Tessa
**NB. This story is as it comes – straight out of my head and may contain typos**
“You don’t risk your safety on a coin toss,” Dex growled.
“Look, the cops are underworked and overpaid.” Wait. That was wrong. “I mean overworked and underpaid.” Shouldn’t have had that wine. “They’re not going to come out for a lost dog, anyway. They’ll say he ran off after a cat or something.”
“Or a raccoon. When I first moved to LA, we lived in a real shithole, and my neighbour’s dog used to chase the raccoons off most every night.”
“We don’t have raccoons here.”
“You don’t?”
“You didn’t know that?”
“When I was a teenager, going to school wasn’t high on my agenda. Then I moved onto a tour bus, so I didn’t exactly get out much.”
“Right. Okay, so we don’t have raccoons, or bears, or coyotes, or cougars. Well, we do have cougars, but they’re a whole different thing in London.”
“Like hot MILF cougars?”
“Oh, I forgot. You probably have plenty of experience with those.”
“Yeah, we used to get Travis drunk and— Never mind.”
“Never mind what?”
“Look, your girl’s dating Travis now. I’m not gonna talk shit about his past. Aren’t you supposed to be catching a dog or something?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Just be careful.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“If you get murdered, I’ll have to sleep on Alana’s couch, and there ain’t nobody wants that.”
Hmm, that was sort of true. According to the gossip pages, the fan sites, and nearly everyone else in the world, Dex was the grumpy member of the band. And yes, he could be a bit of a grouch sometimes, but most of his irritation had come from a never-ending world tour and the pain in his knees. Now, the tour was finally over, and while his knees still hurt, they were well on the way to being better, although I suspected he’d still bitch at any paparazzi who aimed their cameras his way.
I put on a coat, and a scarf, and gloves, and a hat while Dex flipped through channels. Except it turned out he wasn’t just flipping through the channels; he was also texting Alana. I’d barely tiptoed to the top of the steps that led down to my front door when my phone buzzed. I almost ignored it, but I thought Geoff might have picked up my message.
“What’s going on?” Alana asked.
“Huh?”
“With the dog? Dex texted Travis and said you were looking for a dog. We’re on our way. Oh, and he said he was worried about your safety, so I called Blackwood too. They don’t look for lost dogs as a habit—not unless it’s in a ‘someone stole the dog and I want you to investigate’ way—but they said it was a slow night so they might be able to send someone.”
“Tell me you didn’t call Zander and wake him up.”
“No, I called Nye, and he came down to talk with me. We live in the same building, remember?”
Great.
Was I overreacting? Probably. Yes, I was worried about Geoff, but if Beans had just pulled the leash out of his hand and taken off after something small and furry, I’d feel really stupid for calling out the cavalry. And Geoff could have left his phone at home or even in the office. He’d done that once before—tucked it into his desk drawer and gone home without it. When he found it the next day, he’d just chuckled and said he was getting old. And, “Sometimes it’s liberating not to have that thing with me all the time. When I was a boy, we used to ride for miles on our bikes, not a care in the world. Youngsters these days are glued to screens of every shape and size.” He heaved a sigh. “Still, I suppose we have to move with the times.”
Yes, there was a good chance I was making a mountain out of a molehill. I should have done the sensible thing and told Alana to cancel the troops, but I honestly didn’t fancy traipsing around the old churchyard at night trying to find Geoff. I was maybe fifty-fifty on whether ghosts existed, but I knew a hundred percent that I didn’t want to start investigating the possibility on my own in the dark. There had to be thousands of bones lurking in unmarked plots beneath the grass, and above ground, the bench outside was a magnet for scruffy middle-aged men who liked to sit around drinking lager.
“It isn’t a lost dog; it’s a found dog. It’s the owner who’s lost. How long do you think Blackwood will take to get here?”
“Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Unless the response car gets called away somewhere else, anyway. You need to turn on your locator app.”
All Blackwood personnel had a bells-and-whistles app on their work phones, and one of the things it did was beam their location back to head office in King’s Cross. Employees’ families were offered a cutdown version of the app for safety purposes. Because Zander acted like an overprotective big brother most of the time, I also had it installed, and when I toggled the button, I’d appear as a blob on a screen somewhere. I turned it on.
“Okay, I’ve done it.”
“And I’ll be there in an hour.”
“You don’t have to—”
Dammit, she was gone. Instead of calling her back—which would do no good whatsoever because when Lanie put her mind to something, she didn’t quit—I dialled Dex.
“You’re an asshole.”
“What did I do?”
“Oh, just got about seventeen people to come and search the streets of Highbury.”
“Good.”
My turn to hang up. One day, after I’d won a Pulitzer, I’d be able to afford the rent without needing a roommate, and I couldn’t wait for that day.
I set off toward the churchyard, figuring I’d start there and head towards Geoff’s home in Newington Green. On any other day, it would take me five minutes to get to Christ Church, but after I’d slipped on ice once and nearly landed on my backside, I slowed down a bit. The streets were quiet, and a slight mist hung in the air. Damn, this was creepy.
Tonight, the church sat in silence, not even a lager-drinker in residence. Should I try walking through the grounds? Or take a look around Highbury Fields? Geoff had told me he liked to take Beans over there in the evenings, let him sniff around and do his business before they turned in for the night. I did know where Geoff lived—I’d had to drop papers off at his flat once when he left them behind in the office. Of course, I’d offered to scan and email them, but he said he preferred the real thing.
“Ms. Smyles?”
I jumped out of my skin at the sound of a voice behind me and whipped around. “Yes?”
Two black-clad men loomed out of the darkness, but I relaxed when I saw the Blackwood logo on their jackets. The one in front was heavyset with a shaved head and greeted me with a nod, and his wiry colleague offered a ready smile.
“I’m Mick, and this is Heath,” the big guy said. “There’s a problem with a dog?”
I explained what had happened—the post on BuzzHub, and the fact that Geoff wasn’t answering his phone. Mick looked at Heath and shrugged.
“Guess we should start by checking the churchyard, if that’s where the dog was found. You want to wait here, ma’am?”
Did I? Walking around graves wasn’t my favourite way to spend an evening, but being alone on the street also sucked. And was it starting to snow?
“I’ll come with you.”
They fetched torches from their SUV and then left it parked illegally on the street while we ventured through the church gate. Beams of light played over the metal railings, the stone walls, and the gabled windows as the two men poked around in bushes, checking for any sign of Geoff.
“Did you ping his phone?” I asked Mick. I wasn’t sure that was entirely legal without some kind of court order, but I knew Zander did it on occasion.
“It’s turned off.”
Oh. “Hopefully, it just ran out of battery?”
“Hopefully.”
There was nothing in the churchyard. After a fruitless search, we gathered outside, and Mick glanced toward Highbury Fields.
“We’d better check the park. If a man was walking a dog, that’s a place he’d go.”
“If you walk from here to his house, you don’t actually go into the park. He lives in Newington Green—I was going to head over there and see if I bumped into him.”
“He could have walked past here into the park, and the dog ran back towards home.”
“Where is the dog?” Heath asked. “You said it had been found?”
“A lady took him home, but I think she’s local. She said she was walking back from a yoga class when she found him wandering.”
“Dogs are smart. We could go and get him, see if he leads us to his master.”
“You think he could do that?”
“When I was in the army, I saw the search and rescue dogs working. They were a hell of a lot better at finding people than we were.”
“But Beans isn’t a trained search and rescue dog.”
“He still has a nose. It might be a waste of time, but…”
Decisions, decisions… What should we do?