She takes it, nods. “I’m gonna go make a call.”

As she passes Shane on the way out, he looks up. “Wait, hold up. What are you planning?”

“I don’t know yet.” It’s not a lie.

She stands by the busted Scion, pacing like a zoo animal. A pair of mockingbirds chase one another in the nearby briar. A red-winged blackbird hops along the fence.

Atlanta chews her lip. Runs her fingers through her hair.

Takes the phone. Looks at it. Waits. Puts it away.

Finally she takes it out again and makes the call.

Ellis Wayman picks up on the first ring.

“Was wondering when you’d call,” he says, voice gruff, growly—but also hidden there is a vein of amusement. “Quicker than I figured.”

“Do you even know who this is?”

“The girl with the great name. Atlanta Burns.”

“How’d you know?”

“Says so on my phone.”

“Oh.” She really should figure out how to turn that off. “I got your message. You hurt my friend pretty good.”

“He broke my gate. You stole my dog.”

She starts pacing again. “I didn’t know it was your dog. Your nephews attacked me.”

“Not before you attacked them.”

“They hurt dogs. They were going to hurt your dog.”

This seems to give him pause. “Then I’m going to have to have a chat with them. I’m old guard, sweetie. I like to keep my dogs healthy. I’m not in it for the blood. I’m in it for the sport.”

“Don’t see how you can separate the two.” The mockingbirds flit above her head.

“In the ring you can’t, but outside it is a different story. The niggers and Nazis like to kill their curs if they don’t perform. Shoot ’em or use ’em as bait for other, meaner champs. Like that big-time fancy football player who electrocuted his dogs. Not me. Then again, I don’t buy bad dogs. I buy champs. I buy into strong legacy breeding lines, bloodlines with a history of wins. Like that dog you have in your possession as we speak.”

“He’s not much of a fighter.”

“My nephew’s hand says different. Got nerve damage, you know that? Doc said his fingers won’t work so great after this. And the last two fingers—the pinky and whatever the other one is called—may never get the feeling back in ’em.”

“Pardon me while I cry into my pillow over your dog-torturing bully of a nephew.”

“Not asking for sympathy, just stating facts. Way I figure it, he had that coming to him.”

“On that we agree.”

A hot wind, dry as the air from an open oven, spills across the meadow. “I paid ten grand for that dog,” Wayman says finally. “That’s a lot of money. You gonna pay me that?”

“I’m not. I can’t.”

“Then I need that dog back.”