A Slow Ruin

by Pamela Crane

  “Felicity, you act like every single thing is a clue, and every single person is a suspect.”

  I felt like I was stuck in a real-life version of Clue or Knives Out. Every character a villain, every backstory a motive. Felicity daggered me with a cold stare.

  “Until Vera is home safely, everyone is a suspect, including you.”

  Chapter 19

  Felicity

  The Barkalicious Boutique was the one place I could let it all go. The anger at the cops for not finding Vera. The impatience with the doctors for not curing Sydney. The sadness over missing Marin’s friendship. The regret of secrets that my family kept from each other. The frustration with Oliver for not fixing everything. But most of all, the fear that terrorized me. Physically my body still hurt from the hit-and-run. Mentally my brain was fried from wondering who was after me and why. Emotionally my heart was empty of hope. My dog-grooming business, my cute little store that I’d started from the ground up, was the one place I could rest my embattled soul.

  I remembered the day Oliver and I came to see this location that would soon serve as my storefront. The town of Oakmont was quaint, classy, and affordable. On one side of Allegheny River Boulevard sat huge potted plants and wrought-iron benches that invited passersby to sit and enjoy the row of contiguous shops, each with a unique and inviting facade. Carved pumpkins sat in clusters in front of Annie’s Antiques; a scarecrow stood sentry beside the door of a A Cut Above the Rest. Across the brick street was a narrow strip of grass where railroad tracks carried the occasional freight. Trees hung with plastic ghosts offered shade and colorful foliage for shoppers, hiding the view of the cliff face that plunged down to meet the river that had almost swallowed me and Cody. Oakmont was the perfect blend of vintage homeyness with a modern update. A perfect match for me.

  Home was only a five-minute drive from town, a fifteen-minute stroll. With three kids at home, I had wanted something close enough to allow me to pop in on Debra and Joe when they watched the kids, in case they needed anything. After more than a decade of being a stay-at-home mom, I had wanted something for myself. With no real job experience, my choices were limited, until my passion for entrepreneurism and pets evolved into an idea. From that idea the boutique was born. I traded our minivan for a conversion van, transforming it into a traveling dog-grooming service where I drove into low-income areas every Wednesday to offer free pet grooming. Even amid a struggling economy, the pandemic, and our family hardships, thanks to my innate business acumen and Oliver’s marketing expertise I had managed to keep my business afloat.

  After the last employee left for the night, I flipped over the Open sign to Closed then locked the front door of my doggie boutique. I exhaled all of the anger and impatience and sadness as I finished my day of customer greeting, dog grooming, floor sweeping, and forgetting.

  Animals were my preference to people most days. Dogs never argued or complained, and their biggest demands were for basic needs and petting. They were loyal, supplied endless love, and knew when to give you space. They understood the word no. When it came to showing love and compassion for helpless critters, though, that word wasn’t in my vocabulary.

  Take today for instance, when a strange woman rapped her knuckles on the entrance door almost thirty minutes past closing. On the sidewalk I saw a white husky puppy on a leash, its lolling tongue creating wet smudges on the glass.

  I unlocked the door and opened it a crack. “Can I help you?” I asked.

  The woman’s eyes settled on the bandage taped to my forehead. I self-consciously covered it with my hand.

  “Car accident,” I said.

  “Ouch.” She winced with empathy. “I heard that you took in stray dogs?” Her voice rose with the question, frantic but hopeful. “I found this one running around the neighborhood and I wasn’t sure what else to do with her.”

  Not again! This would make dog number four if I brought her home. The kids would be ecstatic, but Oliver would be livid. Somehow the kids always won, because even Oliver couldn’t resist puppy-dog kisses.

  “Technically we don’t take strays, but if the animal shelter is full, sometimes we’re able to place a stray with a home. Did you check with the shelter to see if she’s got a microchip?”

