Dexter was so hyper—he went from licking her face off, to zoomies, to jumping on her lap. Eventually she got him to calm down enough to hug him. “Have you been a good boy, Dexie?”

“He has,” her mother replied.

Uncle Thomas then said, “Apart from when he ran off with my glasses and chewed them up.”

Aunt Chrissy gently smacked him in the stomach. His wife was the only one who could get away with that. “You shouldn’t have left them where Dexter could get them.”

“Sorry, Uncle Thomas.”

“I needed new ones anyway.”

Her mum had her arm around Isla. “Isy’s been helping take care of him for me, haven’t you, Isy?”

Isla walked over and knelt down next to Mack and stroked Dexter. “I took him out for lots of walks every day, Mack.”

“Thanks, wee barra.”

Mack lifted Dexter above her face and looked into his cute little eyes. “I’m not leaving you again, Dex.”

* * *

After the best lunch she’d had in a year and a half, Mack retreated to her uncle’s office. He poured out two drinks while Mack sat with Dexter in her lap. Thomas handed her a glass of brandy and smiled at the little dog.

“He’s happy now.”

“He won’t leave my side. I think he’s frightened I’ll disappear again.”

Thomas took a seat behind his desk. “Isy’s loved taking care of him. I think she’ll want one of her own, but Nikki isn’t too keen on a dog in her apartment. Your mother and Chrissy think that a therapy dog would be just what Isy needs.”

“A trained therapy dog sounds like a brilliant idea. How has Isy been? No better?”

Thomas took a sip of his drink and sighed. “No, she’s a sensitive little soul, not like you and Nikki when you were young. The anxiety and panic attacks only seem to be getting worse.”

“Is her therapist not helping?”

Thomas shook his head. “She’s on to her third one in six months. The best that money can buy, but she won’t open up and talk to them.”

Anger filled Mack as she thought about the pain Isy was living through. She had always been a quiet little girl, but she’d enjoyed life. Since she’d watched her best friend die from a drugs overdose, Isy had become anxiety ridden and suffered panic attacks. The fun-loving little girl was changed forever.

“I just don’t understand it,” Mack said. “Why would Kevin Drury take a chance selling in a Sharkey territory, and at a school where your granddaughter is a pupil? He must have known that we would come after him, just for selling, never mind anything else.”