Stepdog (26 page)

W
hat the
fuck
?!” I shouted into the rainy air. “This bloke is psycho! Am I in a fucking
movie
? Is this
Breaking
fucking
Bad
?” My face was drenched. Everything was
drenched
.

I looked at the box in my hand. There were some lights, blinking, and other lights, not blinking. All mocking me. This was becoming just . . . surreal. It was mad enough that this bloke had turned out to be Sara's dog-stealing ex, but this was going beyond the pale.

With a rage I hadn't felt since adolescence, I bounced it off the ground. I fucking
danced
on it, cursed at the top of my lungs. In my rage, I reduced it to shards.

I stopped and stared at the ruins, completely spent and soaked to the skin.

Then I thought—and screamed aloud—“What an
eejit
! Why did I
do
that?” I should have left it on the roadside, or put it on some other car at a rest stop, some car going into a completely different direction! Instead I'd
smashed
it to smithereens. Fuck and double fuck! I started shouting again. It was no longer transmit
ting, so he'd figure out that I'd discovered it. Talk about failing better and better!

But . . . how could that devious bastard have put the tracker on my car? He hadn't been
near
my car—I retraced every moment of the time in North Carolina. He hadn't had a chance.

Maybe it wasn't him at all. Could it have been Alex? When I was drunk? Why, though?

Maybe Sara did it herself. Keep tabs on me since I was too irresponsible to be trusted without oversight.
Oh, for fuck's sake, Rory, ease up,
I thought.

Alto! It was
Alto
! He was a double agent, working for Jay while pretending to be helping us. That little wanker!

And then I remembered: when I dropped Cody off. Back in Boston. Jay had wanted to check out the MINI because he was nostalgic for his father's. I bet that was a lie. Bet his father only ever owned American cars or something. I howled with frustration. And then I got back in the car, bringing gallons of water with me, and called Sara. I expected her to be as hysterical as I was but she seemed relatively calm.

“. . . It actually shouldn't be surprising,” she said. I could hardly hear her thorough the din of the rain, so she might have been more hysterical than I was giving her credit for. “Like you said, he put it there before he knew you'd get her back. Meaning he was just trying to track you while
you
were following
him—
so he'd know if you were gaining on him. I have to say one thing for him, when he makes a plan, he
commits,
he's
thorough
.”

I brushed away an irrational impulse to see this as a critical comparison of the two of us. “Well, now he's probably been using
it to follow me, so what should I do about it?” I said. “I'm headed straight for Oklahoma City; don't you think I should divert, and then I'll have lost him?”

She said something I couldn't make out above the artillery effect of the rain. “What?”

“I said good idea!” she shouted. “I'm checking the route! Where are you?”

“There's a sign ahead for a place called Alma.”

A pause. “Okay. Tulsa! Tulsa's about an hour or so northeast of Oklahoma City. You're just about due south of it now. Set the GPS for Tulsa and I'll text you an address for a hotel in a few minutes. Okay? Can you hear me?”

“Okay, thanks,” I said.

“Drive safe in that rain!” she said.

I was overwhelmed for a moment with a sense of relief, gratitude, even elation. No matter how lost or freaked out I felt, there was Sara. She was a little rigid, but she was always there, she always had a solution, she always made everything better. And she asked little in return. Except that I embrace her dog. I really was working on that.

The worst of the rain passed, and minutes later, it felt like a scenic drive in Ireland. With the combined help of Sara's advice and the GPS, I changed direction to head north, but could see almost nothing in the mist. Just enough to truly feel as if I were back in the British Isles. Despite the stress of the circumstances, it was nearly comforting. I expected to see a little pub rise out of the fog, where I might duck in for a pot of tea, homemade soup with soda bread and butter.

I kept driving as evening gathered. And then . . . I'm not sure
how this happened, but instantly—instantly—there was a city. Tulsa. It came out of nowhere. From the dark wet night to sudden civilization, marked by a Hard Rock Cafe and a casino-resort hotel, brightly lit billboards, and streetlights. It was dazzling. Jarring, but dazzling. A final cloudburst made all the neon signs look like a riot of dancing jewels.

