Page 73 of In Spades

I looked over Chase’s shoulder to make sure I was out of earshot of the kids.

“It’s only been a little over two weeks,” I said. “Do you think this is moving a little fast?”

Chase stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I’m probably the wrong guy to ask.”

I reached out and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “Do you want to talk about what I may or may not have seen at the last poker night?”

His face turned to stone—a rare look for Chase. Usually, he was the fun one, and Steve was the scary-as-fuck one.

He cleared his throat. “Bee and I have been friends for a long time, Kris. What you saw wasn’t anything.”

“We were all caught off guard when Kyle showed up at the bar. I can’t imagine how you feel.”

“I don’t feel a damn thing,” he clipped. There was a dangerous poison laced in his words. It was the sound of someone who had been stripped of everything he loved.

We both fell silent as something rustled behind the corrugated sheet metal skirting at the base of my single-wide. Chase and Steve had been on my ass for years, begging me to let them lay bricks there. I didn’t have the money for it, and I was stubborn. So the answer continued to be “no.”

The scratching continued.

I turned to Chase, alarmed. “What do you think it is?”

He hopped off the step and motioned for me to back up. “Might be a raccoon or something. If it’s out during the day, it might be rabid.”

“What’s going on?” Logan asked, appearing at the door. The rest of the kids piled up behind him. Zoey wiggled her way to the front of the pack.

“I think there’s something trapped under the house,” I said.

“Might be a ‘possum,” Hunter said.

“Could be squirrels,” Kylie chimed in.

Chase jogged to his truck and grabbed a pair of work gloves and a flashlight from his toolbox.

“Might wanna back up,” he cautioned as he approached the house.

I scampered up the steps with the kids. I could deal with many things, but I had no interest in contracting rabies from a pack of psychotic squirrels or a pissed-off raccoon.

Chase knelt in the dirt, shining the flashlight around the seam of the sheet metal. After promising to fix whatever he inevitably broke, he slipped on the work gloves and peeled it back stud by stud.

A pitiful yelp broke the tension.

Chase tossed the scrap of metal aside and shone the light under the house. His eyebrows shot up. “It’s a dog,” he called out.

“Guys—” I cut myself off. It was no use. The kids heard the word ‘dog’ and barreled out of the house, nearly flattening me like a pancake.

With a quick crook of his finger, Chase motioned for Logan to help him. He handed off the flashlight and got on his hands and knees, crawling under the house.

“C’mon, buddy, I’m not gonna hurt you,” Chase soothed as he inched his way closer. “Logan, can you shine it a little closer?”

I bit my nails and cringed. “Please be careful! There’s probably snakes and spiders down there!”

A tense moment of silence passed before Chase wiggled his way out.

“Back up!” I said, shooing Hunter, Zoey, and Kylie up the stairs. I imagined Chase emerging with black widows and centipedes all over him. It made me want to turn the hose on and preemptively douse him.

He crawled out from under the house with a scrawny German Shepherd cradled in his arms. It squeaked pitifully. I could count each rib under its matted fur. With floppy puppy ears and paws too big for its body, it couldn’t have been more than a few months old.

“Poor thing!” Kylie said, running back down the steps to get a closer look.

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