Chapter 3: Fourteen Missing Months
Margaret Doyle arrived twenty-seven minutes later in a blue sedan driven by her daughter.
Walter knew immediately that the reunion required no explanation.
The passenger door had barely opened when Buddy began whining.
Not barking.
Whining.
A thin, trembling sound Walter had not heard from him all morning.
Margaret stepped out slowly.
She was in her late seventies, small-framed, wearing a cream sweater despite the warm day.
“Buddy?”
The dog exploded forward.
Walter released the makeshift leash he had clipped to the collar.
Buddy crossed the grass so fast Margaret’s daughter moved to steady her mother.
The dog stopped inches from Margaret, jumped once, then seemed to remember her age.
Instead, he pushed his entire body against her legs.
Margaret dropped to her knees.
She buried both hands in his coat.
“Oh, Buddy.”
Walter looked away.
There were some moments strangers had no business staring at.
Ellen wiped beneath one eye.
Margaret’s daughter, Susan, crouched beside them.
Buddy moved between mother and daughter, tail sweeping the grass, making small sounds in his throat.
Diane was gone.
But the question she had left behind remained.
After Margaret had recovered enough to stand, Walter explained exactly what had happened.
He left nothing out.
Diane’s accusation.
The name Charlie.
The photograph.
Her insistence that the dog belonged to her sister.
Margaret listened without interrupting.
When Walter finished, she looked toward the sidewalk where Diane had been standing.
“I know that woman.”
Walter felt a chill.
“You do?”
“I don’t know her personally. But I’ve seen her.”
Susan turned to her mother.
“Where?”
Margaret hesitated.
“At our old house.”
Buddy had disappeared shortly after Margaret’s husband, Frank, died.
Frank had been seventy-nine and had spent the last six years of his life walking Buddy every morning.
They followed nearly the same route every day—past the creek, through the older section of Willow Ridge, around the community pond, then home.
After Frank’s death, Margaret tried to maintain the routine.
But Buddy changed.
He slept beside Frank’s empty chair.
He waited near the garage at the time Frank used to come home.
Sometimes he carried one of Frank’s gardening gloves through the house.
Three weeks after the funeral, a storm damaged part of Margaret’s backyard fence.
Buddy escaped.
They searched for months.
Flyers.
Shelters.
Veterinary clinics.
Neighborhood groups.
Susan even paid for online lost-pet notices.
There were sightings, but none led anywhere.
Eventually Margaret sold the house.
Too many memories.
Too much yard.
She moved twelve miles away to a smaller condominium near Susan.
“But what does Diane have to do with it?” Walter asked.
Margaret looked uncomfortable.
“After Buddy disappeared, people came to the house because of the reward.”
Walter understood.
“How much?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
Ellen’s eyebrows rose.
Margaret nodded.
“Frank loved that dog.”
Most of the callers had been well-meaning.
A few had been cruel.
One man demanded money before he would reveal where he claimed to have seen Buddy.
Another sent a photograph of a completely different dog.
And one woman had come directly to Margaret’s door.
“She said she knew where Buddy was,” Margaret said.
Susan’s face tightened.
“I remember her now.”
Margaret nodded.
“She wanted half the reward before she would tell me anything.”
Walter glanced toward Diane’s house, visible beyond two rows of trees.
“Was it Diane?”
“I can’t swear to it,” Margaret said. “It was more than a year ago.”
Susan was less uncertain.
“I can.”
Margaret looked at her daughter.
Susan’s voice was quiet.
“She was wearing that same black crossbody bag. I remember because she kept reaching into it while she talked. And she had that burgundy sweater.”
“Cardigan,” Ellen said softly.
Susan nodded.
Walter felt something settle heavily in his stomach.
Maybe Diane had recognized Buddy.
Maybe she had seen the tag and remembered the reward.
But that still did not explain why she had called him Charlie.
Or why she had accused Walter of hiding the dog.
Then Susan said something none of them expected.
“The reward notice is still online.”
Margaret stared at her.
“I thought you removed it.”
“I tried. But it got reposted in several groups.”
“How much does it say?”
“Five thousand.”
Walter looked toward the empty sidewalk.
The accusation suddenly appeared in a different light.
Diane had accused him of keeping Buddy for money.
Perhaps because money was exactly what she had been thinking about.
But Walter still had one problem with that explanation.
If Diane wanted the reward, why invent a sister and a dog named Charlie?
Ellen seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“She needed a reason to take possession of him,” she said.
Susan looked at Buddy.
“And once she had him?”
No one answered.
Buddy lay at Margaret’s feet, his chin resting across her shoe.
For fourteen months, he had been missing.
Now that he was home, Walter thought the mystery should have ended.
Instead, it had only become larger.
Because someone in Willow Ridge might know exactly where Buddy had spent those fourteen months.
