The officer's hand closed around Bishop's jaw before Ava Renwick had finished her sentence. Sir, I asked you to verify the call before you touch my dog. Her voice didn't rise. It never did. Officer Dale Britt never looked at her.
He was watching the German Shepherd's teeth, his knuckles white around the animal's muzzle, as if daring the dog to prove him right. "Ma'am, step back. This animal matches a dangerous dog complaint. " "Then show me the complaint. " Ava set her briefcase down beside the bench, slow and deliberate, the brass clasp catching the afternoon light.
The scales of justice stamped into the leather faced up, plainly visible, and neither officer glanced at it. "You radioed in on a call 15 minutes ago. I heard the dispatch. " "It said possible stray. Bishop is leashed, current on his tags, and sitting exactly where he's been sitting for the last hour.
He's not leashed now. " Britt said, and tightened his grip. Bishop's ears flattened. A low sound rose in his chest, not a growl, not yet, something closer to a question. Ava had raised him past the age where fear made him snap.
She had not raised him past the age where pain did. "You're hurting him. " "I'm controlling a threat. " "He isn't a threat. You're the one holding his mouth shut in a public park.
" Behind Britt, his partner Sam Kowalski had stopped writing on his citation pad. He was young enough that his uniform still looked new, and old enough to know that something about this didn't match anything he'd been trained for. "Dale, " he said quietly, "maybe we back off. Let her" "I've got this. " Bishop's snap, when it came, was fast and shallow, teeth grazing the leather of Britt's glove, nothing more, the kind of reflex any animal makes when a stranger's hand closes over its face.
But Britt reeled backward like he'd been struck, and something in his expression changed from irritation to opportunity. "Did you see that? He said, loud now, pitched for the crowd that had begun to gather along the path, a man walking his own dog, two women who'd stopped mid-conversation, an older couple frozen near the fountain. That dog just attacked an officer. He pulled away because you hurt him, Ava said.