A moment later, Maverick’s truck, with Gabrielle in the passenger seat, came crawling down my driveway.He parked it, and they both climbed out.A third car door slammed, and Sam came running at me.She slid onto the step beside me, wrapping her long, spindly preteen arms around my shoulders.“I’m so sorry, Tom.”
Gabrielle and Maverick came to stand in front of us.
“This is fucked up, man,” Maverick said.
“Who steals a baby orphan horse?”Sam asked with anger in her tone.She shook her head and reached across me to say hello to Portia.I could tell my pig wanted to go greet Maverick and Gabrielle, but she also didn’t want to leave me.
I gave my pig a nudge, letting her know she could go give her greetings.She grunted, then with her tail wiggling, she went to sniff out the new arrivals.
Gabrielle didn’t seem to know what to do or how to handle a pig, but Maverick crouched down and demonstrated that you didn’t treat Portia any differently than you would treat a dog.
While they were busy with my pig, Sam grabbed my attention, and I faced her.“This is weird,” she said, glancing down at the screen.“Is that the video of it happening?”
I nodded and started the video from the beginning at five times speed so we weren’t dealing with hours of empty footage.
“Hang on.”She pointed at the screen.“Look.Pause it.Please.”
I paused it, and she used her thumb and index finger to zoom in.I didn’t even know I could do that.“Look at that.Do you see it?”
“See what, kiddo?”Maverick asked, standing up and leaning over so he could get a glimpse of the screen too.Gabrielle had apparently completely gotten over her fear or apprehension around Portia and was scratching my pig’s back and above her butt with both hands and calling Portia a “good girl.”
Butt scratches and bananas were the way to my pig’s heart, and Gabrielle was delivering one of them in full force.Portia would love her forever now.
“That … that flash,” Sam said.“Like something shiny, or glittery.A gemstone or a jewel.Do you see it?Something caught the camera at just the right angle, that there was a sparkle.Just for a second.But it’s there.”
Maverick nodded.“Yeah, yeah, I see it.Rewind it and play it again.”
I went back a frame, and by that point, Gabrielle was watching too.And sure enough, just before the two hooded figures came into view, there was a flash of something.
“A watch face, maybe?”Maverick mused.
“Or an engagement ring?”Gabrielle suggested.
“You hinting at something?”the young hockey player asked.
She elbowed him and rolled her eyes.“Maybe not an actual stone, but something synthetic?Like a rhinestone?”
I shrugged.“I have no idea.”
“It’s something though.”Maverick scratched the back of his neck.“They’re both in baggy black clothes and keeping their heads down.So it’s tough to tell if it’s two dudes, a guy and a girl …”
“Does Vincent have a partner?”Gabrielle asked me.
I shrugged again.“No idea.”
“Everyone else is out looking,” Maverick said, his eyes still on the screen.“But Sam asked to come see you.”
“Where’s my mom?”Sam asked.
I swallowed and glanced back down at my screen.“She, uh … she went searching.Took my truck.I don’t … I don’t want to leave the animals.I don’t want to leave Raven.”
“Oh my god, Raven!”And with that, Sam took off back to the barn, flinging open the door and running inside.
That left me with Gabrielle, and her penetrating eyes that seemed to know everything about everyone in just a few blinks, and her golden retriever hockey player.
Danica’s cousin studied me like a bug under a microscope, her hands on her hips, until I did everything but squirm like that tortured bug pressed between a slide and film.“Something happened …” she finally said.
“Yeah, a horse was napped,” Maverick said.
