Page 28 of Operation Rescue
“And I think you’re right, Connor,” Blaine agreed. The kid didn’t quite smile, but he thought he saw something there in those young brown eyes. And the boy was still stroking Cutter, so he risked it. “Where do they usually hang out?”
With a half shrug Connor said, “Coupla places. Near the mission sometimes, ’cuz Isaac, the big guy, likes to flip off people who go there. And there’s a store just down from there that’ll sneak them beers. I think somebody’s brother works there. The rest of the time, they’ve got some hideout somewhere. I don’t know where.”
Blaine saw Cutter suddenly change posture, as if going on alert. A moment later he heard Rafe’s voice, barely above a whisper, saying “Incoming, from the north.”
He glanced that way and saw a group of kids who appeared to be a little older than Connor on the corner, headed their way. Four of them, the biggest one twirling what looked like a short chain in one hand. He saw that Connor suddenly seemed frightened.
“That some of them?” he asked.
“Not the ones Ethan’s been around. But they’re bad guys.” The boy stood up, clearly nervous.
“Will they recognize you? Know you live here?” Rafe asked.
Connor nodded again, fear in his expression and his posture as the other boys got closer. “They go to my school. When they go.”
“Okay. We’re tourists and you just stopped to look at the dog,” Rafe said. “That’s all.”
“I…okay,” he said hastily.
The foursome slowed, looked as if they were contemplating…something. But then Cutter moved, shifting so that he was facing them, not making a sound but clearly focused on them.
They noticed. And picked up speed again.
“Now, which way’s the mission?” Blaine asked when they got close enough to hear, as if he really were that tourist instead of someone who’d grown up just down the road.
Connor pointed, and Blaine nodded. “Thanks.”
The four passed them hastily then, eyeing Cutter warily as the dog shifted yet again to remain facing them, as if he wanted to be ready to leap at them if necessary. The four wannabes kept going, a little faster now that they’d gotten a good look at Cutter, and probably Rafe, too. That steely gaze of his would scare anybody with sense into behaving. Not that those four came across as boys overly gifted with sense.
“Wow,” Connor said. “They almost ran.”
“My buddy here has that effect on people with bad intentions,” Rafe said.
Connor looked from the intimidating Rafe to Blaine. “Is that why he was nice to me? Because I didn’t mean to do anything bad?”
“Probably,” Blaine said. Then, with a smile, he added, “So keep it that way, okay?”
The boy sighed. “I guess I better go back to school, then.”
“You going to be in trouble there?” Rafe asked.
Connor nodded. “I…kinda been cutting class lately.” He shot a sideways glance at Blaine. “Since Ethan went away. We used to hang out together, and now…”
Cutter headbutted the boy, who again stroked that dark head. Blaine could almost see the tension flowing out of the kid. And then he looked up again.
“You’re gonna find him, right?”
“Yes,” Blaine said firmly.
“Do it fast. Those guys’ll get him in trouble he can’t get out of.”
Blaine felt a knot in his throat. “That’s the plan,” he said. And driven by an instinct he didn’t quite understand, he went on. “Why don’t we walk you back to school? Then we can tell them you were helping us, and maybe you won’t be in quite so much trouble yourself.”
The boy brightened. “That’d help.”
“Then let’s go,” Blaine said, wishing that helping his son could be this easy.
Chapter 15
