Part 3
A small scrape behind them broke the silence.
Rook had climbed down from the counter. He approached Calvin, touched his head against a boot, and took another uneven step.
Calvin crouched at once. The cat held up his right front paw.
“Let’s see.”
For once Rook allowed himself to be examined. Calvin cupped the leg without squeezing, parting the fur with a careful thumb.
The paw was swollen.
The carrier sat open on the bench before the garage lights were fully bright. Calvin had lined it with a towel. Rook entered with much less argument than on adoption day, keeping the sore paw close to his chest.
Tessa came through the side door as Calvin reached for the handle.
“I’m going.”
He looked at her backpack.
“Mom knows,” she added. “I called.”
Calvin nodded.
Nathan appeared behind her, wearing trousers and a sweater that still looked too formal for the garage.
“Let me drive.”
Calvin started to object, glanced at the carrier, and handed him the truck keys instead. He sat in the passenger seat with Rook on his knees. Tessa leaned forward from the back, speaking through the wire in a voice scarcely louder than breathing.
At the veterinary office across town, Nathan stood beside a display of pet food while Calvin sat with the carrier. Tessa opened a magazine and turned three pages without looking at any of them.
Dr. Whitcomb called them into an examination room. She placed a folded towel on the table before opening the carrier.
Rook stepped out, looked around once, and sat.
“Thank you for making my job easier,” she told him.
After examining the leg and checking for signs of a fracture, she let Calvin release his breath.
“A sprain. A bad landing would do it. He needs a quiet week, and I’ll give him something for the inflammation.”
Nathan moved closer. Relief made him careless. He reached to stroke Rook’s back.
The cat turned and caught his finger with a quick warning nip.
Nathan snatched his hand away. “Right. Permission first.”
Dr. Whitcomb checked the small mark and had him wash it. “He’s hurting. That wasn’t the time to surprise him.”
Nathan accepted the correction without answering. Calvin steadied Rook while the veterinarian treated him.
Back at the garage, the lost hours bothered Calvin more than anyone else. He went straight to work. Tessa stayed beside him; Nathan took the office. Rook chose the top of a filing cabinet, where nobody could step on his sore paw.
They were almost finished for the day when glass broke in the alley.
Calvin put down his tools and took the flashlight from its hook.
“What was that?” Nathan asked.
“Stay here.”
Outside, the neighboring security light kept cutting out. Calvin swept his beam over bins, a loose board, fragments of bottle glass.
Someone moved against the wall.
“Come out of there.”
The man who stepped into the light looked about thirty. His clothes hung loosely, and his hands wouldn’t stay still.
“Money,” he said. “Whatever’s in the register.”
“Walk away.”
The man came forward instead.
Calvin had time to turn his shoulder, not enough time to brace. The shove sent him backward over broken pavement. His head struck the ground, and the flashlight rolled against a bin.
Before he could get his knees beneath him, a gray shape came out of the doorway.
Rook hit the attacker high, clawing and yowling. The man stumbled, batting at his face. Calvin heard a sharp cry and saw the cat fall clear.
A wrench lay near the threshold where someone had dropped it earlier. Calvin grabbed it and got to his feet.
“Go.”
The man saw the raised wrench, backed away, and ran.
Calvin let him. His beam found Rook near the wall, still trying to stand between him and the alley. The cat’s right foreleg shook. Blood darkened the fur along his side.
“Rook.”
Nathan and Tessa reached the doorway together.
Calvin knelt and lifted the cat. Rook made no effort to scratch him. His body sagged against Calvin’s shirt.
“Police,” Calvin told Nathan.
Nathan already had his phone out. “I’ll stay and deal with them. Take him.”
Tessa fetched a clean towel. Calvin pressed it gently over the wound, then reached for the carrier.
“I can support him better,” Tessa said. Her voice was unsteady, but her hands stayed where he’d shown her. “I’ll hold the towel. You drive.”
Calvin looked once at her face, then helped her into the back seat of the truck with Rook cradled across her lap. The carrier went in beside them.
He drove to the emergency veterinary clinic with both hands locked around the wheel. At each stop he looked into the rearview mirror.
“He’s breathing,” Tessa said before he asked. “He’s still breathing.”
A technician met them inside and took Rook through the treatment doors. Tessa stood with her arms still curved around the place where he’d been.
Calvin sat down and pulled the empty carrier onto his lap.
Nathan arrived after giving his statement to the police. He asked about his father’s head, watched him answer, then sat only long enough to stand again. There was no news from the treatment room.
Tessa called her mother. Calvin listened to her say the cat’s name and then fall quiet while her mother spoke.
Outside the windows, the last cars left the neighboring businesses. The clinic clock passed midnight. Calvin kept his fingers threaded through the carrier door, waiting for someone to come through the double doors…
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