The way Lucy’s tail thumped on the bed, Jess knew it had to be Burke outside.
The dog had a sixth sense for when Burke was around, some kind of bond forged before she knew Jess. Before Burke had trained her, when she’d been so traumatized from the dogfighting that she’d peed all over Burke’s lap practically the moment they’d been introduced to each other.
She was a different dog when Jess met her. There’d been no sign of that terrified creature then, when they created their own bond together on a ranch a couple hundred miles inland, a bunch of fucked-in-the-head veterans like Jess and a pack of dogs the military promised would help them. It wasn’t until Jess had known Burke a while that he’d told her how Lucy was when he met her, how far she’d come.
“Runt of the pack, she was,” he’d said, and he’d smiled affectionately at Lucy as he talked, scratched between her ears, the dog grumbling with a grudging kind of approval. “I caught all kinds of hell from the other guys about her—and honestly, Jess, I was pretty pissed off myself, at first.”
The other inmates had been given golden retrievers, German shepherds—happy, playful dogs without any issues. He’d resented the agency lady for sticking him with Lucy, but he’d gradually come to see how desperately the dog needed him, needed someone to treat her with love.
He’d told her how Lucy had stuck up for him toward the end of the program, an almost-fight between Burke and a couple of gangbangers. She’d had his back the same way she had Jess’s, like she knew they were family and she was going to stay loyal.
“That’s why I wound up coming out here, I guess,” Burke had said. “She was the only one had my back when I needed it. I couldn’t let her down when she needed me.”
They hadn’t really talked about whose dog Lucy was, after Burke had come to Deception Cove and Jess had asked him to stay. Burke had assured her he wasn’t there to take Lucy from her, just to make sure Kirby Harwood and his gang didn’t kill her. But the bond was there, and it was obvious, and it had made Jess feel jealous at first, her dog liking this ex-con so much.
Later, she’d come to see it as a point in Burke’s favor. All the more so since he seemed happy to let Jess’s relationship with Lucy come first.
But there was a bond, and it was evident now as Lucy’s ears perked up on the motel-room bed, tail beating the blanket like she was dusting a rug.
And sure enough, a moment later someone tapped on the door, and Jess went to the peephole and looked out, and it was Burke. Lucy stood, stretching, jumped down from the bed and padded across the room to join Jess at the door, and Jess hesitated just a beat before she unlatched the chain and unlocked the door and swung it open.
She’d been in the middle of getting dressed for the night shift, her hair up in a ponytail and her uniform shirt unbuttoned, had only another twenty-five minutes before she was supposed to be at the detachment, and she’d yet to eat her dinner, besides.
One good look at Burke, though, and Jess forgot about the night shift. The man was soaking wet, shivering, his skin pale and his lips tinged blue. He hugged a rain slicker around himself, though it didn’t seem to be doing him any good; his clothes were as wet as the rest of him, and he smelled faintly of salt water and diesel.
“God’s sake, Burke,” she said, staring at him. “What in the hell happened to you?”
He shrugged out of the slicker and dropped it to the pavement outside her door, and she could see how his shirt underneath was drenched too; he was soaked to the bone. He looked up and down the line of doors and out into the parking lot.
“Can I come in?” he asked. “Just for a second?”
Wordless, she stepped aside, and his boots made wet, sloppy sounds on the floor as he walked past her into the room, Lucy circling around his legs now, kind of whimpering and nuzzling up to his hands. He was shaking, and his eyes were dull. There was no point in asking any more questions, not yet.
Jess closed the door, locked it. Shooed Lucy away and went to Burke, took hold of his hands where they were struggling with the buttons on his shirt. His hands were as cold as ice, and he couldn’t seem to get his fingers to work right; she set his arms at his sides and began to unbutton his shirt herself, feeling the cold radiate off his body, the smell of diesel stronger now, almost overpowering.
“Did you fall in the chuck, Burke?” she asked. “Is that what you did?”
She’d never known him to drink to excess, but maybe he’d been drinking; it had happened to her husband, and he’d died for it. But Burke shook his head, tried to form words and couldn’t.
She got the shirt off of him and tore the blanket from the bed, wrapped his shoulders inside it as she started on his pants. “Hush,” she said.
By the time Jess had Burke naked, he seemed to have warmed up some, and she wrapped the blanket tighter around him and went away into the bathroom to run a shower, scalding hot. But when she came back, she found the blanket on the bed and Burke in fresh skivvies, rooting around in the dresser drawer where he kept his spare clothing for the nights he slept over.
“The hell are you doing?” she asked him. “You’re a block of ice, Burke. You gotta warm up some more before you—”
“No time,” he told her, and there was at least some semblance of strength in his voice. “They’ll come looking for me; here’s the first place they’ll check.”
Her stomach fell. She watched him pull out fresh jeans, a sweater, and she wondered why she’d opened the door for him at all.
“What are you—”
“They’re setting me up.” He stepped into the jeans and pulled them up his legs. Looked over at her, and his eyes were dark and serious. “Someone told Hart to send a diver to the harbor. They found a gun in the water underneath my boat.”
Jess stared at him. Her mind struggled to catch up. Somewhere in the room were her belt and her service pistol. Her handcuffs, her radio.
Burke watched her eyes, and his shoulders slumped. “Look,” he said. “You can call Hart if you want; I won’t fight you. If you truly believe I’d do something like this…”
He trailed off. She didn’t move, felt her heart pounding. Even Lucy was still, like she was waiting to see what would happen next.
“You know me, Jess,” Burke continued. “And I’ve never lied to you. I didn’t kill Brock Boyd, but somebody in this county sure wants it to look like I did.”
There was resignation in his voice. Like he suspected already that she wouldn’t believe him, she’d already sold him out in her mind. Like there was no point in running if he couldn’t even keep her on his side.
Your career, or the man you love.
“What do you need?” she asked him, her voice rough. “What is it you expect me to do for you, Burke? You said it yourself: here’s the first place they’ll look.”
He blinked. Studied her a beat, and then he shook his head and pulled the sweater down. “No,” he said. “Don’t risk your job for me. Just don’t—don’t turn me in to the law just yet, if you can.”
“You could run.” She crossed to where her purse sat on the room’s little dining table. “I have some cash and you could take the Blazer; I won’t tell Hart. Just get the hell out of Makah, Burke, and don’t look back. You—”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” Frustrated, an edge to his words. “I’m not running.”
She didn’t say anything. Watched him finish dressing, and Lucy did too, her head between her paws as she stretched out on the bed. The dog’s eyes were sad, as always, and maybe a little sadder; surely she could tell that something in her world had gone drastically wrong.
Burke slipped back into his soaking-wet shoes. Made a face, but bent down to tie up his laces. Jess found the spare key to the Blazer, held it out to him. But he waved it off as he stood. They were close now; he seemed to tower over her.
“I don’t need anything from you, Jess,” he said. “You don’t even have to cover for me if you don’t think it’s right.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, but he was already turning away, and she watched as he swung open the front door and peered out into the parking lot, surveyed the lot quickly and stepped out into the night. She made no move to stop him, and then he was gone, and the door swung closed behind him and she was left there in that little room with the scent of him lingering beside the smell of diesel fuel and the ocean, the memory of the hurt she could see in his eyes, and the dog watching her from the bed as if she had any answers.