“And was it? Did they find it? What happened to it?”
He held up a hand at his grandmother’s questions. “They don’t have a clue. They don’t have any idea what happened to the dog.”
Jessica walked back outside again, her eyes constantly searching her huge backyard. When she had first found this house, she knew she had to rent it, as it would be perfect for Danny, with this great big backyard that he could grow into. And her landlord, knowing she was a single mom with a toddler, had installed security cams inside, just not in Danny’s bedroom or the two bathrooms. Yet her bedroom had a cam. Her landlord had a panic button installed in her bedroom, in case she ever had an intruder. Which was the extent of her interaction with the security system here, but it was everything to her. It made her feel safe.
Back then.
Not so much now.
And now she wished he had put up security cams outside.
She thought she’d seen that same dog but didn’t understand why he would stay here. She was a little jumpy as it was, since she and her son had been involved in a fender bender three weeks ago and subsequently had learned that her ex-husband had paid someone to intentionally slam into her. The very nerve of the man drove her crazy.
Separated for two years now, back then she’d gotten pregnant, and, when she had shared the good news with her husband, he had told her quite clearly that he wanted nothing to do with any kid or her. But now that Danny was alive and well, George had contacted her via their divorce lawyers just a couple months or so ago to say he now wanted his son.
All the peace and quiet that she’d fought so long and hard for was gone just like that. Part of her wanted to doubt that the fender bender could have been somebody acting at George’s request, but the guy had said that this was a message from George as he drove away. That had been enough to send her blood pressure through the roof, and her fears put her life into a tailspin.
She hadn’t reported it to the cops though because George was one of those scary kinds of guys. And, if he thought he could get away with murder, he would. The police wouldn’t stop him. She still pondered and chewed on the idea of reporting him, but the farther away from the accident she got, it all felt more foolish than anything. How would she possibly answer the evitable questions, such as why she hadn’t told them at the scene of the accident? Because she was afraid of her ex? But wasn’t that all the more reason to go to the police?
She picked up Danny and held him tight. When the toddler squirmed to be let down, she moved outside and put him on the veranda. She had a small fence all around it to stop him from going out into the big yard and was never more grateful for that than when she first saw the dog.
She didn’t understand that. But there’d been nothing but craziness since that fender bender. Well, actually before that. Three months ago George decided he wanted Danny now. His lawyer had contacted her lawyers. So she was more paranoid than ever, feeling like she was being watched all the time.
Now she didn’t know what to do. She called her mom, but her mother was of the opinion that Jessica was once again overwrought, making a big deal out of nothing. “You feel like you’re being watched? Jessica, really? And chase off the damn dog. It could have rabies or worse. If you had just stayed married, everything would have been fine.”
But then that was her mother—you were nobody if you didn’t have a man. Jessica gave a bitter laugh. “I wasn’t exactly anybody with that man,” she muttered to herself.
Her gaze kept scanning the backyard. That dog had been huge, dark, and shepherd looking, but she didn’t understand what he was doing here. Especially since she thought for sure she’d seen him at the accident site. An animal rescue was nearby, and he’d been in a pen. At least she thought so. The whole thing had been such a nightmare that she wasn’t even sure what she’d seen.
When the driver of the other vehicle in the fender bender had tried to get too close to Danny, who was in her car with her at the time of the accident, they’d had a screaming match, and he threatened to call the cops. The woman from the shelter had stepped out and had asked if there was a problem, and the guy had told Jessica this was a message from George. Then a dog appeared from the right and chased the man back into his truck and he took off.
The dog continued down the road after him. She didn’t know what would cause the dog to do that or who it belonged to. She thought it might have jumped the fence but didn’t get a clear enough vision of it to be sure.
She didn’t live too far away, just a couple miles, and, after the accident, she quickly got in her car and drove home. But she’d been shaky and upset ever since. And now she couldn’t get the idea out of her mind that the dog was hanging around. Never really close but always just on the perimeter.
She hesitated about feeding it because what if it was dangerous? She had her son to worry about. At the same time, it made absolutely no sense that the dog would have gone after the other driver.
Still she was torn, hoping the dog had good intentions toward
