Matchbox Girls by Chrysoula Tzavelas Page B

said, her voice flat.
    Marley hesitated. Something about Lissa’s voice made her ask, “What do you want to do?”
    “Make them go away.”
    Kari laughed suddenly. “Look at the doggies!” At the same time, there was a chorus of barking.
    Two of the dogs had scrambled onto the roofs of both the sedan and the minivan, and were barking hysterically down at the college students. The third dog was growling at Lawyer Jeremy himself as he stepped out of the car, while the teenage girl pulled vainly on its collar. The tall man was waving his hands in the air dramatically. Somebody shouted.
    “Come on!” said Marley. She picked up Lissa around the middle and kicked the door open. She almost started to run, but then she remembered that running attracted attention. So she walked. Briskly. Lissa hung from her arm, a sulky dead weight, while Kari trotted beside her. The chaos around the vehicles attracted a flock of crows that circled only a few feet above, adding to the assault of sound. The noise seemed to be seriously hampering the college student trying to use a cellphone. A few yards from her car, one of them turned.
    “Hey—” he began, and the brown dog on top of the minivan landed on top of him, growling.
    Marley froze for a moment, the real cries of fear triggering an instinctive need to help. Then she squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, and kept moving.
    As she unlocked the door and piled the children in, the cries became angry swearing and shrill demands. “What the—get—move—Hey!” She didn’t look over. Instead, she put her seatbelt on and started the car.
    Nobody stopped her. Nobody flung themselves in front of her car. Nobody tried to open the door. She wasn’t even sure if anybody noticed.
    As she pulled into traffic, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The dark man was walking across the parking lot again, and the teenage girl and her dogs were nowhere to be seen. The college students were all clustered in a tight huddle as Jeremy climbed back into the van.
    Marley looked at each of the twins in the mirror. Kari met her eyes and said solemnly, “Bad doggies.”
    Lissa, looking out the window, said in a tone of satisfaction, “Yeah!”
     

-eight-
     
     
    B y the time Marley got home, her thoughts on the encounter at the library had become a confused mess of speculated motivations. The tall man had been almost convincing in his desire to help her. But the knowledge he didn’t explain and those dogs that had attacked the college students were both troubling. Was setting your dogs on people the act of a good guy? And the college students hadn’t seemed threatening or thuggish; they’d had the cheerful demeanor of those out to do good and unburdened by moral ambiguity. But they’d had Lawyer Jeremy, and there’d been so many of them.
    She finally concluded that the whole thing was impossible to sort out based on the available information, and settled for being glad that she’d gotten out of it. She even found a moment to be reassured that Jeremy was relying on college students rather than the police. That was mysterious in and of itself, but supported her belief that whatever Jeremy was up to, it was No Good.
    Penny waited outside her door, smiling.
    “Penny!” said Marley. “You would not believe the morning I had. There was this guy—”
    Penny’s eyebrows went up. “You too?”
    Marley remembered Penny’s date with possibly-Lawyer Jeremy. “No, not like that. More like—he said he knew Zachariah, but he was—” She shook her head. “It was complicated. How was your date?” She unlocked the door and gestured for Penny to go inside.
    Penny danced through the door and picked up Neath from the back of the couch, twirling her around. “It was lovely. He missed me! Which was more than I expected. We spent hours over wine, just talking.”
    “Yeah? What about?” Marley watched the kids settle down to play.
    “Oh... stuff. Me, my friends, his friends, the places we went when we