Chương 17
Lorenzo sat on the living-room floor because Ghost would not leave him. The sight was strange enough that Nina nearly took a photograph, then decided against it.
For an hour, they spoke only about the dog. His medication. His nightmares. His refusal to enter the bathtub. The old habit of hiding stolen food beneath furniture.
“He put half a steak beneath my pillow once,” Lorenzo said.
“He was saving it.”
“For what?”
“Economic uncertainty.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
Nina shrugged. “That was always my theory.”
When he stood to leave, Ghost followed him to the door.
Nina’s stomach tightened.
Lorenzo crouched. “Stay.”
Ghost looked at Nina.
She did not call him.
She sat on the floor and waited.
After a long moment, Ghost turned away from the door and came to her.
Lorenzo’s face changed, but he nodded once.
The elevator arrived.
Ghost did not follow.
After the doors closed, Nina rested her forehead against the dog’s.
“You didn’t have to choose,” she whispered.
The criminal investigation widened.
Reporters waited outside Nina’s apartment and outside the penthouse. Marjorie offered Nina her catering job back, explaining that the termination had been “a procedural misunderstanding.”
Nina declined.
“You need the money,” Camila reminded her.
“I know.”
“Principles are expensive.”
“I know.”
“Could you have one or two cheaper ones?”
Nina applied for work at a veterinary rehabilitation center in Queens. She had no formal animal-care credentials, but Dr. Park wrote a recommendation describing her behavior during the kennel fire.
The center hired her as an intake assistant at considerably less than she had earned catering private events.
She accepted.
Her first week involved cleaning crates, washing bowls, answering phones, and persuading a frightened mastiff to leave a transport van. The dog urinated on her shoes.
Nina sat beside him for forty minutes anyway.
At lunch, she ate rice from a plastic container while watching traffic move beneath an elevated train. No one knew her name. No one asked about Lorenzo Castellano. A coworker complained for ten minutes about a broken vending machine.
The ordinariness felt like a luxury.
Lorenzo’s visits continued twice a week.
Sometimes he came to the rehabilitation center. Sometimes Nina brought Ghost to a quiet park near the river. Rocco usually waited at a distance, pretending to study his phone.
Lorenzo never arrived late.
Ghost began moving between them without panic. He rested near Lorenzo during their conversations, then returned to Nina when it was time to leave.
Molly reduced the visits to once a week after two months.
Lorenzo did not object.
That worried Nina more than an argument would have.
At their next meeting, she asked, “Are you disappearing?”
They sat on a bench while Ghost sniffed fallen leaves.
“I have matters to handle.”
“Legal matters?”
“All matters become legal when enough people are angry.”
“Are you going to prison?”
“Not this week.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It was not intended to be.”
Ghost returned carrying a damp paper cup.
Nina took it from his mouth. “You know this is garbage.”
He sat and looked pleased.
Lorenzo watched him. “My attorneys advise me to leave the country.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Running is an admission people understand.”
“Sometimes running is just running.”
“You have not run.”
Nina looked toward the river. “I tried. For six years.”
“You continued living.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
He rubbed the place on his wrist where the silver watch had once rested.
Nina had noticed he had not replaced it.
“Dominic says you ordered the dogs acquired,” she said.
“He says many things.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“I believe you.”
Lorenzo turned toward her.
“I don’t know what that says about my judgment,” she added.
“It remains questionable.”
Ghost dropped another piece of trash at their feet.
Nina sighed. “At least someone values consistency.”
Dominic eventually pleaded guilty to charges related to theft, animal cruelty, fraud, and the fire. He did not confess from remorse. His attorneys negotiated after financial records, testimony, veterinary evidence, and the surviving dogs made denial expensive.
Warren Pike accepted a separate agreement and provided the locations of two former employees.
Raul avoided the longest possible sentence because of his cooperation. Nina learned the result from a news alert while cleaning a kennel.
She turned off the phone and continued scrubbing.
Elena visited Ghost six months after his return.
She arrived carrying a new red collar.
Nina looked at it and said, “No.”
Her mother held it against her chest. “I thought—”
“He has a collar.”
The thick studded one had been removed and stored as evidence. Ghost now wore a simple black collar with his identification and Nina’s phone number.
Elena placed the red collar in her purse.
Ghost stood behind Nina.
Elena crouched slowly. “Gordo.”
His ears moved.
She hummed the lullaby.
The notes were wrong.
Nina closed her eyes.
Her mother started again.
This time Ghost approached.
He sniffed Elena’s hands, then allowed her to touch the white crescent on his chest.
Elena cried quietly.
