“No, Malcolm.”
Her voice hardened.
“Find out who is paying for this.”
He was quiet.
“I already am.”
That afternoon, Simone told Noah.
She did not tell him everything.
She did not say euthanasia.
Not yet.
She explained that Pike was asking a court to take Ranger and Atlas because he claimed they were dangerous.
Noah’s face changed immediately.
“They’re not.”
“I know.”
“He knows they’re not.”
“I think so.”
“Then why?”
Simone answered honestly.
“I don’t know yet.”
Noah sat on the floor beside Ranger.
The Shepherd placed his chin across the boy’s knee.
“Can they really take them?”
“Someone can ask a judge for almost anything.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Simone looked at him.
Andrew would have smiled at that.
“No.”
She corrected herself.
“I don’t know whether they can.”
Noah stared.
“But we fight?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
That was all.
Ten years old and terrified.
Still, he trusted the word we.
The lawsuit was only the beginning.
An emergency animal-control petition followed.
A municipal judge named Warren Cole denied Malcolm’s first request to block temporary impoundment. He did so from written filings without holding oral argument.
Simone read the order twice.
Then placed it on the table.
“How long?”
“Could be forty-eight hours.”
Malcolm’s voice came through speakerphone.
“We’re filing with the state appellate court.”
“What about their military status?”
“That is our strongest argument.”
“Use everything.”
“We are.”
Simone looked toward the dogs.
Ranger was asleep.
Atlas chewed a rubber ball.
Neither understood that strangers were discussing whether they should remain alive.
For the first time since Andrew died, Simone entered the garage and closed the door simply so Noah would not hear her cry.
She gave herself five minutes.
Then she washed her face.
Opened the door.
And returned to the kitchen.
By the next morning, Brookhaven residents had gathered outside the municipal building.
Simone had organized nothing.
Lorraine apparently had.
The seventy-two-year-old stood near the front wearing a yellow blouse and holding a sign that read:
LEASHED IS NOT LOOSE.
Simone almost laughed when she saw it from the car.
Other signs were less polite.
She did not stop.
Malcolm had warned her that every statement now mattered.
The case had become legal before it became symbolic.
Then Councilman Preston Vale entered it.
Vale chaired Brookhaven’s Public Safety Committee. He was sixty-one, silver-haired, polished, and possessed the smooth voice of someone who could make a threat sound like reasonable governance.
He appeared on television that evening.
“This should never have become a racial issue.”
Simone watched from the kitchen.
Nobody had asked him whether it was.
Vale continued.
“The city has a responsibility to protect officers and residents from highly trained attack animals.”
Simone’s jaw tightened.
“Military service is honorable.”
He folded his hands.
“But military service does not place anyone above public-safety laws.”
Simone turned off the television.
Noah looked up from homework.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve heard enough.”