Three

“If you could spare a little money, I’d be grateful,” Mason said. “I’ll pay you back, soon as I can.”

Across the table, his sister swapped a glance with her husband. Set down her fork. “Girls,” she said. “Go finish your homework.”

Mason waited while his nieces pushed back their chairs and carried their plates into the kitchen. Brianna, ten years old, and Natalie, eight; they were Mason’s blood, but neither of them had known him before today. The girls looked at him like they were scared of their uncle, put off by his sudden appearance in their lives.

He couldn’t fault them for it. Just his physical presence alone was bound to be off-putting. He’d always been tall, even as a kid, and so many years in a prison gymnasium had built his body into a form that seemed cartoonish and threatening out here in the real world, a menace come to life who couldn’t even maintain eye contact.

And here he was, asking for money.

Mason hated to do it. He knew he was only giving life to his sister’s worst fears, her no-good brother come to leech as much as he could from the family before he did another bad thing and got himself locked up again.

But Mason had done more than just lift weights up in the Chippewa pen. He’d read a fair bit too, whatever he could find. Trying to prepare for the moment he stepped out from inside the prison walls and found himself a free man again; for the years that lay ahead of him; for what meager atonement he could seek for the damage he’d caused.

He hadn’t found answers; what he’d found were first steps. And though he wished he didn’t have to start the journey begging for a favor, he couldn’t see any other way to set about getting started, not as fast as he needed to go. He could only hope that his sister would see that this path of his was a true one, unlike so many of the paths she’d seen him walk before.

  

When the girls were gone, Maggie’s husband cleared his throat. Glen, a decent guy, kind of boring. He’d always been decent, always been boring, from what little Mason could remember, a clipped-beard, pleated-khakis kind of guy. But then, boring seemed to be Maggie’s type; she seemed happy, anyway.

“How much money are we talking, Mason?” Glen asked. Even the tone of his voice had a decency to it.

“However much you can spare,” Mason said. “There’s something I have to take care of, now that I’m out.”

“We’re giving you room and board,” Maggie said quietly. Eyes down at her plate. “A room to sleep in and hot meals. That isn’t enough?”

“I know I’m putting you out, Mags, and I’m grateful for all of it. But you don’t want me hanging around here forever. Sooner I can get my life together, the better for everyone.”

“So how much?” Glen said. “How much are you thinking you’d need to make a start, Mason?”

“A couple grand ought to do it, I figure.”

“A couple grand?” Maggie was looking at him now, half laughing, incredulous. “Where do you think you are, Mase? Trump Tower?”

“I’ll pay you back,” Mason told her. “I swear, I’ll be good for it.”

Maggie and Glen looked at each other again. For a long while nobody said anything.

  

Deception Cove, Washington. That’s where Lucy had gone.

Linda Petrie had given every inmate a photograph of “his” dog, taken by the new owner somewhere out in the real world. Mason had kept his close; the edges were rough worn now, and there was a crease down the middle, but there wasn’t any way in the world he would ever part with it.

In the picture, Lucy had filled out since that first day in the pen, put on some muscle. She was sitting in the grass in a sunlit field, sitting proud, head held high and that big, goofy smile on her face, that tongue lolling out of her mouth. She looked happy. She looked good, as good as Mason had ever seen her.

There was a note on the back of the picture. Linda Petrie’s handwriting. Lucy—with thanks, LP. That was all it said.

Mason had studied that photograph and that handwriting in his basement bedroom after the telephone conversation with Linda Petrie. He’d known Lucy six months, practically night and day, trained her, never known her to tend toward violence. Yet she’d gone and attacked somebody? That didn’t make sense.

There was a building behind Lucy in the photograph, across the grassy field. Looked like a school, one story, nothing special. A sign on the cinder-block wall, the words cut off in the middle: N COVE H.S. HOME OF THE RAVENS.

Mason had set the picture aside. Left the basement bedroom and climbed the stairs to the kitchen. His sister and her husband kept a computer in a den off the living room; Mason found the den, found the computer unlocked. Brought up an internet search window, typed: “N Cove High School Ravens.”

The results loaded: a high school, a small town in northwest Washington State, the Olympic Peninsula, way out on the farthest edge of the country. Mason ran another search, just the town name, got a few pretty pictures: the ocean, forest, a few fishing boats. An Indian reservation nearby, the Makah tribe, a big museum, and a few ecotourism outfits. The town of Deception Cove was too small to have its own animal control people, so Mason dialed up the Makah County seat in Neah Bay, figured he’d start with the central office.

“Calling about a dog,” he told the woman who answered. “Supposed to have got in an incident, bit someone.”

“Got more than a few dogs who’d fit that description,” the woman replied. “You want to be more specific.”

“Black-and-white dog, medium sized,” Mason said. “Name’s Lucy, or it was. This would have been over in Deception Cove.”

“Oh,” the woman said. “Yeah, all right. You’re talking about that pit bull who went and bit the sheriff’s deputy.”

Mason blinked. “She bit a deputy?”

“Yes, sir. Bit him pretty good, from what I heard. Left him in a whole mess of stitches.”

“A deputy,” Mason said. “I mean, dang. What were the circumstances?”

The woman sucked her teeth. “A house call gone bad, I guess. Who knows? The sheriff’s deputies down at Deception Cove handled that one themselves. We just heard it through the grapevine.”

“Who’s the owner?” Mason asked. “I mean, how’d he let this happen?”

“Some ex-marine, and he’s a she. But like I said, I don’t know the specifics. Listen, what’s your interest in this dog, anyway? You writing a news story or something?”

“Just a concerned citizen,” Mason replied.

“Yeah, well, no cause for concern,” the woman told him. “That dog’s due to be destroyed any day now. I don’t know why they haven’t put her down already.”

  

“We aren’t exactly flush with cash at the moment, Mase,” Maggie said finally. “Glen’s business slows up in the winter, and with Christmas on the way—”

“I understand that,” Mason said. “I’m not trying to take food from the girls’ mouths. But you must have cleared about a hundred grand when you sold Mom’s place, right?”

Maggie glanced at Glen. Glen nodded, started to say something. Mason beat him to it. “You paid down the mortgage, I imagine. Probably socked money away for the girls to go to college, and I’m fine with that, Maggie. I’m not asking for half of what you made from that sale, or even a quarter. Just a couple grand to get me where I need to go, and you can count on getting that money back.”

Maggie looked down at her plate, seemed to be working out what she wanted to say next. Finally, without looking up, she went for it. “What do you really need that money for, Mase?”

Mason hesitated. “I’m done with all that old stuff,” he told Maggie. “I swear it. But I’ve got a friend from inside who ran into a jam out west on the coast. I need to head out there, try and make things right.”

Maggie raised her head to meet her husband’s eyes. But she didn’t say anything.

“It’s important, Maggie. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

Another long silence. Mason studied his sister. On Maggie’s other side, Glen was doing the same. Finally she closed her eyes. Shook her head, slight, almost imperceptible, as she blew out a breath and muttered, “Fine.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “I won’t ask for another dollar.”

They didn’t believe him, he could tell. But they were polite enough not to say so to his face.

“The bank’s closed already,” Glen said after a while. “We’ll have to get the money to you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s fine,” Mason told him. “Early would be best.”