Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [79]
“That dog belonged to my girlfriend. I know how to handle him. A dog like that, you have to be firm, show him who’s the alpha. She’d want me to have him. She’s dead.”
Rocky willed herself into being a therapist again and not a woman alone with a crazed ex-boyfriend of a dead woman.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s so hard to lose someone.”
She saw a flicker near his eyes, a moment of hesitation, a moment of who he had been before he had turned into the bad boyfriend who couldn’t let go. Now he was stalking the dog because that’s all he had left.
Rocky had only worked once with a man who stalked his ex-girlfriend, and he came to therapy because he was convinced that going to therapy would get his girlfriend back. She had been struck by the absolute singularity of his pursuit; he became a laser beam, breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s computer, accessing her e-mail, her post office box, even tapping into her parent’s phone messages. Rocky realized that Peter had something that she wanted more than anything right then, the address and phone number of Liz’s parents in Providence. She became the predator. She became very large and faced him.
“I brought the dog to the shelter in Portland. I didn’t know about other family. Why don’t you check the shelter tomorrow. And I’d like to send the family a sympathy note. What’s the street in Providence?” said Rocky. She kept her gaze soft, remarked on the shockingly early arrival of night at this time of year, and jingled her keys as a cue to leave.
The address and phone number slid off his lips so easily. Rocky knew instantly that he had prowled the neighborhood in Providence searching for the dog. She thanked him like she meant it and walked past him to her truck. She held the car keys as if they could save her.
Rocky locked both doors of the truck and pressed her palms against the steering wheel. She suddenly had to pee worse than anything, but she was too afraid to get out of the truck, too afraid that he’d come back, that he would have caught her lie. He was on a mission, and his senses were shined up like silver. Any minute now he’d guess what had happened. Somehow Rocky had gotten what she needed from him, the phone number and address of Jan and Ed Townsend in Providence. Rocky had lied to him, said that the dog was being held at the shelter in Portland. She had until he took the ferry to Portland and drove to the animal shelter, worse yet he probably had a cell phone. But the shelter should be un-staffed at night. She had until tomorrow. He might call and find out that Cooper had never been there. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out what she had done.
She stopped her hands from shaking and drove the truck to her house. She drove right up on the winter grass, left the truck running and jumped out. She hadn’t locked her door, half the time she forgot. She grabbed the phone and punched in the number for the Townsends. The answering machine picked up and Jan’s dusky voice came on. Why weren’t they there? It was six P.M. and they didn’t look like the kind of people with either friends or hobbies.
“This is Rocky on Peak’s Island. This is very important. Your daughter’s former boyfriend is going to try and convince you to give him Cooper. Liz didn’t want Peter to have the dog. Look, it’s worse than that, something is off with this guy. I have a feeling he had been stalking Liz. Don’t let him in your house.” She hung up the phone.
She still had to pee. She didn’t want to. She knew it would take too long, but she had to. She marched into the bathroom and slipped her jeans down and sat on the cold toilet seat. Faster, go faster, she willed herself. She pressed on her belly. The next commuter ferry would be leaving in thirty minutes, and then not again until seven o’clock. She hauled up her pants. She couldn’t miss the ferry. Peter would have taken the ferry that just left. She grabbed an atlas, turned the pages to Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and in two running steps she was out the door and back