“Are you a dog person?”
Mark took a deep breath. She didn’t know he couldn’t care less about them. “I don’t own one, no.”
“But you like them.”
“Sure,” he lied.
“Well, Jagger’s not like other dogs. He just has this...personality to him. It’s like he knows me. I mean, really knows me.”
“I’m sure he does. He sees you every day, knows your habits, your behaviors. Knows when you’re upset or happy.”
Amy gave him a glance, smiled, and drank some more. The bottle came away from her mouth with a fizzy pop. “Sometimes I think it’s sad that my soulmate is a damn dog. Tonight, I’m realizing it’s not just sad, it’s pathetic.”
Soulmate?
Mark wondered just how lonely this woman truly was.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me yet,” she said.
Something like wings fluttered in Mark’s chest. What was she referring to? A jumble of questions trampled his mind all at once.
“Uh...” was all he managed to mutter.
“Most people ask me about his name.”
For a moment, Mark had no idea who she was talking about. Then he realized it was the dog, and he should have known that.
With a bit of disappointment over her question, he drank more beer. “It is an interesting name,” he said after swallowing.
Amy stared ahead, smiling as if she were watching a home movie projected in front of her. “When he was a puppy, he just had such a wonderfully cute face. His lips poked out like this.” She stuck hers out to show him, then laughed. “‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was on the radio and I thought it was crazy how much he resembled him.”
“The devil?”
Amy laughed, gently swatting Mark’s leg. “No! Mick Jagger.”
“Ah.”
Mark called up an image of the photo and thought he saw the semblance.
“It’s not so similar now,” she said. “But when he was a puppy it was uncanny.”
Mark raised the bottle to his mouth and was surprised to find it empty. Only a tiny droplet slipped into his mouth. He put it back on the table.
“Want another?” asked Amy. “It’s on the house tonight.”
“I’d love to...”
“But?”
“But I have to pass. I still need to do another walk-through of your property.”
“Sounds so procedural.” She lowered her voice. “Property.”
Mark laughed. When he finished, he saw Amy was staring at him, sort of half-smiling and interested. He cleared his throat.
“You have a really nice smile,” she said.
Mark was about to thank her when she smacked the table with the other empty bottle. Far from drunk, the beer had definitely made her more confident and comfortable.
And friendly.
“Well...I...”
She put her hand on his knee. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For sticking around. You really should have left an hour ago, but you didn’t.”
Mark shrugged. “Well—I mean...”
“That means a lot to me.”
And the beer’s making her honest.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said. “All things considered, it’s the best conversation I’ve had in a good while.”
Amy smiled. “We haven’t talked about anything, really.”
“Compared to my usual nights, it’s a vast improvement.”
“How about we talk more? Maybe about other stuff? You can hang out for a little bit, if you want.”
She looks like she wants me to kiss her.
There was a hopeful glimmer in her eyes. Her lips were slightly parted as if she’d already consented to the idea of having his mouth inserted between their plump curves. But Mark wouldn’t allow himself to succumb to the yearning of a desperate woman, no matter how sexy she was.
“I’d like that,” he said. “Just not tonight.”
That notion of hope dropped away from her pretty face. She lowered her head. “Right. Another time.”
“If you’re up to it.”
She raised her head, lifted an eyebrow. “Challenging me, are you?”
“Just making sure you’ll still feel the same in the morning.”
Amy laughed. “I see.” She tapped the mouths of her empty beer bottles. “When I’m not so influenced.”
“Right.”
He stood up. He removed the flashlight from his belt. Seeing it, Amy gulped as if the memory of why Mark was really here came back to her. She peered up at him with her large earthy eyes.
“Guess I better get this over with,” he said.
“I’ll come with you.”
“Fine.”
Outside, they took their time as Mark swept his flashlight here and there. They stopped to investigate areas he’d missed during his initial search. Sometimes Amy shared a story about Jagger. She told him one about a stray cat coming into the yard. She’d come outside, worried that Jagger was going to kill it, and had to run the feline off after it had chased her giant dog under the deck. She’d needed to use a cooked hamburger to coax him out. And his back had cracked the underpinning, forcing her to replace a whole section of the deck.
Mark laughed at that one. Jagger seemed like a really fun dog, and it was even more obvious to him that Amy practically worshipped her pet.
It’s good she has her memories.
Mark couldn’t believe he was already thinking as if Amy would never see her dog again. He would bet the dog would be back in the morning, scratching at the door to come inside.
But Amy said the dog has never done this before. And I believe her.
Besides, he couldn’t shake the sick feeling inside—like looking for a missing person when there was no hope of finding him.
They arrived at the gate. The one Amy had discovered open after swearing she’d closed it. He believed her on that one as well. Amy seemed to have her head on relatively straight, compared to her neighbors.
He’d been out here many times in the past to arrest someone, and had never once met Amy. He’d met her father a few times. Now there was a son of a bitch if he’d ever met one. He wondered if Amy was close to her old man. He’d never once mentioned he had a daughter.
