LITMIR.BIZ

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at the voice. A tall young man in hospital greens walked out of the shadows at the far end of the building. Surely he was too young to be a veterinarian.

      “Sorry,” Tim said. “My son Jason here saw the lights. I came hunting for him. Come on, Jason.”

      “Dad,” Jason said plaintively, “do we have to? I mean, I’ve never seen a live sheep before.”

      “Of course you have. At the petting zoo, don’t you remember?”

      Jason sulked. “It’s not the same. And it didn’t have babies.” He looked up at the young man. “What’s wrong with it?”

      “Nothing now.” The guy grinned at Jason. “Momma had a tough time having those twins. Happens, sometimes. Had to do a cesarean. You know what that is?”

      Jason nodded. “Knock her out, then cut across her belly and take the babies out that way. I didn’t know you did that with animals.”

      “We do when we have to.”

      Tim expected Jason to be grossed out.

      “Cool. Is there a bunch of blood?”

      “Not much.” He turned to Tim. “I’m Kenny Nichols. I work here between semesters.”

      Tim introduced himself and they shook hands. “You going to vet school?”

      “First year. Mississippi State.” Kenny smiled proudly.

      From somewhere in the shadows a horse nickered. Jason’s head went up. “What’s that?”

      “Sally, a cutting horse. She’s recuperating from eye surgery. Want to see?”

      “Jason, I thought you were hungry.”

      He tossed his father a nasty glance and stomped off behind Kenny.

      Jason’s giant shorts drooped below the waistline of his underwear and almost reached the heavy socks he wore under his high-tops. All that would have to go along with the earrings, Tim thought. Good riddance.

      By the time Tim managed to pry his son away from the horse’s stall and get him back to the car, Angie was fuming. Eddy was awake, but as usual, he sat without saying a word.

      “Jason,” Tim said, “tell Eddy and Angie what you saw.”

      But all Jason’s enthusiasm had vanished. He stared out the window.

      A lesser man might’ve lost it by now.

      His children certainly thought he’d made a mistake dragging them from Chicago, their friends, their grandmother, their schools, to this backwater.

      Tim prayed they were wrong.

      MACINTOSH THORN, D. V. M., partner in Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic, and his surgical assistant, Nancy Mayfield, knew one another so well that they seldom communicated verbally during a procedure. He’d already stitched the Jack Russell’s torn throat, now he was working on the gashes along the little dog’s side.

      “Irrigate, dammit!” he barked. Nancy had already begun to do just that, but she didn’t take offense.

      “It’s a miracle the pit bull didn’t snap his spine like a chicken wing,” Mac growled.

      “Mrs. Marshall told Mabel he managed to squeeze between a packing crate and the garage wall.”

      “Hell, look at that. Two ribs broken. Got to get the muscle reconnected. Sponge. Sometime this week.”

      Mac was fast but neat. Nancy slapped instruments into his hand, kept blood and sweat out of his way. Fifty-five minutes later by the big clock on the wall above the oxygen tanks, Mac said, “Gotcha.” He looked over at Nancy. “Want to close?”

      She shook her head. “I’m so upset I’d probably stitch his ear to his nose.”

      She saw his eyes widen and his eyebrows rise above the surgical mask.

      “No problem.”

      She always enjoyed watching him stitch. For such a big man, he worked with the delicacy of a silk weaver. After he finished, he touched the small dog’s head with his index finger. “You lucky dog, you.”

      “He’ll live?”

      “Depends on how tough he is. From what Mrs. Marshall told Mabel before you came, he should make it. Call Big. He’ll need intensive care for a couple of days.”

      Nancy dialed a number on the telephone beside the door while Mac stripped off his surgical gear and tossed it into the bin in the corner of the room. As she was taking off her own greens, the door opened to admit an elephant of a man. He made Mac Thorn look like a child. His white-blond hair was cropped short, and he stared with pale blue eyes at the little dog. Nancy thought he was the gentlest man she’d ever met. He made a tsk sound, scooped the small dog softly into his mammoth arms and shook his head.

      “I’ll look after him, Dr. Mac,” he whispered, as though the dog were not too deeply asleep to hear him. “I flat out hate this. Folks like them ain’t got a lick ’a sense, ownin’a pit bull around a baby.”

      Bigelow Little, man of all work at Creature Comfort, himself owned a pit bull bitch rescued with a number of other wounded animals from a fighting ring. Daisy was the sweetest dog in the world and worshipped Big. Even so, she was never allowed into the area where the sick and wounded small animals were kept. Nancy wondered what Daisy would do if anyone—a total lunatic, it would have to be—tried to harm Big or any of the clinic personnel. She suspected Daisy would go down fighting.

      Just as the overmatched little terrier had tried to do.

      “What happened to the pit bull?” Nancy asked as she arranged instruments in the autoclave and tidied up the surgical area.

      Mac shook his head. “Poor devil. The owners had their vet put him to sleep. Thank God I didn’t have to do it.”

      Thank God indeed. Mac would more likely try to put the owners down. He would certainly feel they deserved it.

      “Not his fault, but I can see their point. Mrs. Marshall says they have a two-year-old grandchild.”

      Nancy shuddered. “The pit bull could just as easily have attacked the child as the terrier.” Some two-year-olds could even set off a basset hound.

      Nancy followed Mac into the break room. He pulled a couple of diet sodas out of the small refrigerator kept for the staff and handed her one, then sank onto the leather sofa and propped his feet on the scarred coffee table.

      “Okay, so how come you’re too nervous to stitch up a dog?” he asked. Dr. Mac had a thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Emma, and his wife, Kit, was heavily pregnant. He was much more aware of other people than he had ever been before he married. Not necessarily more sympathetic—just more aware.

      Nancy dropped into one of the chairs at the conference table and took a long pull of her soda. “He’s arrived. My new neighbor, the man from Chicago. It’s worse than I thought.”

      Mac raised his eyebrows.

      She told him about the afternoon. “So, no car, no privacy, no Halliburtons any longer and three of the weirdest children I have ever seen in my life.”

      “Weird how?”

      “The one son is almost totally bald, that is, not naturally—and has what looks suspiciously like two holes in his ear where he might have worn studs.” She paused to consider that. “And may again. I didn’t inquire as to what other portions of his anatomy might be pierced. He also wears shorts that would be too big for Big.”

      For a moment, Mac looked confused, then he laughed.

      “The daughter, Angie, is no creature of light. More like the Angel of Darkness, if you ask me. Black fingernails and dyed black hair and eye makeup she’s entirely too young to wear, in my opinion.”

      “Goth. Okay. You said three children.”

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