“C’mon, puppy,” I said to him, untangling the cords as I walked.

It had sprinkled in the neighborhood overnight, and water pooled unevenly in the street. A neighbor was circling the duck pond with a set of Yorkies, so I took my time getting there, and she saw me with my two wild beasts and headed in the other direction.

At the pond, I let go of Purvis’s leash, and he walked slowly around the perimeter. There were no mallards today, or Beau would’ve gone ape shit and yanked himself out of his collar.

I sat on the grass at the edge of the pond, even though I immediately felt the wetness of the Marathon sod soak into my pants.

I pulled Beau into my lap, calming him down by putting my arms around him and rubbing at the tufty area that ran from his neck down toward his stomach.

After a minute, he was restless, and I got up, barely able to stand with fatigue.

Back at the house, I filled both of their bowls and stepped out onto the porch, hearing the scuffing of aluminum against tile as each of the dogs scarfed up their food, pushing their bowls with their faces until they clacked against the molding at the two corners of the kitchen.

Where the hell did the last day go?

My eyes grew lazy, and I realized that, other than the time with Kelly on the houseboat, I hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest in days. I had also been up for thirty hours straight.

I moved inside, closing the doggie door to lock the dogs in the house with me and keep the barking down. I closed all the drapes and turned the AC low, getting under the covers and letting the stress of the last week disappear.

Get some rest, my partner had said. And then get going.

When I awoke, seven hours had passed, and it was night. Maybe nine or ten p.m. Beau jumped onto the bed and walked straight across Purvis’s body to lick my face.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m up, boy.”

I took a hot shower while Beau ran laps around the house, chasing an imaginary foe.

I could hear him slam against walls as he cornered, and I wondered if we had chosen each other because of common DNA. Dead ends were my specialty too. But maybe with my mind clear, I could find some new string. Some tiny thread that would lead me back to Lena. Back to my past and this robbery and maybe even to a crash along I-32, two Christmases ago.

Coming out in jeans and a sweatshirt, I realized that Beau had accidentally closed the bathroom door on himself and panicked. Locked inside, he’d scratched half the stain off the door.

I let him out and stared at the damage.

I’d ask Kelly about it later. She was a painter. She’d know how to fix scratches on a stained door.

I moved into the dining room and took a weathered manila folder off the shelf. The one that had everything I knew about the Golden Oaks robbery on December 12, 2017.