Ghost licked one tear from her chin.
Nina watched anger and tenderness occupy the same space inside her. Neither defeated the other.
When Elena left, she forgot the red collar beneath the kitchen chair.
Nina found it later.
She almost threw it away.
Instead she placed it in a drawer.
A year after the night at the penthouse, Nina attended a small gathering at the rehabilitation center. Six families whose dogs had been identified through Dominic’s ledger came with photographs and updates. Three of the dogs were present. Others could not tolerate crowds.
The German shepherd from Pennsylvania wore a yellow bandanna and stayed pressed against the firefighter’s leg.
The one-eyed pit bull slept beneath a folding table.
Ghost lay beside Nina’s chair.
There were no chandeliers. The floor was cracked concrete. Rain tapped against high industrial windows, and someone had ordered too much pizza.
Lorenzo arrived late.
Conversation changed when he entered.
People recognized him.
Some became quiet. One woman took her child to the opposite side of the room. The firefighter watched him with open suspicion.
Lorenzo stopped near the door.
For once, no one moved aside.
Nina crossed the room.
“You came.”
“You invited me.”
“I didn’t expect you to listen.”
“Neither do most people.”
Ghost rose and walked toward him.
The room watched.
Lorenzo crouched and placed one hand against the dog’s chest.
The crescent marking showed between his fingers.
The firefighter approached after several minutes.
“Your company bought my dog,” he said.
Lorenzo stood.
“Yes.”
“You say you didn’t know.”
“I did not.”
“You expect that to matter?”
“No.”
The firefighter’s face tightened. He had prepared for denial, excuses, or threat. The absence of them left him uncertain.
“My daughter was nine when that dog disappeared,” he said. “She blamed herself because she forgot to close a window.”
Lorenzo looked toward the shepherd.
“I am sorry,” he said.
It was not a speech. It did not repair anything.
The firefighter nodded once and walked away.
Nina stood beside Lorenzo.
“That was terrible,” she said.
“I am not practiced.”
“Good apologies usually include more than three words.”
“Long apologies often become defenses.”
She looked at him.
“That sounded learned.”
“It was expensive.”
Across the room, Ghost had settled beside the shepherd. The two dogs lay shoulder to shoulder beneath the folding table while people spoke above them.
Later, after everyone left, Nina found Lorenzo standing near the windows.
Rain streaked the glass.
For a moment, the rehabilitation center’s reflection turned the room dark and elegant, almost like the penthouse. Then a train passed outside, shaking the illusion loose.
“My attorneys reached an agreement,” Lorenzo said.
“With whom?”
“People who prefer not to announce themselves.”
Nina waited.
“I am leaving New York for a time.”
“How long?”
“I do not know.”
“Everyone’s favorite amount.”
He looked at her.
She folded a paper napkin into smaller squares. “Will you come back?”
“Yes.”
“Is that truth or control?”
“A little of both.”
Ghost approached and sat between them.
Lorenzo removed something from his coat pocket.
The silver watch.
Its crystal was cracked. Mud remained in the edge of the band.
“I found it in the barn after the fire,” he said.
“You went back?”
“My attorney advised against it.”
“That seems to inspire you.”
He fastened the watch around his wrist.
It no longer worked.
Nina noticed.
“Why wear a broken watch?”
“It was my father’s.”
“Does it help with the nightmares?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Lorenzo looked down at Ghost. “Not everything needs to help.”
Nina smiled faintly.
He crouched and held the dog’s scarred face in both hands.
Ghost leaned into him.
For several seconds, Lorenzo said nothing. His mouth moved once before sound came.
“Stay with her.”
Ghost licked his wrist above the broken watch.
Lorenzo stood.
Nina opened the rear door of the center. Cool rain-scented air entered.
Rocco waited beside a black sedan at the curb.
Lorenzo paused beneath the doorway.
“You could take the umbrella,” Nina said.
“I will survive ten feet.”
“You always make survival sound unpleasant.”
“It often is.”
He stepped into the rain.
Ghost followed as far as the threshold.
Nina did not command him to stay.
She stood beside him while Lorenzo crossed the sidewalk. Rocco opened the car door. Lorenzo looked back once.
Ghost’s body leaned forward.
Then he sat.
The sedan pulled away.
Nina rested one hand on the white crescent marking beneath Ghost’s damp fur.
He remained facing the street long after the taillights disappeared.
She hummed the six descending notes.
Ghost turned his head toward her, but he did not leave the doorway.
May you like
Nina sat beside him on the concrete floor.
Together, they listened to the rain and watched the empty street until he was ready to come inside.
