Page 3 of Blood & Bone

CHAPTER 1

Fall

The clinic at closing had its own rhythm, and June knew it by heart. She started with the far kennel row and worked back toward the front, each run door locked with the same two-handed motion. Latch down with the right, key turn with the left, the metal cold through her nitrile gloves. The dogs watched her from behind chain-link, some standing, some already curled on their bedding, all of them settling as the overhead fluorescents clicked off row by row. Darkness falling in increments. The building shrinking around her.

The last run was the shepherd mix that barked at everything. June slid the bolt home, and the dog didn’t even lift its head. Good sign. Either the meds had kicked in, or the day had finally worn it out. She peeled her gloves and dropped them in the bin by the door.

The phone rang at the front desk while she was halfway through wiping down the counter. June picked it up on the third ring. Front desk voice. Flat, professional, the one she used for worried owners and insurance adjusters.

“Callahan.”

It was Mrs. Hadley. The old cat, the one with the kidney values that had been climbing for a year. June listened to the symptoms: not eating, hiding under the bed, the litter box showing nothing for two days. She gave the same advice she’d given last time and the time before. Subcutaneous fluids. Keep him warm. Bring him in tomorrow if he’s not improved.

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Hadley said, and her voice had a tremble that meant she was crying and trying not to let June hear it. “I just worry.”

“I know,” June said. Not, don’t worry. She’d stopped saying that about three years in. “Bring him in if anything changes. Day or night.”

She hung up and didn’t move. Her hand stayed on the receiver. The fluorescent above the desk buzzed, a low insect hum that had been there so long she’d stopped hearing it until moments like this, when the building was empty, the phone was quiet and there was nothing between her and the sound.

After a beat, she raised her hand and went to the back.

The boarders needed feeding. Six dogs, three cats, the routine pulling her back into herself. Scoop measured into each bowl, water changed, movements so practiced they didn’t need thought anymore. The black lab in run three stood and wagged when she approached. The tabby in the far cage didn’t even open its eyes. June worked methodically, left to right, the dry food clicking into stainless steel, the water sloshing clear from the jug.

She was refilling the lab’s bowl when the knock came at the rear door. Three raps, heavy, deliberate. She knew what it meant before she turned around.

Deacon Pruitt stood on the concrete step with his hat in his hand and his beard going gray at the edges. Big man. Always had been. He filled the doorway like a tree filling a window frame, and the fluorescent caught the lines around his eyes and made them deeper.

“Evening,” he said.

June nodded. “Harper’s prescription.”

“I’d say she sent me, but she didn’t.” He stepped inside, ducking slightly under the frame, and closed the door behind him. The clinic smelled like disinfectant and wet dog. Deacon smelled like pine, woodsmoke and a musk that clung under the pine and woodsmoke no matter how hard he’d scrubbed, though he’d clearly made an effort. “Figured I’d save you the drive. She forgets.”

“She always forgets.”

“She does.” He said it without irritation. Thirty years of marriage had sanded the edges off whatever might have been irritation once, and what was left was just fondness, worn smooth. “How’s business?”

“Steady. You?”

“Same.” He glanced at the runs. The lab had settled back onto its bed, nose on paws, watching them. “Ridge road’s been quiet.”

June went to the cabinet behind the desk and took out the paper bag she’d prepared that morning. Harper’s thyroid medication, refilled, the label typed and stuck to the front. She handed it to Deacon and he took it without looking inside, slipping it into his jacket pocket with the ease of a man who had been carrying things for other people for most of his life.

“Take Third Street home tonight,” he said.

June looked at him. His face didn’t change. The lines around his eyes stayed where they were, and his mouth was set in the same flat line it had been when he walked in. But something had shifted in the room. The air felt thinner.

“Why?”

“Construction on the ridge road.” His eyes held hers. Steady. Not lying, exactly. Prevaricating.

“Since when?”

“Since today.”

June didn’t blink. “There’s no construction on the ridge road, Deacon.”

He was quiet for a moment. The fluorescent buzzed. Somewhere in the back, one of the cats shifted in its bedding.