I unlocked the front door and pulled it open, and grimaced at the red splotches of paint. “I forgot.”
“You’ll fix it,” Rachel said. “It’ll be good as new once it’s been painted black.”
She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Thanks for a lovely evening, Gina.”
“Likewise,” I told her, and watched as she walked across the parking lot to her car, and then maneuvered carefully down the dark driveway. I waited until her taillights had disappeared, and then I locked the door and headed back to the living room.
Edwina had taken advantage of my absence to lick the cheese platter. “You’re going to get an upset stomach,” I told her, but she didn’t seem fazed, just wagged happily. I carried the plates and wine glasses to the kitchen, where I rinsed everything and loaded the dishwasher. The routine of it was soothing—something normal and domestic after a day full of trespassing and surveillance and murder suspects.
Edwina followed me into the kitchen, her nails clicking on the hardwood, for a couple of slurps of water. The better to wash down the cheese and salami, I suppose. When I’d finished cleaning up, I looked down at her.
“Time to go outside?”
Her ears perked up, and she trotted toward the back door, tail wagging.
I opened it and she darted out onto the terrace, heading for her favorite spot on the lawn.
I leaned against the doorframe, breathing in the cool night air. It had been a long day. A long couple of days, really. A long week. A long year…
A branch cracked in the trees beyond the reach of the back door light, and I snapped to attention. Something moved back there. Something that wasn’t Edwina, who was still squatting on the grass, her back to the tree line and her eyes on me.
My heart beat harder, even as I reminded myself that it was probably nothing to worry about. Most likely just a deer. We get them all the time, in the wooded area between the houses on this street and the one behind. They’ll come out onto the lawn and eat the cultivated flowers sometimes in the summer months. At worst it might be a coyote, but Edwina could bark one of those into flight—they aren’t much bigger than she is—and we don’t have wolves or bears in this area.
By now the Boston Terrier had noticed that something was there, too. She was staring at the tree line, her body rigid, a low growl building in her throat.
“Edwina, come here,” I called.
She didn’t move.
I took a step towards her, and that was when two massive shapes burst from the trees.
My first instinct was wolves. Werewolves, even, although I know those aren’t real. But they were large and furry, low to the ground, and I wasn’t thinking straight.
What they were, of course, were dogs. German Shepherds, or maybe Malinois like Zachary had said. Huge and dark and moving with terrifying speed across my lawn straight toward Edwina.
“No!” I screamed. “Edwina, run!”
But it was too late. They were on her in seconds, teeth bared, snarling. Edwina yelped—a high, terrible sound—and tried to run, but one of the dogs had her by the back of the neck.
I didn’t think. Didn’t consider the danger or the consequences or anything beyond the fact that those monsters were going to kill my dog.
I grabbed the broom from beside the door—the one I used to sweep the terrace—and ran toward them, screaming like a banshee.
“Get away from her! Leave her alone!”
I swung the broom at the nearest dog, catching it across the shoulders. It released Edwina and turned toward me, lips pulled back in a snarl that showed every tooth in its mouth. They were yellow, like old ivory—could have been the glow from the security lights, I suppose—and looked like they were at least an inch or two long. I thought I could see blood, but it was hard to be sure in the chaos.
“Go!” I told Edwina again as I swept the broom toward it a second time. “Run!”
The second dog circled around, and Edwina bared her teeth and growled. It was laughably high pitched compared to the deep snarls from the much larger, much more vicious canines. She backed up until she was pressed against my legs, and I couldn’t tell whether the vibration I felt was her growling or whether she was shaking with fear. Or pain. I couldn’t even take my eyes off the other dogs long enough to see whether she’d been hurt by the attack.
I raised the broom again, but my hands were shaking. “Nice doggies. Good doggies. I’m sorry I hit you?—”
One of them lunged. I brought the broom down hard, and it caught the dog on the snout. It yelped and backed off, but at the same time, the other one was moving in from the side.
This was it, flashed through my mind. This was how I was going to die—mauled by attack dogs in my own backyard.
I knew whose dogs they were, of course. I had seen these two through a French door earlier today. And there was absolutely no way they had gotten here from Pegram on their own.
