Page 15

chapter

nine

Echo was still huddled in the corner of her kennel, exactly where he’d left her yesterday evening. She lifted her head as he approached, ears flattening against her skull.

“Hey, girl,” he said softly.

She growled, but there was less conviction in it than last time.

“Yeah, I know.” He crouched in front of the kennel door. “It’s a shit day for both of us. You don’t gotta come over. I wouldn’t either, if I were you. Just… sit with me awhile. Maybe we’ll get used to each other.”

The dog inched back, but her eyes never left his face.

“They think I hurt someone.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but the words slipped out anyway. “But I didn’t. Not this time.”

He wasn’t sure why he was talking to a dog who clearly wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe because she was the only one who couldn’t judge him. Or maybe because she already had, and found him wanting.

“I hurt plenty of people before, though.” He sat cross-legged on the concrete floor in front of her kennel. “It doesn’t matter if I did it or not. I’m the kind of man people expect to see blood on.”

Echo’s notched ear flicked toward him. She uncoiled just enough to show her teeth, then settled again.

“Yeah, I know. Scary.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, the tension there a familiar companion. “If it helps, I’m not too fond of humans either.”

He pulled his knees up and rested his forearms on them, making himself smaller. Less threatening. Echo’s eyes tracked the movement, her body still rigid with distrust.

“My first dog was named Max. Lab mix. Big golden goofball who thought everyone in the world existed just to pet him.” The memory made his throat tighten up. “He was the only one happy to see me come home after my first tour.”

Echo’s growl had subsided to a low rumble.

“After he died, I didn’t want another one. Figured I’d just disappoint it.” He let out a humorless laugh. “Then I got to prison, and they put me in the dog training program. Turns out I’m better with dogs than people.”

Echo didn’t move. Barely looked like she was breathing. But she watched him with those suspicious mismatched eyes, so he kept talking.

“My first dog with the program was a golden retriever puppy named Sandy. She was just happy to exist and lived to please. Whenever she looked at me with those big brown eyes, I melted. Don’t tell anyone, but the first night she slept in my bunk, I sobbed like a baby.

I was so broken, but she didn’t care. She just snuggled up next to me and licked away the tears.

She’s a therapy dog now. After Sandy, there was Cooper.

Black lab. Black as midnight with one white paw. Smart as hell.”

Jax kept his voice low, steady. “Then there was Scout, a shepherd who was just an all-around good boy. He’s a service dog for a kid with seizures.

Then Rosie. She was this scrappy little terrier with attitude for days.

My hardest case.” He smiled faintly at the memory.

“But we worked through her sass and she’s now a service dog for a teenager with diabetes.

In my three years with the program, I trained fourteen dogs.

Every one of them went to someone who needed them.

Kids with disabilities. Veterans with PTSD.

” He paused, studying the tense line of Echo’s spine. “None of them were like you, though.”

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant sound of horses in the paddock and the soft shuffle of other dogs in their kennels. Echo’s breathing had slowed, her rigid posture easing by degrees.

“Boone thinks we’re kindred spirits,” Jax said with a bitter laugh. “Two broken things that nobody else can fix. Maybe he’s right. Maybe we’re both too fucked up to trust anyone.”

Echo’s nose twitched. She shifted again, this time moving an inch closer to the front of the kennel. Still ready to bolt, but no longer pressed against the wall like she was trying to disappear through it.

“You hungry, girl?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a jerky treat he’d grabbed on his way in.

“Not asking you to take it from my hand. Just...” He placed it on the concrete floor, well within her reach but far enough away that she wouldn’t have to come near him. “It’s there if you want it.”

He sat back again and waited. After several long minutes, she inched forward.

But the kennel door rattled as someone entered the building, and Echo immediately retreated deeper into her corner, hackles rising.

Fuck.

So much for progress.

Ghost appeared in the doorway between the kennels, moving with that unnerving silence that had earned him his nickname. He carried a rope toy in one hand and didn’t so much as glance at Jax as he approached the kennel three down from Echo’s.

“Cinder,” he called quietly, and a sleek black Belgian Sheepdog rose from her position near the back of her kennel. She was all angles—long-limbed, fine-boned, with a wedge-shaped head and alert, triangular ears—and her thick, flowing coat gleamed like ink under the fluorescent lights. Aptly named.

