Thirty minutes of searching my house from top to bottom, and I was starting to panic. Where the fuck was this dog?
Like, did he have superpowers I didn’t know about or something? I’d be having a detailed talk with Kline and Georgia about his abilities once I found him. Of course, I’d never actually mention any of this hellish time when he was missing to them. I’d just have to bring it up real casual-like.
But now, in the present, after looking through all of the fluffing kitchen cabinets, I was starting to run out of ideas. The only thing keeping me from losing my shit was that I knew he couldn’t turn the lock on the door, pull it open, close it behind himself, and relock it with a key.
It just wasn’t possible. Right?
“Hello?”
Oh, thank fuck. Wes answered. He wouldn’t know what to do—he was just as much of a screw-up as I was on most days—but he knew someone who would. Someone whose intelligence far exceeded that of all of those around her. Lexi Winslow, his ten-year-old stepdaughter.
Act natural, my frantic mind coached. Say something insulting.
“Hey, Prissy Bitch—”
Oh God. Too far, too far.
“I mean…hey, Whitney. What’s up?”
“You called me, Thatch.”
“Right, yeah, of course. Is…uh…Lexi there by any chance?” She didn’t always go to work with him, but on a Sunday, with Winnie having to work too, I had a fair fucking shot.
“Yeah…right next to me. Why?” Suspicion dripped like sticky syrup from his voice, but I pushed forward. This was too important to spend time dealing with Wes’s silly suspicions. I mean, what did he think? That I’d done something stupid? Always jumping to conclusions, that fucker.
You did lose a hundred-and-fifty-pound dog in a completely contained house, my mind reminded me.
Shit. Shut up.
“Can I speak with her?”
“Thatch, why do you want to talk to my daughter?”
“I just have a question for her. You know how fucking smart she is. I’m sure she’ll know the answer.” It was mostly the truth. That was the reason I was calling. The problem was just a little different than some form of advanced calculus dilemma.
Begrudgingly, he agreed. But I could tell he was questioning why the fuck we were friends in the first place. “Okay, fine. Here she is.”
“Hello?”
“Hey, Lex. How’s it hanging?”
“How’s what hanging?”
Lexi, one of the coolest people I’d ever met in my life, was considered high-functioning on the autism spectrum. She saw life in facts and figures, and she did it better than anyone I’d ever encountered. Still, opening with slang wasn’t going to help our communication.
“Right, sorry…I mean, how are you?”
“I’m fine. What’s your question?”
Right. In other words, enough bullshit. And she was probably right. I did have a goddamn dog to find. Kline’s statement rang loud in my head. He tears apart the house if I leave him alone without Evie.
But, fuck. I really didn’t want them to know that Stan was missing, so I’d have to skirt the subject.
“Hypothetically and statistically speaking, do you know where, say, a missing baby would most likely be in a house?”
“Statistically, most missing babies are with kidnappers. Whose baby is with a kidnapper?”
“Shh. Jesus. No. It’s not a—”
No. NO. God. Not a baby. I still had the baby. It’d be really fucking awful if I’d lost the baby. On impulse, I ran toward the nursery with the phone pressed to my hot ear just to double-check.
“Jesus’s baby is with a kidnapper?” she interrupted before I could clarify.
“No, fuu—dge. God. Shi—sh.”
“Jesus himself is with a kidnapper? That’s impossible.”
“No, Lexi, listen—”
“You’ve got Wes. What the fuck is going on?”
Fuuuuck.
“Nothing.”
“Thatcher Kelly. What in the fuck is going on?”
“Goddamn. You’ve gotten good at being a father, you know that?”
“Thatch!”
“Okay, Jesus. I kind of, sort of lost Stan.”
“You what?”
“Ow, fuck. You just burst my eardrum!”
“You lost Kline’s child! I think that’s worse!”
“I didn’t lose his kid! I lost his dog.”
“Oh…shit. Sorry, I heard baby. But the dog thing is bad too. Georgia’s gonna flip her shit. Remember when you lost Walter while they were on their honeymoon?”
“I didn’t lose Walter,” I protested, plucking a now awake Evie from her crib, holding her tight to my chest, and making a conscious effort to soften my voice. “Crazy Cassie did.”