I nodded, then looked out at the ocean. The Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse was out there. Everything was out there. “You said you would give dogs a chance. Remember?”
“In exchange for you giving me a chance. You haven’t exactly lived up to your part of the bargain either,” he said.
I had nothing to say to that.
“Tomorrow night?” he asked.
“Tomorrow night, what?”
“Let’s have dinner tomorrow night.”
“Okay,” I said.
He did a double take, then gave me a skeptical look. “Really?”
I held out my hand to shake his and clinch the deal.
He took my hand in his. “Finally! Yes!” he said in his deep baritone voice, laughing. He had a good laugh, I had to admit. “This has been some morning.”
“It’s been a busy morning. We had a dog food theft at my place, plus whatever is going on out here.” I shivered again. Something wasn’t right and I tried to decide if I would tell Chief Turner that I was worried. If I told him my misgivings would he still go to the lighthouse for the dog?
Then he was leaning in closer. I was aware of the sky lightening up. We were traveling west, so we wouldn’t see the sun come up even if we were on the water that long, but there was a rosiness surrounding us. “See how pink the sky looks?” I asked.
He nodded.
“It’s called nautical twilight. We’re between night and day, and the sun hasn’t risen but it’s still lighting the sky. Just a little.”
He smiled and nodded again, and leaned closer. “Maybe,” he said, “like us?”
I leaned in, thinking how my lips would feel in a few seconds. Suddenly I jerked back. “We’re being set up,” I said.
“Practically the whole town has been trying to get us together,” he said, with a hurt look on his face.
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Think about all that’s happened this morning. Someone wants us out of the way.”
“I can understand someone wanting me out of town, but why you?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You own the Pet Place,” he said.
I sat up straight, feeling the cold again. “It’s Pet Palace,” I reminded him.
He stood and looked out at the ocean.
“Maybe you’re right and it was just a crazy morning. Breaking into Buckingham’s and threatening my employees would ordinarily be a sure way to keep me there.” I was talking to his back.
He twisted around and said, “If someone arranged this to get me—or us—out of town, he picked a surefire way to do it.” Then he turned back and looked straight ahead. “What is going on out there?” he asked. I think more to himself than to me.
“You said someone had abandoned a dog on the lighthouse.”
“But why would anyone do that? Why not leave him on a road, or a parking lot? Isn’t that what people usually do?”
I flinched. I wanted to say something about animal rescue organizations but the thought of abandoned dogs made me wince, and I felt physical pain, like a punch to my gut.
Chief Turner was still talking. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come. There might be someone hiding inside the lighthouse.”
“I’m glad you called me. We can’t leave a dog out there, so you’ll need me to get him aboard.” I didn’t have to bring up the fact that our big, tough police chief was afraid of dogs. “I just realized I didn’t bring a leash.” I looked around. “Hmm, I wonder if there’s something on board I can use. I could make a harness out of three lengths of line but with any luck the dog is wearing a collar.”
“And I need binoculars. I’ll go talk to the captain,” Chief Turner said and began making his way to the wheelhouse.
“Remember to call it line instead of rope.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He stopped in his tracks and turned around to face me. “You know I’ve been on the water before?”
“Uh, no.” I knew very little about our police chief’s life before he moved to Lewes.
Suddenly the wind kicked up and the temperature lowered. We were still in the Delaware Bay but we were nearing the Atlantic Ocean. I lifted my face.
“You’re happy out here, aren’t you?” John was back with a pair of binoculars, and a line loosely looped over his arm, which he dropped to the deck next to my feet.
“Yes, I get why a dog likes to have his head out of a car window. Try it,” I said, knowing there was no way he was going to.
He walked to the bow and scanned the horizon with the binoculars, a slow arc to the starboard side then sweeping back to port.
“Can you see anything?” I asked.
“Not a thing,” he answered as he returned to sit beside me, and offered me the binoculars.
I didn’t bother to go to the bow. Instead I leaned forward on the bench. “All I can see is fog.” Then there was a break in the mist and the lighthouse magically appeared. The top two-thirds of the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse was white, the caisson base was black and she sat on a bed of concrete at the south end of the Delaware breakwater. Then I was back to worrying about the dog alone on the lighthouse. “What time did the pilot call you?”
“The call came into the station around 3:30.”
“I hope he’s still there. Sometimes a dog will jump in the water if he’s thirsty enough. Once Abby almost jumped off a bridge.” I lowered my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. “The Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse got a new dock last year. Hopefully water splashed up from between the planks or the grate and he got a taste of the salt water, just enough to make him stay where he is.”
The foghorn blast surprised both of us. Since it was coming from seventy-six feet above us, the volume wasn’t what had startled us, it was the feeling that the sound had come from nowhere. “It does that to me every time!” I laughed. “Get ready, there’ll be two bursts every thirty seconds.”
I darted to the bow and looked through the binoculars again. “Look!” I pointed at the small brown dog pacing on the concrete deck of the lighthouse. “There he is!” I turned back to Chief Turner, but he wasn’t there. “John?”
Voices traveled up to me from the port side of the boat. Chief Turner was talking to the captain who was nodding at whatever he was being told. Then he walked back to me and Captain Sandy Westlake went to speak to a crew member, who had been waiting aft.
“He’s going to go around before we dock,” Chief Turner said, taking the binoculars from me. He raised them to his face and looked out at the light.
“You really think this might be a trap?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I heard you call me John,” was his non-answer.
I rolled my eyes. “See the dog? It’s a Pug.”
“Yeah.”
Captain Sandy pulled back on the throttle and we drifted closer. The tall structure dwarfed us. From a distance, a lighthouse charms, but up close it thrills. The captain revved the engine and the Sun King turned for us to motor the half circle to the other side, up to the breakwater. The binoculars John held moved from the base, to each of the windows, then back again. Finally, he looked at Captain Sandy in the wheelhouse and nodded. We went back to the other side of the lighthouse and the new