  “Yeah, I stopped by our local shelter and she wasn’t chipped. They ran an online search to see if anyone had posted looking for a dog that matched her description but found no hits. Unfortunately, their kennels are full so they said right now they don’t have room for her and told me to take her to another county shelter. That’s when I posted on social media about her and someone told me to bring her here.”

  Oliver would kill me. Absolutely freak out. One by one, as each of our three dogs was brought home with the promise that I’d find homes for them, I gave up after a week (or a day, if I was being honest) and let the kids name them. Never name a pet you don’t intend to keep. Thus the bond was formed, the kids got attached, and our fur family grew. What else could I do? Like I said, I didn’t know the word no when it came to animals.

  I swung the door open wide and took the leash. “Okay, I’ll take her and try to find a home for her. She’s beautiful. Certainly someone will fall in love with her.”

  The woman thanked me two, three times before rushing down the sidewalk before I could change my mind. After guiding the husky pup into the waiting area, I let her run loose around the store while I finished closing the register and wiping the counters. Bowing to my OCD, a trait Marin and I shared, I took a moment to straighten the pictures on the wall of some of Barkalicious Boutique’s satisfied customers: a chow-chow modeling a lion’s mane. A bow-bedecked Pomeranian. A shiny golden retriever wearing a classic red paisley bandana.

  I grabbed the dog’s leash and the keys to Oliver’s car. Although my car had a shockingly minimal amount of damage, the vehicle was officially ruined for me as even sitting in the leather seats caused a PTSD-level panic. As I pulled the front door open, the landline phone rang. The machine picked up.

  “Felicity Portman, I know what you did.” The woman’s voice was gruff and low, not a voice I recognized over the crackle of a bad connection. “You are the reason she’s dead. You deserve what’s coming to you.”

  My blood ran cold. The hairs on my neck prickled. The dog pulled at her leash. My fingers loosened. My knees wobbled as the door pushed back against me, holding me upright. Terror from the hit-and-run poured into my veins. One hard tug, and the dog took off out into the street just before the door slid closed. I demanded my legs work, carry me to the phone. I reached for the receiver, pressed it to my ear, screaming, “Hello? Hello?” into dead air. She had hung up.

  I scrolled through the missed call log, but the number was unavailable. I didn’t know if anyone still used *69 to trace a call, but I dialed it anyway. A maddening beep bounced off my eardrum.

  Who was this stranger? Was it the same person who ran me off the road? What did she mean? Was Vera dead?

  I was certain my heart was about to explode from my chest. My vision swirled, and sweat popped up across my forehead. One arm felt numb, both legs barely held me upright. The phone receiver clattered beside me as I dropped to the floor. Everything hurt. I couldn’t breathe. A heart attack? Panic attack? I didn’t know how to tell the difference.

  I closed my eyes, focused on each breath. For Vera. I needed to stay calm for Vera. I was reminded numerous times by Detective Montgomery not to overreact to every threatening call or misleading letter. I’d gotten hundreds of them when the news first broke that my daughter had gone missing. Angry recluses with nothing else to do wrote accusations of us hurting our own child. Fake sightings filled up my voicemail. Egg spatter and spray paint defaced my store windows. Our house had only been spared because of its distance from the road—and Oliver’s “Trespassers Will Be Shot, Survivors Will Be Shot Again” sign, which discouraged most (but not all) wackos and curiosity-seekers. After a couple months, the threats and sightings and vandalism waned as Ver
a’s disappearance was forgotten by the general public.

  Except one person who apparently didn’t get the memo.

  Whoever left the message knew something, it would seem, but it was worded vague enough to cast doubt. Another prank call I could shrug off? Or intimidation from someone who knew what I was hiding? After the hit-and-run, everything felt like a threat.

  Out in the street, a distant barking pumped my weakening body back to life. A car swerved past my door, leaving a long honk in its wake. The dog—I had forgotten all about her!

  Whatever strength was left in me coursed through my veins and I ran into the street just as the dog darted in front of an oncoming car. Tail happily wagging, the husky dutifully locked me in her sight, trotting toward me in the middle of the road. I waved my arms frantically as I ran into the street, hoping to catch the driver’s attention before it was too late.

