Chương 4
She turned back to Brutus.
“We can use another staircase.”
“There’s a wooden service stair from the laundry,” Agnes said.
“Wider?”
“A little.”
“Less metal?”
“Yes.”
Brutus followed Clara there without hesitation.
Halfway up, Clara became aware that Adrian was following too.
She looked back.
He stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep looking at him.”
“I own him.”
“That isn’t why.”
Adrian rested one hand on the banister.
“You’ve been here forty minutes and already feel qualified to diagnose me?”
“No.”
She resumed climbing.
“Good.”
“I was going to say I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone.”
Nolan, behind Adrian, looked suspiciously toward a wall.
Clara suspected he was hiding a smile.
The small sitting room turned out to be larger than Clara’s entire apartment.
Agnes brought her a pair of soft black pants, a gray sweatshirt, and thick socks that clearly belonged to no uniform supply closet.
“Whose are these?”
“Guest clothes.”
“That is not a normal category.”
“It is in this house.”
“Do you keep emergency wardrobes?”
“We keep everything.”
Agnes put the clothes on a chair.
“Mr. Vale dislikes being unprepared.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
Agnes left before Clara could decide whether the answer had been disloyal.
Brutus stayed outside the bathroom door while Clara changed.
When she emerged, he was lying across the hallway like a collapsed bridge.
“You really have decided this is a thing.”
His tail moved once against the carpet.
Clara sat on the floor beside him.
She did not touch him.
He placed one paw on her sock.
“That’s manipulative.”
The tail moved again.
Someone set a tray on a low table.
Tomato soup, grilled cheese, coffee, and an apple.
Clara stared at the sandwich.
She had eaten half a granola bar on the bus.
Her stomach betrayed her with an audible growl.
Brutus raised his head.
“Mind your business.”
She took the sandwich to the floor.
When Adrian entered ten minutes later, Clara was sitting cross-legged beside his enormous dog, eating grilled cheese while Brutus stared at the sandwich with profound moral disappointment.
Adrian stopped in the doorway.
“You know he’s fed.”
“So am I, technically.”
“You’re feeding him?”
“No.”
Brutus looked at Adrian.
Then back at Clara.
Adrian noticed.
“Good.”
Clara took another bite.
“Were you worried I’d ruin his diet?”
“I was worried you’d reinforce begging.”
“He hasn’t begged.”
Adrian looked at the mastiff’s face.
“He’s been staring at your hand for five minutes.”
“That is lobbying.”
Adrian almost smiled again.
He sat across from her.
Brutus immediately lifted his head.
Clara watched the dog.
Adrian noticed that too.
“You think he’s afraid of me.”
“I think he watches you differently.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
Adrian leaned back.
“What would you need to know more?”
“Time.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Days?”
“I don’t know.”
“Weeks?”
Clara set down the sandwich.
“You’re doing the thing wealthy people do.”
His expression cooled.
“What thing is that?”
“Trying to buy certainty.”
A long pause followed.
Clara regretted the sentence almost immediately.
She needed this job.
She needed rent money.
She needed the collection agency that had called twice yesterday to stop calling.
She did not need to teach a dangerous stranger lessons about money.
Adrian looked at the untouched half of her sandwich.
“Maybe.”
That was all.
No rebuke.
No threat.
The lack of reaction unsettled her more.
He glanced at Brutus.
“What do you need?”
“For him?”
“Yes.”
“A vet evaluation I can read.”
“You can read the last three.”
“His full medical file.”
“You can have it.”
“Information about where he sleeps, what he eats, who handles him, where he panics, where he doesn’t, what happened before every bite.”
Adrian nodded once.
“And?”
“I need people to stop testing him.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Explain.”
“If he doesn’t want to cross a doorway, don’t drag him through it to see whether he’ll tolerate it today.”
“No one does that.”
One of the guards standing outside suddenly shifted.
Clara heard it.
So did Adrian.
He looked toward the doorway.
The guard became still.
“Who?”
Clara glanced between them.
“I don’t know.”
“Someone does.”
“I said if.”
“You looked at him.”
The guard’s face changed.
Adrian stood.
Clara did too.
“No.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Sit down.”
“Don’t punish someone because I made an assumption.”
“It wasn’t an assumption.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know people.”
“So do I.”
The words came out sharper than she intended.
For a moment, neither moved.
Brutus rose between them.
His head remained low.
Clara immediately stepped back.
Adrian saw that.
His anger disappeared from his face as quickly as if someone had shut a door.
He sat again.
Brutus did not.
Clara stayed standing.
Adrian looked toward the guard.
“Later.”
The guard nodded.
Clara disliked the relief she felt.
She also disliked the fact that Adrian had listened.
It complicated him.
“Why did he bite the trainer?” she asked.
Adrian’s eyes returned to her.
“The man tried to force a muzzle.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“Leather?”
“I said I don’t know.”
The edge in his voice returned.
Clara looked at Brutus’s scars.
“Then find out.”
Adrian went silent.
Clara expected resistance.
Instead he took out his phone and sent a message.
“That simple?”
“No.”
He put the phone away.
“But asking is.”
She studied him.
“You’ve spent a lot of money on him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Adrian rubbed his thumb once along the edge of his watch.
It was the first nervous gesture she had seen from him.
“Because I was there when they opened the garage.”
Clara waited.
He looked toward Brutus, not her.
“He was chained to a radiator.”
The room seemed smaller.
“There were other dogs.”
His voice remained flat.
“Most were dead.”
Brutus moved toward him.
Just one step.
Adrian stopped speaking.
The dog sniffed the air.
Clara watched both of them.
Something passed there that did not look like fear.
Not exactly.
Guilt, maybe.
Or memory.
Adrian stood too quickly.
Brutus recoiled.
May you like
Clara saw it.
Adrian saw that she saw it.
