my daughter, if only I knew what had really happened.
“You might want to pack a small bag,” I said. “We’re going to meet John Colter tonight. And we need to leave before your mom gets home.”
Caitlin didn’t move. Her eyes were narrowed, her face suspicious.
“Well?” I asked. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
My words released her from whatever spell she’d been under. She jumped to her feet, and I left the room, leaving her to her packing.
My phone rang while I was waiting for Caitlin. It was Abby. I let it go to voice mail.
“Caitlin, hurry up!”
In a few minutes, Caitlin came down the stairs carrying a plastic grocery bag full of clothes. She wore the same jeans and sweatshirt combination she’d been wearing since she’d arrived, but something was different about her face. She was wearing makeup-presumably some of Abby’s-and her hair appeared to have been brushed and styled, despite its short length.
“We’ve got to go,” I said. The phone rang again as we went out to the car.
“I wish there was time to take a shower,” she said. “Is there?”
“No. I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
We got into the car and Caitlin threw her bag of clothes onto the floor. I backed down the driveway. Quickly-too quickly. The car veered off into the grass. I stopped, pulled forward and corrected, then backed out again. We made it into the street, and as I swung the wheel around to go forward, another car approached.
“It’s your mom.”
“So?”
“She knows something, that something’s going on.”
Abby pulled alongside. She waved her arms back and forth, almost frantic.
I inched forward.
Abby threw open her door and stepped out into the street. “Tom! Stop!”
I rolled down the window a little. “We’re just going out. It’s okay.”
“Buster called,” she said. “He told me what you’re doing.” She reached for my door handle and started tugging. “He acts more concerned for your daughter than you do.”
“Let go, Abby. Let go.”
She banged on the window twice, then reached for the rear door. I didn’t give her a chance to get to it. I hit the gas and pulled away. I looked back only once. She stood in the middle of our street, her hands raised to her head. I looked over at Caitlin, whose eyes were straight ahead, looking toward what was to come.
There were a few hours to pass before the sun went down. We drove around aimlessly for a while, crisscrossing town, passing through the campus and then out by the mall and the strip of chain restaurants. While we moved, I thought about what Abby had said at the house.
Without a doubt.
“Where are we going?” Caitlin asked.
“It’s too early. We need to pass some time.”
“Where are we going to do that?”
I cut through the center of town, dangerously close to the police station. I didn’t say anything, but I looked over at Caitlin as we approached. Her eyes widened a little. She understood.
“The dog pound?”
“Remember when we used to go there?”
She nodded.
I parked in the back so the car would be out of sight of the street.
We didn’t get out right away.
“What?” Caitlin asked.
“You know, I tried to get Frosty back after I brought him here. Your uncle Buster drove me here one day.”
“What happened?”
“He was gone. Somebody had already adopted him. I tried to get their name so I could go get him. I would have paid them for him, but the shelter doesn’t give out that information.”
“Oh.”
“It’s probably someone in town who has him,” I said, trying to be reassuring. “Somebody who likes dogs.”
“I don’t want to talk about Frosty anymore.”
“Do you want to go in?” I asked. “They might let us walk one.”
She nodded.
“Did you-? You said Colter was walking a dog when he picked you up at the park that day. So you had a dog where you were?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t his,” she said. “It was his mom’s. And they put it to sleep after a couple of years. It was old.”
“He started the whole thing with a lie,” I said. “You see what he-”
“Dad,” she said. She sounded tired. And maybe she was-of me, no doubt. “What does any of it matter now? You know?”
I didn’t say so, but silently I agreed. We got out of the car and went inside.
Caitlin found a midsized mutt, something that looked like a cross between a collie and a poodle, and after getting a few minutes of instruction from a volunteer, we took it for a walk. For a shelter animal, the dog did surprisingly well on a leash. It must have lived in a home where it had received some training at one time. It didn’t resist the leash or work against it. Rather, it accepted the tie and walked by Caitlin’s side.
While Caitlin talked to the dog, I looked over my shoulder, expecting at any moment to be surrounded by police cars. After about twenty minutes of strolling, we brought the dog back to the shelter. The volunteer smiled at us.
“Well, this looks like a perfect fit,” she said. “Will we be making an adoption today?”
I looked at Caitlin expectantly. I would have given her whatever she wanted.
But she shook her head. “No, thanks,” she said. “I’m just about to move.”
Chapter Fifty-three
We made one more stop before driving to the cemetery. The sun had slipped away, a red band of sky spreading just above the treetops. The air was considerably cooler, and the wind increased. Huge flocks of black birds moved across the sky, migrating.
I drove behind the grocery store to an area near its loading dock. No one was back there after hours, and when I dropped the car into park, Caitlin looked over at me.
“Why are we here?”
“I need to ask you something. I’ll only ask one more time. Are you sure you want to do this?”
She didn’t blink or hesitate. “I’m sure.”
“Nothing will be the same if we go there and do this,” I said.
“I know. That’s what I want,” she said. And then, after a pause, she added, “Is anything the same anyway?”
“No,” I said. “But sometimes there are chances to turn back and sometimes there aren’t. I think we’re at a point where it’s going to be hard to turn back.”
She took a deep breath. It almost looked like she shuddered.