  The screaming tires melded with my screams. Another five feet and the dog would be crushed. I couldn’t look. I turned away, eyes squeezed shut, waiting for that horrible thump any moment now…

  My body was knocked back a couple steps as I felt a handful of fur, opened my eyes, and bent down to scoop up the dog in my arms. She rewarded my bravery—or insanity—with a lavish tongue bath as the driver of the car yelled obscenities at me.

  “Keep your dog off the street, lady! I almost killed it!” He stuck his arm out the window and flipped me off.

  “You’re all class, you know that?” I yelled halfheartedly as he peeled away.

  Well, at least one thing didn’t die today.

  The phone call—there it was, back fully formed and present. “You are the reason she’s dead. You deserve what’s coming to you.” My first instinct was to call Oliver, the ever-present hero in my life story, the one who held me as I wept and chased away my fears with kisses. But he was no good to me now; I needed professional help. After stowing the dog in the backseat, I pulled out my phone and autodialed Detective Montgomery. Somewhere along the way I had memorized her direct line.

  “This is Detective Courtney Montgomery,” she answered.

  Clearly she hadn’t yet memorized mine.

  “It’s Felicity Portman. I got a phone call at my store today about Vera.”

  “What kind of phone call?”

  “A threatening one, I think.”

  She paused, exhaled into the phone, then said, “I’ll meet you at your store in a few minutes. I have some news for you too.”

  Chapter 20

  Felicity

  “We don’t think the body we recovered from the river is Vera.”

  This was the only part of Detective Montgomery’s long-winded scientific explanation about DNA and estimated time of death and victim age that I fully understood as she announced the good news at Barkalicious Boutique. While she still couldn’t guarantee certainty, instantaneous relief washed over me that it was most likely not Vera. Most likely not didn’t offer the fullest extent of comfort I wanted, but it was promising. The most reassuring words one mother could hope for, yet the biggest heartbreak for another. It almost felt wrong to celebrate the news as I hugged the detective in gratitude, while another mother out there crumbled to her knees. The possibility of me being that other mother someday was sobering, but for now I would be grateful and keep standing.

  When I pulled up my driveway, the detective’s unease about the voicemail followed me home. “If that hit-and-run hadn’t just happened,” she admitted, “I would consider this just another media junkie looking for attention. Especially with Halloween around the corner, which brings out the crazy in some people.”

  Like Eliot and Sydney, who had put the finishing touches on their costumes after ransacking the boxes of vintage Halloween decorations dating to Vera’s girlhood and plastering the house with them. They picked out the household’s most capacious pillowcases to hold the pounds of goodies they anticipated getting when I took them trick-or-treating door to door in Oakmont. Cute little plastic pumpkin buckets, they informed me—besides being corny—were woefully inadequate.

  “But I think we need to look into this further,” Detective Montgomery had added. “I’ll see if my tech people can trace the call. For now, try not to worry about it.”

  As if I could just turn the worry off. It was the only emotion living inside me anymore.

  In the backseat the husky whined and whimpered, ready to run. I parked Oliver’s car in his usual spot and led the dog around the front yard on her leash, letting her take in all the smells and mark the territory—first the rabbit bush, then a hibernating rose bush—as her own while I considered any possible way to hide her from Oliver. But he was already trotting down the front porch steps when I emerged from behind a dormant hydrangea.

  “Tell me that dog wasn’t just now getting hair all through my car.” His words shot out in pellets. “And it better belong to someone.”

  “She does now!” I teased. “C’mon, Ollie, you’re going to turn this sweet face away?” I bent down and let the dog lick my chin.

  “Not another dog. Absolutely not. Take it to the shelter. We’ve got enough to deal with without adding another animal to care for.”

  “I bet Syd would adore her.” Using the kids as pawns was usually off-limits, but ever since her diagnosis, Sydney got what Sydney wanted. When you didn’t know if it was your child’s last day on earth, you tended to overcompensate.

