Jessie is wearing a T-shirt with a Great Dane on the front that reads, “Want to play?” The shirt tells me all I need to know about her. She’s good people. “Hi Jessie,” I say, and despite how silly it sounds I add, “I’m Allie. I’m looking for Allison.”
“Aren’t we all,” she murmurs almost to herself before she says, “And how cute. Allie, looking for Allison. She’s not in. Can I help you?”
“Actually,” I say, awkward about the lie I’m about to tell, but somehow it comes right out anyway. “I’m her sister from Texas. She’s not returning my calls. I’m worried, which is why I hopped on a flight to get here.” I hug myself. “She’s really alone here.”
“Oh my,” she says. “I—well—I didn’t know she has a sister, and what kind of drugs were your parents on to name you Allie and her Allison?” She snorts but my really bad lie—I’m a horrible liar—doesn’t punch back at me and neither does Jessie. Instead, she moves on, her tone turning serious. “I’ve been worried as well. She’s not returning my calls either.”
“Did she stop showing up to volunteer? She loves this place. That makes no sense.”
“She told me she had a big work project going on and had to take a break, but it’s been about a month. I expected her to be back and we’re friends. We talk a lot. Have you been by her house? I almost went by myself.”
There is a twist in my belly with the implications of what she’s revealed. Bottom line, this is not good. “She’s not living in the house I knew of anymore,” I say. “Someone else is there now. Maybe I have the wrong address?”
“Let’s look,” she says, motioning for me to follow her. “Come to my office.”
I follow her to a doorway just off the lobby where a beat-up wooden desk sits against the wall. She motions to the chair next to the desk and we both sit down. By the time my butt is in the chair, she’s keying on an ancient beast of a computer. “Alright,” she murmurs. “Let me see. I have an address right here.” She reads it out to me, and my heart sinks.
“That’s the old address,” I say, my brows furrowing. “What is going on?” I give her a pleading stare. “Could this be about that man she was seeing?”
“I think they broke up.”
“So is it some sort of stalker and she’s running from him?”
“I don’t know. She was a little weird the few weeks before her leave, distracted even. One day she came in with puffy eyes. She said it was allergies but I thought it was more like the aftermath of a good cry.”
“Do you know his name? She told me she worked with him, but I swear I can’t remember his name.”
“She called him, ‘The King of the World,’ never a name. She seemed really in love. I envied her, but then something changed. She stopped talking about him.”
“I think she broke up with ‘The King of the World.’ There was a new man.”
“Not that I ever heard about,” she says. “The office she used when she was here is down the hall. Last door on the left. You can look around and see if you find anything.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll go by her workplace Monday, but I’m going to go nuts this weekend. Anything I can do to find her is appreciated.”
“Will you call me after you see her on Monday? Honestly, I should have tried her office. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“I’ll call you or stop by. It’s right up the road.”
She squeezes my arm. “Thank you, Allie.” She stands. “I’ll show you to her office.”
I follow her down a hallway and she motions me into a small, private office. I glance at Jessie. “She must be a pretty big part of the shelter to have her own office.”
“She has brought in more money than anyone who has ever set foot in this place. She hit up the celebrities at Hawk Legal.”
I decide I’d like Allison if I met her. Anyone who loves animals the way she does has to be good people.
“I’ll leave you to look around. I have to go back to the kennel and check on the animals. If I don’t see you before I leave, is there a number I can call you at?”
“Oh yes,” I say quickly. “It’s a New York number. I just moved up there. Now I’m kind of wishing I’d moved here,” I add, which isn’t a lie, not one little bit. I read off my number to her. She punches in the digits. “You should move here. You and Allison should be together. Life can be fleeting. Family should be close.” She doesn’t wait for a reply. She disappears out of the office.