I turned up the GPS volume and let it guide me, first to a petrol station, and then to the hotel. Ah, yes. Welcome to Beige-ville. I walked into the beige lobby with the beige clerk in the beige uniform to get a key to my beige room, which opened onto the car park, which was not, thankfully, beige. The rain had stopped completely but now the cooled wind was whipping around. I let Cody out on a grass swath along the side of the building, but she mostly wanted to keep her nose down to take in all the smells from the rain.

Ten minutes later: moved the car right in front of my room, got Cody and her gear inside with my rucksack, fed her, and was headed into the shower. Turned it on really hot to try to work out the knots in my shoulders and arms and back. I was waterlogged by the time I got out, it was great. Two long showers in one day! Life was improving!

A quarter hour after that, feeling fully human for the first time in nearly a week, I locked the door behind me and went round to the lobby to ask about nearby restaurants. This hotel had none of its own.

As I approached the desk, I saw that one of the beige chairs in the beige lobby looked different from all the others, because there was somebody sitting in it.

Somebody I knew.

I
halted as if I'd walked into a Plexiglas wall.

“Hello, Rory.” It was him.

For a moment, I could not think. Of anything. I entirely forgot the English language. “How . . .
what?
” I felt as if a ragged zipper were being pulled up and down, open and close, inside the entire length of my body.

“You want an explanation of how I'm here?”

“Eh. Yes. And
why
. Look—” Since trying to avoid him wasn't helping, I might as well try to engage him directly. Maybe even talk some sense into him. If that were possible. I was calmer than I had been back in North Carolina, so maybe it was possible. Some dozen people milled about between us, waiting to check in. I brushed through them to get closer to him, still gobsmacked.

He shook his head a little. “The
why
should be obvious. I want Cody back. Do you consider me so feckless that one setback would defeat me? Give me a little credit. But I thought you'd be curious how I could find you without the tracker.”

I tried to sort out my best move. Cody was in my room. Trying to get her back into the car without his interfering was unlikely, as
he now seemed capable of anything. She was safest where she was, but somehow I had to keep him away from her. And he was right: of course I was curious.

“I'm curious,” I admitted.

Jay, always happy to know more than the rest of us, nodded. “When the tracking device stopped working, I guessed you'd found it and redirected, and Tulsa seemed the easiest place to go in lieu of Oklahoma City.”

“That gets you to Tulsa, but not to this hotel.”

He shrugged. “Remember last night in Chattanooga, when you were told somebody had already checked into your hotel room?” I still hadn't sorted that one out. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of saying so, but he could read my face. “Right, you do remember. That chain came up first in a search for dog-friendly hotels in Tennessee. So I called all the Chattanooga branches saying I wanted to upgrade the Rory O'Connor reservation until I found the one that actually had the Rory O'Connor reservation.”

“But I had a four-hour lead on you, how did you get there before me?” I demanded.

He smiled slyly, the old ruined-baron dignity intact. “I didn't, Rory,” he said, in a tone of mock apology. “I was never there.”

“But—”

“Everyone has their price,” he said. “In this modern age, you can bribe somebody over the phone without ever meeting them. The hotel clerk was going off duty and agreed to log my arrival even though I hadn't arrived.”

I blinked, confused. Shook my head. “
Why,
though? Why would you do that?”

“Because I could,” said Jay, slowly. “Because I want you to understand who you're dealing with. I'm taking this very seriously, so for your own sake, you should, too.”

That was the first moment I realized: this bloke must be a sociopath. Nobody goes to such extremes over a
dog
. Not even Sara would behave as mad as this and I've never met anyone as mad about their dog as Sara. “I do know who I'm dealing with,” I said. “I'm dealing with a grown man who is obsessed with somebody else's pet.”

“It sounds so tawdry when you put it like that.”

“When I
put
it like that? That's what it fucking
is
!”

“You'd think an Irishman would have more reverence for elemental needs,” said Jay, as if I'd disappointed him. “For the primal, the romantic. Anyhow, back to the point: once I knew which hotel chain it was, I knew it would be the same chain here. Sara's methodical that way. The trick was guessing Tulsa over any other city. Lucky guess. For all of us. As you'll understand in a moment. You're going to be very glad I found you, Rory.”

I stared at him for a moment, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the obvious question, but finally relenting: “Why?
Why
am I going to be glad you found me?”

