This Secret Thing, стр. 35

Us? Nico thought. He started to argue, but when he saw the urgency on Polly’s face, he didn’t think taking the time to debate whether dog chasing fell under his job description was in his own best interest. He just turned and ran in the direction the dog had gone. Perhaps, he thought as he ran, his efforts would ingratiate him with Polly, make Violet see him less as a threat and more as a friend.

“Officer!” he heard Polly call from somewhere behind him.

“Detective,” he muttered the correction through gritted teeth and stopped running.

He glanced over his shoulder to see her gesturing to his right. He assumed she meant for him to turn back in that direction so he pivoted right and obeyed. He tried to recall the dog’s name as he ran back toward Norah Ramsey’s house. In his mind’s eye he saw Polly nudging the dog with her foot. She’d said his name. He replayed the scene in his head again, saw her mouth forming the name: Barney, like Fife, the hapless cop from Mayberry—the very thing he didn’t want to be, but felt increasingly like, the longer his brother stayed missing.

He continued running until he reached the house directly across the street from Norah Ramsey’s. He knew the house, recalled what had happened there back in the spring. It hadn’t been his case, but it had been the talk of the town for a while, the nightmare of every parent. He and Karen had shuddered together, thinking that was the worst thing imaginable. Then Matteo had disappeared.

“Barney!” he called. He was out of breath from running, which made it harder to raise his voice loud enough to be heard. Huffing and puffing, he put his hands on either side of his mouth and called again. “Barney!” He looked from left to right, hoping for a glimpse of brown fur flying free. But everything was still. He turned and saw Polly and Violet approaching with matching worried expressions.

“You see him?” Polly asked as they caught up to him. Beside her, Violet made eye contact with him, not bothering to repress her sneer.

“No,” he admitted. “He just took off,” he added, sounding lame. Norah’s kid had a way of making him feel inadequate. She looked at him like she knew something about him that no one else knew. It unnerved him. He pretended to scan the horizon, but really it was just a way to get out from under her gaze.

“I knew I shouldn’t have opened the door to you,” Polly said, looking at Nico like it was his fault the dog had made a break for it.

Violet spoke up, her voice quavering. “How’s he going to know how to get back? He doesn’t know his way around here yet.”

Polly patted Violet’s shoulder. “He’s a dog, honey. They’ve got better smellers than we do. He’ll sniff his way home.”

A cartoonish vision filled Nico’s mind: himself on all fours, sniffing out the path his brother had taken, finding him with his nose. He bit back a sad smile as the image faded, the flash of childish hope fading with it. “Want to split up and search?” he asked.

“Over here!” a voice answered before Polly or Violet could.

Nico looked up to see a teenage kid standing on the driveway, gripping two excited dogs by their collars, one on either side of him. They were taking turns trying to leap onto the other, nearly knocking down the sturdy, stocky kid with the force of their jumps.

“I’ve got him!” the kid said. But Nico didn’t know how long that would be true as both dogs strained against the boy’s grip. He wanted to get the dog back inside Norah Ramsey’s house, bid them all goodbye, get back in his car, and view the alert from his security camera, checking on his family the only way he still could.

The three of them hurried over to the boy and the dogs. Polly had smartly brought Barney’s leash and quickly snapped it onto his collar, chastising him all the while. “Bad dog, Barney,” she said. “Bad dog.” Once the leash was secure, she tugged him over to her side and commanded him to sit, which he did, looking penitent even as he kept his eyes on the other dog, who followed Barney’s lead and sat by his master’s feet, too. For a moment there was just the sound of the dogs panting in unison, like a pair of obscene callers. “Sorry about that,” Polly said to the kid. “I’ll try to make sure he doesn’t get out like that again.”

The boy, who avoided meeting Nico’s eyes, looked at Violet. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“I, um, I mean, I d-don’t,” Violet stammered a response, looking pained.

Polly wrapped an arm around Violet’s shoulder proprietarily. “I’m her grandmother. I’m staying with her for a while. Barney is my dog. He’s anxious to learn his way around here, I guess. Make new friends.” She laughed, and they all seemed to relax. The situation was contained, the crisis avoided. For now.

The boy leaned forward and patted Barney’s contrite head. “Nice to meet you, Barney,” he said. He looked at Violet again. “He’s welcome to visit Chipper here anytime. Chipper loves to play with other dogs, and there’s not many around here.”

“That’s a nice offer,” Polly said. “Isn’t that a nice offer, Violet?”

Violet, looking like she’d rather die than speak again, simply nodded and ducked out from under her grandmother’s arm.

“I’m Polly Cartwright. And you are?”

“Micah,” said the boy, his voice lowering as he added, “Berg,” as if he were ashamed to say it. And Nico knew why. Last spring the kid had thrown a party—pretty de rigueur teenage stuff: parents out of town, kids drinking and trashing his house until the neighbors complained and the cops busted up the party in the wee hours. A typical house party until Micah had made a 911 call in the morning to report