Page 139 of Lone Wolf

“That’s it? That’s all you want?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t seem like much.” Her voice, it still sounded like a miracle. “I mean, to repay you. For everything.”

“You can see what I don’t. Different kinds of people, vulnerability, suffering. That’s what I need.”

“That’s an awful thing to need.” She said it with no judgment. Just empathy. “But I will. I’ll do it.”

He nodded.

It was. It was an awful thing to need. An awful thing he required to be what he was.

Joey tapped the hard drive against her knuckles, supremely distracted by what she held in her hands. When Jayla glanced down to text her aunt on the phone, Evan slipped away with Joey.

They crossed the street, started down the opposite sidewalk.

He said, “What you did for her back there—”

“I’m gonna get on this right away,” Joey said, waving the hard drive.

She looked worn out. Her eyes were lowered, her manner curt. It had taken a lot for her to decipher and navigate a situation like the one with Jayla. In some ways it was easier for her to give Jayla her voice than to find her own, and he felt a sudden fierce vicarious loneliness for what Joey could manage for others versus for herself. And a pride for her trying.

He started to say something, but she cut him off again: “I’ll let you know once I’m in.”

She walked away.

He stood a moment watching her go, the sun warm against his face. Way up the street a FWIP rattled along, skillfully circumventing a battered gray tent stuffed in a doorway, a homeless man’s abode.

Movement drew his attention back to the town house. Jayla on the porch, greeting her aunt. The woman had arrived with plastic grocery bags lining her arms, elbows bent to sustain the weight. Jayla made a move to help but the woman shook her off, wobbling past her niece into the house.

Jayla hesitated on the doorstep, fingertips touching the choker in seeming disbelief. She hadn’t shared her voice with her aunt, not yet. Right now it was hers and hers alone.

Her eyes lifted and she caught sight of Evan across the street. Traffic had picked up between them, but they could still see each other clearly through the flow of cars.

Jayla flattened her fingers, touched them to her mouth, and then tipped her hand toward Evan.

He signed back: You’re welcome.

Jayla spun gracefully on her toe, a dancer’s turn that reminded him of Sofia, and eased back into the town house. The door closed behind her.

Lost in thought, Evan walked the seven blocks back to his truck. There it was in the shadows of an alley, parked next to a dumpster.

An ugly little dog with stiff hair and crazy eyes stood with his grimy little paws submerged in a puddle. He sniffed twice at the ground, rat nose quivering, then looked directly at Evan.

Holding the stare with his bulging eyes, Loco lifted a hind leg and urinated on Evan’s tire.

64

A Place He Didn’t Belong

Brianna’s apartment smelled of turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans and rolls and pumpkin pie. The cornucopia of scents hit Evan halfway down the hall as he marched with Loco tucked beneath his arm.

The dog alternated between licking himself and trying to bite Evan’s face.

He reached the door and knocked twice gently.

Loco’s lips wrinkled back from his snaggled teeth and he nipped at Evan’s chin.