Page 31 of Beware of Dog

She shoved her phone in her pocket, gathered up her portfolio, and hustled toward the stairwell. Once she was inside it, away from the hushed environs of the art room, she broke into a jog, sneaker soles slapping loudly off each concrete step.

When she hit the bottom floor, she tried calling Jamie, but she was in Art History, and it went straight to voicemail.

Okay. That was fine. It would take Melissa and her partner, Rob, time to park, to walk across campus, to get up to the third floor of the library. She had time.

She hurried, though.

She usually carried her portfolio by its twin suitcase handles, but today she ducked her head through the shoulder strap and let it bounce against her hip as she jogged down the familiar cobbled sidewalks. It was a bright day, but sharply cold, the wind scoring her cheeks, and funneling down into the neck of the insufficient hoodie she’d worn instead of a proper jacket.

She rounded a corner and almost crashed into a group of slow-walking guys. “Shit! Sorry!” She ducked between them amidst their protests and kept going.

Before she reached Jamie’s building, she had to pass the library. She could tell, even from a distance, that she wouldn’t be able to keep jogging. In fact, she was forced to grind to a halt, and then had to wend and thread her way through a growing crowd.

“Excuse me…excuse me…shit, watch where you’re going.” She got elbowed, elbowed back, earned a nasty curse for it, and ducked beneath a tall guy’s arm to emerge in a clear space in front of the main library doors.

Melissa stood with her hands up, motioning onlookers back. She held her badge up with one hand, and despite her small size looked authoritative in her leather jacket, black pants, and low-heeled boots. “Everyone, give us some space! Back up! Get back!”

Rob had hold of Sig, one hand at the small of his back, where his wrists were cuffed together, the other gripped tight in his hood, steering him forward when Sig stumbled.

Sig himself walked with his head high, gaze roving the crowd, fine features set in a portrait of bored disgust. His usual beanie was gone, the hair beneath mussed, and Cass wondered if there’d been a scuffle, or if Melissa had snatched it off him to try and get a rise out of him.

Cass felt a pulse of triumph.Ha. Serves you right, you bastard. How’s it feel to be the one who’s not in control?

Then Sig’s gaze landed on Cass, and one corner of his mouth lifted in the tiniest of smirks. He opened his mouth and bellowed, “The NYPD is rife with corruption!”

A cheer went up from the crowd, raucous and immediate, and Cass’s triumph shriveled up in her chest.

“They’re in bed with criminals!” Sig shouted, turning to address the group amidst more cheers. “With corrupt politicians! With powerful oligarchs who oppose our artistic expression!”

“Yeah!” several people shouted.

And, “Sig, what happened?!”

“Why are you under arrest?”

“Let him go!”

“Free Sig!”

Rob shoved him hard, and then caught him before he could go down to his knees.

“Police brutality!” someone yelled.

“False imprisonment!”

“Fuck the police!”

Creativity notwithstanding, they were starting to get rowdy, and Melissa’s expression was taut with anger.

“Get back!” she shouted again, and her free hand went to her gun.

Several students fell back, shouting, the girls screaming. The accusations rose to an indecipherable crescendo, one voice stark in the chaos: “Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me! Police brutality!”

They made their shuffling way forward, the two detectives and Sig, and then the crowd swallowed them.

Cass hoped they would make it to the car unmolested, but there was nothing she could do. She dove back into the fray, and worked her way upstream toward Jamie’s building.

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