The sun was beginning its morning ascent as Troy opened the French doors to the large pine wood deck attached to the back of the house. He stepped outside, a Thermos full of black coffee in one hand, and Duchess’s pink leather leash dangling from his other hand. The November air had a bite to it that made him wish he was wearing a jacket, but he wanted to get this search over with and didn’t want to return inside until he was done.

The deck was cluttered with patio furniture and a gargantuan Big Green Egg cooker that he had purchased only because another physician in his practice had boasted of having one, and Troy was never one to be outdone by a peer. He found no sign of the dog on the deck, but the dog usually scampered down the steps to the backyard. Sighing, he took a sip of coffee, and headed down the staircase to the ground level, vapor issuing from his lips in short bursts.

Their backyard was about half an acre, enclosed within a seven-foot-high wooden fence. The shortly trimmed grass was brown and dormant, the blades layered with frost. Elm trees dotted the perimeter, their branches naked. A children’s playset occupied the center of the yard, standing within a sandbox: the massive wooden structure included swings, two slides, a rock wall, and more.

Troy was about to check the structure, suspecting Duchess had scrambled up the staircase and was lodged in one of the many nooks and crannies of the playset, when he noticed that the gate on the far right side of the yard hung wide open.

That was odd. Typically, that door was closed and locked, opened only if someone was taking out trash to toss it into the garbage bin standing on the other side of the house.

He approached the doorway. An article of clothing lay on the ground, on the threshold of the entrance.

“Aww, no,” he said, under his breath.

It was his mother’s green knit scarf.

He plucked it off the ground. It was stiff with frost. From the feel of it, the scarf had lain on the ground for several hours, probably all night.

“Damn, Mom, what happened?” he said.

His mother had insisted that she had let the dog in last night, but why was the gate open? Why was her scarf lying on the ground?

Had she forgotten Duchess out here, too?

He stepped through the entrance. His neighbor’s house was about forty feet ahead, but what most concerned him was the densely wooded area that backed up to his property, beyond the fence. If Duchess had gone back there and gotten lost, or been attacked by some wild animal, Monica would lose her mind.

And she would blame Mom for it, too.