Jay smiled and stood up. “I'm starving and I'm sure you are as well. Why don't we get a bite and talk this whole situation over? We're working with a bit of a time crunch, but luckily there's a restaurant within walking distance.”

So he was going to be infuriating.

“Let's talk first,” I suggested, even though my stomach was growling.

“You need to eat. I need to eat. There's only one restaurant
nearby, and I have more money than you, so you might as well let me buy you dinner.”

“What's the trick this time?” I asked.

“No trick,” he said, a bit too innocently.

I crossed my arms, lowered my voice so the beige people waiting to check in could not snoop on our conversation. “Bollocks,” I said. “You
always
have a trick. I've learned that much at least.”

“Well, if you need someone to
vouch
for me . . .” He took his phone out of his coat pocket and tapped the screen. The lobby hubbub was quiet enough that I could hear the little whooshing noise as he sent a text, I supposed prewritten. He pocketed the phone and gave me a knowing look. “Just hang on for one minute till that goes through. And then do what you like.” His implacable calm—once a panacea—was now his most infuriating quality.

My phone rang. I took it from my hip pocket. Sara.

“Answer it,” he suggested, since I was staring at it.

“Hey, love,” I said cautiously.

“Go to dinner with him,” she said in a low monotone. She sounded as if somebody were holding a gun to her head.

I felt the bottom of my stomach drop about a foot. “What?” I said, my gaze reflexively going to Jay's face. He gave me a Cheshire-cat grin.

“Do what he says. Go to dinner with him. Give him what he wants.” And then she added, as if it were an effort, “This isn't your fault.”

“What isn't my fault?” I demanded.

“That you'll have to give him Cody.”

“What?”
I said harshly, louder than I'd meant to. The lobby quieted abruptly, as if insulted, and Jay, with the air of a kindergarten
teacher, made a keep-it-down motion with his hands. God, how I wanted to punch him.

“He'll explain,” Sara said, sounding hoarse. “Give him what he wants. I will not blame you. Call me when it's over.” I heard her voice break on the last word, but she hung up before I could respond.

I stared in disbelief at my phone. Then I glared up at Jay.

“Dinner?” he said.

T
HE HOTEL SQUATTED
in a compound of corporate-headquarter-like office buildings. For blocks around, all was toneless glass-and-concrete buildings, now almost entirely devoid of human presence. These were ringed with overfertilized strips of grass that were in turn bounded by cement sidewalks that were probably almost never trod on. We trod on one now, however, in the dusk, the cool wind tugging at us. We were headed to the only restaurant in sight. It was a gaudy Mexican chain, without one single authentic Mexican anywhere near it. But it was pretty busy, with hotel guests, I s'pose.

Inside, it was low-lit but full of bright Mexican knickknacks, sombreros, blankets, and the Disney version of indigenous art. There was loud pop music playing, and a baseball game was silently filling four large screens around the room. These were placed so that it was impossible to sit anywhere and not see one.

A dolled-up blonde wearing a lot of eye makeup and lipstick, and who wanted us to notice her cleavage, led us to a booth and left us with menus and a drinks list. Even the way Jay, in his long, narrow coat, slid into his side of the booth suggested an old-world, old-money grace that belied his actual identity. Everything about
this bloke was a smoothly executed fraud. I had no idea who he really was. Or—I was realizing—what he was really capable of.

“An enchilada would hit the spot right now,” he said, glancing at the menu.

Despite the ambient noise in the place, our booth seemed to have its own sound buffer; we did not have to yell to hear each other. Which didn't mean I didn't want to yell anyhow, but I refrained.

“Yes, it would,” I said. So when the waitress came to the table a few silent moments later, I ordered what Jay was having: chicken enchiladas with a side of mole. He also ordered a margarita on the rocks. God, I'd've killed for a drink, but I ordered a club soda.

“Still recovering from the moonshine?” he asked.

“Very funny. Look, Jay, I know Americans are mad about their pets and all, but this is a bit
too
mad, isn't it? I know you were upset about losing Sara and Cody, and I know you want Cody back—I know all that, right, but why are you following me,
really
? Do you think I'm just going to give her back to you?”

“By the end of this conversation, I'm pretty sure you will,” he said. He unfolded his napkin and placed it on his lap.

