Chương 6
Clara held still.
Adrian caught himself before taking another step.
His hands opened at his sides.
The room stayed quiet.
Brutus watched him.
Adrian looked down.
“I brought that trainer here.”
His voice had lost its polished flatness.
“I approved the equipment.”
“You hired someone who claimed he knew what he was doing.”
“I watched Brutus panic and let him continue.”
“You thought the trainer understood it.”
“I thought money bought competence.”
Clara remembered their earlier conversation.
“That again.”
Adrian gave her a humorless look.
“Yes.”
“That again.”
He walked to the window instead of toward Brutus.
Outside, two gardeners were feeding dead leaves into a mulcher, and the machine’s low mechanical drone carried faintly through the glass.
Clara returned to the report.
She could feel Adrian waiting for something she had no intention of giving him.
Forgiveness was not hers to provide.
“So we don’t use metal equipment around his face,” she said.
Adrian turned slightly.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
“You’re not going to tell me I did my best?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Good.”
“That would annoy you?”
“It would be dishonest.”
“It would also annoy me.”
He looked at her then.
Something eased between them, though Clara could not have named what.
Brutus rose and stretched.
His front legs extended across the carpet, massive paws spread wide.
Then he walked toward Clara.
She expected him to stop beside her.
Instead he continued past.
Straight toward Adrian.
Adrian went still.
Brutus stopped six feet from him.
The mastiff sniffed.
Adrian did not speak.
Clara barely breathed.
Another step.
Brutus’s head stayed low.
Adrian’s hands remained visible.
The dog came close enough to smell his trouser leg.
Adrian’s throat moved.
“Hey, buddy.”
His voice was so different that Clara almost looked away.
Not softer exactly.
Unprotected.
Brutus sniffed once more.
Then a gardener outside dropped something metallic.
The crash came sharp through the glass.
Brutus exploded backward.
His shoulder struck the table.
The legal pad flew.
Clara rose instinctively.
“Don’t touch him.”
Adrian froze.
Brutus spun toward the doorway, nails skidding on polished wood.
Nolan appeared at the sound.
“Stay back,” Clara said.
Brutus saw him and changed direction.
There was nowhere open except the narrow space between the sofa and the wall.
He drove himself into it.
His breathing became ragged.
Clara lowered herself to the floor.
She did not approach.
“Everybody stop moving.”
Adrian’s face had gone pale.
“Nolan.”
“I’m still.”
“Close the door.”
“No.”
Clara’s answer came quickly.
Adrian looked at her.
“He needs an exit.”
“He could get into the main hall.”
“Then clear the main hall.”
Adrian did not argue.
“Nolan.”
Nolan stepped backward and spoke quietly into his radio.
Within seconds, footsteps moved away outside.
A door clicked somewhere distant.
The house changed around the dog without anyone coming near him.
Clara sat sideways so Brutus did not have to face her directly.
“Nothing happened.”
His chest heaved.
“I know it sounded bad.”
Adrian remained beside the window.
Brutus glanced at him.
Clara saw that.
“Mr. Vale.”
“Yes?”
“Sit.”
He sat on the floor immediately.
The sight was so improbable that Nolan looked twice.
Clara almost smiled.
“Farther back.”
Adrian shifted until his shoulders touched the wall.
Brutus watched.
“Take the folder.”
Adrian picked it up.
“Put it on your lap.”
He did.
“Now ignore him.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Seriously.”
“How do I ignore a hundred-and-fifty-pound dog having a panic attack six feet away?”
“Pretend he works for you.”
Nolan made a choking sound.
Adrian looked at Clara.
Then, astonishingly, he smiled.
Brutus’s ears moved at the change in his voice when Adrian said, “That was terrible.”
“It worked.”
“For whom?”
“Me.”
Clara looked down at the scattered papers.
She picked up one sheet.
Then another.
She read them as though Brutus were not wedged behind furniture.
Adrian followed her lead.
Several minutes passed.
The mulcher outside stopped.
The silence afterward seemed enormous.
Brutus’s panting slowed.
His front paws shifted.
Clara kept reading.
A report mentioned that he refused to eat for two days after thunderstorms.
She made a note.
Brutus emerged one step from behind the sofa.
Nobody reacted.
He came another.
Adrian stared at the paper on his lap with absurd concentration.
Brutus crossed the room.
He passed Clara.
Then he stopped beside Adrian.
Clara looked up only when she heard the faint scrape of fur against fabric.
Brutus had leaned one shoulder against Adrian’s knee.
Adrian did not move.
His eyes closed.
Just briefly.
When they opened, Clara saw something in them she had not expected to see in a man everyone treated like a loaded weapon.
Grief.
Brutus lowered himself onto the floor beside him.
Adrian placed one hand flat against the rug rather than on the dog.
“You can touch him,” Clara said quietly.
He shook his head.
“Not yet.”
It was the right answer.
Clara felt her opinion of him shift again, and she resented it a little.
Complicated people were inconvenient.
They were harder to fear properly.
Nolan’s phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
Whatever he read erased the softness from his face.
“Adrian.”
Adrian looked up.
Nolan did not speak again.
He did not need to.
Adrian carefully rose without disturbing Brutus.
The dog watched but stayed down.
“What happened?”
Clara asked.
Neither man answered immediately.
Adrian handed Nolan the folder.
“Keep her here.”
Clara stood.
“Excuse me?”
Adrian was already walking toward the doorway.
She followed two steps.
“Mr. Vale.”
He stopped.
“I said keep you here because there may be a security issue.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It might be nothing.”
Nolan’s expression said it was not nothing.
Clara folded her arms.
“I have a bus at five twenty.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You won’t be taking it.”
Her stomach tightened.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“Today I do.”
“No.”
Nolan’s gaze moved between them.
Adrian lowered his voice.
“Someone has been watching the east gate.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“We don’t know that.”
May you like
“I got here this morning.”
“And somebody photographed you entering.”
