Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(47)

I’m wondering if I’m ever going to see Nick again. That’s the problem.

“Mrs. Walsh?”

She looks up, startled, sloshing coffee over the rim of the cup.

The stranger in the baseball cap is now standing at the foot of the steps. From here she can see that he’s college-age, with a scruffy goatee and a tattoo on his right bicep.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sorry,” he says again, watching her wipe her coffee-spattered hand on her denim shorts. “I’m here to walk your dog?”

Is he asking her, or telling her?

“Your regular dog walkers are on vacation this week,” he explains.

That makes sense, she supposes. Who isn’t on vacation this week?

“So you work for Dog Days?”

“Yeah. My name is John.”

“Hi, John. You can call me Lauren.”

“Because Mrs. Walsh is your mother-in-law, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“Women always say that. ‘Don’t call me Mrs.—that’s my mother-in-law.’”

How about Don’t call me Mrs.—my husband traded me in for another woman.

Or I’ve never even met my mother-in-law because her son stopped speaking to her when she left his father for someone else. And yeah, I guess it does run in the family.

“I’ll get Chauncey.” Lauren turns toward the door and jumps, once again startled to find someone standing right behind her.

Oh. It’s just Ryan this time, his hair damp and spiky from his shower.

“Geez, Ry, you scared me!”

“Sorry—I’m ready to go, Mom.”

“Can you just grab the dog?” She wipes her hand, once again wet with coffee, on her shorts. “This is John. He’s here to walk him.”

Ryan and John size each other up, then exchange the customary guy greeting.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“How come you don’t have a bunch of other dogs with you?” Ryan asks.

“A lot of people are on vacation. I guess they board them. So your dog gets me all to himself today.”

“Actually, Chauncey loves to hang with the other dogs, but…whatever.”

“Ry, are the girls still sleeping?” Lauren asks as he starts into the house—and she immediately regrets the question.

“I guess,” comes the reply.

What is she thinking, letting this stranger know that she has two daughters asleep in the house?

Uneasy, she glances at John. He doesn’t even seem to be listening.

“Wow, that sucks,” he says, focused on the porch railing.

Lauren follows his gaze to see that the butterfly has become ensnared in a spiderweb. Watching it struggle to free itself, she thinks again of Nick, trapped in his car, helpless, calling her…

The police. I need to call them, tell them everything, no matter what they think of me.

Ryan reappears quickly with a frisky Chauncey. John pats the dog’s head and is rewarded with a trusting lick on the hand. He fastens the leather leash to Chauncey’s collar. “Okay, fella, let’s go.”

Ryan picks up the nearest box. “Ready, Mom?”

Lauren hesitates. “We need to wait until John gets back with Chauncey.”

“What? But you said we could do this fast so I can go meet the guys.”

“I know, but—”

“Half the time no one’s even around when the dog walker comes,” Ryan points out. “They just come and go. What’s the big deal?”

“I can put the dog back in the house,” John assures her, as Chauncey strains at the leash, ready to get moving. “Someone’s home, right?”

“Yes, but…”

My innocent daughters are home, asleep, and you’re a stranger, and I’m feeling paranoid this morning and I don’t trust you.

“They gave me your key,” John tells her, “so you can lock the door and everything.”

They gave him her key? They just hand out keys to anyone?

Well, not just anyone. Surely the agency screens even its short-term employees.

Lauren thinks back, trying to remember whether anyone has ever pinch-hit for the regular walkers before. Not recently.

Possibly last summer, though. She never paid much attention to who was coming and going, accompanied by a posse of barking dogs.

After all, back then, she wasn’t living in the house alone. And before Nick gave her reason to avoid being seen around town in public, she didn’t spend much time at home on summer days.

“Mom, come on.”

“Go put that in the car, Ryan. I’m going to wake up Lucy.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ryan mutters, passing her with the box.

Lucy isn’t exactly known around here for bouncing cheerfully out of bed in the morning.

John is already headed for the sidewalk with Chauncey.

As she steps into the house, Lauren can’t help but look back over her shoulder at the helpless butterfly caught in the spider’s web.



Sitting on the window seat in her bedroom, Sadie watches Mommy and Ryan load the last of the boxes into the back of the car.

There goes all the stuff Mom says they don’t need or want anymore.