Seething, Ledge turned on the ignition and put the truck in gear.

“That sounds like Ledge’s truck.” Crystal picked up the TV remote and turned down the volume. “He must be returning Arden to her car.”

Marty left the sofa and went over to one of the front windows.

“Don’t spy on them,” Crystal said. “They’re not teenagers.”

“I’m not spying. Just taking a peek.” Marty raised one of the louvers of the blinds. “Yep, it’s his monster truck. She’s getting out on her own.” Looking over her shoulder at Crystal, she reported, “No good night kiss.”

“Hmm. I’m disappointed. I thought for sure there were banked fires smoldering.”

“In the half minute that I was with them, I got that impression, too. Maybe they kissed in the truck. Maybe they did more than kiss, and a kiss would be anticlimactic. So to speak.”

“But it’s not like Ledge to—”

Marty interrupted her. “What the…?”

“What?”

“Crystal?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, my God.”

Responding to the sudden alarm in Marty’s tone, Crystal bounded off the sofa, and rushed to join her at the window. “What is it?”

“Are those dogs?”

They had covered the two blocks to Crystal’s house without Arden offering a word of explanation, from which Ledge inferred that Jacob couldn’t be identified with nonchalance, such as that he was the octogenarian who’d lived across the street from her in Houston, or her first cousin, or her best friend’s adolescent son hawking tickets for a fund-raising raffle.

By the time he pulled up behind her car, he was steaming. He put the truck in park but left it running, draped his wrists over the top of the steering wheel, and stared out the windshield, being a jerk and knowing it, but he was a guy with a three-day-old hard-on and he was fuck-all furious.

He said, “Jacob?”

“Is none of your concern.”

“No?” He turned his head to look at her. “My stiff dick would disagree. It wishes we’d stuck to fighting.”

She shot him a drop-dead look as she opened the door of the truck. She shut it with force and rounded the hood. The headlights spotlighted her as she dug into her purse, probably searching for her key fob.

Catching motion out the corner of his left eye, he turned his head. Two shadowy figures came streaking across the lawn across the street, a third not far behind.

He registered almost immediately what they were, what they signified, and, shoving open the driver’s door, he burst out of it, yelling, “Arden, get back in the truck. Get in the truck!”

He’d telegraphed his panic, because she stopped in her tracks and looked toward him, but she was blinded by the headlights. She raised her hand to shield her eyes just as one of the dogs took a flying leap at him.

He jumped backward onto the hood and jerked his legs up in the nick of time. The dog hit the side panel with a loud thump and enough momentum to rock the vehicle.

Arden screamed.

“Go around, go around. Get in the truck!” Ledge crab-walked across the hood to the front of it, then jumped down. He grabbed Arden’s hand, yanking hard, placing her behind him as another of the animals charged. Ledge kicked at it.

“Get in!” He let go of her hand and pushed her toward the passenger side, hoping to God she would do as he said.

He clambered back up onto the hood. The dogs continued to attack, trying to launch themselves high enough to reach him. They were snarling, barking a cacophony. Slobber flew from their maws in globs. His boot heel caught one in the muzzle and sent it backward. It landed hard on the pavement, stunning it, but only momentarily. Then it was up and throwing itself against the pickup again and again, maddened, frenzied.

He glanced behind him to see that Arden had made it into the cab, but one of the animals had targeted her and was repeatedly launching itself at the passenger door, its wide jaws snapping.

The front door of Crystal’s house flew open. She and Marty came running down the steps. Crystal was screaming his name. He shouted for them to get back inside.

Then a blast of the truck’s horn stunned him, the dogs, Marty and Crystal into silence.

Its ear-shattering blare continued. Then, above it, Ledge heard a shrill whistle.

So did the dogs. As one unit, they took off, racing in the direction from which they’d come.

Ledge gave no thought to pursuing them, or to anything else except Arden. Without even pausing to catch his breath, he slid off the hood and rushed around to the passenger door, where the window was streaked and gummy with canine saliva. He yanked open the door.

