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FIFTEEN
Around noon, Eden finished up with her last client of the morning. She was cleaning around her workstation when the bell up front rang. Her stomach growled as she set the broom and dustpan aside. Hopefully, the arrival was Lena coming back from her lunch break so Eden could take hers. There was a sandwich place right across the street with big windows that meant you could see whoever was inside. Chandler had checked it out and confirmed it was safe for her to run over there and have something to eat without needing to let him know. She relished the little bit of freedom.
As much as she appreciated everything Chandler was doing for her, and as little as she wanted to take any unnecessary risks that might put her in danger, she still wasn’t crazy about having to check in with him before she went anywhere or talked to anyone. She followed the rules he laid out, but that didn’t mean she liked them. And today especially, she was hoping to limit her interactions with Chandler as much as possible. The more distance the better between them today after their heated kiss the night before. She wasn’t sure about him, but she needed all the air and space she could get to clear her head and keep her priorities straight.
But when she got to the counter, she saw it wasn’t her friend who had arrived but a woman with what looked to be a dirty mop in a medium-sized carrier. It was a new client, or at least new to her, as far as she could recall. The woman didn’t show any signs of recognizing Eden, so she probably was just a walk-in, rather than another client Eden didn’t remember. It was still a bit unsettling to Eden when that happened, but gradually over the days she’d been back at the salon, she’d learned to cope with it better. She smiled at the woman—and her little dog, too. “Hello. Welcome to Perfect Paws. I’m Eden, the owner. How may I help you?”
“Hi,” the woman said, a warm smile in her brown eyes as she tucked her red hair behind her ears. “I noticed your sign said walk-ins welcome when I drove by, and I’m hoping you can help me.” She gestured at the carrier. “This is Nook. He’s a rescue dog I just adopted from a shelter. Unfortunately, he was a stray, so no background information on him, but from the looks of him, he’s been neglected something awful. I realize it will be a lot of work, but I really need to get him a bath and a haircut to make him more comfortable. Is there any way you can work him in today?”
From inside the carrier, a little whimper issued, and Eden’s heart melted. She bent slightly to peer inside at Nook. Big dark eyes stared back at her from a face with fur so matted it had to hurt. From the way the little guy was shaking, he was petrified. Eden had always had a soft spot for strays and misfits and all thoughts of lunch went right out of her head. Her next appointment wasn’t for another two hours. She should be able to get Nook taken care of before then. “Of course I’ll help you.” Eden straightened and smiled at the woman. “And congratulations on the adoption.” She dug out the new client paperwork and put it on a clipboard, adding a pen, before handing it to the woman. “Please fill this out for me while I get things ready in the back. When you’re done, I’ll get Nook started.”
Half an hour later, she had Nook and Sharon, his new owner, in the back of the shop with her, giving them a tour of the facilities. It was a thing she liked to do with new clients to make them feel more secure leaving their pets with her. Once that was done, she had Sharon get Nook out of the carrier and place him on Eden’s grooming table so she could examine him. She ran her hands over the small dog, glad to find his ribs not sticking out too much.
“Well, he’s very matted and dirty, like you said, but at least he doesn’t seem underfed. Any idea what breed—or breeds—he is?”
“They said at the shelter maybe Shih tzu and Maltese, but from the length of his body, I’m thinking there must be some dachshund in there too.”
“Maybe.” Eden continued her exam, checking the dog’s paws and teeth. “So, did the shelter pick him up from off the streets?”
“No—well, not directly. Actually, I’m the one who found him. I took him into the shelter, thinking he might be microchipped or something, but nothing showed up on the scan. They held him for a couple weeks, hoping someone would come looking for him, but no one did. So, I went back and adopted him.”
“Hmm.” Eden checked Nook’s ears next. Dirty, like the rest of him, but she was glad to see there were no signs of permanent scarring. “Well, these days, I’ve seen a lot of people turning in their animals or just letting them go because the owners have fallen on hard times and can’t afford to feed them anymore. Where exactly did you find him?”
“Just wandering around my neighborhood. I moved in about a month ago and found him after about two weeks.”
“Interesting.” Eden finished her exam of the dog and wiped her hands on a towel. “Okay. Well, I’d recommend shaving him at this point. Get rid of all the nasty, matted hair. Start over fresh. It will also give us a chance to make sure he doesn’t have any underlying skin issues like flea bites or ticks. I’ll give him a bath and trim his nails and clean his ears too. That will make him a lot more comfortable. Should take me about an hour and half, if that works for you.”