No wonder she acts like she has some serious affection issues.
“So that’s it?” she asked. She opened the gate for him.
“For now.”
Amy moaned in defeat. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
“Don’t say that. Don’t give up on me just yet.”
“I’m not.”
Mark nearly gasped when Amy hugged him. At first, his arms stayed stuck out, rigid, as if touching her might hurt her. He slowly relaxed, putting one arm around her first. Then he added the other and held her. He felt her head twitching against his chest.
She was crying.
He still held the flashlight, angling it away from her. The light cut a short tunnel through the dark and splashed on the ground. Glinting under its smolder was a small brown object, crinkled and mushed, the size of a stumped pinky.
“Amy?”
“Huh?” Her breath was warm as it seeped through his shirt.
“Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Has anyone smoked on your property lately?”
“Teresa smokes, but she does it inside.”
He thought he’d detected the odor of cigarette smoke. “But not cigars, right?”
Amy lifted her head and looked up at him. “No. Why are you asking me that?”
“Look.”
Amy looked down. He felt her body tense when she saw the crushed cigar illuminated in the flashlight’s glare.
Chapter Fifteen
Teresa’s phone vibrating from the nightstand made her jump. She nearly squealed, but managed to keep it in. Clayton had dozed off on top of her, his penis still stuffed deep inside.
But Teresa hadn’t been able to sleep.
She couldn’t stop thinking about things. Sh
e’d become so restless she’d worked Clayton off of her, freeing herself from underneath. She’d felt claustrophobic lying under the stuffy heat and weight of his body. With him off her, she didn’t feel compressed and squished, as if she were slowly being suffocated from not just her guilt, but Clayton’s lethargic body.
She was just finally starting to doze off when her phone had buzzed.
“Who is it?” asked Clayton, his voice muzzy and thick.
Teresa didn’t have to look at the display screen to know it was Amy. She’d called and texted her a few times already tonight. The police had been at her place, and Amy had wanted to know if she’d been over there at all since leaving this morning.
She probably told them I just took off this morning without saying anything.
Not a smart move. Neither was ignoring Amy. If she wanted to draw attention to herself, trying to hide was a great way of doing so.
Reaching out, she felt around the top of the nightstand for her phone. She grabbed it and brought it over. Holding it above her breasts, she thumbed the button on the side. The screen lit up, showing a message for a new text.
It was from Amy.
Teresa suddenly felt even more compressed without Clayton on top of her. She used a finger of her other hand to select the message.
Where R U? Need my bestie right now!
Guilt made her feel exhausted. A single tear escaped her eye, trickling down and going into her ear.
“Amy again?” asked Clayton, more awake now.
“Yeah.”
“You’d better write her back. She’s probably wondering what the hell you’re up to.”
“I know.”
Teresa stared at the screen. She couldn’t force her fingers to type a message.
“Give me the damn thing,” said Clayton. He snatched the phone out of her hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Handling it.”
Clayton dug his elbows into the mattress. The display screen spilled light onto his shoulders and face. She heard the sliding sounds of his fingers as he wrote Amy back.
A moment later he set the phone down on her bare stomach. The cold plastic made her flinch and hiss through her teeth. Then he lowered his head back to the pillow as if he was going to go back to sleep.
She shook her hips, bumping Clayton beside her. “Well?”
“Huh?”
“What’d you tell her?”
“I pretended to be you.”
“I figured that much.”
“Told her you were at home, not feeling good and would talk to her tomorrow.”
Teresa felt lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted. She was relieved Clayton had handled that for her. She would have kept on neglecting a response and that would only make it look bad.
I’m such a bitch.
She deserved whatever punishment she got. It had been stupid of her to tell Clayton about Jagger. And she couldn’t come up with a decent reason as to why she’d done it.
She glanced down at his penis hanging over the top of the rumpled sheet.
No. That is not the only reason.
He screwed her better than anyone ever had. And she got weak whenever she was with him, physically and mentally. She couldn’t help herself. She knew it was wrong, but it never seemed to stop her.
Rolling onto her side, she faced away from Clayton. Away from his lean nakedness and large penis. She closed her eyes, trying to demand that sleep come to her.
As she felt herself starting to drift, her mind replayed the day’s events.
****
After telling Clayton about Jagger, they returned to Clancy and had to go through the same awkward introductions as if it was Stan’s first time meeting them. After that, his memory seemed to function properly.
“How big’s this dog?” Stan asked. He sat on the edge of his couch, eating a slice of pizza from a box on top of four others.
Clayton pressed his fingertips together. “Teresa said somewhere around one-eighty or something.”
Stan froze, teeth clamping the pizza, his eyes wide above the pepperoni. His head jerked back, tearing off a gooey chunk. Chewing slowly, he seemed to lull over this information. His throat made a wet clicking sound when he swallowed. He nodded. “It could work.”
Stan loaned them some injectable tranquilizers. Three syringes that when he handed them to Clayton, he added he would have to pay him back for these. Clayton didn’t ask the total price, just nodded and said he would.
