She hadn’t even read two sentences when the crying began. “Hush,” she called. “Go to sleep.”
The crying didn’t stop, and by the end of the first paragraph, it changed to a high-pitched howl. Markie cursed her own softness—she had let Jesse get away with only a half-hour walk this morning, since it had seemed darker and colder than the day before. No more mercy, she told herself. He would need to start wearing a thick sweatshirt and a reflective vest from now on.
“Fine,” she said, unable to ignore the howling, “but just for a few minutes.”
In the family room, she unlatched the crate, and the prisoner, overjoyed at her release, leaped up. The force knocked Markie backward, and her tailbone hit the wood floor, followed by the back of her head. She gasped in pain as the dog trotted over her and tore through the kitchen. Markie could hear the sound of nails scratching on hardwood and furniture being knocked into—and over—as Angel made her way past the dining room table and into the living room.
“Angel! Come!” Markie begged feebly, in too much agony to yell.
She eased herself to her feet, using the arm of the couch as a crutch, in time to see Angel shoot around the corner from the front hall, her paws paddling frantically as she lost her footing on the kitchen floor.
“Crate,” Markie pleaded, pointing.
And praying—there was no way she would be able to chase the dog down if she took off again. Angel, thank goodness, obeyed, and Markie slid the latch closed. “You can whine and cry all you want. You’re not coming out again until Jesse gets home.”
As if on cue, the dog pressed her snout through the top bars of the enclosure and howled. Hands over her ears, Markie limped back to the dining room and tried to resume working. Ten minutes later, the dog hadn’t let up, and Markie, cursing, carried her file upstairs. She closed her bedroom door and lay on the bed on her stomach—it was a better position for her bruised tailbone anyway—and started over on the first sentence.
The howling continued, and Markie turned her radio on, cranking the volume to drown out the dog. The music hurt her already-sore head, though, and after fifteen minutes she realized she still hadn’t made it past the first paragraph. This wasn’t the route to a healthy paycheck or to maintaining her work-from-home status.
Glaring at her too-thin bedroom door, she wondered if she dared let Angel out long enough to fold up the crate and carry it down to Jesse’s room. It didn’t seem possible in her condition, and anyway, she remembered lying in bed and hearing the gunfire and shouting from Jesse’s video games through the heating vents. The boy had quickly agreed to keep the sound off. She could expect no such cooperation from the dog.
She was staring, unseeing, at her file and wondering how she was ever going to earn a living under these conditions, when Kyle called. “You wanted to talk?”
Angel howled again, and Markie winced. “Can you meet me someplace?” she asked. “Somewhere over here would be great—I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I’m behind already.”
“Yeah,” he said, drawing out the word, and she braced herself for a complication. “The thing is, I’d need to get a cab, so distance is a bit of an issue. Can you come here?”
“What happened to your car?”
“Long story, but there’s a coffee shop near my apartment. On Water Street. You know the one?”
She thought of the stack of unread files on her table and sighed. “Meet you in thirty minutes?”
He stood when she reached the table, reaching his arms out stiffly, awkwardly, more Dr. Frankenstein’s monster than ex-spouse. She had no idea what he expected her to do—turn herself sideways and squeeze between them?—so she leaned around and pecked him on the cheek. They put their orders in with the barista, and when they sat down, Markie apologized that she didn’t have much time, so she was just going to jump right in.
“Brace yourself,” she warned, and then she described everything that had happened in the past three and a half days, from the thump in the night to the banging on the door to the squad car, the new dog, the judge, and blessedly, the warning and the destroyed juvenile file. She relived it all in the telling, and as she spoke, her heart pounded, and she pressed her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose to stop the tears that were threatening. When she was finished, she looked up through her fingers to find Kyle was mirroring her—finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose, head down.
“I know,” she said gently. “It’s a lot to take in. And so disappointing. I cried—”
It was then that she realized he wasn’t crying. He was laughing.
“You think it’s funny?” she said, and a couple at a nearby table looked over. She ignored them and repeated the question, louder this time.
He looked up at her, guilty, and tried to stop laughing.
“I don’t believe this!”
“Oh, come on,” he said, reaching for her hand. She moved it away. “Nothing happened to him, right? Record destroyed, you said? So then, no harm, no foul. And you’ve got to admit . . . I mean, think about it! He’s hidden behind the dumpster, completely out of view. Safe! But he has to be all God-and-country about it and give himself up! I mean, it’s funny! He couldn’t be a criminal if he tried!”
Markie stood, purse in hand. “I didn’t drive all the way—”
“No!” he said. “Don’t go! I’ll stop!” He stood, too, and took her by the arms. “Please. I’m sorry. It’s just so . . . classic Jesse. ‘Here I am, Officer! Arrest me, too!’ I mean, any other kid would’ve crouched down in the dark until the cops left and then hightailed it out of there. And who else but Jesse would’ve come up with the idea to pay the old man back? I know he’s been cranky with you for the past few months—with both of us. But it’s times like this when a person’s mettle shows, and I’ll tell you what—our boy’s got some.”
He pushed her gently backward and down, until she was seated again. Sitting, too, he said, “I know you were worried—are worried. But think about it. He came home crying, you said. He wants to earn a thousand dollars and give every cent of it to this man. This is not a kid who can stomach crime. He’s wielded his last can of spray paint, I guarantee it.”
“I don’t know about that,” Markie said. “But I do know I’m not thrilled about him working with this . . . Trevor. So I was thinking maybe your friend Danny could hire him at his store. To stock shelves or whatever. Remember when he was over? He loved Jesse, and when he was leaving, he told him—”
“Yeah,” Kyle said, dragging a palm across his chin, “I’m not sure that’s going to work.”
“Why not? Can you at least ask him before you—?”
“The thing is, Danny and I are . . . sort of on the outs at the moment.”
“Why?”
“He says I owe him money.”
She looked at the ceiling, then back at him. “Which means you do owe him money.”