Chương 6
For three seconds, Ghost stood between them, turning his head from Nina to Lorenzo. His breathing grew faster. The choice hurt him. It was visible in every rigid line of his body.
Nina returned to the bed and sat.
Ghost came immediately, pressing his shoulder against her legs.
“I won’t do that to him,” she said.
Lorenzo’s face had gone pale beneath his olive skin.
Nina softened her voice. “I’m not asking him to choose in a doorway.”
“What are you asking?”
“For time.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Everyone knows when they are asking for something.”
“Fine. A week. Daily visits. A neutral veterinarian. No money.”
“A week becomes two.”
“Then say no after one.”
“What happens at the end?”
“We decide what is best for him.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“You entered this house carrying miniature crab cakes.”
“And somehow I’m still the person being reasonable.”
Lorenzo looked at Ghost.
The dog had closed his eyes against Nina’s knee.
“One week,” he said. “Visits here. Supervised.”
“Neutral location.”
“No.”
“He needs to know he can leave this place.”
“He leaves every day.”
“On your command.”
“That is how trained dogs work.”
“That is how prisoners work too.”
Rocco appeared in the doorway. He had likely heard enough to know when not to speak.
Lorenzo stood. “Ten o’clock each morning. Dr. Park will recommend a behavior specialist.”
“I choose the veterinarian.”
“Submit a name.”
“I don’t submit things to you.”
“You will discover that many people do.”
“I’m trying not to become one of them.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
It was not quite a smile. It looked more like the memory of one.
At the elevator, Nina crouched and placed both hands around Ghost’s face.
“I’m coming back,” she told him.
His eyes searched hers.
She hummed the six notes.
Lorenzo stood ten feet away, one hand in his trouser pocket. The silver watch caught the chandelier light.
Ghost licked Nina’s chin.
The elevator doors opened.
She stepped inside.
Ghost followed.
Lorenzo said, “Stay.”
The dog stopped with his front paws inches from the threshold.
Nina pressed herself against the back wall so she would not reach for him.
The doors began to close.
Ghost whined.
Lorenzo’s face remained controlled, but his hand had tightened into a fist.
Nina watched the narrowing space between them until the doors met.
Only then did she cry.
Not dramatically. No sobs. No collapse.
She covered her mouth with both hands and stood alone in a mirrored elevator while tears slid across her fingers.
Outside the building, morning had turned the rain thin and gray. Office workers hurried around her without looking up. A man under a red umbrella argued through an earpiece about quarterly numbers. A delivery cyclist swore at a taxi.
The city had continued while Nina’s lost dog slept six floors above the clouds.
Camila pulled up in a dented Honda and leaned across the passenger seat to open the door.
“You look terrible,” she said.
Nina got in.
Camila studied the borrowed trousers, the gold earrings Nina had forgotten to remove for work, and the blood-speckled bandage at her ankle.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did the dog?”
“No.”
“Did the crime lord?”
“No.”
Camila pulled into traffic. “You’re disappointing every television show I’ve ever watched.”
Nina stared out the window.
After two blocks, Camila turned off the radio.
“He’s really Ghost?”
“Yes.”
“What happens now?”
“I get him back.”
Camila tightened both hands on the steering wheel. “That man may not let you.”
Nina watched a bus spray dirty water across the curb.
“He doesn’t get to keep everything just because people are afraid to ask for it.”
Camila glanced at her. “That sounded brave.”
“It wasn’t.”
“What was it?”
Nina wiped the last dampness from beneath her eyes. “Something I need to believe before ten tomorrow.”
Marjorie sent the termination notice by email at eight forty-three.
The subject line read EMPLOYMENT STATUS.
The message thanked Nina for four years of service and cited “conduct inconsistent with client safety protocols.” It promised payment through the end of the week, minus the replacement cost of damaged serving ware.
Camila read it over Nina’s shoulder at their kitchen table.
“She is charging you for the dishes?”
“Apparently danger has a deductible.”
“You should call her.”
“What would I say?”
“That you were attacked by a dog.”
“I wasn’t.”
“That you were threatened.”
“I was.”
“By the dog?”
“Mostly by a man with excellent tailoring.”
Camila closed the laptop. “You need another job.”
“I need a shower.”
“You also need another job.”
Nina opened the refrigerator. It contained half an onion, a jar of pickles, three eggs, and a plastic container of rice that had reached the stage where neither of them wanted to smell it.
She closed the door.
Camila reached into her purse and placed forty dollars on the table.
“No.”
“It’s grocery money.”
“It’s your money.”
“That is how grocery money works.”
Nina pushed it back.
Camila pushed it toward her again.
They moved the bills across the table twice more without speaking.
Finally Camila tucked them beneath the sugar bowl.
“Fine,” she said. “The sugar has money.”
Nina showered and slept for two hours. She woke with the lullaby in her head and the sensation of Ghost’s scarred muzzle beneath her palm.
At ten the next morning, a black sedan waited outside the apartment.
Nina had submitted the name of Dr. Samuel Hart, a veterinarian in Jersey City who had inherited Garden State Animal Hospital’s archived records. She had found him by calling three practices and leaving messages with two receptionists who sounded suspicious of her urgency.
Lorenzo had found him in eleven minutes.
The sedan took Nina through the Lincoln Tunnel and north to a private veterinary clinic in Westchester. The waiting room had no other clients. The receptionist did not ask for insurance information.
Ghost stood beside Lorenzo when Nina entered the examination room.
May you like
His whole body changed.
His mouth opened. His ears rose. His tail, docked before she had known him, moved the small amount it could. He crossed the room without waiting for permission and pushed his head against her stomach.
