The couple heard from the police that Marcus had been stopped two streets away. They got the assurance that the file with DC Patel would be escalated. Corey collected Rex on Sunday afternoon. He found George and Zoe both at the kitchen table. He read the room, said nothing unnecessary, and clipped Rex’s lead on.
At the door, George crouched and held the dog’s face in both hands for a moment. Rex was patient about it. “He’s been looking after her,” George said. “More than I knew.” Corey replied, “He does that. “He’s always been better at reading people than most people are.”
They watched the car go. Then George went inside and back to the kitchen, and Zoe was there, and the morning light was coming through at the angle it did this time of year. There were still hard weeks ahead—the waiting, the next scan, the slow work of Zoe learning to share the weight of things instead of keeping it all to herself. But for the first time in weeks, he had the whole picture, and that was better than standing in the dark trying to make sense of something he couldn’t fully see.