6
Quarles threw open the door of his truck and stepped out.
“Where’ve you been?”
“I was looking for the dog,” I said. “I thought he was somewhere behind the store and—”
“I tell you to do a thing, you do it and come back. You don’t make me wait. You don’t take your time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought I could find him, but I guess he—”
Quarles’s open hand slammed into my jaw, nearly knocking me down.
“Don’t lie to me. Supply truck radioed about some kid playing with a mutt.” Quarles reached for the dogcatcher he kept in a metal sleeve on the side of the truck. “Useless. Like always, if I want something done, it’s on me.”
“Look,” I said, jogging to keep up with him. “I found him. Okay? But he was too fast. I almost had him, but then he ran off and I couldn’t get him. He’s just one dog. Little too. We should get back for afternoon prayers.”
Quarles ignored me and checked each storefront. I hoped he would get frustrated by the time he reached the supermarket, but when he got there, he went in the front door. I followed him, barely breathing, as he moved up and down the aisles. When his back was to me, I looked into the corner where a short hall led down to two bathroom doors. Both were closed.
Five minutes, I thought, staring back at the hall. Just be quiet for five more minutes.
Quarles finished going through the rows and headed toward the register.
“I told you, he’s not—”
A high-pitched whine came from the back hall. Quarles froze, his hand tense on the shaft of the dogcatcher.
No. “Wait. Quarles…”
By the time Quarles reached the hallway, Bear’s claws were scraping against the thin wooden door. His free hand fell to the bludgeon on his belt.
“He’s not worth it.”
He turned and stabbed the tip of the lead club into my chest.
“I’m rid of you soon,” he said in a deadly rumble. “So what you do isn’t my concern anymore. But you’re going to help me take this one. Make my life harder and I’ll tell Monroe what you’ve done.”
A sick feeling was growing in my gut, but I somehow managed to nod. Quarles forced the bludgeon into my hands.
“If he gives me a problem, put him down.”
Quarles moved to the door. I wanted to tell him to stop, wanted to beg him, but a bad word from him to Monroe could hurt me, hurt James. I just stood there, stupid and small, as he reached for the door handle. When he opened it, Bear was sitting in the center of the room, ears up, tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“This mutt is what you were keeping from me?”
He reached for Bear’s collar, but there was a growl and then Quarles reared back with a yelp. Bear darted through his legs and into the store. When Quarles staggered out of the bathroom, one hand was dripping blood onto the tile floor.
“No stray bites me,” he said as he drew a black .38.
I backed out of the hall, keeping between Quarles and Bear, the club in my hand. Quarles thumbed the hammer back and leveled the gun at my chest.
“I can kill you too, boy. Nobody’d question me. Now move away.”
I was rooted in place, couldn’t move if I wanted to. Quarles made a disgusted sound and pushed past me. As soon as he did, something in me unlocked. I twisted around and swung for his wrist, shattering it with the club. Quarles dropped to his knees with a scream, sending the gun skidding across the linoleum. I stepped back, amazed at what I had done. Quarles looked at me with bloodshot eyes.
“Quarles, wait. I didn’t mean to—”
“I should thank you,” he said, drawing himself up. “Gives me the reason to do what I’ve wanted to do since I met you.”
Quarles lurched forward, grabbing my collar and swinging me into one of the floor displays. My bad arm hit the shelf, and the pain sent me to the floor. The club skittered away from me.
I tried to get up, but Quarles drove his fist into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. He lifted his hand again, and Bear jumped at him with a snarl, digging his teeth into the man’s calf and thrashing wildly. Quarles kicked him into a far wall and then scooped up the club. Bear cowered, ears back, eyes wide, as Quarles came for him.
My hand hit a hot piece of metal as I scrambled away. Quarles’s revolver. I grabbed it just as Quarles was raising the club over Bear’s skull.
He was starting to swing when I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
7
I sat with my back wedged into a corner, ears ringing, my hand cramping around the handle of the revolver. Time seemed to distort around me, speeding past, then slowing to a crawl.
There was a shuffling sound beside me. Bear had come around Quarles, and we were sitting shoulder to shoulder. He shifted his weight from paw to paw with an urgent whine.
Quarles was facedown with three bullet wounds in his back, one high and two low. Each one was a spot of black ringed by a circle of dark red. A pool of blood, the thickness of motor oil, had spread out underneath him, a misshapen circle stretching from his waist to his head.
I heaved violently, vomiting up acidic bile. After it passed, I stayed there on my knees, my stomach muscles clenching. I breathed deep until they stilled, then turned to the door. Quarles’s truck sat across the parking lot, a black splotch against the tan desert. How long had it been sitting there now? Minutes? Hours? I imagined the dogs going mad for food back in their kennels. How long until someone noticed? How long before they came looking?
I forced myself up onto legs as shaky as a fawn’s, then took a few steps before squatting down by the dead man’s shoulders. His face was turned toward me and his eyes were open wide, staring blankly. Their blue centers were surrounded by a maze of burst blood vessels.
I grabbed the edge of Quarles’s coat in my one good hand and threw myself toward the back hall. His body skidded a few inches, but the effort forced me to my knees, panting. There were at least five more feet between him and the narrow bathroom door.
Bear stood by the door, watching me, his front paws tapping anxiously against the tile.
I dug my heels into the floor and I pulled again, grunting, until his body moved. I got him another few inches, rested, and did it again and again until we were at the edge of the bathroom. I dropped his coat and collapsed against the wall.
Bear scurried across the store, giving the slick of blood a wide berth. He sat before me, making an impatient huffing sound. Somehow I got up again and pulled until I got Quarles into the bathroom.
His body ended up curled around the base of the filthy toilet, chin on his chest, arms limp at his sides. Looking down at him, numbness spread through me, and I felt like I was seeing him from high above. I suddenly realized how little I knew about him. Did he have a wife? Children?
I staggered out of the bathroom and shut the door.
Bear stayed close as I covered Quarles’s blood with whatever trash I could find. If someone was searching the store, they would figure out what happened pretty quick, but it might at least buy me some time.
But time to do what?
I didn’t breathe at the Cormorant checkpoint. My hand gripped the steering wheel as two sentries looked over the truck in front of me. I checked the rearview. Bear was lying on his side in one of the back cages. When I looked forward, one of the sentries was waving me up.
He took my tech operator’s dispensation papers and studied them. His sleek M4 hung on his chest, one hand never more than a few inches from the grip and trigger.