“Where’s the shed?” Dutch asked.
Leo pointed a trembling finger toward the back of the house.
Dutch did not wait.
He walked around the side, his heavy boots crunching on broken glass and dried leaves. The backyard was a graveyard of rusted car parts and empty beer cans.
At the far end stood a dilapidated wooden shed, secured with a heavy rusted padlock.
As they got closer, they could hear it.
A low, miserable whimpering.
Scratching at the wood.
Reno stepped up, examining the padlock.
“Cheap master lock. I can pick it.”
“Move,” Bear grunted.
He did not wait for Reno to get his tools.
Bear lifted his size-fourteen boot and kicked the shed door right next to the hasp. The rotting wood splintered instantly. The screws tore out, and the door swung open violently.
Inside, tied to a lawn mower with a frayed piece of nylon rope, was a mutt.
Part terrier.
Part something else.
Ribs showing.
Shaking just like the boy out front.
The dog cowered, whining at the sight of the giant men filling the doorway.
Dutch walked in, pulled a heavy buck knife from his belt, and sliced the rope in one fluid motion.
He did not try to pet the dog.
He just stepped back.
The dog bolted out the door, making a beeline for the front yard.
“Now what?” Reno asked, looking at the broken door.
“Now,” Dutch said, slowly folding his knife and sliding it back into its leather sheath, “we wait for Frank.”
Buster did not run far.
The scruffy terrier sprinted around the side of the house, claws scrabbling frantically on the cracked concrete path, and launched himself directly into Leo’s arms.
The boy collapsed onto the dead grass of the front yard, burying his face in the dog’s matted fur.
He did not cheer.
He did not yell.
He just let out a hollow, shuddering sob that felt too heavy for his narrow chest.
Dutch watched from the corner of the house.
He felt the familiar dull ache in his knuckles, a phantom pain that always crept up when trouble was brewing.
He stepped up onto the porch. The wooden planks groaned under his heavy boots.
The front door squeaked open on rusted hinges.
A woman stood in the threshold behind the torn mesh of the screen door.
She looked to be in her early thirties, but exhaustion had carved deep lines around her mouth and eyes. She wore a faded blue uniform shirt from a local grocery store. Faded yellow bruises bloomed along her collarbone, disappearing beneath the cheap fabric.
She saw Buster.
She saw Leo on the lawn.
Then she looked up and saw three massive men wearing death’s-head patches standing on her property.
All the blood drained from her face.
Her hand shot up to her mouth, stifling a gasp.
“Ma’am,” Dutch said.
His voice was gravel, flat and devoid of warmth.
“I suggest you go inside and grab a garbage bag.”
She blinked, paralyzed by panic. Her eyes darted from Dutch to Bear, who was standing solidly by the porch railing, looking like a brick wall in a denim cut.
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Did Frank send you?”
Reno barked a short, ugly laugh.
“Frank doesn’t have the cash to send us to the corner store, lady.”
“We’re here for the kid,” Dutch said, cutting Reno off with a sharp glare.
He looked back at the mother.
“Leo left a note on my motorcycle. Said a guy named Frank was going to shoot his dog and put hands on you. Dog is out of the shed. Now we’re waiting for Frank.”
The woman’s name tag read Diane.
She trembled.
“You can’t be here. When he gets off work, he drinks at the tavern by the highway. But when he gets home, if he sees you—”
“If he sees us, he’s going to pack his things,” Dutch interrupted calmly. “Go get a garbage bag, Diane. Frank is moving out today.”
She hesitated, her survival instincts warring with her sheer terror of the men on her porch.
But something in Dutch’s deadpan certainty broke through her panic.
She nodded slowly and retreated back into the dark hallway of the house.
Dutch sat down on a dilapidated wicker chair. It shrieked under his weight, but held.
Bear leaned against a wooden support pillar, pulling a small folding knife from his pocket and idly cleaning dirt from under his fingernails.
Reno paced the short length of the porch, restless energy radiating off him.
He hated sitting still.
They waited.
The afternoon heat baked the neighborhood into submission.
Across the street, the curtains of a yellow house twitched.
Someone was watching.
Dutch did not care.
Let them watch.
A community that turned a blind eye to a bruised woman and a terrified kid did not have the right to complain about the company she kept.
Forty-five minutes bled away.
The shadow of the porch stretched out over the dead lawn.
Leo remained sitting in the dirt, clutching Buster, his eyes fixed down the avenue.
Then the low, unhealthy rumble of a failing exhaust pipe broke the silence.
A dented blue pickup truck turned the corner. It swerved slightly, the driver taking the turn too wide and correcting with a jerk of the steering wheel.
The truck bounced over the dip in the driveway and came to a halt on the dirt lawn, inches from Leo.
The driver’s side door groaned open.
Frank stepped out.