Page 29 of The Leaving Kind
“I’ll call you back.”
“Okay, make sure you do!”
He hung up, tucked the phone into his jeans pocket, and knelt beside the downed creature, heedless of the rain raising small puffs of dust from the side of the road. The scent of baked tarmac and hot dirt assailed him, combining with the warm peat rolling out of the forest. Thunder rumbled softly in the distance.
Cam focused on the dog. He didn’t know much about breeds or whatnot, but it looked a bit like a beagle, only mostly tan with a splash of white across the chest and at the tips of each paw. It lay on its side, panting softly, and didn’t seem to be injured. No obvious blood. But as Cam leaned forward, it whined and struggled, as though it wanted to get up. One of its front legs wasn’t moving properly.
“Shh.” He reached out slowly, letting the dog sniff his hand before cupping one ear in a soft caress. The dog whined again. Cam glanced over his shoulder in the vain hope another car had come along and stopped. Wouldn’t it be nice if a vet happened to be driving home along the same road? Or someone who liked dogs.
No one. Just a deepening blackness across the tarmac as the storm rolled ever closer.
“Okay, then.” Cam turned back to the dog. “I’m going to pick you up, and it’s going to suck. I’ll be as gentle as I can. Then I’m going to take you to someone who can fix that leg of yours.” It could be fixed, couldn’t it? No bones were jutting out.
Gritting his teeth, Cam shook away gristly memories and got to his feet. He trotted around the side of Emma’s car and opened the back door. Then he returned to the dog and set about picking it up as carefully as he could, taking care not to disturb that one leg any more than he had to. The dog yipped a few times and let out a pained whine as Cam settled it across the back seat. He debated strapping a belt over it for about thirty seconds before deciding to drive slowly.
Then he hopped back behind the wheel, the seat squelching beneath him. Rain dripped from his hair into his eyes. He pulled his phone out of his jeans and checked for the location of the nearest vet. There was one a little north of town, wasn’t there? Yes. He tapped the number to call them and tucked the phone back into the cradle as he started the car.
They were closed, but the recording listed an emergency number. Cam punched that into his phone. It rang twice.
“Dr. Sheehan, how can I help you?”
“I just picked up a dog from the side of the road. I think someone might have hit them. Doesn’t want to move their front leg and cries when I get too close to it.”
“Is the dog wearing a collar?”
“No collar and they’re a bit rough-looking, as though they’ve been on their own for a while.”
“All right. Bring them up to the hospital and we’ll do what we can. You know where we are?”
“Yeah. I’ll be about fifteen minutes.”
“See you there.”
Cam ended the call. He was about to turn to the dog, maybe offer some words of encouragement, or whatever you said to a dog who was suffering, when lights flashed in the rearview mirror. Another car.
As he put his car into gear and pulled away from the shoulder, a curious feeling spread through him.
The sense of purpose, he recognized. He always liked having something to do—even before he’d joined the army. That need was more intense now, and it wasn’t always healthy. But for tonight, he had a task. A real one. And despite the disappointment of knowing he’d soon be out of work, he felt curiously upbeat.
When he examined that closer, a wave of almost sickness rolled through his torso. An injured dog was not a cause for celebration or cheer. What the fuck was wrong with him?
What was movement. Really?
Victor stepped back from the canvas and studied the slashes of paint with a critical eye. The dark red background he’d chosen was too red. The green, too green. The vertical, too vertical. The ...
“It’s crap. It’s all crap.”
Many of his paintings began as a combination of insecurity and determination. He’d have an idea in his mind—not so much a mental image, but a notion of what it could be. Sketches came next, a loose scrawl lacking in detail. He always understood what should be there, though. What he was supposed to see.
He saw it when he consulted his sketchbook, and with this being the sixth painting in the series, it should have been obvious—even without the fifth leaning against the wall of his studio, waiting to be framed.
Movement was not a new concept. He should not be feeling insecure. This painting should be a simple matter of connecting the dots.
His phone buzzed across one of the tables at the rear of the studio. After rinsing his brush, Victor laid it out to dry and went to check his texts. He smiled at the name at the top of the notification and swiped down to read Sage’s message. A knock sounded at the front door.
“Coming!” he called.
The text, of course, had been Sage letting him know he was in the driveway. Sage never called in advance. He just showed up. Then he texted to let Victor know he’d be knocking in a minute or so. If Victor didn’t hear the knock, he’d text to say he was walking around to the kitchen door—which was rarely locked. The next message would be about how Victor should remember to lock the kitchen door, because anyone could come in.