“Nothing really serious has happened so far,” I said. I hesitated, then added, “Even Mr. Jones is going to make it. I was just talking to him on the phone. He’s a hell of a lot better. So, right now, as of this moment, you’re in less trouble than you might think.”

Trevor’s cheeks turned crimson. “He was going to say bad things about me,” he said to me. “He took my pictures! He stole them right out of my car! He had no right to do that! And when I found them, he had all these notes written about me.”

“All anyone wants to do is help you, Trevor,” I said. “But you have to put down the knife and—”

Something brushed past my leg, and suddenly Morpheus was running up to Trevor, wagging his tail, leaping up with his paws, catching Trevor right in the stomach. He didn’t want to stab his own dog, so rather than push him off with his knife hand, Trevor released his grip on Angie’s arm to shove Morpheus’s head aside.

Angie bolted. Paul and I moved.

I went for the arm holding the knife, grabbing it with both hands as Paul grabbed Trevor around the middle, nearly trampling Morpheus in the process, the two of us slamming Trevor up against the brick wall. With Paul holding his body, Trevor had no leverage in his arm, and I slammed it once, twice, three times against the brick until the knife slipped from his hand and clattered to the sidewalk. Paul, who had gone into some kind of rage, had freed a fist and was pounding it into Trevor, a word accompanying each punch. “Leave! My! Sister! Alone!”

There was a siren.

Morpheus had gone berserk, ripping into Paul’s and my legs, getting his teeth into the denim and shaking his head back and forth. As we held Trevor against the wall, we kicked back, trying to get the dog off us before he tore through the jeans and was into flesh.

Someone, I don’t even know who, managed to haul the dog off us, and as I felt Trevor give up his struggling, I said to Paul, who was still punching, “It’s okay, it’s okay, calm down, it’s okay. Stop. You can stop.”

And he did, and there were tears in his eyes, and his sister had her hands on his shoulders, and then she was folding her arms around her brother as the cops came running up the sidewalk.

Chapter 40

40

I was sitting in one of the wicker chairs on the front porch. It was a little past dinner, and the temperature was starting to drop. We were heading into fall, and I was debating whether to keep sitting out there, head inside, or head inside for a sweater and come back out.