“Alright, I have to get back to looking at this house with binoculars, and you need to get to bed,” she announces.

I look down at my phone.

It’s 3:56 a.m.

This is the first time Ingrid and I have spoken in over a week, and it feels so good to hear her voice. I don’t want to hang up. Ever.

“Hopefully, this thing wraps up in the next couple of days and we can have our key ceremony,” she says.

“Yes, please.”

“Goodnight, Sleepyhead.”

“Goodnight.”

I open the door and step inside. I have everything to be upset about. I made a fool out of myself in front of two of the most powerful men in the free world. I accused one man of killing my mother, which seems more and more ridiculous each second that passes, and accused another of putting the moves on my girlfriend.

But I can’t help but smile.

::::

“Dude!”

Lassie is clawing at my face.

“Dude, what’s wrong?”

I push myself up. Lassie is wailing.

“Are you sick?”

I flip on the light and look at him. His hair is matted; he looks like he’s been sweating for twenty hours. His yellow eyes are rimmed in red.

“Shit.”

I jump up.

“What is it? Your stomach?”

I feel his stomach. He winces.

“What did you eat?”

I jump out of bed and run into the kitchen. After getting off the phone with Ingrid last night, I’d come inside, scooped Lassie off the back of the couch, and we’d gone to bed. I’d rubbed his belly for a long minute before I’d fallen asleep. He’d been fine.

I look for anything that he might have gotten into. Could he have gotten into some Windex? Isabel kept all her cleaning supplies in a closet, but it was closed. But then again, that’s not to say he couldn’t have gotten into something earlier. He was unsupervised for twenty-three hours a day; anything could have happened. He could have jumped off the couch and landed wrong. Smacked his belly on something and now he was bleeding internally.

I’d taken Lassie to the emergency vet once before after he was slashed by a raccoon, and luckily, the twenty-four-hour vet was only a mile and a half away.

I run back into the bedroom, grab a backpack out of the closet, and snatch Lassie off the bed. “It’s gonna be alright. We’re gonna get you fixed.”

I’m having déjà vu.

I snag the Vespa keys off the key ring, sprint down the stairs, and find the small scooter parked between two cars on the street.

I gingerly put Lassie in the backpack.

“Ten minutes. Hold on, buddy.”

I put on the backpack and zoom onto the side street.

Two blocks later, the backpack starts thrashing wildly.