Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,40

of anything. The girl’s hand trembles over a manila folder. She starts to slide the folder to Atlanta, then stops abruptly, and pulls it back.

“We should talk payment,” Jenny says. “Before you… before you see this.”

“Sure. Okay.” Atlanta looks around. This isn’t her kitchen. It’s Jenny’s. Or her family’s. Atlanta walked the long trek over here, across town in the heat, up Gallows Hill and into the McMansion portion of Maker’s Bell. Some would say Gallows Hill is not part of Maker’s Bell at all but rather part of the unofficial richie-richsburg of Gallows Hill proper—a town unto itself, an insulated bubble of green lawns and good money. Atlanta can see that this kitchen is as big as, if not bigger than, the entire downstairs of her own crooked farmhouse. It’s all shiny granite and fingerprint-free stainless steel, lit by a light fixture that looks like a dangle of crystal teardrops. Above her hangs a pot-and-pan rack featuring cookware clean and spotless and surely never used. It’s then that Atlanta comes to a number, and a crazy number, at that:

“A thousand bucks.”

Jenny hesitates, but then nods. “I can make that happen.”

Holy shit. Okay.

It won’t buy out the mortgage, but it’ll cover a couple payments. Time to print up some business cards that say pet detective on ‘em.

“You think your dog was murdered,” Atlanta says.

“Sailor.”

“What?”

“Sailor. Her name was Sailor. Like Sailor Moon.” Jenny clears her throat. “She was a Norwich terrier.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“…here.”

She again slides the folder to Atlanta. This time all the way. But the hand lingers. Still shaking. Staring out with those empty eyes. Sand-blasted by trauma and sadness. Grief-struck as if grief were a hard-swung baseball bat.

Atlanta opens the folder and it’s then she understands.

* * *

Way the toilet flushes, it’s like a vacuum on a rocket ship. A powerful voosh and Atlanta’s puke is taken away, leaving behind a sparkling porcelain bowl once more. A bowl rimmed by a puffy taupe toilet seat.

Heated, if one likes. There’s a button and everything.

She doesn’t. Instead she leans back against the wall. Hair matted to her forehead.

The folder. That dog.

In her mind’s eye, flashes of white and red. White fur. And then blood. All that blood. Some dry. Some wet.

Looked like something an animal did. A fox. A wolf. A dang grizzly bear. But Jenny is saying a person did that. Said too that the vet called the injuries inconsistent with an animal attack. The way one of the ears was cut. The way the neck was ringed with a rope-burn.

The way the teeth were all removed.

An act of torture, not rage. An act by human hands.

People are fucked, Atlanta thinks. She knows there’s kids out there who do stuff like this—hell, back in junior high down South she knew a kid named Buck (who people called Bobo for reasons unknown) who would shoot frogs with a bow and arrow, then freeze them, then blow them up with firecrackers. What happened to Sailor was like a master class in that. Advanced Sociopathy for the Wannabe Human Monster.

Preying on the weak. It’s not just the blood that makes her sick. It’s that.

Eventually she crawls her way back to standing, makes sure there’s no vomit curds hanging out along the edges of her mouth, then returns to Jenny who sits in the kitchen, staring down at the closed folder. Again she snaps out of the reverie to ask Atlanta, “Are you…”

“I’m fine. I’ll take it. The job. I’ll find who did this to your dog.”

“To Sailor.”

Atlanta nods, takes the folder. “To Sailor.”

* * *

Outside in the driveway, between the pine-green Range Rover and the steel-gray Lexus, she sees a familiar mouth-too-small-for-his-teeth face. Chomp-Chomp. Steven. Standing there in a ratty black-and-red Slayer t-shirt and jeans spattered with… something. Motor oil, maybe.

He’s got a Yamaha four-wheeler parked at the base of the driveway.

“Hey,” he says. Giving her a game little wave.

“Don’t come near me,” she says, putting the back of her hand against her mouth. “I probably have barf-breath.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean, you know?”

“Jen called. Told me you were kinda… I dunno. Sick.”

“I’m fine now.” She moves past him.

“Okay. Wait. I can give you a ride.”

Atlanta turns. Cocks her hip and squints. “On that thing?” She points to the quad.

“I won’t drive fast.”

“You can drive fast, I don’t care if you drive fast.” A sudden spike of defensiveness and she’s not sure why. “You don’t… live around here, right?”

He shrugs. “Up the block.”

“You’re rich,” she says. It’s almost a condemnation, but she doesn’t mean