I throw my pen across the room. It bounces off the wall and lands somewhere behind the couch.
This should be easy. Dean is my brother. Jo makes him happy in a way I’ve never seen. They’re getting married in two months, and Dean asked me to write an original piece for the ceremony.
“Nothing fancy,” he said. “Just something real.”
As if that’s simple. As if “real” is simple. As if I haven’t been trying to access anything real and coming up empty.
The irony isn’t lost on me that the only real thing I’ve written lately is about Delilah. About coffee stains and chaos and questions I’m afraid to ask. Fragments I scribble at two in the morning and pretend don’t exist by sunrise.
I used to write entire albums in the time it’s taken me to not write this one song. But that was before the well dried up. Before I came back to Twin Waves chasing a feeling I can’t name and running into one I wasn’t ready for.
Can’t exactly play that at my brother’s wedding.
I check my phone. 4:47. Dean gets off at five, and we’re supposed to hit the gym. Maybe some physical exhaustion will shake a melody loose. Or at least tire me out enough to stop thinking about awoman who’s left me twice and lives three streets away from where I’m sleeping.
I grab my keys and head out.
Dean’s placeis a small bungalow three blocks from the beach—close enough to smell the salt air, far enough to avoid the tourist traffic. It’s neat in the way bachelor pads are neat: functional furniture, minimal decoration, a single plant in the window that Jo definitely bought him.
I’m walking up the front path when Dean’s truck pulls into the driveway. He climbs out still in his work clothes, looking tired but not unhappy.
“Give me ten to change,” he says by way of greeting.
“Take your time.”
I follow him inside. The house is quiet. Too quiet.
“Where’s Rex?”
Dean frowns. “Should be here. Jo came by at lunch to let him out.”
He whistles. The sharp two-note command that Rex has responded to since he was a puppy.
Nothing.
He tries again. Harder this time. Then he’s moving—backyard, bedroom, bathroom, garage—each room checked and dismissed in seconds, the same systematic sweep he’d use on a structure fire. I’ve seen my brother handle emergencies for a living. He doesn’t panic. He assesses, he acts, he stays level.
But when he comes back to the kitchen, his hand is gripping the counter edge and his jaw is set in a way I haven’t seen since Dad was in the hospital.
“He’s never done this,” Dean says. “Not once. Not in three years.”
“Dean.” I point to the side gate. It’s hanging open, the latch dangling uselessly. “Did you know that was broken?”
Something moves across his face—quick, raw, immediately buried. Rex isn’t just his dog. Rex was his partner on the search-and-rescue team before Dean made chief. They worked wildfire evacuations together. Rex found a lost hiker in the Smokies when every other team had given up. That dog is the one living thing Dean has never had to convince himself to love.
“That gate has been fine for three years,” he says, and his voice is steady, but he’s already grabbingthe leash from the hook by the door, and his hands aren’t quite as calm as his tone.
“Apparently Rex disagreed.”
Dean pulls out his phone, probably to call Jo, then thinks better of it. “She’ll panic. Let’s find him first.”
“Any idea where he’d go?”
“He’s a trained search-and-rescue dog who spent five years learning to track scents across miles of wilderness.” Dean locks the front door behind us. “He could be anywhere in this county by now.”
Twenty minutes later,we’ve learned several things:
One: Mrs. Jamison saw Rex heading east on Magnolia Street, was very concerned, and also wanted to know if Dean could check her smoke detectors sometime.
