by Tracy Weber
We were lost.
I kept lurching forward, feet pushing through hardening cement.
At last, to my left. A landmark I recognized. Pike Place Market.
I staggered down the unlit hallways, desperately trying to find something familiar, but even Pike Place felt foreign. Every storefront was dark. My legs burned. My back ached. Every muscle screamed. Each time I found a new hallway, I stumbled onto a dead end.
I turned right and continued searching.
Finally, a person. An old man selling newspapers.
I staggered up to the Dollars for Change vendor, trying to hold back the tears threatening my eyes. “How do I get to Greenwood Avenue?”
He pointed toward a steep, spiral staircase. “Up there.”
I stared up through the center of the tornado-like vortex. “Isn’t there another way?”
“Lady, in this line of work, I try not to see too much. Not safe, you know?”
I stood at the bottom step, terrified. I couldn’t climb it—not while carrying Bella—but I didn’t have a choice. This was the only way home.
You can do this, Kate.
I hugged Bella close and tentatively climbed the first step.
Then the second.
When my foot touched the third, Bella panicked and kicked out her legs, knocking me off balance. We crashed to the bottom. My tailbone hit the cement floor—hard. Electric pain jolted up my spine.
I curled into a ball and sobbed.
I can’t do it. I have to find another way.
I gathered Bella into my arms again and dragged us both down the hallway, each step a torment. I had no idea where we were going anymore, but it didn’t matter. Wherever it was, we weren’t going to make it.
I looked down at my dog. “I’m sorry, sweetie. You have to walk on your own.”
The moment her feet touched the ground, my whole body lightened. The electric jolts ceased. Without Bella, I was free.
Then I realized why I’d carried her in the first place.
Bella wore no collar. No leash. No mechanism to tether us together. No tool to keep her from running into the street. I couldn’t prevent Bella from getting lost. From attacking another dog. I couldn’t protect Bella from herself.
I gathered her up again, muscles screaming. But this time, the fiery burning didn’t bother me. The pain, the heaviness, the inevitability of being lost forever … none of it mattered. All I wanted—all I needed—was to hold Bella close.
I finally understood.
Carrying Bella wasn’t a sacrifice; it was a gift. I’d rather stay lost with my dog than find my way home alone.
I slowly opened my eyes, disoriented. Still hovering on the nebulous edge between dream and reality, I took in the darkness, breathed into my pillow. Gazed at the puppies, still asleep in their crate. I reached over and touched my sleeping boyfriend, then stroked my softly snoring dog.
This. This was reality. This was my life.
Thank God.
What was that about?
I was no stranger to powerful dreams. Dreams were my subconscious’s way of solving life’s problems. This time especially, I had a feeling the answer was important. But like a frustrating, REM-sleep version of Jeopardy!, my mind gave the answer but refused to provide the question.
Was my dream about Bella, or was it about Dr. Dick?
Bella stirred beside me. She moaned, hopped off the bed, and tried to nudge the bedroom door open.
“I’m coming, sweetie.”
Bella needed her five-hundredth bathroom break, and after that, I needed rest. Whatever my subconscious was telling me, it would have to wait until morning.
Or so I thought.
I spent an interminable sleepless night trying to decipher my dream, agonizing over the note and who could have left it on my car, and taking Bella outside for all-too-frequent bathroom breaks. I hadn’t told Michael about the note yet; by the time I’d gotten home, he’d been frustrated, grumpy, and distracted. Like me, he’d glimpsed Momma Bird outside of Pete’s Pets, but by the time he’d finished up with his customer, she’d vanished.
I kidded myself that telling Michael about the note would simply fuel his frustration, but the truth was, I didn’t want to tell him. Keeping it secret was the easiest way to avoid conflict. Michael would inevitably order me to give the note to Martinez, then issue a mandate forbidding me from checking out the address by myself.