“No, mate, I'm not,” I said. “No offense, but you need
help
. You can't keep following me. It'll drive us both mental. I'll do things we'll both wish I hadn't. So we have to come to an understanding now, tonight, because you
have to
back off.” It was the strongest and most decisive I'd felt in over a week. Good. Thank God some of my Roryness was finally coming back.

He shifted his weight to slouch against the bench back. “I will definitely back off after tonight, since Sara has finally agreed that I should have Cody.”

“Bollocks.”

“Didn't she say so on the phone?”

“She was very upset on the phone. She wouldn't just randomly decide to give you her dog. You said something to scare her into it.”

“Hmm,” Jay said, as if trying to remember what this might have been. “Probably it was about the rat poison.”

And with that, we hit a whole new unbelievable level of insanity.

“What,” I said.

“I need my dog back,” Jay said, calm as always, but a little more urgent around the eyes. “She is all that's left of the life I should be leading right now.”

“So you fed her rat poison. Right, that makes sense.”

“The interesting thing about rat poison,” said Jay confidingly, leaning in toward me, “or at least, certain kinds of rat poisons, the kind I'm familiar with, is that they take a while to work.”

“You haven't been near the dog for a day and a half. You couldn't have poisoned her,” I said, feeling a rising certainty that somehow, he had poisoned her. Why the fuck would he poison her when he wanted her back so badly?

He continued calmly, as if I hadn't interjected. “If an animal, let's say a dog, eats rat poison, they don't get sick right away. It takes a while before they're even symptomatic. The way it works is, the poison prevents blood clotting, and so eventually the animal bleeds to death internally. But not right away. It takes a few days.”

The booth was bobbing, swaying like a lifeboat on the open sea.

“You poisoned her
again
?” I managed to say.

“Chocolate isn't poison,” said Jay in a kindly corrective tone. “I had complete control over that situation. She was never in the
slightest danger. This time, there are variables. That's why I was worried when the tracker stopped working. You see how lucky it was that I found you anyhow?”

“You poisoned Cody.”

“I think it's only poisoning when it results in death or sickness. Is Cody sick?”

“You're telling me she's about to be sick. And then dead. You're
telling
me that.”

“Luckily for us all,” said Jay, “there's an antidote.”

The booth stopped spinning as I realized this was a mindfuck and not her death sentence.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Hydrogen peroxide again? That's so
unoriginal
.”

He grimaced. “We're long past hydrogen peroxide. Unless she'd puked it up within an hour, she needs massive doses of vitamin K. Which I have, and you don't.”

I stared at him, appalled. “You made her sick on the grounds that only you could make her better? You poisoned her in order to quote-unquote
save
her?
Twice
now? That's
twisted
.”

“I neither poisoned her nor saved her with the chocolate cake,” he insisted gently. “She would have felt bad for a while, but she'd have gotten over it on her own. That gambit was entirely to win your trust.”

“Bollocks,” I muttered under my breath.

“Well, it worked,” he pointed out. “This is a little different. This time, yes, she
needs
the antidote.”

“I can get vitamin K,” I said. “I can find a vet and get some.”

“In a strange city at eight o'clock at night?”

“There have to be emergency vet services,” I said.

“The window is closing. She needs an injection as soon as possible followed by massive oral doses.”

“You're full of shite. You never poisoned her. Why the fuck would you poison her? You're bluffing.”

He looked briefly affronted by this suggestion. Then he said, all business, “If you think I'm bluffing, then you should
not
give her vitamin K. Because the amount of vitamin K she'd need to save her life if she
has
been poisoned will probably kill her from blood clots if she
hasn't
been poisoned. How about that? And I'm the only one who knows if she's been poisoned or not, so don't make me unhappy.”

This was not happening. This was not happening. This was not happening. What kind of . . . “You're bluffing,” I said again, now uncertain. “It's all a bluff. She's fine. She doesn't need any vitamin K, so I won't be giving her any, and I won't be giving her to you.”

He grimaced, looking sad. “If you want to risk taking that position, I can't force you to believe me, but it will be quite distressing to
all
of us when she dies.”

“How could you do that to her?” I said, furiously. “How could you do that to a creature you love? What do you
gain
from it?”