business, Landis.”
Landis bristled. “So? You gonna make something out of it?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you notice, but other people might.”
“So?”
“I’ve seen men stabbed for less.”
“I just said you don’t read your mail. That’s all I said. How come you don’t?”
“No reason to.”
“It makes you homesick, don’t it? Mine makes me homesick.”
On a night when he’d been high on drugs and sure he was invincible, the young veteran of the streets of Southeast D.C. had killed a cop in a car chase, just within the Virginia border. Unfortunately he was also the proud owner of a rap sheet as long as the list of foster homes he’d paraded through from the time he was three. This wasn’t Landis’s first time in jail, but it would almost certainly be his last.
“I got me a girl back home,” Landis said. “I’m gonna get out of here someday. She’ll be waiting.”
Christian was silent.
“Your mail from a woman?”
Maisy Fletcher was certainly that. A warm earth mother who had taken Christian under her wing the first time she laid eyes on him. Now, all these years later, she hadn’t given up on him, even though her daughter had tossed him away like so much spoiled paté.
Maisy wrote Christian faithfully, averaging a letter a month. The letters appeared as regularly as beans and corn bread on Wednesday nights. There was nothing else Maisy could do for him.
He had gotten one yesterday, hence Landis’s question. He never read the letters anymore. In the first years of his sentence, he had read them all until he realized that the letters were like acid burning holes through his thickening defenses. She talked about people he’d grown up with, talked around Julia’s marriage to Lombard Warwick, told funny stories about life in Ridge’s Race. As a letter writer Maisy, who in everyday life was often inarticulate and unfocused, came into her own. She captured the life he’d left behind too perfectly.
“Chris, you awake?”
“What chance do I have to sleep with you talking?”
“I’ll stop reading letters, too, won’t I? One day, I’ll stop reading them. Just like you.”
Christian closed his eyes.
“Heel, Seesaw.” Seesaw obediently took up her place beside Christian and started down the track.
She was a particularly pretty puppy, clever and bursting with energy. But Christian knew better than to get attached to any of the dogs who came through the Pets and Prisoners program. He had grown up with dogs and horses. He’d seen both at their best and worst, trained them, nursed them, even put them down when required.
He kept his distance here. The dogs he trained went on to new masters. He knew from reports how well they were cared for and how invaluable they were. Sometimes he found himself wishing he could watch a puppy like Seesaw grow up, but he knew how lucky he was to have this chance to work with her at all. Training guide dogs was as close to his past as he was liable to come.
Timbo signaled from the side of the track, and Christian stopped and turned. Seesaw waited beside him as he unsnapped her leash. Timbo called her name, and she trotted toward him. Christian followed.
“Okay, Timbo. If you had to rate her chances of getting through the advanced training, what would you say?”
Timbo studied the puppy as he petted her. “Good. No, better than good. I’d say nine out of ten.” He looked up. “What do you say?”
“Eight out of ten. She’s a party girl. We may have some trouble teaching her to ignore other dogs. But it’s a small problem at this point, and I expect it will go away as she matures. I’ll mention it to her new family.”
“They’re taking her tomorrow?”
“In the morning. We’ll get another batch of puppies next week. I’ll finish the paperwork tonight.”
“She’ll have a good home?”
Christian raised a brow. For a man who couldn’t imagine how he’d been assigned to train dogs, Timbo was evolving fast. “All the homes are good. Most have children and other pets to play with. She’ll be fine. And we’ll see her back here in a year.”
“Just wondering.”
“You’ve done your job with her.”
“Never had me no dog. But I fed some, you know? Dogs in the neighborhood nobody took care of. Used to buy sacks of dog food and leave ‘em in the alley at night.”
“You’re all heart, Timbo.”
Timbo grinned. “That’s me.”
“Do a good job here, and when you get out Bertha will help find you a job on the outside.”
“What, shoveling dog shit at some kennel?”
“You might aim a little higher than that.”
“I got big plans.”
Christian squatted beside the little retriever, scratching behind her ears. “A man’s plans have a way of changing.”
“Yeah? Looks like yours are about to.”
Christian glanced up and saw the guard on duty motioning for him. He stood. “Take her back to the kennel, would you? Then go on over and help Javier. I’ll see what he wants.”
“What he wants is to make you feel like you nuthin’.”
Silently Christian handed Timbo Seesaw’s leash.
Mel Powers was a skinny man who perspired like a heavy one. He wore an extravagant hairpiece, expensive suits that always looked cheap and gold-rimmed glasses with lenses that were as thick as his New Jersey accent. The effect was more ambulance chaser than high-powered attorney, but Mel Powers was the revered Great White of shark-infested waters. Mel, considered the best criminal attorney in Virginia, had been hired by Peter Claymore to represent Christian. He still took Christian’s conviction as a personal affront.
Peter Claymore, of Claymore Park, was a study in contrasts. At sixty, he was twenty years older than Mel, and if he sweated at all, it was only after hours of riding to hounds. His silver hair was thick and his eyesight so perfect he could detect movement in the forest when everyone else believed a fox had gone to ground. When he wore a suit, it was tailored to highlight the breadth of his shoulders and the good taste of his ancestors. Claymore Park, the largest and most successful horse property in Ridge’s Race, had been home to Claymores long before the War of Northern Aggression.
Christian hadn’t expected to find either man waiting for him in the tiny visitors’ room. Neither the guard who had summoned him to the warden’s office
