He got between Luke and the officer who seemed to be running the show. “That toerag is a born thief. Ask anyone round here. He’d have flogged my dog on by the end of the day, and we all know it. Probably to those pikeys on the A road.”
“Travellers,” Gus snapped. “See? He’s a racist as well as a liar.”
“And you can ask anyone anything you like,” Luke said. “Billy hasn’t lived here for five years. He only moved back a few months ago, and he hasn’t been in any trouble.”
It should’ve irked me that they were talking about me as if I was still a delinquent teenager, but it didn’t. Back then, Luke hadn’t been around to speak up for me, and it gave me a distant fuzzy feeling to watch him do it now, a feeling that made me want to prove him right and make all the nice things he was saying about me come true.
I tried to focus on the dog who was, by now, serenely lapping cool water as if nothing had happened. She’d made no move to return to her owner, though, and I wondered if the police had noticed that Keane hadn’t glanced her way either. That he seemed more concerned with his car.
The debate raged around me. I tuned out and lost myself to Jessie’s silky ears. I didn’t care what they decided about me. They could arrest me. Charge me. Lock me up. As long as she was safe, I didn’t give a shit. I knew Gus would take care of Grey.
The police officer crouched in front of me. “Witnesses are backing your version of events, but we’ll need to take your details, in case the CCTV throws up anything else.”
“You know my details,” I said absently. “Or you’d have believed me in the first place.”
“I did believe you. But it’s about evidence. I can’t allow you to break into a car without proof you did it for the right reasons.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s how it works when you have a rap sheet like yours. I’ve arrested you before, do you remember?”
I forced myself to look at the officer and studied his weathered features. He seemed familiar, but then, this was Rushmere. There weren’t many faces I didn’t know. “I don’t remember, but it must’ve been a long time ago, I’m a good boy these days.”
“So I hear, so I’m hoping you’re not going to give me too much trouble about giving the dog back.”
“What?”
“The dog. It doesn’t belong to you.”
“You want me to give her back to that clown after he left her to die? Why aren’t you arresting him?”
The officer sighed. “It doesn’t work like that. Unfortunately, it isn’t a crime to leave the dog in the car. It only becomes something we can prosecute if the dog dies.”
“That’s fucking insane.”
“Mind your language, please. However much I agree with you, I can’t allow you to speak to me like that, okay? Just give me the dog so I can return her to the owner.”
Every instinct I had screamed at me to refuse. To tuck the dog under my arm and make a break for it. But I was shirtless in a crowd of six police officers ready to run me down, and what would happen to Jessie then? If they forced me to let her go by the side of the busy road? Or hit her with their batons when they were aiming for me?
Those batons hurt. I didn’t remember the officer who’d once arrested me, but the sting of a police baton hitting my ribs hadn’t gone anywhere. My subconscious was a bitch.
I handed the dog over, but I couldn’t watch as the police took her back to Keane. I turned away and lit a smoke with shaky hands. The buzz of adrenaline faded. Fight or flight became a slump that made me feel sick. I heard the slam of car doors and the gentle purr of the expensive Range Rover. It hummed past me, and I felt eyes on me as it left the car park. Odds were this wasn’t over.
“Billy.” Luke came up behind me. “You’re bleeding.”
“Hmm?”
Luke gripped my wrist. “Your hand. Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He pulled me out of the car park and back to where the van was parked beneath Rushmere’s tallest sycamore tree. Away from the blazing sun, perspective returned to me, and the reality that I’d just handed Keane’s dog back to face her fate punched me in the gut.
I fought Luke’s hold on me.
Stronger than me, in every sense of the word, he held me firm. “Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking, just don’t. You’ll only make things worse for everyone.”
“I don’t care about everyone.”
“I know you don’t. But I’m asking you not to go after that bastard right now, okay? I need you with me at least until Mia gets here.”
“She doesn’t care about everyone either.”
“I know that too, I’m just asking you to stay with me.”
I was missing something. Luke was a bad liar, and he wielded deflection better than anyone I’d ever known. But he had eyes that spoke only truth, and as he stared me down, something settled in my chest. I had no fucking clue what was going on, but trust bloomed like an errant thought did on my most anxious days. It pollinated and sprouted roots, and I found myself nodding, despite the fight still alive and well in my gut. “What are you, like, hypnotising me or something?”
Luke’s frown deepened. “What?”
“Never mind. I’ll stay, all right? But I still want to burn that prick’s house down.”
“Tell you what, if you feel that way by tonight, I’ll give you the fucking matches.”
Definitely missing something. But I let it go. I was out of practice at getting lairy with people, and the comedown was leaving me dizzy. Sharp edges felt blunt.
Luke sat me in the back of the
