Page 48 of Into the Fire

He stood with a groan and set his dog down lovingly on the blanket behind him. Stepping forward, he raised a hand to alert the cops to Evan.

“Le estoy rescatando,” Evan said. “Tengo que llevarlo al veterinario. ¿Me ayuda?”

The old man studied him.

An officer broke through a cluster of handcuffed gamblers. Evan was right in his line of sight, but the cop was focused instead on the old man.

“Sir?” the cop shouted. “What is it, sir? Did you see someone getting away?”

The old man hesitated. Then pointed to the alley next to his house, away from Evan. The cop bolted up the alley.

Evan rested the puppy gingerly in the backseat and pulled out. Driving away, he nodded his thanks at the old man. The old man nodded back.

21

I Know What You Did

“I dunno, man,” the young woman at the animal shelter said. “It looks pretty bad. The vet might be a while.”

The exam room smelled of ammonia, the linoleum floor showing streaks from a recent cleaning. Evan sat on the floor with the bait dog in his lap, stroking his ears. The dog hadn’t made a sound, his golden-brown eyes still fixed on Evan.

The duct tape remained dug into his muzzle. His hind legs, wrapped together, twitched.

“How long?” Evan said.

“At least a half hour.”

“Can you at least cut the tape off his mouth?”

“I’m not messing with that,” she said, tugging at her septum ring. A spiderweb tattoo clutched the back of her neck, and she wore a loosely stitched black sweater and an armful of metal bracelets that jangled when she moved. “Don’t wanna hurt him worse, poor guy.”

The service bell dinged up front, and she shot the dog an apologetic look and vanished, closing the door behind her.

Evan checked the Turing Phone, but there’d been no contact from Max. Evan had already assessed the phone to ensure that it was as secure as advertised, with no GPS features or spyware that would allow it to be tracked or monitored.

In his lap the dog lay heavily, seized up in a freeze response. His nose was sweating, his cheeks filling with the exertion of breathing through bound jaws.

Evan lifted the pup onto the exam table. Then he searched the cabinet, finding trauma shears in the second drawer down. He returned to the dog.

“This is gonna hurt, buddy,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

He reached for the swollen muzzle, but the dog pulled his head back, terrified. Evan leaned over him, putting his elbow behind the dog’s neck to trap his head in place. Very carefully, he worked the blunted end of the trauma shears between the tape and the raw skin and sawed through.

When the tape finally released, the dog panted heavily, pink tongue lolling. The gash on his cheek looked bad, but the flesh was intact and could be sutured back into place.

Evan stroked his flank a few times. Then got to work on the hind legs.

He freed the limbs, leaving the tape stuck to the fur. Removing it entirely would be a substantial job better left to a professional but at least the boy was no longer bound.

The door opened, and the vet entered, a curly-haired woman with huge dark eyes and caramel skin. She noted the trauma shears in Evan’s hand. “You’re not supposed to do that,” she said.

“I’m sorry. He was having trouble breathing.”

“Jaycee said you found him in an alley?”

“Yeah. Dogfighting ring, obviously. They used him up and threw him out.”

She shook her head. “We’ve seen more of it lately,” she said. “Especially around Little Armenia.” She pinched her lip with her teeth. “It’s such a disgrace. There are so many hardworking folks, and then a few bozi tghas give us all a bad name.”