fine with leaving her family.”

  “It just doesn’t make sense.” Becca purses her peach-frosted lips. “I don’t believe she’d go away.”

  I remember Mom’s paint-splattered uniform. She hadn’t been seriously hurt, but if an angry child could shoot her, what would an angry adult do? When Mom started working as an animal control officer and explained that the sheriff was her boss, I thought this was weird. I didn’t think that protecting animals was dangerous like catching criminals. But what if it is?

  A sudden thought makes me gasp.

  “Mom’s suitcase was still in our room after she sent the text. Why would she go away without her suitcase?” My words trail off in fear.

  I think of other things Mom left behind: shoes, makeup, and even her reading glasses.

  She would never leave me waiting at the school or break a promise.

  What really happened to my mother?

  - Chapter 5 -

  Suspicions

  I jump from my chair. “I have to call the sheriff!”

  “No need to call him,” Becca says. “He’s at my house. Mom invited Sheriff Fischer over for dinner. When I left, he was just driving in.”

  Fears for my mother whirl as we hop on our wheels and race down the trail to the wild animal sanctuary.

  Fenced animal enclosures, outbuildings, and a barn blur by. I pedal so fast that I’m the first to reach Becca’s L-shaped ranch style home. It’s a huge relief to see the sheriff’s official car parked in the driveway. He’ll know what to do. He’ll find Mom and bring her home safely.

  Becca and Leo are close behind me as I burst into the house. In the kitchen, Becca’s mother is handing a steaming coffee cup to the sheriff. Sheriff Fischer is a stocky man with dark hair and a rugged, tanned face. Instead of a uniform with a shiny badge and holster, he’s wearing dark-navy pants and a light-blue shirt.

  Mrs. Morales turns to look at me, her quick smile fading to alarm when I rush past her to the sheriff. “Mom’s in trouble!”

  He sets down his coffee cup on the table. “What’s happened?” He glances around. “Where is she?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me what you do know,” he says.

  “Mom’s missing! No time to explain! Put out an AMBER Alert or something to find her!”

  “Calm down, Kelsey,” he says. “I can’t do anything until I have the facts.”

  Becca slips her arm around me. “Go ahead, Kelsey. Tell him everything.”

  “Mom promised to pick me up at school. I waited and waited for like an hour, but she never came.” I speak so quickly that my words tumble over themselves. “So I called Dad to come get me and he hadn’t heard from Mom either, but then he got a text from her saying she was leaving for a few days. Only Mom would never leave without telling us.”

  Mrs. Morales and the sheriff exchange a look, and I can tell they don’t believe me.

  “But she did tell your father…in that text,” Sheriff Fischer points out. “Kelsey, I understand you’re upset, but I doubt your mother is in any danger. Have you tried calling her back?”

  “Of course I did! But it goes to her voice mail. If she was busy at work, she would have asked Dad or my grandmother to pick me up. But she didn’t call anyone and just left me waiting.”

  Becca’s mother comes over to put her arm around me. “Kelsey, I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “But she wouldn’t just leave like that!” My voice sharpens with frustration. “She didn’t even take her suitcase!”

  Sheriff Fischer’s dark brows slant together. “She left her suitcase?”

  I nod, biting my lip as fears rise.

  “Did she take any of her belongings?”

  “I don’t know, but she left stuff that she usually takes with her.” I think back to my bedroom. “Sneakers, brush, makeup, and reading glasses.”

  “Hmm” is all he says as he sits down at the table and stirs a spoon in his coffee cup, thinking. After a moment, he sets the spoon aside and reaches for his phone. He taps a few buttons, and his volume is set so loud I can hear ringing. Then a cheerful woman’s voice says, “Sun Flower Animal Control.”

  “Hey, Michelle,” the sheriff says briskly. “Have you seen Katherine today?”

  I hold my breath, afraid of what I might find out.

  “Is that so?” His casual tone gives nothing away, and I can only hear a faint murmur from Michelle. “What time was this?…Uh-huh…Uh-huh…” He mutters a few more “uh-huhs,” then says thanks and hangs up.

  I suck in a scared breath. “Wh
at did you find out?”

  He pulls out a chair from the table and gestures for me to sit beside him. “Kelsey, your mother reported to work as usual this morning.”

  I nod, not surprised since I’d watched her put on her uniform and leave.

  “But when she came in, she arranged for another officer, Lamar Jefferson, to take over her shift. She told Michelle she needed the day off for personal reasons.”

  “She didn’t work at all?” My mouth falls open. “But she was only planning to take the afternoon off.”

  “You’ll have to ask her about that. Until then, you can stop worrying because wherever she went was her idea.” He drums his fingers on the table and clears his throat. “Kelsey, I’m aware there are problems between your parents, and I’m sorry. But as her boss, I can’t get involved in family matters.”

  “It’s not a family matter! She’s missing because of her job.” I push the chair back and stand. “Last night, Mom told me she was suspicious about a call she investigated on Wednesday.”

  He arches one dark brow. “Which one?”

  “I don’t know. She told me she found new information and planned to check it out today. She said if her suspicions were right, she’d tell you.”

  “She didn’t mention it to me.”

  “So she must have gone alone. If she did, she could have been attacked and…” I shudder, afraid to imagine the worst.

  “But I already told you that she didn’t work today,” he says with a weary sigh. “Lamar took her shift.”

  “Then why did she wear her uniform when she left this morning?”

  “She probably wasn’t sure someone could take over for her.” He shrugs. “I don’t know exactly what went down. I’m sure she’ll tell you when she gets home.”

  “If she does,” I say with a desperate sense of time running out. “She was already attacked once this week.”

  “Kelsey, is that what this is about?” The sheriff’s expression softens, and he pats my hand. “Are you worried because of the paintball incident?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Although it proved her job could be dangerous.”