  “I bet Syd would prefer quality time with her mother over a furry surrogate.” When Oliver hit, he made sure it hurt.

  “Now you’re just being cruel.”

  “Felicity”—Oliver sucked in a breath, then continued—“wake the hell up! Your actions affect the rest of us.”

  “I’m not saying they don’t, but I don’t understand why you’re all worked up right now.”

  “You almost died in that car accident. And now you’re late getting home, not bothering to even answer your phone. I tried calling you a dozen times, and I would have driven around looking for you if Sydney wasn’t napping. After you nearly got run off a freakin’ cliff, you can’t just go MIA. Don’t you understand that I worry about you?”

  “I…I don’t know what to say, Ollie. I appreciate your concern, but you can’t micromanage every minute of my day.”

  “It’s more than that. You leave me to handle the kids while you self-medicate, or take secret late-night trips with Cody. And all that time you spend on social media and online support groups, or hiding in Vera’s room searching for clues that aren’t there. It’s not fair to me, or the kids, to be gone ninety-five percent of the time, then come home with a puppy as if that will fill the hole in your kids’ hearts while I’m forced to pick up all the pieces.”

  It wasn’t true. None of this was true. I was there for my children. I was making snacks and cleaning up messes and tucking them in bed. How dare he say I wasn’t present?

  “You have no right! No right to tell me how to feel or act! You think I’m a mess? Well, I should be a mess! And why aren’t you? Fifteen years we’ve dedicated every part of our lives to Vera, and you’re just going to give up on her after six months? Forget her as if she never existed? No, you’re the broken one, not me. I’ve lost one daughter, and I’m faced with the possibility of losing another, so I think I’m allowed to grieve in my own way, in my own time, Oliver.”

  Amid my screaming I didn’t notice the tiny figure standing at the door. The watery eyes watching us, the young mind absorbing all of this, piecing it together like one of his 300-piece LEGO sets.

  “Is Syd going to die?”

  Oliver spun around. I rushed toward the porch.

  “No, sweet boy, Syd’s going to be fine,” I said as I reached out to push a sprouting tuft of hair behind his ear.

  Eliot backed away from me, pressing himself against Oliver’s legs. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Hey, bud, your mom is right,” Oliver said, scooping his son up. “Syd’s going to be okay. You don’t need to worry.”
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br />   Eliot clung to his neck, glaring at me. I tenderly rubbed circles on his back, but he wiggled away. “Leave me alone!” Eliot yelled. “I want Daddy!”

  Where was my sweet boy in this madness? Was Oliver right—had I created this gulf between mother and child? Had I pushed Vera away too?

  I heard the crackle of a car pulling into the parking area, then turned to see Debra getting out of her car. Eliot was whimpering now with his face buried in his daddy’s shoulder. Debra quickened her step.

  “What’s going on with Eliot?” she asked, full of concern. “Everything okay?”

  Great. I so did not want to involve my mother-in-law in this argument. But here she was, arms folded, expecting an explanation.

  “No, Mom, it’s not okay. Your grandson overheard us talking about Sydney, and your son apparently thinks it’s unhealthy for me to worry about my children.”

  She cast a disappointed look at Oliver. She was a mother too; we understood each other. “Ollie.” It was all she needed to say to chasten him.

  “That’s hardly the issue, Felicity. You’re oversimplifying it,” he retorted.

  “Enough fighting in front of Eliot,” Debra said, kissing Eliot’s ruddy cheek. “Your sister’s going to be fine, sweetie. The doctors are working hard to fix her.”

  Eliot peeked out at her from Oliver’s shoulder. “Pinkie swear?”

  Debra latched her pinkie around his. “Pinkie swear.” Then she kissed his tiny knuckles. “And who is this cute little thing?” She reached down and patted the dog’s head.

  “A stray someone brought into the shop. I’m not sure what to do with her yet.”

  “Let’s name her Ploppy!” Eliot said with a giggle.