So I decided to skip the argument and follow the mandate. I wouldn’t go alone. I called Tiffany as soon as Michael left for work the next morning and asked her to go to Bainbridge Island to check out the address with me. We arranged to meet at the studio after Bella’s vet appointment. I knew Michael would make me pay for the infraction later, but I chose to vacation in the land of self-righteous denial. I was simply protecting Michael from his own over-protectiveness. Right?
I fed Bella her enzyme-rich, finely blended gruel, then scooted off to her ten o’clock vet appointment. Bella made herself comfortable on the exam room’s large, well-worn dog bed while her veterinarian spent a few minutes giving ear rubs and receiving dog kisses. After the requisite bonding, she started the examination.
“So, tell me what’s going on with our girl?”
I listed Bella’s symptoms: grumpiness, general malaise, rumbling stomach noises, excess gas, and digestive by-products so disgusting that only the owner of a dog with EPI could describe them without gagging.
As the veterinarian moved Bella’s joints and looked in her ears, eyes, and mouth, she went over a list of potential triggers for an EPI flare-up: new food, untreated snacks, expired enzymes, insufficient food incubation, garbage can raids. The answer to each possible indiscretion was no, which wasn’t surprising. If the trigger was one of the usual suspects, I would have figured it out already.
She jotted a few notes on a clipboard, then honed in on the symptom that had terrified me the most.
“I’m concerned that Bella snapped at your friend. You say that’s unusual for her?”
“Bella is often reactive with strangers, but snapping at Sam? Yes. It’s unheard of.”
“Unusual aggression often indicates pain, but I didn’t see any signs of pain in my examination.”
Bella relaxed on her side and rested her chin on my thighs. “That’s good, right?” I asked.
“Maybe. If it’s not pain, it may be stress, which makes a lot of sense, considering the digestive upset. In my experience, dogs with EPI don’t do well under stress. Could something be upsetting Bella? Maybe some changes to her environment?”
Two adorable fur-monsters scampered across my mind. I didn’t reply, as if not uttering their names would magically make them irrelevant.
The vet furrowed her brow. “Kate?”
I knew she wouldn’t approve, so I avoided eye contact and mumbled, “Michael and I are fostering two puppies.”
The vet’s furrowed brow disappeared, replaced by wide, horrified eyes. “Puppies?” Bella sat up and pricked her ears forward at the word. “What made you do a crazy thing like that? A dog-aggressive dog like Bella could easily hurt them.”
“But she loves Mutt and Jeff!” I argued. “She hasn’t so much as growled at them. In fact, they’re the first dogs she’s gotten along with.”
The vet slowly shook her head. “That may well be true—for now. But dogs like Bella usually don’t do well with canine siblings, especially puppies.”
“Bella will adjust, right?”
The vet didn’t reply, at least not at first. When she finally spoke, I wished she hadn’t. “Kate, I might be wrong. You can certainly give the arrangement more time. I’ll give you medicine for Bella’s diarrhea and an herbal remedy for stress. I’m worried about the future, though. Puppy license doesn’t last forever. Once the puppies become adolescents, the rules change pretty drastically.”
; “You don’t think Bella would hurt them?”
She patted Bella’s head, then slowly stood. “Honestly, I don’t know. But I have to tell you, I’ve stitched up a lot of dogs in my time—many of whom were attacked by another dog in the same household. How big do you think the puppies will get?”
“Michael thinks they’re medium-sized labradoodles.”
She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling, calculating. “So when they’re adults, they’ll be thirty to forty-five pounds. Less than half of Bella’s size.” She shook her head. “That makes the risk significantly higher. Bella could hurt them without intending to.”
I hid my tears by burying my face in Bella’s fur.
“Kate, I’m sorry. I know this is hard to hear, but I have to be honest with you. Bella is not an ordinary dog. When those puppies hit adolescence, it might not be pretty. At the very least, you’ll need to train them to have appropriate boundaries with her.”
“So basically, you’re saying we should give them away.”
