“Well, it might surprise you to know that not everybody is a criminal, and during the day we have a lot more to do than just chase those criminals,” he said, his tone humorous.
She shook her head. “I’m not making a whole lot of sense tonight. I’m sorry.”
“Nope,” Mack said, “and it just adds to my worry that you need to get inside and to get some rest.”
“I’m going to,” she said, but even the front steps looked to be too much for her. Slowly she made her way up, though she knew he was waiting and watching … and worrying. “I’m getting there. I’m getting there.”
“You are, but you’re also showing me how much you need to be off your feet for the next few days.”
She shrugged. “I can’t even think about anything else but that note,” she said.
“I’m on it,” he said.
She shot him a look. “Again, you can’t do a whole lot without Thaddeus.”
“I can,” he said. “I’ll take a look at that area from where Thaddeus disappeared, which is at the cemetery,” he said. “And he wasn’t gone all that long, yet somehow made his way back home, which is the surprise.”
She frowned at that. “It’s not that big of a surprise. He’s got great instincts.” She tried not to make her tone accusing, but it was hard when Thaddeus had disappeared earlier today.
“Hey, you don’t need to say anything,” he said, obviously picking up on her tone. “Believe me. I’m fully aware that I lost him at the cemetery.”
Immediately she felt bad. “No,” she said, “he has a mind of his own. And, when he gets on the scent of something, he’s gone, whether you like it or not. It wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s generous of you. I’m just glad we got him back,” he said.
She nodded, then walked into the living room and sank down on the pot chair.
“You shouldn’t stop here,” he said. “Go on up to bed.”
She looked up at the stairs and said, “I can’t. Too many steps.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Are you feeling that bad?”
She frowned. She didn’t want the sympathy or for him to worry too much, so she struggled from her chair and said, “No, I’m not that bad. I’m just tired. Once I have a rest, I’ll be fine.” Grateful he didn’t follow her up the stairs, at the top of them, she leaned over and said, “See? I’m fine.”
And, with that, he nodded. “I’ll check up on you later.”
“Fine,” she said. “Don’t wake me up though.”
“I won’t,” he said. Then he quickly turned and walked out the front door.
She used up the very last of her strength making it into her bedroom, where she sagged down onto her bed and pulled a blanket over her. She smiled to herself, as she felt all the warm bodies curling up around her, and she crashed.
Chapter 7
Sunday, Early Morning …
When Doreen woke up, she was surprised to hear birds singing and to see an odd half-light to the sky outside her bedroom window. She rolled over, stretched, and moaned happily. She felt pretty decent. She heard a snuffling sound at her side and looked to see Mugs rolling over onto his back, his feet skyward. She extended her hand and just barely reached one silky ear.
“Well, I feel better, so we must have had a good nap, and obviously it’s got to be past dinnertime.” Her stomach growled in agreement. “But do I have any food though? That’s the next question. Nan didn’t think so.”
She slowly sat up, moving gently because Goliath was curled up against her, and she didn’t want to disturb him. She reached for her phone and stared at it in shock, then turned it off and back on again.
“The dreaded thing must have frozen,” she muttered. But, no, when it came back up again, it still said 5:20 a.m. She shook her head. “Wow, did I really sleep from late afternoon yesterday clear through the night?” She slowly made her way out of the bed and headed to the bathroom. When she was done, she walked out and stood at the window. Sure enough, she could just barely see the rays of a rising sun in the distance.
She turned and looked at the rest of the animals; they were still in the bed, as if not at all willing to get up quite so early. She looked down and was still dressed in the clothes she had gone to bed in. With that realization, she slowly stripped, her pant legs still damp. She hadn’t even shucked them off.
Muttering to herself, she curled back up in the bed and laid here, comfy and cozy, cuddling the animals for a while. She drifted in and out of sleep, not really tired, not really awake, barely snoozing, letting the events of the previous day pass her by. How smart of Mack to come to the house to pick up the animals to help find her. It had worked, and then, while at the cemetery, somehow Thaddeus had either been taken, moved off, got lost, or something.
But no doubt a message was tied around his ankle when she found him, and, with that line of thought, she mentally dived into endless pathways, finding no answers, as she tried to figure out why somebody would have done that. If they could write that much, couldn’t they have written more, to at least give them some idea of where they were? But they hadn’t, and it was just somebody’s cry for help, sending Doreen nowhere. No directions had been given. No address. No landmarks. So it wouldn’t be an easy trick to find who had written the note, much less where to find him.
As she lay here, her mind immediately went to the little boy who had been scared of Mack yet interested in her animals. He hadn’t been well dressed and was so scrawny, like a couple steps up from starvation, but then little boys could be chubby or they could be thin. And, in this case, he looked like he was suffering. That made her sad too.
She hoped he wasn’t in any danger. Maybe he wasn’t going through a bad patch with the family, though her instincts told her otherwise. And the fact that Isaac had given her his first name but not a last name didn’t help. There had to be something she could do for him; she just didn’t know what. She also didn’t know that he needed anything, since it was just a single snapshot in his lifetime. Maybe he’d had a bad night or had just lost someone close. No way for her to know.
She stretched several times, then sat up and did a couple yoga poses, proud of herself for actually remembering them. Feeling better, she got up and stepped into the shower. By the time she came out, all dried off and dressed, it was quarter to seven.
“That’s a much more civilized time to be up and about,” she said to Mugs. But he didn’t respond, not so much as a tail wag. She reached down and scratched his available belly, then did the same for Goliath, getting a weird meow from him in surprise.
She laughed and walked over to where Thaddeus sat on his big roost and said, “Coming with me, Thaddeus?” He opened his eyes, blinked several times, then sleepily walked onto her shoulder, where he curled up in the crook of her neck. She headed downstairs to put on coffee, then opened up the back door for the fresh air and sunshine. It would be a very different season when fall hit and then winter settled in. She could really use a few more weeks of the sun.
Per the calendar it was barely summer, but the weather here in Kelowna felt like late summer. When the coffee was done, she propped open the screen door, and, with Thaddeus still the only one around, she picked up her cup and headed out to the river. She felt better but still tired and knew it would be a couple days before she had her full oomph back.