The leash hit the floor. Koda didn’t attack. He didn’t bark. He just stepped forward and pressed his wet nose against Ethan’s trembling hand.
Ethan broke. A sob tore out of his chest, raw and ugly. He buried his face in the dog’s fur, his shoulders shaking violently. The crowd around us stopped. The rush hour blur froze into a circle of staring faces.
“Ethan,” I said, my voice cracking. I fell to my knees on the dirty concrete. “Where have you been? They told me you were dead. They told me you drowned in the Hudson.”
Ethan looked up. The blood from his nose smeared across his cheek. “I had to disappear, Dave,” he choked out. “If I stayed, they would have killed you too.”
My jaw tightened. The air in the terminal felt suddenly thin. “Who? Who would have killed me?”
Before he could answer, a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“Officer Miller,” a voice boomed. “Step away from the suspect.”
I turned. It was Detective Vance. The man who had led the search for my brother. The man who had handed me the closed-casket death certificate. He was flanked by two uniformed officers. His face was twisted in a sneer.
“He’s not a suspect,” I said, standing up, my hand instinctively dropping to my duty belt. “He’s my brother.”
Vance laughed. A short, sharp sound that echoed off the vaulted ceiling. “Your brother was a thief, Miller. He stole two million dollars from the evidence locker and fled. We have a warrant for his arrest. Step aside.”
Ethan scrambled backward, his eyes wide with terror. “Dave, run. He’s the one. He’s the one who took the money. He framed me.”
Vance’s face went pale. He drew his baton from his belt. “Shut up! You’re going back to a cell, you junkie.”
He lunged for Ethan.
Koda moved.
The dog didn’t bite. He just slammed his eighty-pound body into Vance’s chest, knocking the detective backward onto the metal bench. The crowd gasped. Phones came out. The flash of cameras popped.
“You’re under arrest, Vance,” I said. My voice was steady. I pulled my radio from my shoulder. “Dispatch, this is K9 Unit 4. I have a confession on bodycam. Detective Vance just admitted to framing my brother for the evidence locker theft. Send Internal Affairs and the Captain to Grand Central, Track 4.”
Vance scrambled to his feet, his baton raised. “You’re making a mistake, Miller! I’ll have your badge! I’ll have you both killed!”
“You already lost your badge,” a new voice said.
Captain O’Malley stepped out from the crowd. He was holding a thick manila folder. He walked up to Vance, his polished oxfords clicking against the concrete.
“We’ve been tracking the offshore accounts for six months, Vance,” O’Malley said coldly. “Ethan was the fall guy. We just needed him to surface to confirm the routing numbers. And you just gave us the confession on a live feed.”
Vance froze. The baton slipped from his fingers, clattering against the concrete. He looked at the Captain, then at me, then at the crowd. The arrogance was completely gone.
The officers didn’t hesitate. They pulled Vance’s arms behind his back. The metallic click of the handcuffs was sharp and final. They marched him toward the exit. He didn’t look back. He just stared at the floor, his shoulders slumped, entirely defeated.
I knelt back down. Ethan was still crying, but the terror was gone from his eyes. Koda rested his heavy head on Ethan’s knee.
The heavy steel doors of the terminal clicked shut behind the officers, leaving only the sound of my brother’s quiet breathing.