“All right, puppuccino,” Pip said to Barney, bending down to unclip the leash from his collar. “Off you go.”
He looked up at her with his sloped, smiling eyes. When she straightened up, he was off, bounding up the muddy track and winding between the trees.
Her mom had been right; it was a little too late to be going out for a walk. The woods were darkening already, the sky a churned gray peeking through the gaps in the speckled trees. She wouldn’t stay out long, she told herself; she just needed to get away from her desk, get some air.
She’d been working all day on her personal essay, or at least she’d tried to. She had. She just couldn’t focus, her eyes wandering away from her whenever she paused, gazing at her list of suspects.
She didn’t know what to do next. Maybe try to talk to Daniel da Silva’s wife; there was definitely friction between the couple. Or focus on the burner phone, consider breaking into the homes of those suspects who knew about the phone and searching for it there?
No.
She had come on this walk to forget Andie Bell and clear her head. She reached into her pocket and unwound her headphones to continue the true crime podcast she was listening to. She turned the volume up, struggling to hear over the crunch of her boots on the fallen leaves. Listening to the story of another murdered girl so she could forget her own.
She took the short route through the woods as the world darkened around them. When twilight took a turn toward night, Pip veered off the path, dipping into the trees to get to the road faster. She called for Barney when the street was visible, thirty feet ahead.
She stopped at the gate and spooled the headphones around her phone.
“Barney, come on,” she called, slipping the phone into her pocket.
A car flew by on the road, its headlights blinding Pip.
“Barney!” she called, louder and higher this time. “Come!”
The trees were dark and still.
Pip wet her lips and whistled.
“Barney! Here, Barney!”
No sound of paws trampling through the fallen leaves. No golden flash among the trees. Nothing.
Fear crept up her toes and down her fingers.
“Bar-ney!” she shouted, and her voice cracked.
She ran back the way she’d come. Back into the dark engulfing trees.
“Barney!” she screamed, crashing along the path, the dog leash swinging empty in her hand.