“Perfect!” Sharon said, smiling wide. “Thank you so much for helping him. Do you mind if I stay and watch? I’ve always been fascinated by the grooming process.”
“Sure. No problem.” Eden scooped up Nook and proceeded to slip a leash around his neck to hold him in place while she worked, pointing at a chair along the way. “Pull it over, if you want. Might make you more comfortable.”
Sharon did and Eden got started, turning her clippers on and running them down Nook’s back. “So, Sharon,” Eden said, making small talk, “what do you do?”
“I work at a children’s home.” They chatted about that a while, about how she’d gotten involved in the job—first as a volunteer, later as a paid employee—and how Sharon really felt like she was making a difference in the kids’ lives.
“Must be tough,” Eden mused. “Seeing kids coming and going all the time and knowing what they’ve been through.”
“It is, sometimes.” Sharon sighed. “But it also helps to know things are getting better for most of them. The staff works hard to bring them a little joy. A little hope for the future. The world needs more hope, I think. Honestly,” she said, cooing to Nook as he fussed a little in his restraints, “I kind of think the group home was why Nook was hanging around the neighborhood in the first place. The kids denied knowing anything about a dog, but they’re pretty bad liars. I think they’ve been secretly feeding Nook. I’d find scraps and tidbits stashed away all over the place. They aren’t allowed any pets in the group home, but if they saw Nook running around the area, I’m sure they’d want to feed him and take care of him as best they could.”
“Huh.” She continued to shave the dogs back legs. “Well, I’d think having a pet to be responsible for might be a good thing for the kids. It’s a shame they’re not allowed to have any.”
“Yeah, but there are a lot of regulations we have to follow. The home is paid for with government money, you know, so there are always inspections to make sure everything is safe and sanitary. A dog would make that difficult. Also, some of the kids might be allergic, and it would be confusing for the pets too, with the way the kids come and go from the place.”
Those last words caught Eden’s attention, reminding her of the background check they’d done on Jeff Ross. He’d bounced around in the foster care system. It occurred to her that Sharon might be a great source of information on what kids in the system were like—and who they might be close to.
“Do the kids in the group homes get close to each other?” she asked, working hard to keep her voice calm and nonchalant, as if she was just making conversation. “Or is it too hard to stay in contact when they go their separate ways for other placements?”
“It’s tricky,” Sharon said. “The goal is always to place children in a home with foster parents, so they don’t usually stay in the group home for more than two weeks. It’s not really long enough to get attached to anyone.”
“Well, what about in foster homes, once they do get placed?” Eden asked. “Do they usually get close to the other children staying there—to the point where they’d stay in touch if one of them was moved somewhere else?”
“It depends on the child,” Sharon said with a shrug. “Some are more open to making connections than others. And keeping in touch can be difficult, depending on their age and their access to different forms of communication.”
“That’s…” unhelpful Eden thought, but she bit the word back. “…sad,” she concluded. “I mean, that they basically go through childhood without having anyone they’re consistently close to, anyone they can talk to later on as an adult about shared memories from their childhood. That’s quite a burden for all foster kids to have.”
“Not necessarily,” Sharon replied. “Even if it can be difficult to keep up with other foster kids, it’s pretty common for the children to grow close with their foster parents. After all, the parents tend to stay put, so it’s easier for the kids to know where to find them if they want to reach out later in life. There are plenty of kids who keep in touch with their foster families after they age out of the system. It’s not like they portray in books and movies, where it’s all doom and gloom. Most foster families are great.”
The dots started connecting in Eden’s brain and she froze, clippers whirring uselessly in the air. Could this be the piece they were missing? Might Jeff Ross have kept in contact with his foster mother, who could tell them who he was close to now? It could be a long shot—or it could be the break they’d been looking for.
Eden filed all those ideas away as she quickly finished shaving Nook’s chest and front legs, then shut off the clippers and scooped the little dog up in her arms, unclipping the leash.
“Okay, Nookie. Let’s give you a bath, all right?” She smiled over at Sharon, excited to have something to tell Chandler that she’d figured out all on her own. “You can wait here. We’ll be out shortly.”
