which was good. Unless she wasn’t and didn’t want to tell me. And her reply gave me no useful information, like where she was or what she was doing. Whether she had a safe place to stay tonight. Had she left town? Was she already on her way to Iowa? Maybe I should have asked her something more specific.
Fuck.
I tossed my phone on the couch next to me. Now I was really being an idiot.
After finishing my beer, I watched TV until I felt sleep tugging at my eyelids. I went to bed, hoping I’d feel better—or just less—in the morning.
With sharp intake of breath, I opened my eyes to the darkness of my bedroom.
Why was I awake?
I listened for a long moment. Silence. I didn’t even hear Sasquatch walking around. Apparently whatever had woken me hadn’t roused him.
I’d probably been dreaming.
My mouth was dry, so I got up and shuffled to the kitchen to get some water. Still no Sasquatch, which was weird. Normally if I got up in the night, he’d come investigate.
Chill air brushed my bare shoulders and chest. Why was it so cold in here? Had I left a window open or something?
I put the glass in the sink and went to the living room to check the windows. All closed, but I still felt a cold draft. And where was my dog?
“Sasquatch?”
Usually he alternated between sleeping in my room and on his dog bed in the living room, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
With a growing sense of alarm, I checked the front door. Shut and locked. The spare bedroom was closed, as usual, so he wasn’t in there.
A gust of cool air wafted across my skin and I heard the creak of hinges.
The back door was slightly ajar. He must have gotten out. How the fuck had that happened?
With a groan, I stepped out into the chill night air. “Sasquatch?”
I’d always wondered if he’d figure out how to work the latch on the back door. He was too damn smart.
“Sasquatch, come,” I bellowed into the darkness.
He never ran off. Where the hell was he?
I was about to check the spare bedroom—I always kept the door closed, but just in case—when I heard a sharp bark coming from the tree line.
Sasquatch ran toward me, then did a U-turn and darted toward the trees. He circled back, running hard, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He brushed past my legs and ran away from me again.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He repeated the pattern, like he wanted me to follow him.
“Who are you trying to be, fucking Lassie? Did someone fall down a well?”
He stopped near the trees again and looked at me.
Something had him all riled up. I’d never seen him behave like this before.
“Sasquatch, I’m not wearing any clothes.”
That was apparently an unimportant detail. He ran to me, then toward the trees again.
“Fine. Hold on.”
I ducked back inside to tug on a pair of sweats and a flannel. I didn’t bother with the buttons, just slipped it on, shoved my feet into a pair of shoes, and grabbed a flashlight.
Sasquatch was still waiting for me by the trees. My property extended pretty far up the mountainside, and my brothers and I had cleared a winding maze of dirt bike trails. Sasquatch darted though the woods until he met up with the trail, then turned downhill. He ran ahead, then circled back, as if to be certain I was still following him.
I was still half asleep, but starting to realize I was following my dog into the woods in the middle of the night with nothing on me but a flashlight. Not exactly my smartest move.
He ran ahead again and disappeared around a bend in the trail. The beam of light glinted off something just around the corner. It looked like a bumper.
What was a car doing out here?
Sasquatch sat next to it, as if to say we’d reached our destination. I crept closer until more of the car came into view. Was someone in it? Who the hell would have left a car on my property?
Wait. That was Fiona’s car.
Fear jolted through me like lightning. Why was her car here? Was she in it? I ran, aiming the flashlight toward the back window, but her car was stuffed full. I couldn’t see anything.
Imagining all the worst reasons her car would be out here, I hurried around to the driver’s side and shined the light through the window.