The dog finally slowed long enough to sit at Sage’s quiet command, tongue lolling out and eyes locked on him. It still amazed Law how quickly Sage had trained Buckshot.
Sage suddenly stilled.
Buckshot stilled too, ears tipping as if he felt the shift run through Sage’s body.
Sage pulled the buzzing phone from his pocket, glanced at the screen, then walked a few yards away. Buckshot followed him like a shadow.
Law stayed where he was.
Behind him, the cabin door creaked open.
Crow stepped onto the porch first, Rebel right behind him, both pausing to take in the yard.
“Mornin’,” Crow said.
Law nodded. “Morning.”
Their attention drifted briefly toward Sage.
Buckshot sat pressed against his leg while Sage spoke quietly into the phone.
“I know.”
A pause.
“I said I’d be there.”
Another pause.
“I’ll tell you where.”
The call ended a moment later.
Sage slipped the phone back into his pocket and crouched to scratch Buckshot behind the ears before walking back toward them, the familiar spark settling into place like nothing had happened.
Law said nothing.
But he noticed everything.
The following morning…
Dale stopped outside Unit 3B and knocked.
The third-floor hallway of the rundown apartment building on the outskirts of Los Angeles was always too quiet for his liking. Not empty—just cut off. No televisions humming behind the walls. No music. No voices. Just the faint buzz of the hallway light above him, the sound sitting oddly against the distant grind of traffic that never quite made it inside.
A moment later, the lock clicked.
The door opened.
The man stood there looking exactly the way he always did—tall, sharply dressed, pressed shirt and slacks like he was headed to a meeting instead of standing in a tired apartment hallway. Dale had never figured out why the guy rented in a place like this.
Dale held up the receipt book. “Rent has been due since the first.”
“I told you I’d deliver the cash.”
The tenant lifted a plain white envelope from the small table near the door and handed it to him.
Dale opened it and thumbed through the bills quickly before bending over the book to write the receipt.