Unlike Echo, Cinder padded forward without hesitation, pressing her nose to the chain link as Ghost unlocked the door. As soon as the door swung open, she rubbed against Ghost’s leg like a cat, and his shoulders relaxed infinitesimally. The pair moved together like they’d been doing this for years.

“She’ll settle,” Ghost said, giving his dog the rope toy. “Takes time.”

It took Jax a moment to realize he was talking about Echo. “How long you been working with Cinder?”

“Two years.”

“You’ve been here that long?”

“Longer. Three years next month.”

“Why? The program’s only six months.”

“The program’s as long as you want it to be.” Ghost lifted a shoulder. “And where else would I go?”

Jesus. This place seemed to suck guys in and never let them go. Like a black hole with chickens and goats.

Yeah, Jax wasn’t ready to examine why that made him uncomfortable.

“She came from a fighting ring,” Ghost said after a moment, nodding toward Echo. “Not as a fighter. As bait.”

Jax’s stomach clenched. “Boone mentioned that.”

Echo growled low in her throat, as if she understood they were talking about her.

“What happened to Cinder before you got her?” Jax asked.

Ghost’s expression didn’t change, but his ice-gray eyes hardened.

“Military contractor used her for perimeter security in Afghanistan, then left her behind when the unit pulled out. Aid workers found her beaten and half-starved.” His voice was flat, economical.

“When she came here, she didn’t trust anyone for eight months.

Wouldn’t eat if I was in the room. Pissed herself if I moved too fast.” He ran his hand down Cinder’s back, and the dog leaned harder into him like he was the only solid thing in her world.

“Now she won’t let me out of her sight.”

“What changed?”

“I stopped expecting her to.”

Jax turned to Echo, who had crept forward again, though she was still a good three feet from the treat. She cowered back when she saw him looking.

Ghost headed to the door with Cinder at his heel.

“Hey, uh, thanks,” Jax called. “For the alibi.”

“Wasn’t an alibi. It was the truth. Security footage shows you arriving with Walker and 0109, and leaving at 0532.

Coming back with Boone at 0715. Sheriff wanted to know where you were between four and six, which leads me to believe the time of death was sometime in the middle of that, and you were here. ”

“Still… thanks.”

Ghost nodded once, then turned to open the door. But he paused at the threshold, not quite turning around.

“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, “even if I didn’t have the proof on camera, I still would’ve lied for you. You didn’t kill anyone that night.”

Jax blinked, surprised by his certainty. “You don’t know me well enough to be sure of that.”

“Don’t need to. I know killers. Spent most of my career working with them. The ones who do it for pleasure have a particular look.” He turned fully back then, and his gaze scanned over Jax, assessing. “You’ve killed, but not like that. Not an innocent woman. Not for fun.”

Except he had tried to kill an innocent woman. And, at the time, he had thought the cat and mouse chase of it was fun. “You don’t know about?—”

“About what you did to your CO’s wife?” Ghost’s voice was stripped of emotion, all calm and clinically detached. “I know. I also know you were strung out on enough drugs to kill a horse and having psychotic episodes due to untreated PTSD.”

Jesus. Did everyone here know about his past, and how fucked up his head was? Shame burned up the back of his neck.

“Don’t worry.” A flicker of a smile crossed Ghost’s face. “Far as I know, it’s just me, Walker, and Boone who have the details. Walker doesn’t bring men here blind, but he’s also a technophobe, so he asks me to put together dossiers of every man he’s considering.”

“You put together a dossier on me?” Jax tried to keep his tone neutral, but tension crept in around the edges.

“On everyone. It’s my job to know who’s coming through those gates.”

“So you know everything.” It wasn’t a question.

“Enough to know you’re not the monster you think you are.

Point is,” Ghost continued with a note of impatience, “what you did to your CO’s wife is not the same thing as what happened to that girl on the service road.

The dead woman was Bailee Cooper. Twenty-three.

