LITMIR.BIZ

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on the narrow bunk, Juno snoring on his mat on the floor. His thoughts wandered back to Mia and the fire. His police contact hadn’t been able to tell him much, but he knew that circumstantial evidence could convict a person in the eyes of the law and the community.

      Motive and means. Mia had both.

      He got to his feet and took up his guitar from the closet. Juno burrowed deeper into his mat as Dallas strummed out a few chords on the instrument that was a gift from his brother, Trey. So, indirectly, was Dallas’s damaged spleen and knee, but he did not hold that against his brother anymore. Dallas got into gang life to emulate Trey, but no one had forced him.

      He’d gone in willingly and come out so damaged he would never realize his dream of being a Marine like their father.

      He tried to remember his sixteen-year-old self, armed and patrolling the ten-block territory as a sentinel of sorts, a lookout for Uncle, the older leader of the gang who pedaled dope, which kept the wheels rolling. He’d admired Uncle, feared him even, yet watched him hand out new shoes and Fourth of July fireworks to the kids who couldn’t afford either. They were the same kids who would be members one day, looking for that combination of belonging and protection that Uncle provided. Sixteen years old, carrying a gun, drinking and protecting a hoodlum’s drug business. He cringed at the memory. What an idiot. What a coward.

      How many trailers had he stayed in over the years? How many apartments or cabins had he called home until people got to know him a little too well and he felt that restless urge to move on? Was he still looking for that place to belong?

      Or was it more cowardice? Probably, God forgive him. It was safer not to get to know people and to prevent them from knowing him. Safe...with a helping of sin mixed in. His grandfather’s favorite baseball player, Mickey Mantle, said gangs were where cowards went to hide. Maybe they sometimes went to trailer parks, too. He fought the rising tide of self-recrimination with a muttered prayer.

      The clock reminded him he hadn’t eaten dinner. The fridge didn’t offer much so he grabbed a rainbow of hot peppers and an onion. Armed with a perfectly balanced knife, he allowed himself to be soothed by the precision of the slices as they fell away onto the cutting board.

      Juno surged to his feet, ears cocked.

      Company.

      So late? And in the throes of a pounding rain? He put down the knife and sidled to the window, peering through the blinds. Nothing. No cars visible, but then his windows faced the tree-lined creek so he wouldn’t see one anyway. Juno was standing in front of the door, staring with laser-like precision, ears swiveling, as if he could see beyond the metal if he just worked hard enough at it. With hearing four times greater than a human’s, Juno was not often wrong about what he heard.

      Dallas tried to peer through the blinds again, but the angle was wrong. Still no one knocked. Juno maintained his ferocious intensity, which told Dallas someone was out there. The slightest sound or scent telegraphed to a dog just as strongly as a stiff-knuckled rap on the door.

      Okay. Let’s play. Dallas gripped the door handle. Juno’s whiskers quivered, body trembling, sensing a game in the offing. Juno, like every great SAR dog, had an intense play drive that never wound down.

      Dallas did a slow count to three and yanked the handle.

      Wind barreled in along with a gust of rain, and Juno charged down the metal stairs onto the wooden porch. He turned in circles looking for something that wasn’t there.

      Dallas kept his fists ready and gave the dog the moment he needed to get his bearings. Moisture-laden air confused Juno’s senses, but not for long.

      The dog shoved his head in the gap under the trailer and began to bark for all he was worth, tail whirling.

      A woman’s scream cut through the storm.

      “Sit,” Dallas yelled to Juno, who complied with a reluctant whine.

      “Whoever you are under the trailer, come out.”

      No answer.

      “If you don’t come out, the dog is coming in.”

      Now there was movement, a raspy breathing, a set of slender fingers wrapping around the edge of the trailer, the impression of a face.

      “He’ll bite me.”

      Dallas called Juno to him and held the dog by the collar, more to assure the woman than out of fear that Juno would disobey. Juno didn’t bite people. He was more interested in getting them to throw a ball for him to fetch. “Come out.”

      She emerged, soggy and mud streaked, her hair plastered in coils against her face. Red hair.

      “You were there at the fire.”

      She didn’t answer, trembling in the falling rain.

      “Come inside. We’ll talk.”

      She didn’t move. “Are you a friend of Cora’s?”

      “Are you?” He could see the thoughts racing through her mind as she chewed her lip without answering. “All I can tell you is I won’t hurt you.”

      “How do I know I can trust you?” she said through chattering teeth.

      “Guess you can’t. You came here to find me and here I am. If you want to talk, we do it inside. Don’t want the dog to catch cold.”

      After another long look at Juno, the woman ran up the steps.

      He tossed her a towel, which she wrapped around her shoulders before she sank onto the kitchen chair. Juno did his thing, sniffing her muddy shoes and the hem of her sodden linen pants.

      Dallas studied her while he heated water in the microwave and flung in a tea bag which had come with the trailer. Some sort of fruity herbal stuff. Her clothes had been nice at one point, ruined now. A light jacket was not up to the task of keeping her dry from the pummeling rain. No purse.

      “Who are you?” he asked as he handed her the tea.

      She clutched it between her shaking hands, her knuckles white.

      “Susan.” She swallowed. “I was going to meet Cora, and I saw the house burning. I tried to get inside to help her.”

      Nice story. “Why were you meeting her?”

      “She was...looking into something for me.” She locked eyes on his, hers a pale gray. “Is she all right?”

      Dallas considered. Time to find out if Susan really was a friend to Cora. “Dead.” He gauged her reaction.

      The woman did not move, as if the words were lost in the steam from the mug she held to her lips. “Dead.”

      “So why were you going to see her?”

      She gazed into the tea. “How did the fire start?”

      “Maybe I should be asking you that.”

      She jerked. “You think I set it?”

      “So far I’ve seen you running away from a fire and sneaking outside my trailer. Puts your character in question.”

      A glimmer of a smile lifted her lips, but there was something under the trailing wet hair, behind the gaunt lines of her mouth that revealed a hardness he hadn’t seen at first. “So you’re wondering if you can trust me?” she said.

      “Not wondering. I’m not going to trust you, not until you give me the truth.”

      “You’re a hard man.”

      He sat opposite her. “I’ve got peppers to sauté. What are you here for?”

      She held his eyes with hers, a slight lift to her chin. “Justice.”

      “Not easy to find.”

      “I know. But I’m going to have it. I’m going to get back what belongs to me.” The last words came out as a hiss.

      “What were you

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