Page 52 of Floodgates

“Yes. I would like that.”

When I lay back down after dinner, Cord took the bowls to the sink. I wanted to talk to him some more when he came back and decided to just put my head down for a minute. I couldn’t remember ever being so tired.

WHEN I woke up, it was dark. I rolled over and saw Alex asleep in the recliner in front of the fireplace. I thought for a minute about getting up and going over there and waking him—both of us needed to be in a bed—but I was too stiff and cold to bother. I lost my balance suddenly and put my hand down on the floor to steady myself, but instead of touching rug, I got dog.

My dad’s mutt Bo turned his massive head and looked at me. The closest the vet could tell was that Bo was half Rhodesian ridgeback and half rottweiler. There might be some kind of mastiff in there, as well, but, really, just a damn big dog. He weighed a good hundred pounds and was all muscle. Every time my dad walked him he got offers to buy him. People just loved Bo. And as long as Bo saw my old man greet you, and smile at you, and better yet, hug you, he was fine. If, however, you startled my father, or if Bo thought you were trying to hurt him, you’d be in trouble. Not that there’d been more than some growling so far.

There were some guys in the park asking for money for drugs a while back, and my dad jogged by, and they reached out to get his attention. They didn’t mean to trip him—even my dad said it was an accident—but he went down anyway, and at the moment one of the guys reached down to help him up, Bo came flying across the grass in a brindle blur. My dad had let him sit and play with some of the children while he did his laps around the jogging path, but apparently the dog was keeping an eye on my old man. He came with teeth bared, growling, snarling, and the guy forgot about my dad and ran. They both ran, and the women at the park with their children cheered. My dad called Bo back with a whistle and accepted some help from a few of the young mothers. They all knew my dad and Bo, and when the policemen came around and asked if Bo was a vicious dog, the chorus of outrage was almost deafening. How could a dog that patiently allowed himself to be buried in a sandpile by two three-year-olds be vicious? The two stoned college-aged guys had, in fact, frightened a few of the mothers with their belligerent requests for money. They all had their children with them, and it was creepy. If Bo had rousted them, well, good for Bo.

The loyalty Bo owed my father was well deserved. Returning home from his usual Wednesday-night bowling with friends, Ray Brandt had seen the dog lying in the gutter on the side of the road. Instead of racing by like everyone else, instead of driving on as the one who had hit Bo had done, he stopped. He carried the massive weight to the car and drove the dog directly to the emergency animal clinic twenty miles away. Amazingly, Bo’s only injury was a broken back leg that the vet on duty said would mend cleanly. The water he had swallowed from what was rushing down the storm drain had been more life threatening, and he was in shock from hypothermia. He would need to be admitted to the hospital and monitored for perhaps as long as forty-eight hours. Two grand right there.

My dad paid the bill and two days later collected his dog. He put an ad in the paper, and when the owner called, my dad explained to him what had happened. The man was touched by what my dad had done and even offered to pay him the money for the vet bill, but then he pleaded with my dad to keep him. Sadly, the dog had been his daughter’s pet, and she had been hit on her bicycle by a drunk driver and killed. She had named him Bo and had lavished much loving attention on him. It was painful for the man and his wife to see the dog every day, and, in fact, they had been on their way to the local shelter to drop him off when he had bolted en route to the car and leaped over their fence. The dog had been looking for the little girl for weeks, the man told my father, pacing the house anxiously. With a story like that, my dad was a goner.

My dad kept the dog’s name and, of course, the dog. Bo was still a gem with children, but he was slavishly devoted to my father. In fact, the only time he left my father’s side was when we all came to visit. Instead of sleeping on his favorite blanket next to my dad’s bed, he was forced by either curiosity or a compulsion to protect, to go from room to room the entire night and make sure everyone was fine.

As I’d touched him he’d turned to check on me, and I anticipated him rising to his feet before he would thrust his muzzle into my face. I was surprised when he regarded me for only moments before turning his gaze elsewhere. It was strange, and so I traced where he was looking with my eyes.

I saw a black-gloved hand soundlessly try to remove the chain from the french door that led from the living room out into my father’s large flower garden. The hand was attached to an arm clad in what looked like a black sweater, and more of it came into view as the chain was quietly rattled as whoever it was tried again and again. The dead bolt had been easily opened; the small chain lock was proving to be more of a setback.

I sat straight up but didn’t make a sound. Bo came to his feet, and I was afraid if I yelled, the dog would go after the intruder, and I was afraid of what would happen then. I rolled off the couch, my gaze never leaving the door, and walked backward until I felt the recliner behind me. I sank soundlessly down onto the arm and put my hand over Alex’s mouth.

Alex flicked his eyes open—he worked undercover, so maybe he was used to getting woken up like that—and looked up at me. He didn’t do that surprised startle you always see in the movies, he just woke up.

I whispered for him to look, and as I said it, I rolled his head to the side so he could see the door. I felt him tense under my hand, and I moved away from him as he almost bounced up to his feet. He pulled his gun from the holster on his hip, and I had a moment to think that my brother was sleeping with his gun and that couldn’t be good before he ran to the front door, threw it open, and charged out into the night.

It made no sense that he would leave me, but what was he supposed to do, let the guy in the house? That seemed like a worst-case scenario.

At the same moment the chain finally got worked loose, and I yelled as the door slowly swung open. I saw the outline of a large man framed in the doorway before I heard a command of freeze from outside.

He pivoted fast, and Bo began growling and snarling before launching himself toward the door. I lunged forward and caught Bo’s collar so he couldn’t go after the intruder. Having only about forty pounds on the dog, I wasn’t certain I could hold him, but I managed to wrap my arms around him so he couldn’t move.

“Tracy!”

The lights came on suddenly, and my dad was there, his hand on my back, and when I opened my eyes, and looked, there was nobody at the back door, neither the man nor my brother.

“Oh God, Alex,” I gasped, and my heart stopped. I was certain the intruder had shot my brother.

Evan blew by us and flew out the door. Instantly I heard someone yell for him to freeze where he was.

I wanted to get up, to move, to go see, but I was frozen in place.

“Honey, let go of Bo,” my father said gently.

I still had my hands clutched around Bo’s collar, and I was shaking.

“Bo, sit.”

The dog wanted to go see what was going on too, but one command from my father and he sat, waiting for what came next.

Slowly, gently, my dad untangled my fingers from Bo’s collar and got me up off the floor and back down on the couch. Only then did he call Bo to him, and they both went out the back door.

Alone, I watched the floodlights go on around the property, saw a lot of shadows of people moving, and heard shouting as I sat and waited.

After several more minutes, Evan came back and took a seat beside me on the couch.

“Is Alex okay?” I asked him, holding my breath.

“He’s fine,” he said, passing me my glasses, which someone had taken off me and placed on the coffee table.