Local girl. She was a waitress until recently leaving her job to work for Craig Foster, a local real estate developer, and she was tortured by someone who was either very angry at her, or someone who is just a sadistic bastard. ”

A chill crawled down Jax’s spine. “How do you know? The sheriff didn’t say any of that.”

“I make it my business to know.” Ghost’s expression remained unreadable. “I’ve been keeping tabs because this is the third dead girl to turn up in the last eight months.”

Jax stiffened. “You’re saying there’s a serial killer?”

“I’m saying Goodwin’s looking for a convenient scapegoat, and you just walked into his jurisdiction with a record that makes you perfect for the part.”

“But he can’t get me for the other two. I was still in prison in California.”

“Doesn’t mean he won’t try.”

“Shit.” The word came out on an exhale.

“I assume Walker and Boone told you to stay on the property?”

Jax nodded.

“Sucks trading one prison for another. I’ll see what else I can dig up.” Ghost tapped his thigh, and Cinder moved with him toward the door. “And Thorne?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t take it personally if Boone watches you a little closer for a while. It’s not that he thinks you did it. It’s that he doesn’t want you doing something stupid that makes it look like you did.”

Boone’s not your judge, son. He’s your shield.

At the memory of Walker’s words, he nodded again. “Understood.”

The door closed behind Ghost with a soft click, and he was alone again with Echo and his thoughts.

Echo had crept closer during their conversation. Not close enough to reach the treat, but close enough that he could see the uneven rise and fall of her ribs as she breathed.

“Looks like we’re both on lockdown,” he murmured.

Echo’s ears twitched, and she lowered her head to her paws, still watching him with those wary mismatched eyes.

“You know, I spent the first two years of my sentence in a cell not much bigger than yours. They called me insane. Maybe I was. Probably I was, because I honestly don’t recognize that guy anymore.

Either way, I had to earn my way to a bigger cell.

” He leaned back against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“Every day was the same. Wake up. Take meds. Count time. Eat. Go to therapy. Take meds. Count time again. Sleep. Do it all over.” He shook his head.

“You lose track of who you are in a place like that. Become whatever they tell you you are.”

Echo’s nose twitched.

“Sometimes I think I’m still there. That all this—” he gestured vaguely at the kennel, the building, the world beyond “—is just something I made up to cope.” He huffed a laugh.

“If I was still in that cell, talking to a dog that doesn’t exist, there wouldn’t be any question about my mental status then. ”

Echo had crept close enough that her nose nearly touched the treat. She sniffed once, twice, then darted forward to snatch it before retreating to her corner. The whole maneuver took less than a second.

Jax smiled faintly. “Smart girl. Don’t trust the hand that feeds you.”

She devoured the treat in two quick bites, then licked her chops, eyes never leaving his face.

“That’s a start.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another jerky bit. “We’ll take it slow.”

When he placed the second treat a few inches closer to him than the last one, she waited only a moment before darting forward to take it. And, this time, she didn’t retreat all the way to her corner. She stayed near the wall, but closer to the middle of the kennel, watchful but no longer cowering.

“See? Not so bad.” He pulled out a third treat and placed it even closer. “Maybe tomorrow we try opening the kennel door? I’d like to get you out of this box for a bit.”

Echo’s tail had been tucked up hard between her legs, but now she relaxed it.

Progress. Small, but real.

“I should go.” He’d been sitting on the concrete for too long and, combined with the hours he’d spent in the saddle today, his body ached.

Echo immediately tensed, but she didn’t retreat.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” He turned to leave, making it halfway to the door before her soft whine stopped him.

When he looked back, she was standing at the front of her kennel, head tilted slightly, those mismatched eyes fixed on him with something that wasn’t quite trust, but wasn’t fear either.

Jax felt something in his chest shift. A hairline crack in the wall he’d built around his heart.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I know. It’s hard being alone.”

He walked back to her kennel and sat down, cross-legged, in front of it. Echo watched him, then slowly settled onto her belly, still close to the front.

“I’ll stay a little longer.”

Outside, the afternoon sun cast long shadows through the kennel windows. Somewhere in the distance, a horse whinnied, and the ranch dogs barked in response. But in this moment, in this quiet space between him and Echo, something fragile was taking root.

Trust, maybe. Or at least the beginning of it.