Retribution (18 page)

In the far corner, Sultry lifted her head and gave John a mournful look. Due to whelp in about two weeks, the dog passed up no opportunity to let him know she was heavy with pups and miserable and hungry. He would run her alone because she was always bitchy in temperament and her current condition made her even worse. As the dog was not his, only boarded with him, he took even better care of her than he did his own kennel— and there were those who said John coddled his dogs shamefully, that a guard dog should be lean and hungry and unhappy. John had never found that to be true of any coworkers whether two-legged or four-legged. Fit, yes… starved for education, food, or companionship, never.

He filled Sultry's bowl and pushed it under the gate. She got to her feet and walked over, her sides bulging with her unborn, one of them kicking energetically, visible even through her sleek pelt. With a grumble, she nosed at her bowl, then began to wolf it down. John chuckled at her, poking his fingers through the chain-link fencing and scratching her head. She stopped eating long enough to lick at his hand, then turned her attention back to her food. He made a note to recommend that her owner have the vet look at her in a day or two, a week earlier than her scheduled appointment. He did not see how she could go another ten days or more before whelping.

Comb in hand, he got two dogs out and groomed them thoroughly before the feeding, gathered in Flint and Hans and returned them to their pens with dinner bowls just as the portable phone in his back pocket began to trill. He kneed the door to Flint's enclosure closed while getting the phone.

"Guardian Dogs, John Rubidoux speaking."

No one spoke. He could hear an open line, though he was far enough away from the office that his reception was not crystal clear. He put a hip to Flint's gate to keep it closed while fumbling one-handed at the latches, and repeated a little louder, "Guardian Dogs… may I help you?"

"John."

He stopped fooling with Flint's pen— the Alsatian wasn't going anywhere— and straightened. The pit of his stomach reacted. He had never thought to hear from her again and had been trying not to think of it, pushing it out of his mind these last few days, and his reaction told him he'd been stupid to think he could. "Charlie? Is that you?"

So faint, he could barely hear the answer. "Yes."

The bitterness, the fear in her voice, abruptly made him stop thinking of himself. She was in trouble. "What is it? What's wrong?" He turned around in the kennel yard, facing toward the office, trying to clear the reception up. "I can barely hear you."

"Are you busy?"

"I'm out back feeding the dogs. Look— can I call you back?" He immediately hated himself for suggesting it, he would lose that contact—

"No… no… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you…"

"Charlie." He found himself putting the same sternness in his voice that he used with a young, worried dog, determined not to lose her attention, her call. He cleared his throat. "Tell me what's wrong. I have to close the pens up. If the signal goes, I'll call back. You're at home?"

"Yes, but I—"

He cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder and finally got Flint's door locked. "If you won't tell me over the phone, then I'm coming over as soon as I get the kennel locked down."

Still faintly, she responded, "That's not necessary, really."

"It is necessary, I can tell from your voice. What's wrong with Jagger?"

The faraway sound of her words dwindled until he thought he'd lost her entirely, and then he heard a slight noise and realized she was crying. He shoved another food bowl into a pen with the toe of his work shoe. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"It's not—"

"Thirty minutes, tops. I'll be there." He hung up, so she would not argue with him anymore, and so that he could not hear her crying.

He finished feeding and cleaning the runs, letting everyone but Sultry have a good five-minute romp in the yard before collaring them and returning them. All of the dogs gave him a mournful look as he shut them in for the night, knowing he had short-changed them. He scratched ears and jaws through the chain-link diamonds, apologizing to them, and tossed in chew bones before running to the office and getting his van keys. He looked at his clothes. Casual slacks and a T-shirt tucked in, and Rockport walking shoes. Ruby decided he did not have time to change. He was running close on twenty minutes now and it would take him longer than ten minutes to get across the southern part of the county. She would have to overlook the dog hairs and wrinkles and one or two knee-level slobber marks. He had the feeling that she was the kind of girl who would.

