“Mom says he’s not anywhere they’ve checked either,” I said. “This could be bad. Ira!”
Another dog bark. Ambrose turned toward the sound. “Ira!”
Bark.
“Ira!” I called. Bark.
“This way,” he said, starting to walk again. I followed him, checking between cars—God forbid—as I went. My phone beeped again.MOM WANTS POLICE, William reported. Uh-oh.
“Ira!” I called again, hearing a subsequent woof as I followed Ambrose’s blue shirt around some hedges to a loading bay bright with floodlights. Now Iwasrunning, my flats slapping the pavement. We passed a Dumpster and some smelly garbage cans before I spotted Ambrose’s dog, tied to a drainpipe. Beside him was Ira, patting his back.
“Oh, my God,” I said, slowing to a walk as I pulled out my phone.FOUND HIM, I texted. “Ira! What are you doing all the way out here?”
He turned, looking at us. The dog, seeing Ambrose, immediately got to his feet and began wiggling. “I saw a dog,” Ira explained. “I love dogs.”
“Of course you do,” I replied, walking over to a nearby door and pulling it open, startling a table of people talking just on his other side. I scanned the ballroom until I found my mom, then gave her the high sign. As she started hurrying over, Ira’s mom in tow, I said, “You hungry? There’s mac and cheese.”
Score: his eyes widened. I stuck out my hand, he took it, and I led him inside.
“Ira! Where have you been? You scared Mommy todeath!” his mom shrieked when she saw him. “Come here!”
He dropped my hand. “I want mac and cheese,” he announced as he started over to her.
My mom, smiling calmly at the onlooking table as she passed them, said to me, “What happened? If we’d had to call the police I never would have lived it down. Can you imagine?”
“He just wandered out this door,” I said, pulling it shut behind me so she wouldn’t see the dog. “Next time we’ll know to keep an eye on it if there are kids here.”
“Next time I’ll keep the ring bearer on a leash,” she grumbled, then looked at her phone. “William is reporting everyone’s going rogue at the buffet. He needs muscle.”
“I’m on it,” I said.
“No, you found the lost child.” She squared her shoulders, readjusting the diamond pendant she always wore to the center of her neck. “Take five minutes. Then go find the caterer to talk cake cutting.”
“Okay.”
She squeezed my arm, then started over to the buffet line, which had indeed become snaky and fidgeting in our absence. I opened the door again, slipping out into the loading bay. Ambrose was crouched down in front of the dog, scratching his ears. “Who’s a hero? That’s right,youare! Good boy!”
I could see a cloud of wiry hair coming off the dog, rising into the light behind him. “I thought you and I just saved the day.”
He glanced back at me. “Because Ira here told us where to look. You heard that bark! It was like breadcrumbs through the forest.”
Of course it was. “You’re calling him Ira now?”
“It’s his name.” He was still scratching, the cloud of hair growing wider. How could a dog shed so much and not be bald? “That was his way of telling us.”
“The barking,” I said, clarifying.
“Yep.”
“Ira!” I called out. The dog didn’t even look at me, much less bark. I looked at Ambrose.
“Do you always answer toyourname?” he asked.
I sighed. Even without the drama of a lost child, this wedding felt longer than others. “I have to go deal with the cake. Are you coming?”
I started back around the building, having decided to take the long way for some extra fresh air. A moment later, he fell into step beside me, brushing his hands against each other. “I have to hand it to you. This job is harder than it looks.”
“What did it look like?”
