He grumbled in the cabin of his car; he’d come back tonight with a flashlight if he had to. He was an expert tracker, and as tenacious as a wolverine.
Back on his own property, he skidded to a stop out front, shouldered open the car door, and then jogged up the steps, still muttering.
He had a thought, and stopped — maybe she ran away and they were too embarrassed to admit it. Maybe she came home and found the house empty. Ben turned and cupped his mouth.
“Belle!” He waited a second or two. “Be-eeelle!”
Emma came out holding his beer. “What’s going on?”
Ben spun to her. “The hell if I know.” He rubbed both hands up through his hair, feeling that odd tingle in his stomach again. “Something… weird.” He sighed. “Belle… you know Belle?”
“Uh, yeah.” She held out his beer. “Has something happened to her?” Her brow was furrowed as she looked up into his face.
“Yes, no, ah God, I don’t know.” He grimaced. “I took her to Frank and Allie’s, didn’t I?”
“Of course you did.” She half-folded her arms, still holding his beer. “Where is she?”
“They said I didn’t.” He scoffed. “In fact, they said they never heard of Belle.” His voice rose and he couldn’t help it. “They said they didn’t even know what a goddamn dog was!”
“That’s crazy; you must have misheard him,” she said.
“No, I asked him several times — no Belle, no dog.” He looked heavenward for a moment.
“Rubbish; we’ll go together, talk to them.” She paused. “Wait, let me grab a picture.” She vanished back inside, still holding his beer.
Ben waited, feeling a growing sense of unease in his gut. He suddenly felt like he was being set up for some weird practical joke that everyone was in on except him. All that was needed was the creepy twist at the end.
He heard Emma rummaging, and then the tone of her voice worried him even more.
“Ben?”
He raced into the house and found her in the living room by the fireplace, her hands resting on the mantle. She shook her head slowly.
“It’s gone.”
Ben looked along the items there. Everything was as he remembered — small vases, a colored stone Zach had found, and multiple pictures in silver frames. There was his mom, dad, Emma’s folks, a few of the property in different seasons, several of Zach, and then that was it. There were eight pictures, like there always was. Ben craned forward to the frames — one of the pictures was different now.
He walked toward it on stiff legs, feeling like he was in a trance. It was Zach, after football practice, grinning like a loon as he had scored the winning touchdown. His helmet was lying beside him on one side, and on the other… nothing.
“Where’s Belle?” He lifted it. “He had his hand on her head, and she was sitting, right, here.” He pointed to the empty space.
Emma’s mouth opened and closed and her eyes were blank with confusion. And he knew why — there was no golden dog, looking up at Zach with her typical, sappy, tongue-lolling grin.
Ben brought the picture close to his face, examining Zach, the grass, shadows, anything and everything, as he tried to find some sort of photo-shopping trick. He slowly shook his head.
“What the hell is going on here?” He looked at Emma whose face had drained of color.
His wife’s eyes momentarily widened and she then raced to the kitchen. He heard drawers, cupboard doors, then the pantry opening and slamming closed, and things rattling. Ben followed her in.
“It’s all gone.” She looked at him and just raised her hands, palms up. “All gone; her bowls, her food, toys, everything.” She just shook her head. “It’s like she never existed.”
“What’s a dog?” he mumbled. “Just like Frank asked.”
“This is a mistake.” Emma took the picture from him, bringing it close to her face and squinting at it.
Ben suddenly felt a deep sense of loss as if the animal had suddenly died. “She was real.” He lifted his gaze up at her. “What’s happening to us?” He smiled but without humor. “Thank God you see it too.”
“Or don’t see it, you mean.” Emma’s frown deepened.
“Mom, Dad?”
Emma’s eyes flicked up to him. “Zach… what’ll we tell him?”
Zach came belting into the kitchen but paused to spin and yell back to the door. “See you, Tim! Thank you, Mrs. Abernathy, bye!”
“Thanks, Angie,” Ben called, and heard Zach’s friend’s mom yell a farewell through the still-open door, and then close it for them.
Zach grinned widely, mop of black hair hanging over his green eyes, and rushed to kiss Emma and then hug Ben. He didn’t even notice their strained looks and instead headed for the pantry for a cookie. He came back and smiled at them through crumbs, but then stopped chewing.
“Wassup?”
Ben looked to Emma and she back to him, both waiting for the other to speak. Ben guessed it was only a matter of time, maybe minutes, before Zach asked where his buddy was, so…
“Zach, we think that Belle has gone missing.”
Zach’s brows pinched together. “Who?”
CHAPTER 06
Drake Masterson pulled on the rope tightening the sail in close to the hull, making the boat tilt toward the water in the breeze. Where he sat, he was acting as a counterbalance on the opposite gunwale, and the boat lifted the more it accelerated, requiring him to lean even further out.
He grinned as salt spray whipped his face, and his brawny forearms clung tight to the elasticized rope in one hand and the tiller with the other. The bay was warm this time of year, and a good breeze wasn’t to be wasted.
Drake’s security company was doing really well now. In fact, so well, he didn’t need to be there to oversee it anymore. So he got to spend his time doing something he always wanted to do — go sailing.
Starting from scratch, he took lessons and learned how, bought a boat, and then let himself loose on the water. Out here, it was just him, the waves, the wind, and the blue sky. In a good breeze, it made him feel like he was flying in his 25-foot Catalina Capri 22, with its flared hull, fiberglass and wood-trim design, all finished with a full racing kit.
The beautiful little boat he had named the Nellie, after his mother, also had a small cabin, and many a warm night he had pulled into a cove and slept there, with just the lapping of the water and gentle lifting of the current to rock him to sleep. Sailing was his calm after so many of life’s storms.
It allowed him one other thing as well — time to think. It had been nine years since he, Helen Martin, Emma Wilson, and Ben Cartwright had walked out of the Amazon Jungle. They’d been torn up pretty bad, but they were alive. Many who went in with them hadn’t been so lucky.
The more time passed, the more Drake felt like it never really happened. It was just all so… unreal. Down in the deep, dark heart of the Amazon, there was a tabletop mountain, a tepui, where once every 10 years it became some sort of portal back to a time of 100 million years ago.
You had to get in and out in just over 24 hours. If not, the portal closed, and you stayed. He scoffed; they’d lost five good people in the few hours they were there. Six if you counted the kid who decided to stay behind. But Ben Cartwright had survived 10 damned long years there. And they would have been 10 of the most hellish years any human being could imagine.
Drake found that anything and everything he had faced in this life, and that was a life lived fighting in Special Forces with Ben Cartwright against ruthless and bloodthirsty foes, was shaded by the creatures they encountered from that primordial time.