One evening, Pedro received a message from an unknown number. The sender claimed to have seen a black and white dog hit by a car not far from campus a week ago. The words struck him like a blow. With shaking hands, he replied, asking for the police station’s details.
He drove there immediately, a knot of dread in his stomach. At the desk, he explained why he’d come. The officer checked the records and eventually found a photo of the dog—black and white, with a purple collar. Pedro’s heart pounded as he stared at the image.
But then, relief and sorrow crashed over him: the dog wasn’t Lola. The officer said the name on the tag was “Rusty.” For a moment, Pedro allowed himself to hope again.
That hope turned into determination. If Lola was still out there, he had to find her. He returned to the shop and thought hard about her routine. The leaf—always the same kind, always perfect. Pedro realized she must be picking it from a certain tree. He searched until he found a dry leaf she’d left behind, snapped a photo, and looked it up online: American Beech.
There was only one beech tree on campus, an old giant behind the humanities building. Without hesitation, Pedro rushed across campus, calling her name into the dusk.