Chương 3
“Bring Dr. Park,” he told Rocco.
“At this hour?”
“At this hour.”
Rocco made the call.
Nina shook her head. “I’m not waiting here for your veterinarian.”
“You’re not leaving with him.”
“Then I’m not leaving.”
“That was not an invitation to negotiate.”
Ghost lifted his head.
Lorenzo saw it and stopped.
Nina could hear the careful restraint in his breathing. It was the first human thing about him she trusted.
Not kindness. Not decency.
Restraint.
He walked to the windows and stood with his back to the room. Rain moved in silver lines beyond him. The city reflected faintly in the glass, turning his face into a shadow over thousands of lights.
Nina’s legs had gone numb. Ghost’s weight pressed painfully against her thighs. She did not shift him.
After several minutes, Rocco returned from the hallway. “Doctor says forty minutes.”
“Make it twenty.”
“She lives in Brooklyn.”
“Then let her have forty.”
Rocco nodded, as though this concession revealed a mercy everyone should remember.
Lorenzo turned from the window. “You can sit somewhere else.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Nina looked down. A porcelain shard had cut through her trouser leg near the ankle. The blood was thin and bright.
She had not felt it.
Ghost sniffed the wound and began licking.
“No, baby.” The old word escaped her.
The dog stopped immediately.
Lorenzo’s face changed again.
Only slightly. A lowering of the eyelids. A tension leaving his jaw before returning.
“Rocco,” he said, “get the medical kit.”
“I don’t need—”
“You’re bleeding on the floor.”
Nina looked at the red sauce around them. “Seems late to worry about that.”
This time Lorenzo did smile, though there was no pleasure in it.
Dr. Elise Park arrived thirty-seven minutes later wearing dark jeans, a raincoat, and the expression of a woman who had been removed from a warm apartment by a client she could not refuse. She was in her forties, with short black hair and a canvas veterinary bag slung over one shoulder.
Ghost stood when she entered.
Not aggressively. Not entirely.
Dr. Park stopped beyond the broken dishes. “Why is he off command?”
“He isn’t,” Lorenzo said.
“He’s sitting on a stranger.”
“Nina,” Nina said.
Dr. Park glanced at her. “Sorry?”
“My name is Nina.”
“Right. Hello, Nina. Why is Ghost sitting on you?”
“Because he’s mine.”
Dr. Park looked at Lorenzo.
“Examine him,” he said.
“For what?”
“A removed microchip.”
The doctor’s gaze moved to the pale scar beneath Ghost’s collar.
She did not say anything for several seconds.
Then she set down her bag. “I’ll need him standing.”
Nina touched Ghost’s shoulder. “Up.”
He rose.
All four guards watched him obey.
Dr. Park removed a scanner from her bag and moved it over his back, shoulders, neck, and chest. The device stayed silent. She repeated the process twice.
“No chip,” she said.
“There never was one,” Lorenzo replied.
Dr. Park ignored him. She parted the fur along the thin scar. Ghost’s muscles twitched, but Nina kept one hand under his jaw.
“This could be an extraction site,” the doctor said.
“Could be?”
“It could also be trauma from a collar, a bite, or an old procedure. Scar tissue isn’t a notarized confession.”
Nina showed her the invoice.
Dr. Park read the number. “If we had the original implantation record and photographs from that period, we could compare age, dental history, markings, prior injuries. It still wouldn’t be the same as scanning a chip.”
“He has the same chest mark,” Nina said.
“That helps.”
“He recognizes her,” Lorenzo said.
Dr. Park looked up at him. “That helps more than you want it to.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“You asked for a medical opinion,” she said. “Not loyalty.”
For the next half hour, she examined Ghost while Nina answered questions. The repaired fracture in his right hind paw matched a clinic note from when he was nine months old. A faint dental defect on one lower canine appeared in an old photograph Nina had taken after he chewed a radiator valve. His age was consistent. The notch in his ear was consistent. None of it was proof by itself.
Together, it became difficult to dismiss.
Dr. Park sat back on her heels. “I’d say there is a substantial likelihood this is the same dog.”
“How substantial?” Lorenzo asked.
“Enough that I would not call her a liar.”
“That was not my question.”
“It’s the answer you’re getting at one in the morning.”
Ghost yawned, revealing worn teeth.
Nina rubbed the fur beneath his chin. “What happened to him?”
Dr. Park glanced at Lorenzo.
“He was professionally trained,” he said.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
The doctor closed her bag. “Some scars predate the years I treated him. Some don’t. He had an old rib fracture when I first saw him. He had damage around the neck consistent with a corrective collar used too harshly. He was underweight.”
Nina’s hand stopped.
“When?” she asked.
“Five years and eight months ago.”
Four months after Ghost disappeared.
“What name was on his first record?”
Dr. Park hesitated.
Lorenzo said, “Answer her.”
“Specter.”
Nina looked at Ghost. “That’s not even clever.”
Dr. Park’s mouth pulled to one side. “Protection-dog people aren’t known for restraint.”
“Who brought him to you?”
“Dominic Vella.”
The nearest guard looked down.
Lorenzo did not move.
Nina felt Ghost’s breathing beneath her palm.
“Who is Dominic Vella?” she asked.
“My director of security,” Lorenzo said.
“Where is he?”
“Not here.”
“Call him.”
“No.”
“You called a veterinarian out of bed.”
“A veterinarian is unlikely to shoot you for asking the wrong question.”
Dr. Park rose slowly. “I’m going to pretend I did not hear that.”
“You hear worse from pet owners,” Lorenzo said.
“Usually about groomers.”
She handed Nina a folded gauze pad for the cut on her ankle, then gathered her bag.
At the elevator, she stopped. “Mr. Castellano, he should not be moved between households tonight. He’s overstimulated.”
“He isn’t leaving.”
May you like
Nina’s head snapped up.
Dr. Park looked from one of them to the other. “Then neither should she.”
