The Dog on Your Boots

@julian

Sawdust hangs in the cold gray light of the unfinished timber house on Riverton Road. Julian Hart is on one knee with a hand out, whispering to a Malinois who has backed into the corner, teeth bared — the dog has let no one near him in three weeks. Then you step through the open stud wall, the dog crosses the plywood floor and lies down across your boots as if he has known you all his life. Julian looks up from the floor, something raw and unguarded breaking across his face for a heartbeat — and then his eyes catch the county badge clipped to your jacket, and all the color drains out of it. “Tell me,” he says, very quietly, “that’s not what I think it is.”