Page 39 of Blind Luck

“I need to pee.”

“There’s a rock right to your left. Promise I won’t look.”

Thankfully, Rusty turned out to be a bit of a dog whisperer. After an hour and a half of silence, broken only by the distant noise of airplanes and an occasional skittering I didn’t want to think about, the dog slowly crept out of its hiding place, grabbed the first piece of croissant, and retreated again. Another ten minutes, and it came back for the second piece. Finally, an hour and fifty-seven minutes, one pee break—mine, not his—and a bout of pins and needles later, he managed to stuff the mutt into a duffel bag. The end result wasn’t pretty, and the critter snapped at him a couple of times, but he got the zipper closed and finally, finally, we could go home.

“Poor little guy,” Rusty said once we were back on board the helicopter, having repeated the rope dangling in reverse. “Under the fur, you can feel all his bones. I bet he’s dehydrated too.”

Sin had softened slightly after we got the dog out of the canyon. “There’s an IV on board, but I’m not sure I can safely get a cannula into him.”

Instead, she opened the zipper enough for the dog to poke its head out, then poured a trickle of water into her palm and offered it, smiling as a pink tongue lapped it up.

“I can do that if you fly,” Rusty told her. “Let’s go.”

The trip back to Las Vegas seemed to take longer than the trip out, and on the way, Rusty used a piece of paracord and Sin’s bra-knife to fashion a makeshift collar for the dog. He’d finished the croissant, so I fed him a handful of banana chips from my emergency bag of trail mix.

“Is there anything you don’t carry in your purse?” Rusty asked.

“An anti-tank missile?”

Sin began whistling to herself at the controls.

“Wait… You don’t have…?”

She turned to me, wide-eyed. “That would beinsane.”

Yup, she definitely had a missile squirrelled away somewhere.

When we landed back at the VIP terminal, an SUV was waiting for us. I didn’t ask how it got there, and Sin didn’t volunteer the information.

“You can drop me off at the animal hospital and take the car if you want,” she said. “I’ll catch a ride home with somebody.”

I hadn’t given any thought as to how we’d get back to the Neptune to pick up Rusty’s vehicle, and as usual, she was ten steps ahead.

“I can chip in toward the vet bill,” Rusty offered. “He’s a cute little guy.”

“I’ll cover it. If you want to help out, make a donation to the shelter—they’re overflowing with strays these days.”

In the end, Rusty carried the dog into the veterinarian’s office while a jerk honked at Sin for blocking the street. I noticed her studying the offending vehicle in the rear-view mirror, and then she jotted down the licence plate. Uh-oh. I jumped out to help Rusty while Sin went to find a parking spot.

The receptionist did a double take when she saw him carrying the scrawny dog toward her with its head sticking out of the duffel bag. And I wasn’t sure whether it was because the dog was cute or because Rusty looked like, well, Rusty.

“I understand you’re expecting us,” he said.

“Sure, what’s the name?”

“It’s the dog that was found in the desert.”

“Oh, Ms. Fischer’s dog?” When he didn’t answer right away, she prompted, “Astrid Fischer?”

Astrid Fischer? Was that Sin’s real name? Rusty didn’t know any better than I did, but he nodded. I mean, how many dogs got rescued from the desert on a regular day?

“If you’d like to take him into consulting room two, Dr. Howlett will be right with you.”

She motioned to our left, and I held the door for Rusty because it was on one of those springs that shut it automatically.

“This wasn’t how I expected today to go,” he whispered as he passed me.

“Me neither.”

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