There’s no way I’m staying in that house tonight. I call Paul and tell him that his mother is going to be alone unless he or one of his hulking teenagers comes to granny-sit. I rip off my funeral clothes and stuff them into my duffel. My jeans and a plain white T-shirt feel like home to me. I toss on a navy blue fleece vest and run a brush through my hair. I’m out of here. Except that I have no car. I don’t think I’m up to stealing Adele’s car, even if only for the night. I call a cab and sit on the steps to wait for it. While I wait, I call Mitch. We can indulge in New Bedford’s haute cuisine down on the historic waterfront.

Chapter 48

48

Fried clams and french fries. That’s what we end up with, and they are perfect, even if I have to convince midwesterner Mitch that consuming whole clams, with bellies, is the only proper way to eat the bivalves. Clam strips are akin to fake maple syrup—okay but not right.

Mitch pushes the mess from dinner across the table and sets up his laptop. We sit side by side, hoping to get within range of someone’s Wi-Fi. The first thing we do is look at the little video clip again. There he is, my little man, strutting his stuff on some stranger’s deck, his open mouth looking like he’s smiling, laughing. Enjoying himself. As if he’s right at home. I take a big swallow of my Sam Adams, trying to push the lump in my throat down. “What do we do now?”

“Let’s check out the local papers, read their lost-and-found ads.”

Mitch’s fingers fly over the keyboard, scouring the Internet for clues as to Mack’s whereabouts. Artie said he’d left him near Exit 8, so we search for newspapers in that geographic area. We find dailies in Springfield and Ludlow, Worcester and Hartford. None of them have a found ad to give me any hope, just sunglasses, bracelets, and a trash barrel.

Out of his black suit and dressed in chinos and an untucked denim shirt, Mitch looks a little more like the guy I hijacked, and I’m beginning to feel like he has a lot of variations: Hell’s Angel, Beau Brummell, and now average guy. He taps the keyboard. “Let’s put an ad in all of them. Tell me what to say.”

“Blue merle Shetland sheepdog with one blue eye and one brown one, missing in area of Exit Eight off the MassPike. Very intelligent. Answers to Mack. Desperately missed by owner. Call…” I can’t even get my number out before the magnitude of this loss clamps my throat tight.

Mitch pauses in his typing to wrap an arm around my shoulders. “We’ll find him.”