Is that what Kyle Stephens did — discovered Hope was the thief he was sent to root out? Is that why she reacted with such force to the mention of his name?
If Marcus attributed so much of R&R’s success to Hope, it wasn’t just the girl’s interests he’d be looking out for. I could just imagine what the other three might do if accusations were made towards the girl.
And what might they have done once already…
“Hope—”
But she whirled away with a gesture that clearly meant ‘leave me alone’ and stomped off across another section of cracked paving towards what had once been an apartment block.
I knew if we didn’t get things straight between us now, it would fester for days — or as long as I’d got left. Without thinking, I jogged after her and tagged her arm.
Hope gave a squeal that was more temper than anything else. I heard the scrabble of booteed feet and turned just in time to see sixty-five pounds of canine muscle pounding toward me at a flat run. Lemon’s normally goofy expression had been replaced by a snarling mask.
I yelled, “GET DOWN!” at the top of my voice. Lemon was normally obedient to voice commands and however quickly she came to Hope’s defence I assumed she was not a fully trained attack dog.
Her pace slackened, head ducking in confusion, but she didn’t veer off. When she was three long strides away I braced myself and swung my left arm out and across my body, saw her focus on this new and tempting target.
As she gathered and leapt, jaws opening, I snatched my arm back and twisted to the side. The dog flew past me, her vest skimming my sleeve close enough to rasp as she went. I grabbed the cotton scarf from round my neck and wrapped it quickly around my left wrist and hand.
“Call her off, Hope,” I warned as Lemon skated on the loose gravel in the gutter of the road and came about for another run. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
Hope snorted. “Yeah, right. Think you can?”
“Unless that vest she’s wearing is made of Kevlar, I know I can,” I said. “Don’t make me prove it.”
Hope hesitated. As she did so Lemon leapt for me again, although less forcefully this time. Again I whipped my arm back just as her teeth clacked shut on empty air. She was looking more puzzled than aggressive now but if I wasn’t careful she was going to forget all about wanting to protect her handler and try to bite me out of sheer frustration instead.
“Hope!” I snapped.
She finally seemed to realise the danger she was putting her dog into. Seeing her waver, I started to move my right arm back as if reaching beneath the tails of my shirt.
She let out Lemon’s name on a yelp and the dog went to her instantly. Hope dropped to her knees and wrapped both arms around the Lab’s neck, sobbing into her fur. Lemon looked up at me over Hope’s shoulder, breathless and, unless I was imagining it, ever so slightly sheepish.
I didn’t attempt to go near the pair of them until the girl had quietened. Instead, I just stood far enough back that I’d have warning if she suddenly decided to send Lemon in for another go. I unwound my scarf from my hand and arranged it around my neck again. It was the one I usually wore when I was out on the bike to stop the draught whistling down the collar of my leather jacket. In the past I had vaguely thought it might do double duty as a makeshift bandage or sling if need be, but fending off attacking dogs had not been on my list of alternative uses.
“I wouldn’t have hurt her unless you forced me to,” I said gently. “It wasn’t Lemon’s fault so why should I take it out on her? She loves you enough to protect you. That’s something she should be rewarded for, not punished.”
That brought on a fresh paroxysm of weeping. I suppressed a sigh and waited her out. Eventually Hope’s sniffs subsided. Lemon sidled out from her grasp and shook herself vigorously. Hope remained slumped on her knees. She spoke without lifting her head, her voice so low I hardly heard her.
“What do you want, Charlie?”
“Highest on the list at the moment would be not to get bitten,” I said, deliberately light. “Second would probably be a bacon sandwich.”
She didn’t lift her head and her voice remained a subdued mumble. “But what do you want not to tell.”
I sighed. “I don’t want anything, Hope. No, that’s not true. What I want is for you to stop stealing stuff from the streets. I want you to get on with your job without trying to get Lemon into trouble. I want you both to do what you’re best at. You know Joe Marcus values you two above everyone else on the team. Don’t let him down. And don’t let yourself down either.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As if to prove Joe Marcus’s faith in them, later that morning Hope and Lemon made another live find in one of the old apartment blocks.
Word spread fast. Within twenty minutes the area was swarming with personnel. I gathered that the government had been about to declare the rescue phase of the operation officially over. Finding someone still alive at this stage was considered big news.
So, not only did Dr Bertrand arrive with Joe Marcus, flown in by Riley in the Bell, but the Scots copper Wilson also turned up with his dig team. He greeted me with a serious nod on his way to survey the lopsided building.
I stayed out of the way and kept an unobtrusive eye on Hope who stood off to one side. Lemon sat next to her, the beloved chew toy clutched in her jaws. Her gold-tipped ears flapped like pennants at each new burst of activity, as if she knew she was the cause of it all.
It was not an easy extraction — I was beginning to realise they never were. Once Lemon had indicated for them, the dig team were able to locate the survivors — a young mother and her baby — relatively quickly.
Getting them out was another thing altogether.
The pair had been the living room of their second floor apartment when the earthquake hit. The old building, mainly timber with brick protrusions that were nowhere near up to modern codes, had folded like a house of straw. The two of them were found in the cellar, still surrounded by the remains of the sofa on which they’d been sitting.
To complicate matters, the woman had apparently broken her pelvis in the fall. By the time they’d cut a small exploratory hole through to her she was so incoherent she couldn’t even tell them her name. She was convinced the hands of the rescuers reaching out to her were those of the devil himself trying to pull both her and the child down into hell.
The last thing she could be persuaded to do was hand over the baby which she cradled mute and still in her arms. Initially Wilson thought it might be either dead or a doll until he caught the faintest movement. When this was relayed back the sense of urgency kicked up another gear.
“We need to separate ’er from the child, even if that means shooting ’er with some kind of tranquiliser dart,” Dr Bertrand declared brusquely. “If the child is not already near to dying, it soon will be.”
I was all for it, but the suggestion did not meet with general approval. Meanwhile, Joe Marcus had assessed the state of the structure and was not encouraging.
“It we weaken one critical piece of support, the entire building could pancake on top of them,” he said. “I’m amazed it’s lasted this long with the aftershocks we’ve gotten over the last couple of days.”
A plan was hastily devised to dig down outside the footprint of the building itself and go directly into the cellar by tunnelling through what remained of the foundations. It sounded like lunacy to me but everybody else nodded their heads gravely. Wilson volunteered to be first into the hole.