Weekend Warriors (Sisterhood #1)(11)
“I’ll go with you,” Charles said calmly. “I didn’t know you had your dog with you or I would have insisted you bring him in with you.”
“If you know I wear flowered underwear and gargle with Listerine, how could you not know about my dog?” Kathryn snapped as she followed Charles out of the secret room.
“We know about your dog, Kathryn, we just didn’t think you would bring him with you this evening. I apologize. Let me get you a slicker.”
“We don’t have to go outside. All I have to do is whistle and click this remote,” she said, pressing a small black box in her hand. The door to the cab will open and close on its own. I didn’t know about gadgets like this until after…until after Alan died and I got my dog. He’s been K-9 trained. Open the door. He’ll find me.”
And he did. Charles stepped backward until his back was pressed against the newel post on the stairway. In his life he’d never seen a more magnificent dog. He said so in a shaky voice.
“Charles, this is Murphy. I named him after the man who taught me how to drive that rig out there. He was one sorry son of a bitch. Shake hands, Murph.” The Belgian Malinois held out his paw. Charles shook it manfully. “Now, Murph, show him those beautiful teeth of yours.” The dog obliged and growled as he did it, his lips peeling back as his ears went flat against his head.
“How much does he weigh?” Charles asked nervously.
“One hundred and ten pounds,” Kathryn said smartly. “I got him the day after Alan’s funeral. I needed someone in…in…in his seat. Murph was fully trained at the time. He’s three years old. He’s been trained to kill, if necessary.” Charles blinked at her flat, emotionless voice.
“Are you ready to return to the others?”
“We’re ready,” Kathryn said.
The panel in the wall moved quietly and closed just as quietly.
“This is Murphy,” Kathryn said by way of introduction. The collective gasp pleased her.
“I’m afraid of dogs,” Yoko said, drawing her legs up under her so they wouldn’t dangle on the floor.
“Get over it, because this dog goes where I go.” Her voice was not unkind, just cooly matter-of-fact.
Yoko’s feet stayed under her rump.
“Seitz.” The Malinois dropped to his haunches and then stretched out at Kathryn’s feet. “He understands German, as I do,” Kathryn explained.
“Tell us how you came to us and then tell us your story, Kathryn,” Myra said gently.
Kathryn ran her hands through her hair as she struggled for the words she needed and wanted to say. “I’ve only ever talked about this once and that was to Nikki Quinn, the day after Alan’s funeral. It wasn’t easy then and it isn’t easy now. I was walking down the street and there was this walk-in legal clinic where lawyers do pro bono work. I walked around the block a few times before I got up the courage to go inside. I waited seven years to tell my story and when I finally told it to Nikki Quinn she told me the statute of limitations had run out and there was nothing I could do legally.
“I’m very nervous talking about this. It’s still as painful as the day it happened. It’s like a beacon in the forefront of my mind. I’ve lived with it every hour of every day for seven long years.”
“You have to tell us everything, Kathryn. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to help you,” Myra said gently. “Start at the beginning and tell us everything you can remember. We’ll ask questions when you’re finished. What kind of a day was it? Where were you headed? What were you hauling?”
Kathryn took a deep breath. “It was a nice day. The sun was out. It was one of Alan’s better days. He loved riding shotgun, as he called it. Listen, I need to tell you, right now, right up front, how much I loved that man. He was my white knight. He was the wind beneath my wings. He was the reason and the only reason I wanted to get up in the morning. He was my one true love. You need to know all this so you don’t misjudge me or Alan when I finish my story.
“We were both orphans, both of us working our way through school. We met in one of our engineering classes. Back then we thought we were going to build a whole new world. In our third year, Alan was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He was one of the unfortunate ones because it attacked him quickly and viciously. By the time we graduated he was using a cane to get around. Suddenly, building new worlds didn’t seem important to either one of us. We both worked for a year and the money we saved during that year was used to put me through truck driving school. I made enough money the first couple of years to put a down payment on that rig out front.
“There were no remissions for Alan. He just got steadily worse. The day came when he couldn’t walk anymore so I took on extra jobs to get the truck outfitted with a hydraulic lift so he could get in and out of it and then into a wheelchair. In addition to the multiple sclerosis he was also diagnosed as having Parkinson’s disease. He loved being on the road. It was what he lived for. He used to sing as we tooled along. He’d talk on the CB to other truckers. They all knew us. When we’d pull into a truck stop they’d always help so I could shower and they’d help Alan. He hated that part of it but the other truckers were good to him. After a while it didn’t matter. It was so hard for him in the beginning to let others see how incapacitated he was.