The Homewreckers(130)

“Come on, dude,” Hattie called. “Let’s get this over with. Mom’s ready for bed.”

Ribsy lifted his snout and sniffed, his ears pricking up at the same time. Then he bounded away, running out the slack in the line while Hattie ran to keep up. “Ribsy! Stay!”

The dog ignored her, racing toward the seawall and yanking Hattie along in his wake.

“Ribsy! NO! Back! Back!”

Ahead, she saw a flash of white streaking from beneath a huge clump of ferns, and realized her dog was hot on the trail of one of the hundreds of feral cats that populated the island.

“Ribsy! Ribsy!” she screamed. A sane person would have let the dog go, but Ribsy, when motivated, was a speed demon and natural-born hunter and she couldn’t bear to think what would happen if he caught up to his quarry.

So she hung on for dear life, panting and swearing as he ran north along the grassy strip abutting the seawall. He tore through the cluster of oleander bushes that marked the boundary line between her property and the next house over, and Hattie plowed through too, wincing as the lance-shaped leaves whipped at the flesh of her face.

Ribsy veered away from the seawall now, in the direction of the looming mass of the nearly finished house next door. Piles of lumber, concrete block, and pallets of brick were stacked around on a sandy patch of earth that had been graded in preparation for a patio, or maybe even a pool.

Ribsy paused then. He stood stock-still, with his snout in the air, and Hattie stopped too, grateful for the pause in action. Her arms ached and her lungs burned.

“Come on, boy, you’ve had your fun. Let’s go home,” she coaxed. But in the next second, he was off again, running toward the darkened ground-floor level of the house which had been raised on concrete pillars, but not yet enclosed.

He was out of her view now, but Ribsy began barking furiously, yanking harder on the leash, the barks becoming high-pitched yelps. Had he cornered the poor cat under there? She pulled hard on the leash and could tell by the up-and-down motion that the dog was pitching himself against something.

“Ribsy!” she called, walking closer. Now she was directly beneath the house, and she had to strain to see in the dimness. From the corner of the room, obscured by another stack of bricks, Ribsy let out a low, guttural growl. Her neck prickled with a cold chill. She was reaching into her pocket for her phone to turn on the flashlight app when a man’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Hi, Hattie.”

Davis Hoffman stepped out from behind a five-foot stack of concrete blocks. He had a small penlight, which he pointed at her, then carefully set on top of the stack.

“Jesus, Davis!” she exclaimed, clutching at her chest. “You scared me.”

The dim light revealed a man she hardly recognized. The old Davis Hoffman, even in high school, was always immaculately dressed and groomed. But this stranger’s dark hair was lank and unkempt, and his lower face was covered with graying stubble. He was hollow-eyed and dressed in a dingy gray T-shirt and jeans.

Ribsy was crouched four feet away, his eyes trained on this stranger, ears pricked, on alert.

Her heart was racing and her mouth was dry. She was still clutching the handle of Ribsy’s leash, but her palms were damp and slippery. “What are you doing here?” she croaked.

Davis glanced around. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“I … don’t know.”

“Come on, Hattie. You know I’m hiding out from the cops. You sent them looking for me. After Elise came to see you. After you saw me cutting the grass at my mother’s house. You knew how I got those burns.” He looked down at his bandaged hand.

“You did it,” she whispered. “You set that dumpster on fire. And you killed Lanier Ragan.”

“It was an accident. I just wanted to talk to her. She was going to meet Holland, in the dock house. I saw him walking onto the dock earlier that night, in the storm, with the lantern. That fucking freak! I wanted to warn her, tell her what he was really like. I reached out to stop her, and she started to scream. I put my hand over her mouth to quiet her down, but something happened. It was raining so hard. Her foot must have slipped. She tripped and hit her head on the concrete. There was a lot of blood, but she was still screaming … I was afraid Holland would hear her.”

“Davis,” Hattie said, her voice pleading. “You have to go to the police. Tell them how it happened. An accident, like you said.”

“No. They’d put me in prison. You know what that’d do to my little girl? You know what that’s like, right, Hattie? Everyone talking about you, pointing at you. The humiliation. The shame. I can’t put Ally through that.”

He took a step toward Hattie, and Ribsy growled a warning. Davis pulled a pistol from the pocket of his jeans and looked at it, as though he were seeing it for the first time. His hands shaking, first he brought the gun to his head, then pointed it at her.

“Davis, no,” Hattie yelled.

Ribsy leapt at Davis and the leash handle flew from her hands. He threw himself at the stranger, his barking frenzied and high-pitched. Davis batted at the dog with his free hand, and Ribsy snapped at him, running around him, jumping onto his back, ripping at his shirt. Davis slapped ineffectively, making contact with the dog’s flank, and Ribsy circled around, wildly flinging his body at his attacker.

Davis stumbled briefly, his feet tangled in the leash wrapped around his legs, regained his balance, and then, struck at the dog with his gun hand. Hattie screamed again, and Ribsy sank his jaws into his attacker’s bandaged hand. Davis screeched in pain and as though in slow motion, he tripped and fell onto the floor.