Buster was safe and well. He was out of the woods.
Val didn’t take longto get to her house. Less than twenty minutes.
She opened the apartment door to himand he just stared at her.
“Amelia?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” She stepped out of the way, giving him room to enter. Her apartment, like always, was immaculate.
Even focusing on Buster’s health, she’d kept her place clean. She, however, stunk.
“Amelia, what is going on?”
“I just need to run some errands. I’ll be back soon. I would normally leave them, you know, on their own, as they’re house trained, and they’re good, but … with everything.”
“I saw what they’ve written downstairs, on the doors and windows,” Val said.
She forced a smile to herlips as she stared at him. “Yeah, I’ve seen it too.” Painted on her door were the wordsliarandwhore. Not the nicest of words.
Tears filled her eyes, and Val took a step toward her. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Totally fine. I’ve just got a few things I need to do is all.” She nodded. “And I don’t want to leave them on their own. I know that … dogs are quite difficult. It will only be for a short time. I promise.”
“Amelia, stop,” he said. “I’ll takecare of them. It will be a pleasure to take care of them.”
“Oh, thank you.” She nibbledon her lip. “I, er, I didn’t lie.”
“What?”
“In case you were wondering. I didn’t lie. I promise. I would never lie.” She swiped at the tears that fell down her cheeks.This was so embarrassing.
“I know you wouldn’t lie.”
“Well, just in case you were wondering. The whole pack seems to think that I’m lying.”
Val put his hands on her shoulders. “Not the whole pack.”
“Yeah, just you.” She nodded. “It’s fine. It is perfectlyfine.” Glancing back to her dogs, she looked at Buster and Rascal and knew she couldn’t stay. “I better go and run my errands.” She forced a smile to her lips and then left him alone.
Amelia didn’t bother with a jacket or anything.
In her sweatpants anda hoodie, she stepped out of her apartment building. There was no one around.
She turned toward her building, and there in white and yellow, the wordsliar,faker, andwhorewere all scrawled across the window.
More tears built, and she wiped them away.
This was… this was hard. Painful even.
Her throat felt thick.
No, this was worse because she knew Wolfe believed it. At the thought of Wolfe, she had no choice but to clutch her chest. The pain was real.
Buster.
Think about Buster.
No one believed her, but she knew something had bitten Buster. Rascal hadn’t. He couldn’t, so that meant while she’d been too busy focusing on Wolfe and his accusations, someone or something bit her dog, and now she was going to head back to where they were to find it.