She didn’t reply.
I felt my chin tremble. “I can’t do that. Michael loves them. It would break his heart.”
She hugged the clipboard against her chest. “Look, it’s not my business to tell you what to do. Frankly, there are no easy answers. Why don’t we see how things go for the next few weeks? In the meantime, we should assume that Bella has SIBO and get her started on antibiotics. She should start to improve in a day or two. If she doesn’t, bring her back in. Keep her stress as low as possible.”
I forced myself to smile as I paid for our visit, but by the time I reached my car, the tears I’d been hiding streamed down my cheeks. The vet was right. Bella was a good dog—a good mother. She’d suppressed her own needs to care for the puppies, and the effort had taken a toll.
Bella was miserable.
That’s what my dream had been trying to tell me. Her metaphorical muscles were screaming, begging for someone to help her.
That someone had to be me.
Achy sadness gripped my throat. Michael had always planned to keep Mutt and Jeff. He was simply waiting for me to come around to the idea.
And I would have.
Now, I couldn’t.
Bella’s wellbeing had to come first. I loathed the thought of breaking Michael’s heart almost as much as I loathed Bella’s suffering. Hopefully Michael would see that. Hopefully he would agree. Hopefully, together, we’d find the puppies a fabulous home.
Hopefully.
Either way, it was time—past time—for Michael and I to be honest with each other. We had to figure out what to do with the pups.
I kneeled next to Bella, touched her nose with my own, and made her a promise.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll carry you anywhere.
Twenty
Tiffany was impatiently waiting in front of Serenity Yoga when I arrived. She hopped into the passenger seat wearing black yoga pants, a skin-tight solid black T-shirt, black Birkenstocks, and a black head band. The yoga equivalent of a cat burglar.
“You know it’s daytime, right?” I asked.
“The camouflage yoga pants I ordered haven’t come in yet.”
“We’re not burglars, Tiffany. We’re just going to check out the address.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She reached over the seat back and tossed Bella a cookie.
“Don’t feed her without my permission,” I snapped. “Bella already has enough stomach troubles.”
Tiffany jolted as if I’d slapped her. “I always give her these cookies.” She stared out the passenger-side window. “Sheesh. Someone’s in a bad mood today.”
I felt like a jerk—which made sense, since I’d just acted like one. “I’m sorry, Tiffany. I’m having a bad day, but I shouldn’t take it out on you.” I told her about Bella’s recent illness, our vet visit, and what it meant for Mutt and Jeff. “I don’t suppose you’d like to adopt two puppies … ”
“I wish. I can’t have pets in my apartment.” She nibbled on a black-lacquered thumbnail. “You probably don’t want to hear this right now, but Michael’s planning to keep those dogs. He’s been waiting for the right time to tell you.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. “I know.” My eyes welled up again. “Honestly? I thought we’d end up keeping them, too.”
We drove in silence the rest of the way to the downtown Seattle ferry terminal. I paid for our car at the ticket window and parked in the crowded waiting area.
“Did that ticket seriously cost thirty-five dollars?” Tiffany exclaimed. “How do people afford to ride the ferry to work every day?”
“I assume they buy commuter cards, but it’s still expensive.” I shrugged. “At least the ticket was round-trip.”
Twenty minutes later, we drove onto the car deck and parked. I rolled the windows down a few inches and filled Bella’s water bowl. “We’ll take you for another walk when we get to the island, sweetie.”
Bella’s ears briefly perked up at the W-word, but they relaxed to bored-dog level when I didn’t clip on her leash. She placed her head between her paws and settled in for a nap.
“We’ve got twenty-five minutes,” I said to Tiffany. “Let’s go upstairs.” We grabbed coffee in the galley, went outside to the viewing deck, and watched the downtown Seattle skyline fade into the distance.
“Is it always this exciting?” Tiffany asked.
“Riding the ferry?”
