The houses were so close together it was almost impossible to walk between them without looking into the neighbor’s window.
Thankfully, Garrett’s neighbors kept their curtains drawn.
When I got around to the backyard, the back door was wide open.
“Babbitt?” I called out. Maybe he was still in the house?
I walked up to the back door and into the house. “Babbitt?” I called again not caring if Luke heard me this time. Babbitt still didn’t come to me.
“Excuse me, miss,” Jerry said, his eyes widening at the sight of me. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking care of Garrett’s dog like he asked me to.” I put my hands on my hips. “What are you doing here?”
“We got a search warrant and I ain’t seen no dog. But you can’t be here.”
No dog? Where had Babbitt gone? It was dark outside. How was I going to find him? Garrett would never forgive me for losing his dog.
“Are you sure you haven’t seen a dog?”
“Nope. Hey Luke, you seen a dog anywhere?” Jerry called up the stairs.
“No dog. No evidence. Nothing,” Luke said walking back down the stairs, his gaze focusing on me and then narrowing. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking care of Garrett’s dog like I promised,” I said returning his stare.
“Not doing a very good job if you don’t even know where the dog is,” Jerry said. And we both shot him looks of disgust. “Whoa sorry.” He held his hands up in surrender. “I’ll get the tow trucks on the phone to take the boat and the truck into impound.”
Luke nodded.
“Wait, impound? Why can’t you search them here?”
“We did,” Luke said. “But it’s protocol. The lab will need to go over them with a fine tooth comb since we think they’re the location of at least one murder.”
They’d find the money, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it without setting off Luke’s internal lie detector.
“You didn’t touch anything before we got here, did you?”
Only everything. “Uh, yeah. I touched the dog food and the doors, oh and I’ve been here before so I’m sure my fingerprints are all over the place.”
The hurt in his eyes made my stomach sour, but how else would I explain the possibility of my fingerprints being in Garrett’s bedroom? I’d been careful, but I still could have touched something. Plus hadn’t he told Jerry we were over minutes before?
“Fine, but you need to stay out while we search. And speaking of search, maybe you should look for the dog. Your boyfriend”—he practically choked on the word—“won’t be happy if you lost his best friend.”
I thought of how I’d feel if someone lost Fizzy and tears sprung to my eyes. I had to find Babbitt. “Are you sure he’s not upstairs somewhere?”
“Not that I saw.” Luke shrugged.
I turned and marched back out into the backyard. “Babbitt?” I cried out, my voice giving away the panic flowing through my veins. If only it weren’t dark, then I could see. I decided to search the perimeter of the fence for places he might have been able to escape. “Babbitt?”
“Rylie?” Shayla’s voice came from behind me making me jump a foot off the ground.
“Shayla, you scared the shit out of me.” I took a breath trying to steady my nerves.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. What are you doing?”
“I think I lost Garrett’s dog.”
“It’s okay. We’ll find him.” She started calling. “Did you talk to Luke?”
“Yeah, he’s still inside.”
She nodded. “Jerry was directing the tow trucks to take the boat and the truck from the garage.”
“They’re impounding them because they think they might be the crime scene.”
“Maybe we should start searching the neighborhood,” Shayla said.
Panic was turning into dread. How would we ever find an Alaskan Malamute on the run? He was probably halfway to—well—Alaska by now.
“Hey, Rylie?” Luke’s voice came from the doorway.
“Yeah?” I turned around.
“I think I found the dog.” He motioned for me to follow him and said a quick hello to Shayla as we walked back into the house.
The way he’d said it made me think Babbitt had been run over by a car or something. But when we got inside, he was curled up in a tight ball on the couch.
“I thought he was a pillow until I took a closer look,” Luke said.
I dropped to my knees and threw my arms around Babbitt’s neck as he kissed my face. “I’m so glad we found you. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”
Luke turned and walked away.
Shayla laughed. “How about I take you to your car now?”
“Babbitt is coming with, is that okay?” I hurriedly added, “If not, I can come back and pick him up after I get my car.”
“Of course it’s okay,” Shayla said.
Shayla said goodbye to Luke, and I threw up a wave before we went on our way.
After Shayla dropped Babbitt and me off at Cherry Anne, I pulled out the two orange bottles from my pocket that read G. Henry and with an expiration date a month out.
Babbitt nudged my hand with his nose and let out a low growl.
“I know, I shouldn’t have these, but I’m trying to help. I promise.”
Babbitt turned and began to investigate the back seat with his nose scratching at the leather now and then while I Googled the names on the bottles—Zineclara and Oretaline. I’d never heard of either medication. All of the fancy medical terminology on my screen made my head spin. I clicked off my phone. I’d have to do some more digging to figure out what they were for, but at the moment I just wanted to get home and curl up in bed.
17
The news of Boy Boy’s murder was all over my parents’ television screen when I woke up the next morning. Babbitt and Fizzy had become fast friends and didn’t move at all when
