patterned with footprints.
She bent down and looked at Kleppy’s paws.
Dirt.
Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.
She looked out through the glass doors to the garden. To the fence. To where she’d dug in netting all the way along.
Lots of lovely loose soil. A great place to bury something.
Loose dirt was scattered over the grass in half a dozen places. Kleppy, it seemed, had been a little indecisive in his burial location.
‘You’re kidding me,’ Philip said, guessing exactly what had happened.
‘Uh-oh.’ What else was a girl to say?
‘You expect me to dig?’
‘No.’ She’d had enough. She was waking from a bad dream and this was part of it.
‘I’ll find it,’ she told him. ‘I’ll give it to you in the morning.’
‘Clean.’
‘Clean,’ she snapped. ‘Of course.’
‘It’s not my fault the stupid…’
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said, cutting him off. It never was. Of all the childish…
No. She was being petulant herself. She needed to get a grip. She needed to find the wallet and then think through what was important here. She needed to decide how she could do the unimaginable.
‘Of course it’s not your fault,’ she said more gently and she headed outside to start sifting dirt. ‘I took Kleppy on. I’m responsible. Go home, Philip, and let me sort the damage my way.’
‘I can help…’ he started, suddenly unsure, but she shook her head.
‘My headache’s come back,’ she said. ‘I can use a bit of quiet digging. And thinking.’
‘What do you need to think about?’
‘Weddings,’ she said. ‘And pasta makers. And dogs.’
And other stuff she wasn’t even prepared to let into the corners of her mind until Philip was out of the door.
She dug.
She should have thought and dug, but she just dug. Her mind felt as if it had been washed clear, emptied of everything.
What was happening? Everything she’d worked for over the last ten years was suddenly…nothing.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She dug.
It was strangely soothing, delving into the soft loam, methodically sifting. She should be wearing gardening gloves. She’d worn gardening gloves this afternoon when she’d laid the netting, but that was when it mattered that she kept her nails nice. That was when she was going to get married.
There was a scary thought. She sat back on her heels and thought,
How could she not get married?
Her dress. Two years in the making. Approximately two thousand beads.
Two hundred and thirty guests.
People were coming from England. People had already come from England.
Her spare room was already filling with gifts.
She’d have to give back the pasta maker.
And that was the thing that made her eyes suddenly fill with tears. It made her realise the impossibility of doing what she was thinking of.
Handing Raff Finn back the pasta maker and saying,
Why Raff? Why was his gift so special?
She knew why. She knew…
The impossibility of what she was thinking made her choke. This was stupid. Nostalgia. Childhood memories.
Not all childhood memories. Raff yesterday at the scene of the accident, standing in front of her car, giving orders.
Raff, caring about old Mrs Ford.
Raff…
‘We always wish for what we can’t have,’ she muttered to herself and shoved her hand deep into the loam so hard she hit the wire netting and scraped her knuckles.
She hauled her hand out and an edge of leather came with it.
She stared down at her skinned knuckle and Philip’s wallet.
She needed a hug.
‘Kleppy,’ she called. ‘I found it. You want to come lick it clean?’
Fat chance. It was a joke. She should be smiling.
She wasn’t smiling.
‘Kleppy?’
He’d be back on her bed, she thought. How long till he came when she called?
‘Kleppy?’ She really did want a hug. She wiped away the dirt and headed inside.
No Kleppy.
How many hiding places were there? Where was he?
Not here.
Not in the house.
The front door was closed. He could hardly have opened it and walked out. He was clever but not…
Memory flooded back. Philip, throwing open the door to stare at the front path. She’d gone to look for Kleppy, then she’d headed straight out to the garden.
Philip leaving. Slamming the door behind him.
The door had been open all the time they’d talked.
Her heart sank. She should have checked. She’d been too caught up with her own stupid crisis, her own stupid pre-wedding jitters.
Kleppy was gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ABBY searched block by block, first on foot and then fetching the car and broadening her search area.
How far could one dog get in what-half an hour? More? How long had she sat out in the garden angsting about what she should or shouldn’t be doing with her life?
How had one dog made her question herself?
She wanted to wake up the town and make them search, but even her friends… To wake them at midnight and say,
They’d think she was nuts.
Sarah wouldn’t think she was nuts. Or Raff. Her friends…
She thought of the kids she’d messed around with when she was a kid. They’d dropped away as she was seen as Philip’s girl. Philip’s partner. Philip’s wife?
