Chương 2
Celeste remained where she was until Julian looked at her again.
Whatever she saw made her walk away.
She crossed the marble with her back straight, passing tables arranged for the announcement of her future. No one stopped her. The heel that had pressed into Sadie’s shoulder left a faint red crescent on the floor.
Outside, afternoon light poured through the glass doors. Bright green leaves shook above the avenue, indifferent to everyone inside.
Rufus took up most of the rear compartment of Julian’s armored SUV. Sadie climbed in beside the wooden panel before anyone invited her. Niko handed her a folded towel and shut the door. Julian entered from the other side. Mateo sat in front, speaking rapidly to the veterinary hospital and then to someone he addressed only as Keene.
The restaurant disappeared behind them.
Sadie kept one hand on the bandage and the other near Rufus’s muzzle. Her knees bounced with the vibration of the road. She had lost one practical black shoe somewhere between the dining room and the curb. Blood had dried beneath her fingernails.
Julian watched her for several blocks.
“You work with animals?”
“Not anymore.”
“You knew how to move him.”
“I started a veterinary technician program.”
“Started?”
She looked at him. “Are you interviewing me?”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
His gaze remained on her face for another second before returning to the dog.
Sadie had expected rage from him after the way the dining room reacted. She had expected threats, orders, a phone call that made somebody disappear. Instead, Julian sat almost motionless, his hand resting near Rufus without touching him. The restraint unsettled her more than shouting would have.
“Who is Iris Bell?” she asked.
“A woman I know.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“It is the one I have right now.”
Rufus coughed. A small bubble of red appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Sadie forgot Julian. “Drive faster.”
The SUV accelerated.
At Metropolitan Veterinary Emergency Center, three technicians met them with a wheeled stretcher. Sadie climbed out beside it and gave the receiving veterinarian everything she knew: where she had found Rufus, the approximate time, his breathing pattern, the blood, the way he had collapsed when Celeste struck him. Her words came too quickly. The veterinarian, a gray-haired woman named Dr. Priya Shah, touched Sadie’s elbow.
“You did the right things,” she said. “Now let us do ours.”
The double doors swung closed behind Rufus.
Sadie stood in the bright waiting room with her hands suspended in front of her, as if the dog were still there.
A television mounted in the corner showed a silent cooking program. A golden retriever wearing a plastic cone slept beside an elderly man. Somewhere beyond the doors, metal clattered against metal.
Julian spoke to the receptionist.
“All treatment,” he said. “No limits.”
The receptionist glanced at him, then at the black-suited men who had entered behind Mateo. “We still need an owner’s authorization.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Sir, until then—”
“Put it on my card,” Sadie said.
Everyone looked at her.
She reached into the pocket of her apron and found her wallet damp with blood. Her credit card had a limit of twelve hundred dollars, of which nine hundred and sixteen had already been used.
The receptionist softened. “We’ll stabilize him regardless.”
Julian placed a black card on the counter.
Sadie wanted to object. She had no rational reason to object, but the card seemed like another version of his hand deciding where the world would move. She was too tired to explain that, even to herself.
“Pay it back if that matters to you,” he said quietly.
“It does.”
“I assumed.”
Mateo walked toward them from the elevators. His expression had changed.
“Iris isn’t answering her home phone or mobile,” he said. “Her building manager says he hasn’t seen her since yesterday morning.”
Julian’s face emptied.
“Go there.”
“I sent Keene.”
“Go yourself.”
Mateo hesitated. “There’s something else. The chip registration lists an emergency contact.”
“Who?”
Mateo looked at Sadie before replying.
“Northline Community Services.”
Julian’s company, Sadie would later learn, owned half a dozen legitimate businesses and an unknown number of illegitimate ones. Northline Community Services was the charitable arm people photographed at holiday food drives. Its brochures used pictures of smiling children and elderly tenants holding baskets of produce.
At that moment, the name meant nothing to her.
It meant something to Julian.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You should.”
Mateo’s mouth tightened. “I’m checking.”
Julian stepped close enough that no one else could hear. Sadie heard anyway.
“You were responsible for her.”
“I assigned it.”
“To whom?”
Mateo glanced toward the waiting room windows. “The Vane acquisition team had local contacts.”
Julian stood very still.
Mateo left without another word.
Two uniformed police officers arrived twenty minutes later. One was young and kept looking toward Julian. The other, Officer Lena Brooks, had tired eyes and a notebook with curled corners. She separated Sadie from the others and brought her to an empty consultation room.
“Tell me what happened from when you first saw the dog.”
Sadie did.
She had been carrying a tray of champagne through the service corridor when a dishwasher shouted near the loading entrance. Rufus had stumbled in through a door propped open for deliveries. His bandage had not been there yet. Blood covered his chest. Someone had tied a length of yellow nylon rope around his neck, and a broken piece trailed behind him.
Sadie had dropped the tray.
Two glasses shattered. The sound brought the general manager, Owen Keel, and then Celeste, who had been inspecting the placement of her engagement cake.
Celeste had recognized the dog.
Sadie was certain of it.
She had stopped three feet away and said, “Not here,” in a voice that sounded less disgusted than frightened.
Sadie had asked whose dog he was.
May you like
Celeste told Owen to remove him before Julian arrived.
Owen ordered a busboy to drag Rufus out by the rope. Sadie stepped between them. She cut the rope with kitchen shears, wrapped her apron around the wound, and called for someone to contact a veterinarian.
