Chapter 47 Celebration
Celebration
Of course not. Evan had come downstairs during working hours and no one worked harder than Mia Hall.
He’d washed the Columbia Law sweatshirt, hung it dry, and then stitched up the boxer rip at the throat with a short length of paracord.
It was folded in a neat rectangle, corners military tight, like a steel plate stamped out of an industrial press.
He left it on her front mat.
Adjusting his rucksack on his shoulder, he started for the elevator.
Time to head to the airport, back to New York to run down the men who had terrorized Anca Dumitrescu.
Last night, Candy had passed on the news that Anca had agreed to issue a statement to Deputy Assistant Director Templeton, and Evan had texted Naomi to arrange a meet ASAP and to fill in the particulars.
Nearing the elevator, he hesitated.
Then he went back and stood before Mia’s door.
Removing a pen and pad from his rucksack, he wrote out a note.
Thank you.
It seemed insufficient.
But what was he supposed to write?
He got onto the elevator, rode down to the lobby.
The doors opened. He stayed inside. Joaquin stared at him from behind the security desk, eyebrows raised. The doors closed again.
Evan rode back up to the twelfth floor.
He walked back to Mia’s condo. Crouched to pick up the note.
He read it again. Then added: For your help.
Then he left for real.
Dog the dog keyed to Evan as he approached at the park, erect posture, high stiff tail. Assessing the threat.
Then the wind shifted, Evan’s scent reaching him, and he ducked his head and his tail dropped to give a low, quick wag of submission.
Evan said, “Good boy,” and Dog’s head popped up, tail rising out and away from his body, describing big rough arcs of delight in the air. He pranced in place, shifting his weight from front paw to front paw as Evan neared.
Then Dog looked imploringly up at the sitter holding his leash, a young athletic woman with a round face, dimples, and a Pepperdine sweatshirt. She unclipped him and said, “Go on.”
Dog launched into Evan, shoving his snout between his thighs, sniffing and schnuffling at his boots, smelling where Evan had been, reconstructing his movements, reading the passage of time in the concentration of scents.
Whinnying, he wriggled between Evan’s legs, his rear swaying back and forth as Evan scratched his ribs.
Finally Dog backed up and made to jump up and put his paws against Evan’s chest, but Evan commanded him down with a flattened hand and crouched for the face-to-face greeting. Dog lavished him with kisses, Evan tightening his mouth against the assault.
Puppies of wild dogs lick their mother’s muzzle when she returns to the den after a hunt to cue her to regurgitate food for them. The underlying drive for the genetically coded instinct had been extinguished in Dog, the behavior transformed into the messy greeting ritual that Evan endured.
Plus he had antiseptic wipes in the first-aid kit in the truck.
Dog snouted into the grass and then let his body follow with a serpentine flop, rolling onto his back to grant Evan access to his belly.
His paws swatted Evan’s shirt, leaving smudges on the facial-recognition-thwarting pattern.
It bothered Evan but he let it go, not wanting to abbreviate the celebration.
He gave Dog long smooth rubs up along the curve of his belly and barrel chest.
“He really likes you,” the dog sitter said.
Evan stood. “Thanks for meeting me out, Natalie.”
“Joey insisted,” Natalie said. “She can be quite adamant.”
“That is one word for her.”
Natalie wore a trucker cap with a Flathead Lake insignia on it, wisps of brownish-blond hair framing her cheeks. “She said you’re her uncle-person?”
“Sort of.”
“Family’s what we make, right?”
“I suppose that is right.” Standing back, he snapped a picture of Dog with the RoamZone.
“Not like that,” Natalie laughed. “You need his face in it. Come here. Up boy, up. Now sit. Okay. Wait, what filter are you using?”
“It’s just a picture.”
“C’mere. Gimme your phone. Wait— What kind of phone is this?”
“A super-secret phone.”
She laughed. “Maybe you’re not such a boomer after all.” Poking at his screen, she brought up portrait mode. “Okay, now kneel by Dog.”
Evan obeyed and she snapped his picture. She glanced at the result. “That’s weird. Your face is all fuzzed out.”
“That’s okay,” he said, taking the phone back. “No one needs to see my face.”
She played with a yin-yang medallion around her neck. “Well, we got your picture. Now Joey’ll get off both our backs.”
“I doubt that very much.”
The smell of wet grass carried on the breeze.
People were out speed-walking or picnicking or playing pickleball in the courts in the distance, the thonk thonk thonk of the rackets scoring the overcast afternoon.
Squatting, Evan scritched behind Dog’s ears and Dog leaned into his touch, closing his eyes and crinkling his mouth drunkenly on one side.
Then he rose to go.
“Take care, Natalie.”
“You, too.”
She reclipped the leash and Dog strained after him as he walked away.
Sitting in his truck, Evan texted the picture to Joey. Immediately a flood of stupid emojis came back. Crying faces and heart-spackled smiles and brown thank-you hands.
She sent a selfie back—her in Devine’s scarlet room, mouth ajar with joy.
He recalled Joey’s breakdown of dopamine release in the brain’s pleasure centers. He stared at the picture of her.
Girl.
Girl he already recognized looking like what she looked like.
What a dumb exercise.
Then he noticed the faintest lift of his heart.
He shut off the phone and drove to the airport.