An hour later, they were driving to the countryside of Brickston.
“Want to stop and change your clothes?” she asked Clayton.
He shook his head. “No time. Turn left up there.”
Houses had been frequent on both sides of the road for a while. As they’d driven, the houses had been replaced by infinite grassy areas, woods, and farmland. At first she wasn’t sure where he’d specified for them to turn. Then she spotted a thin dirt track twisting through a field.
“You’re going to pass it,” he advised.
Teresa slowed the car down. “That...path?”
“Yeah. It’s not so bad.”
“Maybe not in your truck, but it’s going to kill my alignment.”
“Just drive slowly.”
Though she was careful as she made the turn, the car still rocked when the tires left the blacktop. She took Clayton’s advice and drove very slowly, the car shaking and dipping over gullies and holes as she steered them far into the field. Woods appeared on each side of them, blocking out the daylight and throwing a heavy shade onto the path. Flecks of sunlight trembled on the road ahead of them.
Finally, they reached a graveled parking area. Beyond the lot was an old barn. It was larger than any barn Teresa had ever seen before, with two front doors and a loft above it that had been boarded up. Wood fencing ran along the outside of the barn, a metal pasture gate was open as if their visit had been expected.
“Pull up to the fence and park,” said Clayton.
“Where are we?”
Clayton was quiet until she parked. Then he unbuckled the safety harness, opened the door and said, “Stay in the car.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but Clayton was already out of the car. The door banged shut. Teresa’s mouth slowly closed. She turned her head, watching him walk toward the barn.
I shouldn’t be here.
She could put the car in reverse and drive away from all this. Leave Clayton behind. Go back to Amy’s and all would still be okay.
Wait much longer and I won’t be able to do that.
Teresa felt pain in her bottom lip and realized she was biting it. She relaxed her jaw, removed her lip. She tasted blood inside her mouth.
Get out of here. Now!
Teresa reached for the gearshift, fingers curled around the knob. She felt her foot push down on the brake pedal. Though cool air drifted over her from the vents, her skin was damp with sweat.
“Just do it,” Teresa told herself.
Clayton came out of the barn. Seeing him brought a smile to her face. She couldn’t leave him. She was already too far into this and needed to stay by him. Not because she was forced to.
Because I want to. After all of this, he better know how I feel about him.
And she really wished she didn’t have feelings for him. She wished she was stronger.
Like Amy.
“Amy,” she muttered.
Clayton stood in the opened doorway of the barn, his back to her, hands on his hips. His head was bopping as if he were talking, lengthy hair flapping a bit. Another man came forward, and Teresa realized Clayton was speaking to him. The new guy was short and very fat. He wore a white T-shirt that was faded and the design on the front had lost its color and shape. Even from the car she could see the sweat stains. He was losing his hair on top, thin webby strands fluttered in the breeze.
Clayton turned around. He motioned for her to come where he was.
Teresa nodded, though he couldn’t have seen it. Sh
e took her foot off the brake and felt the cramp in her calf from how hard she’d been straining to make herself leave. She killed the engine, grabbed her purse, and climbed out of the car.
The heat was like being wrapped in a hot blanket. She felt a breeze moseying over her, but it only seemed to stir the humidity even more. Walking to Clayton, she kept her arm firm by her side to hold her dress in place. She had on sunglasses, so Clayton’s friend couldn’t tell she could see him staring at her. By the look on his face, it was as if he’d never seen a girl in a sundress before. He licked his lips and Teresa resisted a shiver.
Clayton reached out, put his arm around her. Though she could feel the heat of his body through his sleeve, making the back of her neck sweat even more, she was glad to have him close.
“This is Freddy,” he said.
“Hi,” said Freddy, in an unusual shrill voice.
Teresa made herself smile.
“We need to start planning out how we’re going to get the dog,” Clayton told her.
Teresa’s stomach felt as if it was being twisted. She knew why they were here, but hearing him mention Jagger seemed to remind her all over again.
I’m really doing this?
“Okay,” she said.
Freddy smiled. His teeth were a light brown, as if painted in coffee. “Is he really as big as you say?”
Teresa nodded. “Probably bigger.”
Freddy’s dead fish-like eyes seemed to grow. “Wow!” He turned to Clayton. “What a find!”
“That’s my baby,” said Clayton.
Teresa shouldn’t be proud he’d said so, but she couldn’t help smiling from it. His arm tightened around her.
“When would be a good time for us to go play fetch?” asked Freddy, giggling like a little girl.
Teresa thought about it a moment. “What time is it?”
Freddy reached into the pocket of his sweatpants. He tugged out a phone. “Pushing three.”
Teresa couldn’t believe how much of the day had passed. How long would it take them to get ready? What were their plans?
“Amy usually goes to the gym around five.”
Freddy whistled. “Doesn’t give us much time, does it?”
Clayton stepped away from Teresa. She felt odd without having him close, strangely vulnerable to Freddy’s roaming eyes.
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