Chapter 21: Latch

Silvan's POV

Lacey called me at 6:41 and said, "Truffle's gone," in the flattest voice I had ever heard.

I was down the hill in four minutes, with Gerald running beside me off leash.

She was standing in her open gate with a flashlight she wasn't pointing at anything.

"A little girl saw him go up the hill," she said. "That's all I have."

"We'll find him."

"Don't say that. You don't know."

"Then I'll say I'll look until I do."

She nodded, once, with her jaw tight.

We went street by street, with children in costumes running past us and a witch laughing on someone's porch.

A boy dressed as a hot dog said he'd seen a spaniel with a red collar near the school.

We went to the school.

A man walking a poodle said he'd seen one near the church.

At the church, a woman said she had seen nothing.

She did have a very fine pumpkin, and she asked if we would like to see it.

By nine o'clock Lacey's voice had gone hoarse from calling.

At the corner of Alma Real, she stopped under a streetlight and put her hand over her mouth.

"I let him out," she said. "I tied the gate with an elastic, again."

"Lacey."

"I know what the latch does. I've known since spring. I just kept meaning to fix it."

"I'll have a man here in twenty minutes."

"No."

"I can have it done tonight. I know a locksmith who owes me."

"It's nine at night on Halloween. Nobody is fixing a gate tonight."

She was crying now, in a quiet and furious way.

I did the only thing I had left.

I put my phone back in my pocket.

I did not call anyone, and I did not offer a single dollar.

I stood beside her under the light with my hands at my sides.

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