* * *

Jagger was bouncing up and down in the living room front window as he pulled up in the driveway and turned off the engine. He could see that the drapes had been drawn, but the golden retriever had gotten in between them and the glass, his paws on the low sill, his nose making wet marks on the immaculate panes. The sun had set, the glowering clouds now a fine rose color, like pink lemonade, and Charlie had the house lights on, their golden glow seeping from behind the drapes and backlighting Jagger.

As Ruby approached the front door, Jagger let out a muffled woof and disappeared. Seconds later, he could hear a scratch on the other side of the carved door. Long minutes passed before the doorknob began to turn in response to his knock and he winced, seeing in his mind the limping progress Charlie had to make to answer it. Jagger's head bumped the door frame, pushing the door open wider, his caramel eyes brimming with welcome that John did not find echoed in Charlie's gray-blue eyes as it swung inward to reveal her. The color seemed leeched from her skin, leaving it as pale as milk, and a neoprene-and-aluminum brace was strapped about her right leg outside her jeans.

"What happened?" He put a hand out to steady her, but she did not take it. He dropped his arm awkwardly.

Charlie swayed as she moved aside to let him in. Her lower lip trembled very slightly, fear and tears darkening her eyes to a fathomless blue. "I'm going to lose him, John… and I don't think I can stop it."

John had dropped his hand to the dog's head and froze with it there, not quite touching it. Jagger threw his head back, bumping John's fingers, and wiggling all over at the touch, accidental as it was. "Did he do that?" Ruby stared at the brace.

"No… no!" She shook her head tiredly and closed the door behind him. "He attacked someone in the bank this afternoon." She sagged into a chair, her slight figure almost disappearing in the cushions, her fingers still curled tightly upon the dog's harness.

"What do you mean, attacked? Tell me what happened."

"He jumped at someone, caught him by the arm."

He sat on the couch, on edge, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, watching her, watching the dog. He would be more worried, but Jagger had done what he'd been trained to do, not snapping at legs but going to immobilize the arms. "Not on command."

"Of course not!" Anger replaced the weariness in her face briefly, and brought a lightning quick color to her face.

"What I meant was, are you certain you couldn't have cued him somehow, even if you didn't mean to."

Charlie frowned then, catching the edge of her lip slightly between her teeth in thought. "Possibly," she murmured, and looked down at the dog thoughtfully.

"Tell me what happened."

Haltingly, she told him about the call from the bank, and the illicit withdrawal attempt. He stopped her when she said his name, frowning, "I know that name. Isn't he the one Quentin accused of stalking you?"

"My father called him that, but I was never in any real danger."

"You told me Jagger went after him once before."

"Yes, but—" She looked at him with hope. "Do you think I set him off?"

"I think Valdor set him off. He should not have tried a takedown without being commanded, but I don't think he's going to go after just anyone. He knows the man's scent, and he shares whatever emotions you feel about him. Fear, anger, resentment— any of those, and he would have acted on his own instinct to attack." John leaned back on the couch, thinking of an additional matter. "Who was here the other day?"

Her eyelids fluttered slightly. "What do you mean?"

"When you thought you had a prowler… who was here? Could it have been Valdor?"

Again, that slight tint of color, welcome on her pale face. "Possibly. I don't want to think it was, but possibly." She reached down and ruffled the dog's ear. "Jagger would have known, though, wouldn't he?"

"He would have scented him, been reminded today, taken your reaction as a cue. Dogs are territorial. Valdor made an attack on his territory then, and he threatened you today. Jagger reacted the only way he knew how, the way I trained him." John nodded to himself. "Makes sense that way."

Charlie smiled slightly. "And it has to make sense."

"It does. Or we have to consider putting him down."

"You can't retrain him?"

"I don't know how much good it would do if you couldn't trust him any more. Goldens are protective dogs, but not aggressive. They will drag you out of the water to save you, but they will not go for another human. Or they should not."

She eyed Jagger, her blue-gray eyes shadowed. "I will always trust him."

