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She opened the door and Dave shot out, bounding down the single step, flying across the flagstones of the patio, rounding the corner to the side of the house where the gate stood open. He raced through hot on the trail of whoever had dared enter. She ran after, barefoot, holding her robe together with her hands. “Dave!” she shouted. “Dave! Come!” But he was halfway down the street. “Dave!” she screamed, still running after him as he reached the intersection. Her heart was beating in a wild tattoo as he barreled into traffic.
No! No! No!
In her mind’s eye, she saw him being hit. Maimed or killed.
Brakes squealed.
Horns honked.
People shouted.
A woman screamed from a bicycle and skidded, barely missing Dave as he flew across the lanes.
“Oh, God!” Kristi increased her pace, didn’t care that the robe was flying open exposing her bare body, was only concerned for her dog. “Dave! Come!” she cried, frantic as she saw the dog reach the far side of the intersection.
Ignoring the traffic signs, she held out her hands to stop traffic and dashed through the spaces between the vehicles.
“Are you crazy?” she heard as she reached the park, gasping, her heart pounding, her mind screaming. Where the hell was he? “Dave!” she screamed. “Dave, come!”
But he was gone.
She asked a jogger and a mother pushing a double stroller with twins if they’d seen the dog, but both had shaken their heads and hurried by, the jogger moving swiftly, the mom on her phone and eyeing Kristi as if she had just escaped from a mental hospital. Kristi didn’t blame her. She was naked under the robe and too many people had caught glimpses of her body as she’d run, her feet were bare and muddy, her hair wet and wild. She wandered aimlessly on the paths that cut through the thickets and past a fountain, still calling out for him. But the dog could be anywhere, a mile away in any direction, and he’d barely been at the house; he wouldn’t know his way back.
She hadn’t grabbed her phone, wasn’t wearing her watch, couldn’t call anyone to help. If she couldn’t find him, she would have to go back to the house and get her car, start driving around and calling shelters and vets.
Heartsick, she did one quick lap around the park.
Nothing.
She tried to bolster her flagging spirits by reminding herself that Dave was wearing a collar with her name and number and he was micro-chipped. And if someone called her right now, a Good Samaritan who was looking to return him, he or she wouldn’t be able to get through. They would have to leave a message, wouldn’t they?
With one more sweeping glance around the park and noticing a thirty-something woman who was quickly shuttling her toddler away from the crazy woman in the dirty bathrobe, she gave up. There was nothing to do but go back home, retrieve her phone, get in her car, and start searching. Maybe someone had found Dave and had already left a message, or taken the dog to a shelter or a vet’s office.
She had to put her faith in the fact that someone would find him. Someone would bring him back. Or . . . what if the dog caught up with the intruder? Her heart turned to ice. What if the intruder was the same person who attacked her, who killed Jay, who had been in her home and left her the cards with the dark rose? “Don’t go there,” she said aloud.
“Hey!” a sharp male voice called from behind her. “Is this your dog?”
She spun quickly and found a tall man holding a belt as a makeshift leash hooked around Dave’s collar. Her knees nearly buckled in relief. “Dave!” she said as the dog strained at the belt, leaping toward her.
“Guess so,” the tall man said, walking closer, Dave’s momentum propelling him forward.
“Yes, yes!” she gasped. “Oh, God, thank you!”
“No worries.”
“But where?”
“He came right at me. Worried me for a sec.” He handed her the belt as she threw her arms around Dave’s neck.
“At you?” she asked, and a niggle of apprehension skittered up her spine. Who was this guy? “Why?”
“Don’t know, but he bolted out of a copse of live oaks and ran like a bat outta hell, straight at me.”
“And stopped?”
“Yeah. I thought he might be some kind of attack dog, but”—he shrugged, broad shoulders moving beneath a short jacket—“obviously not.”
“Obviously.” She straightened and took a good look at the man, in his thirties, she guessed, with jet-black hair that brushed over the collar of his jacket and deep-set eyes that were hidden by reflective sunglasses. His beard shadow was long past the three-day mark. He had an edge to him, a tension beneath disreputable jeans, a faded black T-shirt, and scruffy jacket. No smile in that hard jaw, no spark of humor in his expression. There was a toughness to him, evident in a nose that had been broken at least once and a tiny scar near his left eye.
