“City Hall? That’s where the mayor is, right?” Abner had been there before, in an official capacity, but he couldn’t remember much about it. Obviously. If he remembered what he did as the guard dog, they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

Also, he would’ve lost his mind years ago. Selective memory was a blessing sometimes.

“There’s a lot of people there, I think,” he added. Crowds. He remembered crowds. “Important people. Maybe targets, Can you do me a favor, sir?” A little twitch of his head at his own deeply unorthodox request, still half expecting a shock. Anderson wasn’t like that, he had to remind himself. And they’d taken off the collar before sending him out that morning anyway.

“Please make sure I don’t hurt anyone else while I’m there. If it’s public, they’ll have to decommission me, and this whole investigation will be a waste of time. You’ll never catch the real killer then.”