"What about your leg? He knock you off balance?"

"When I get tired, it seems to get weaker. This is a precaution. I don't want to stumble and hurt myself."

"You said you fell in the bank."

The corner of her mouth pulled. "I'm still black and blue. It wasn't his fault, he just lunged and I had hold of the harness. Something had to give and it was me."

John shook his head, answering. "You can't have that, Charlie. Jagger has to perform the way he was trained to do. He can't be knocking you off your feet or hauling you around."

"Can't you do something? Retrain him?"

"I train guard dogs, security dogs. I've never even attempted to do with a dog what the companion trainers do. They're specialized and they're good."

"You're good."

He tried not to hear the hope in her voice. "Charlie, I can't… I can't do what you want me to."

"You don't know what he means to me."

"He's a working dog, a service dog, and there's no place for aggression in his training. I told your father that—"

"Then undo it! Take it away!"

"Charlie, I don't think I can."

Jagger looked at him and whined slightly at the agitation he must hear in their voices, the flaps of his ears moving so that they pulled back defensively, close to his head. He could see pain reflecting from those animal eyes, pain without comprehension of what had happened.

"You did this to him," Charlie told him.

"You don't have to push guilt my way."

"That's not what I meant," she protested faintly, and he knew that that was exactly what she had meant, and now regretted saying.

He shifted uncomfortably.

Jagger moaned and put his chin on his paws. Rubidoux saw what he had always feared and looked up, to see Charlie watching him, an echo of the same agony on her face.

"He gives me the freedom to be myself." Charlie waved her hand at the house. She dropped her hand to her lap and he noticed that the jeans she wore, faded and comfortable looking, bore paint spots and that she wore an old shirt over her T-shirt like a loose jacket. It, too, had various stains and splatterings on it, reminding him of how intensely her work was hands on, of how any physical weakness would affect that ability, that drive. She took a slight breath as if steadying herself. "But more than that, he's here with me. He's part of me, and I owe him. I can't stand to see him unhappy and he is. He doesn't understand. And if they take him away from me now, he'll never understand, he's only a dog— but it'll break his heart. Can't you help us?"

John exhaled slowly. He didn't know how he could— but he knew he could not say no. "I'll try," he answered.

The sense of relief he expected did not cross her face. The corner of her mouth tightened a bit, then she leaned forward and said determinedly, "Do not
try
— that implies failure is a possibility. I can't, we can't, afford failure. You have to do it, John Rubidoux."

"All right then… what's your schedule like tomorrow?"

She brushed the palms of her hands across her knees as if cleaning them. After a slight hesitation, she answered, "I just finished a job. I'm clear for a few weeks."

"Good. Tomorrow morning, here, early, eight o'clock. Is that all right?"

A wistfulness moved through her eyes and across the curve of her slightly tilted mouth. "I was going to say, it couldn't be soon enough, but that sounds pretty early." She dropped her hand down and leaned over to ruffle Jagger's ear. "We'll be waiting for you."

* * *

Charlie closed the door behind John Rubidoux and exhaled a long breath of relief. Jagger raced to the window and put his paws on the low sill, as if he watched John leave. She saw his golden feather tail tentatively wag, then lower and stop as she heard the sounds of the van pulling away from the house. Only then did she leave the door, chirping for Jagger so she could steady herself with his harness, and head for the studio.

She stood in the doorway, making no move to go in, but the door was open and blocked so it would stay that way. She had done that the moment she had gotten home from the bank. The delivery she'd ordered had been left only moments before Rubidoux arrived, and she swept her gaze across the room where a dozen new canvases waited for her, most of them landscape size, a few portrait, and two much bigger, leaning across the wall. On the worktable, boxes of oil paints were stacked, the purchase order delivery sheet still sticking out from the corner of one of them. Two new tins of odorless paint thinner stood side by side, along with a hand-rolled paper bag of brushes and a cardboard box which contained a mix of sketching pencils and markers.