Page 49 of Beware of Dog

“Shit.”

“It might be for the best. Sig doesn’t know where she lives, and maybe if she’s away from school for a little while she’ll stop freaking out so much.”

“Was she a basket case before all this shit happened?”

Just like the other night, Cass found relief in his blunt, insensitive questions about Jamie. She didn’t have to be a good friend when it was just the two of them talking. She could reveal a little of her own worry, and thus unwind some of the tensionshe’d been carrying between her shoulder blades. “I’d describe her as naïve. Really excited about school. Giggly about boys. Always wanting to go to parties, and be invited to things.”

“So a normal teenage girl.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And we all know teenage girls aresuperstable.”

She elbowed him, and he laughed and cursed and dodged away from her. “Shit, I didn’t meanyou. Here, rinse this, you little shit.”

They worked in easy silence after that, him washing, her rinsing and drying, until all the dinner pans were drying in the rack and the sink was rinsed clean.

The baby monitor went silent, Toly’s quiet Russian singing winding down to nothing, and then he emerged from the hallway rubbing his eyes with one hand and scratching at his chest with the other.

He glanced over and spotted Raven on the sofa, who must have been asleep judging from the soft look he shot her. Then he crossed into the kitchen and climbed up onto a stool.

He gestured to the pots. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Shep dried his hands. “You look like shit. Take your girl and go to bed while the kid’s quiet.”

Toly scrubbed both hands down his face. “Yeah.” Then he looked at Cass. “I’ll walk you down, first.”

“Nah. I’ll do it,” Shep said. “I brought my bike. I can take her home myself.”

Toly, who’d been gathering himself with something like pain, nodded and slumped back down on the stool. “Yeah. Okay. Good.”

Cass went around the island to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for dinner. You should have just ordered pizza.”

He patted her clumsily on the back. “Next time.” Then heaved himself up like a much older man and went to whereRaven was curled up on the sofa. Instead of waking her, he scooped her up, and left them to see themselves out.

“Oh, shit, my laundry,” Cass said, after she’d shrugged into her jacket, and went down the hall to retrieve it.

While she was shoving clothes from the dryer into her bag—she’d worry about how wrinkled they were later—she heard the low murmur of voices just down the hall. Raven had awakened, apparently.

Cass cinched her bag up, stepped out of the laundry room…and tip-toed closer to the master bedroom. She shouldn’t; eavesdropping was shitty.But.

She could hear Raven, low and scratchy with sleep. “…worried about her. Do you think…?”

When the pause stretched, Toly said, “What?” Just one word, and no pet names, but the wealth of feeling in his voice, even tired, even rough from lack of sleep, sent a shiver down Cass’s spine.

“Do you think she’s unhappy about Nat? That she thinks I don’t have time for her anymore?”

“No,” Toly said, soothingly. “She loves Nat.”

“But…” Raven sniffed, and sounded near tears. “She’s pulling away. And I don’t…”

“Shh. Come here. It’s alright.”

Cass swallowed and found there was a lump in her throat. She shouldered her bag, and walked quick and quiet back down the hall, through the great room, and into the foyer, blinking hard and trying not to cry.

Raven thought she resented her own niece. That she wasunhappyabout Raven having a baby. Did she think Cass was that shallow? Or was guilt needling at her, the way it was Cass?

“Shit,” Shep said. “You were gone three seconds and now you’re crying. What the hell happened with the dryer?”

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