“No! Following clues to a murderer!” Tiffany gesticulated wildly, sprinkling bitter, caffeinated raindrops across the deck. She tossed the cup in a garbage can and kept talking. “Today’s excursion may be no big deal to you, but I’m a sleuthing virgin. I’m so pumped I’m about to crawl out of my skin. The only thing more exciting is my six o’clock smoothie date with Chad.”
I would have assured Tiffany that there was no such thing as “always” for me when it came to sniffing out murderers, but I’d have been lying. This was, after all, the fourth time I’d found myself trailing a killer.
“This isn’t exciting for me at all, Tiffany. It’s nerve-racking. Frankly, I wish you weren’t excited, either. Excitement makes people reckless. If we get into trouble, the next murder you’ll be solving is mine. Michael’s going to be mad enough as it is.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. We’ll drive to the address and see if we can find this mysterious shed.”
“Maybe the person who left the note will be there.”
The thought sent chills from my scalp to my toenails. I was convinced the note was a clue, but I had no idea who’d placed it on my windshield. For all I knew it had been left by the murderer, trying to lead me off track.
“I doubt it,” I replied. “Whoever wrote the note obviously wants to remain anonymous. If someone’s at the address when we get there, don’t mention the shed. I’ll come up with a cover story.”
Tiffany grinned. “We’re like an improv duo. Cool!”
“Trio,” I corrected. “Whatever we do, Bella’s coming with us. She’ll keep us safe.”
“It’s too bad they don’t allow dogs off the car deck. Bella would love it up here.”
Tiffany and I breathed in the cool, mist-sprinkled breeze and gazed at the horizon until Seattle’s gray skyscrapers disappeared,
replaced by the emerald green forests of Bainbridge Island. A disembodied voice announced over the PA system that it was time to return to our vehicles. Ten minutes later, Tiffany programmed the mystery address into her smart phone’s GPS as I drove off the ferry. Before I knew it, we’d driven past the outskirts of the island’s main town of Winslow and were headed down Highway 305 toward West Port Madison.
Expensive ferry rides notwithstanding, I could see why many of Bainbridge Island’s twenty-three thousand residents endured the hour-long commute to and from Seattle each day. The tw
o-lane highway wound through walls of evergreen trees so dense, you could easily forget you were in civilization. I felt isolated—in a good way. From stress, from violence, from the constant buzz of Seattle’s urban energy. By the time the voice on Tiffany’s GPS announced that we had arrived at our destination, I wished I could call this place home.
Not that I could have afforded it.
Every room of the address’s huge, single-story house had an unobstructed Puget Sound view. The nearest neighbor (at least a city block away) was hidden by dense vegetation, and the four-car garage had twice the footprint of my tiny two-story home.
I drove to a turnout half a mile past the property and turned off the ignition. Bella whined and pressed her nose to the window. After clipping the leash to her collar, I folded down the front seat. “Come on out, sweetie.” She immediately relieved herself next to the tire, replacing the resinous, woody scent of pine with something significantly less pleasant.
Tiffany plugged her nose with her thumb and her index finger. “Ewwwww.”
“I know. It’s pretty disgusting, poor thing. Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in soon.” I cleaned up the mess and started walking. “Come on. Let’s check out the property. If we see someone, tell them we’re searching for a lost dog. That way we’ll have an excuse for looking around.”
“Gretel.”
“What?”
“The missing dog’s name is Gretel. She’s a German shepherd with the same coloring as Bella, only she’s normal size.” Tiffany gestured to her shirt. “She’s wearing a black collar, to match my outfit.”
I pointed at Tiffany’s fingernails. “Did you paint her claws black, too?”
She pursed her lips and peered at the sky, thinking. “I wonder … ” She glanced at Bella’s feet and scowled. “You’re messing with me. Their toenails are already black!”
I grinned. “Just checking. You seem to know a lot of details.”
“You’re not a very good liar. Details are important!” Her face turned red. “Not that I’ve had any practice.”
