He had my dog.
He had my dog and there was a woman there and she sounded completely at home wherever they were and Goldie was barking in the background like everything was fine while I had been driving around this neighborhood for an hour crying.
I was going to lose my mind.
I opened my phone and pulled up the tracker app. The little dot was moving. I watched it for a moment until it stopped and the map showed me a location that was about twenty minutes from where I was sitting.
I started my car.
I called him back twice on the way and he didn’t answer and I was gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles were aching and I didn’t care. Three years. Three years I had that dog. And this man had come into my life like a hurricane and stolen my pet and apparently had a whole woman he was giving my baby to.
Was this what he did? Was all of this some kind of game and I was the one sitting here thinking it meant something?
I thought about the hotel room. About the way he had looked at me when he said he wanted all of it. Every word he had said, theway he said it, the certainty behind it. I had believed him. I had actually believed him.
My phone rang. Him.
I let it ring twice because I needed two seconds to get my voice under control before I answered.
“I have the dog,” he said before I could speak. “She’s safe. She’s been fed and she’s comfortable.”
“You have a woman there,” I said.
“Ivy—”
“I heard her. The call connected and I heard her, then I heard my dog and I need you to listen to me very carefully right now.” My voice was shaking and I was not entirely sure it was from anger anymore but I was going to call it anger. “I don’t know what you think this is or what kind of games you’re out here playing but you do not get to steal my dog and have it over there with another woman like that’s acceptable. I don’t care who she is. Get her away from you. In fifteen minutes, if you care about that girl at all you will have her somewhere else before I get there.”
“Would you just—”
“Don’t.” I cut him off. “Don’t talk to me right now.”
I hung up.
He called back immediately. I watched his name on the screen and let it go to voicemail. He called again. Voicemail. Again. I turned my volume down and focused on the GPS and the distance ticking down and tried to breathe through the thing happening in my chest that was equal parts fury and hurt and something else I refused to look at directly.
The GPS brought me to a PetSmart.
I sat in the parking lot for exactly two seconds after I pulled in because I saw them before I even found a spot.
Griz was coming out the front entrance. He had Goldie on a leash, my dog, my actual dog, trotting next to him like she belonged to him now. And next to him was a woman. Pretty, put together, laughing at something he had just said, completely relaxed in his presence the way you were only relaxed around someone you knew well.
Something white and hot went through my vision.
I parked crooked and got out of the car and I was across that parking lot before I had a complete thought in my head.
“Are you serious right now?” My voice came out louder than I planned and I didn’t lower it. “You have my dog. You have my dog and you’re out here—” I looked at the woman and back at him and every coherent sentence I had prepared on the drive over had went away. I moved toward her and Griz stepped between us so fast I didn’t fully register it happening.
His hands closed around my arms.
“Hey.” His voice was low and firm. “Stop. You trippin Ivy!”
“Get off me—”
“Ivy.” He said my name like a period.
“Stop and listen to me. This is family. She’s visiting. That’s it.”
I looked past him at the woman who was looking at me with an expression that had shifted from surprise to something considerably less friendly.
