The Last Caretaker by Jessica Strawser

Author:Jessica Strawser [Strawser, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-01T07:00:00+00:00

21

Katie heard the man before she saw him. She couldn’t make out the name he was calling, but the tone brought to mind a playground taunt. Come out, come out, wherever you are . . .

Her hands clenched the steering wheel as she slowed around the bend, shooting a nervous glance at Sky, who peered back at her, wide-eyed, from the floor of the passenger seat, where she was curled out of sight.

“Tracy! Traaaaaaaacy!”

The man up ahead had to be the same one she and Bess had seen across the pond, calling for the same mischievous beagle, but he wasn’t facing her. He was walking down the middle of the road the same way she was headed, between her and the bridge. Between her and the gate. Between her and Sky’s ticket to safety.

Why today of all days? Her heart leaped into her throat. Stay calm.

“I’m not Tracy,” Sky whimpered before Katie could ask. Wordlessly, Katie pointed to the blanket she’d tossed on the passenger seat as an afterthought, and Sky hastened to cover herself, balling up tighter while Katie assessed the scene. She couldn’t avoid him. She’d just be quick about passing. Act natural.

She slowed to a crawl, and at last he noticed the car’s motor behind him. His face registered recognition as he raised an arm in an apologetic wave and moved toward the shoulder to let her pass. She saw that this time, he held a blue leash with a broken collar at one end. But the sight of it did nothing to slow the adrenaline coursing through her body.

The road was so narrow, there was no way around saying something. She lowered her window halfway. The key was to keep driving, so he wouldn’t take this as an invitation to approach. Transporting Sky herself had been her idea. She couldn’t botch it.

“Again?” she called out, eyebrows raised.

He threw up his arms. “Call of the wild, I guess. I’m trying not to take it personally.”

Katie forced a laugh. She had a brief thought that she should ask Bess to pull up the gate footage later. Verify he really had come in with a dog. Find out his name. Anything to shake this feeling that something didn’t sit right. Plenty of things, she assured herself, are exactly what they seem. It could be a coincidence that both times she’d seen him, she’d had a guest on-site.

“Well,” she told him, “good luck.”

The man didn’t miss a beat. He waved and kept right on calling.

“We’re okay,” she breathed, as much to herself as to Sky, once he was behind them.

But even after they were out on the main road, even after Sky buckled in like an ordinary passenger, the cadence of the encounter echoed in Katie’s mind. That taunting Tracy, Traaaaacy.

The fainter it played in her memory, the more it sounded like Katie instead.

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