Chapter 11 #2
I’m still thinking about it when I tuck into bed, surrounded by the clean, simple, comforting scent of him.
It’s the middle of the night, and Cookie is barking at me from approximately five inches from my face.
“No more cookies,” I mutter, slapping my arm over my ear. She nudges my elbow with her paw and then barks again.
Yet another bark has me moaning and sitting up.
My hoodie is out in the living room, but I reach for the small pile of treats I stowed in the drawer of Cormac’s nightstand, where he keeps an old paperback copy of Isaac Asimov’s short stories, along with a penlight.
When I first opened the drawer, I flipped through the book and smiled when I saw his bookmark—a receipt for a stupidly expensive dog chew.
I offer one of the treats to Cookie. She gobbles it eagerly and then shoves my arm again with another bark, this one with a small whine chasing the end of it.
I sigh resignedly.
“You need to do your business, don’t you?”
A happy yip follows this pronouncement, and I sigh again and climb out of Cormac’s very comfortable bed.
It’s king-size, a vast upgrade from my full bed, and the sheets must be ten thousand thread count.
I don’t know if that’s actually a thing, but it feels like a thing, and I am very reluctant to get up.
It doesn’t hurt that whatever detergent he uses smells incredible.
Cookie unleashes another yip and leaps to the floor, her little body flying surprisingly fast. She follows it up with a doggy dance as she keeps barking.
“Shhh,” I say with a groan. “I know what it’s like when you eat too much fast food. That’s definitely my bad, but you’re going to have to pipe down, or everyone in this neighborhood is going to turn on us.”
I start walking toward the door, and she launches ahead with enough exuberance to make me smile. She’s got a personality and a half, this dog, possibly five. Someone should do a field study on her.
When I came back from the brewery this evening, after having been gone since lunchtime, I found her lying on Cormac’s bed. She’d somehow escaped her pen and was halfheartedly chowing down on my paperback. Which was probably the reason Cormac kept his own book stowed away in a drawer.
“Cookie,” I said in a scolding voice, and she had the nerve to wag her little nub tail.
I had the nerve to be charmed by it.
“I didn’t like the book anyway,” I admitted, rubbing her back. “You probably saved me from major disappointment.”
And what do you know? She barked.
Now she’s doing her anxious dance in front of the door, making low whining sounds in the back of her throat.
Yawning, I crack the door open and let her scamper out before I slip my shoes on and follow.
But when I step outside, there’s no sign of her.
Frowning, I peer into the shadows at the side of the fence. Is Cormac’s dog pranking me? I wouldn’t put it past her, but not even strangely intelligent dogs can become invisible at will.
My gaze catches on a patch of sidewalk, visible through the front gate, and then my mouth gapes in horror.
The gate is ajar by a few inches.
What the fuck?
I didn’t open that gate. I haven’t left the house since I came back after my shift. In fact, I was so paranoid about keeping it closed that I checked the latch twice the last time I was out here.
I take a big step toward it and nearly trip over a small brown package sitting at the foot of the porch.
The mail carrier must have left it open, and now Cookie is running through the streets. She’ll get hit by a car, and it’ll be all my fault.
Oh my God, Cormac is going to hate me forever. The man wrote an entire manual about how she should be taken care of—a manual I definitely didn’t read—and check that the gate is shut before letting her out is probably in there and underlined.
I bound across the lawn, then burst through the open gate and glance wildly in both directions. There’s no sign of her.
“Cookie!” I shout, running up one side of the street, terrified that she might have gone the other way.
Cookie’s so short, she could easily get mowed down by a car. They wouldn’t even see her in the dark. She’d be gone before they had a chance to slow down…
“Cookie!”
“Shut the fuck up!” someone shouts out of a window, so I probably can’t count on neighborly spirit to help me find her.
Adrenaline floods my bloodstream, and I sprint down the street faster than I’ve ever run before. But when I reach a side street, I stagger to a stop. What if she went that way? What if she went the opposite way to begin with, and I’m running farther away from her?
Panic chokes off my air supply. I sit on the edge of the curb and cradle my head in my hands. Think, think.
I don’t like the answer my brain gives me.
Here’s the thing: if there’s one person who knows Cookie’s mindset better than any other, it’s Cormac. I’d rather eat flaming hot Cheetos than call him and tell him I’ve failed, but he’s exactly the person I need to call.
Heart pounding, I race back toward the house, hoping Cookie will miraculously be in the yard when I return. She and I can share a good bark-laugh about this whole thing and go back to bed.
But it’s empty.
Cookie is alone and lost.
My hands are trembling, and I can’t catch my breath.
I know what it’s like to feel that way. When I was five or maybe six, I got lost at the Western North Carolina State Fair.
I’d run up to the cotton candy stand to watch the candy form in a sweet cloud.
But when I turned around, my father, who’d taken me by himself, wasn’t there.
He wasn’t anywhere. I wandered around, terrified and alone, for half an hour before someone wrapped a hand around my shoulder.
My mother had warned me never to go anywhere with a stranger, so I kicked the person in the shin as hard as I could.
The middle-aged woman I’d attacked was very understanding about her bruised shin.
She also waited in the resources center with me for an hour until my father finally showed up looking for me.
But I’ve never forgotten the feeling of being abandoned and the fear that something even worse was going to happen to me unless I could put a stop to it.
Now Cookie is out on the streets, but there probably won’t be any kind bystander to save her. Hell, if someone tried to help her, she’d probably flash them her teeth and run faster.
She really is like me.
Tears press behind my eyes.
Oh God, I hate crying. Crying women are never taken seriously. They’re patted on the back and given…well, cookies. They’re told they’re emotional and written off.
I’m panting heavily by the time I get back to the porch, and I hurtle inside the house and grab my phone. My hands are still shaking as I draw up Cormac’s number.