She was leaning across the console, her back to him. He didn’t shout above the racket. Instead, he spoke quietly. “Arden, you can let up now. They’re gone.”

She turned and looked at him with a stunned gaze, but his words registered. She pulled her hand away from the horn activator on the steering wheel. The sudden, resultant silence was almost as deafening as the blare had been.

Her eyes still fixed on his, she sat upright in the passenger seat. He placed a hand on her knee. It was trembling. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t hurt?”

“No.” Then, shaking her head, “No.” She looked him over. “You?”

“No, but I was losing. Good thinking with the horn. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Her teeth began to chatter.

Crystal came running up to them, panting. “Are you two okay?”

“We’re fine,” he said. “Shaken, but fine.”

“Good Lord, Ledge.” Crystal splayed her hand across her chest. “You could have been killed.”

“I think that was the idea.”

She looked at him with dismay.

Marty joined them just then. She’d had the presence of mind to tell neighbors who’d come out to see what the commotion was about that everything was under control. She’d also collected Arden’s purse, which she’d dropped when the dogs attacked. It had been trampled.

“Everything was spilled and scattered,” Marty told her. “I gathered up what I could see. Your billfold is intact.”

“Thank you.” Arden took her purse but seemed indifferent to its battered condition and at a loss as to what to do with it.

Ledge took it from her and set it on the floorboard.

Marty said, “Should we call the cops?”

“It won’t do any good,” he said.

“But with a pack of wild dogs—”

“You heard the whistle?” he said. “They weren’t feral, and they weren’t on the prowl.” He turned to Crystal. “Do you mind if Arden stays with you tonight? She shouldn’t go home alone.”

“Where are you going?”

“To run an errand.”

This trio of women wasn’t stupid. They shared a look among themselves.

Crystal said, “Of course; Arden can stay for as long—”

“Thank you, Crystal, but I won’t be pawned off on you.” Looking straight at him, she stated, “I’m going with Ledge.”

“The hell you are. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“I was. But the shock has worn off. I’m okay now. See?” She held out her hands, palms down to prove they were steady. They weren’t.

“You’re staying.”

“No. I’m not.”

Marty nudged Crystal. “I think we should leave them to hash this out.”

Crystal looked indecisively at him, and then at Arden, then murmured, “Be careful,” and went along with Marty.

Ledge waited until they were inside the house, then said, “Arden, I don’t want to waste time arguing with you.”

“Then you had better stop arguing.”

“You could get hurt.”

“You keep telling me that, but so far I haven’t been.”

“You can’t go where I’m going.”

“Which is where?”

“I don’t even know yet. I don’t know what I’ll be up against when I get there. It will most certainly be dangerous. You can’t go with me. That’s final.”

She stared him down, or tried. But he won. She capitulated.

“All right.” She retrieved her purse and climbed down from the truck. But she didn’t start in the direction of the house. She headed for her car.

“What are you doing?”

“I either ride with you or follow in my own car.”

He erupted with a stream of obscenities, none of which fazed her. She walked back to him. “You believe Rusty was behind this, don’t you?”

“It has his trademark.”

“If what you told me tonight is true, and he killed Brian Foster, and he has let everyone think for two decades that my father did it, I’ve damn well earned the right to fight back.”

His head dropped forward. He blew out a gust of breath. He counted to ten as he stared at the ground between his boots.

When he looked up at her, he said, “I gave you fair warning.”

Chapter 31

As they drove away from Crystal’s house, Ledge got on his phone and called Don. “The other night when Rusty ambushed me in the bar, there was a guy playing pool with some buddies. I didn’t even turn around to look when Rusty hassled him about dogfighting. Rusty called him by name. Dawkins?”

Arden, in the passenger seat, heard Don say, “Hawkins. Dwayne Hawkins.”

“Do you know where he lives? Or where he holds the fights? Rusty mentioned an old barn.”

“You’re not taking to that sport, I hope.”

“Come on.”