He parked in front of Hodges Animal Clinic and cut the lights. He remembered enough of high school health class to know that vitamin K1 was found in lettuce and other greens, and that it was important because it helped blood to clot. It made sense if Sophie ate a bunch of anticoagulant, she’d need vitamin K1. His gut told him he could rely on Elizabeth’s judgment. “I’ll unlock the door to the clinic and come back to get Sophie.”
Inside the silent building, he turned on lights and adjusted the thermostat so the air conditioning kicked on. On his way back to the Jeep, he stopped beside a Volkswagen Beetle, which he assumed belonged to the assistant. A young woman got out of the car and approached him. He’d met her once when he’d brought Sophie in for her rabies shot, but Brady had been the one to take her statement after the murder. He thought she looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her other than from his one vet appointment.
“Sheriff Drake, I’m Iris Porter. I used to work here as Doctor Hodges’s assistant.”
“Yes.” He paused to shake hands. “Thank you for coming. If you want to go inside, I’ll get the dog.”
With Elizabeth’s help, he got Sophie out of the Jeep and into Hodges Animal Clinic. Once inside, he carried Sophie to the examination room, Elizabeth following. Sophie could walk on her own, but he wanted to keep her as calm as possible. He placed her on the examining table while he introduced Iris to Elizabeth.
“We’ve met.” Iris shook her hand. “You were one of Doctor Hodges’s friends.”
Elizabeth nodded and got down to business. “Iris, Sophie ate some rodent bait blocks. We induced vomiting shortly after, but she needs the injectable vitamin K1. It should be in an amber-colored bottle. Do you know where Cathleen kept her supplies?”
“Sure. I’ll get a syringe ready.” Iris frowned. “Would you know about the dosage?”
Elizabeth chewed on her lower lip. “Eighteen CCs should do it, but I’ll weigh her to be sure.”
Iris went into the kitchen-slash-surgery room, leaving them alone in the examination room. Sophie tried to jump from the table, but Elizabeth’s soothing and petting calmed her.
“I don’t think this is legal.” Wil met Elizabeth’s gaze.
She didn’t flinch. “Breaking and entering?”
“Dispensing drugs without a license.”
She smiled then. “It’s a vitamin shot, Sheriff. And animal owners can give their own injections. Ranchers and farmers do it all the time.”
“I see.” But ranchers and farmers dealt in livestock, not beloved family pets. “Sorry to be a skeptic. This is a special dog, particularly to my dad.”
“Let’s try to weigh her. I guessed at eighty pounds for the dosage.”
“How did you know about that? Seems to me you know more about animal doctoring than Iris does.”
“I doubt that.” Together they placed her on a scale that resembled a treadmill until Elizabeth got a reading. “How long have you had Sophie?”
So she wasn’t going to give him a straight answer. He returned the dog to the examination table. “Three years or so. She belonged to a homicide victim when I worked in Jacksonville. We found her whining at his side. The deceased had no family, no friends, no one willing to take the dog. She was just a puppy, probably close to a year old.”
“Softie Wilson Drake rescued her.” She smiled again, and his earlier doubts evaporated. As long as she smiled at him that way, he’d believe anything she said. Not good for a detective. Or an objective county sheriff. But he’d lost his objectivity where Elizabeth Stevens was concerned, probably the first morning she’d shared a table with him at Boyd’s Diner. “Hey, don’t let it get around that I’m a soft touch, okay?”
Her smile collapsed, and she lowered her voice. “If you don’t let it get around that I treated your dog.”
“Deal.” Not that she need worry. Using the deceased’s property for personal reasons surely violated some code of ethics. But the image of his father’s tears overrode propriety. “But I can’t stop Iris from talking.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I know.”
“Darlin’, I’m sure you have your reasons for not wanting me to think you’ve more than a passing acquaintance with veterinary medicine. But I wish you’d talk to me. You can trust me.”
Were those tears in her eyes before she looked away? “I can’t.”
Iris returned with a hypodermic needle. “The dog ate rat poison blocks?”
“Yes.” Wil stared at the needle. “Are you going to give her the shot?”
Iris gave her head a rapid shake. “I don’t do injections.”
Elizabeth reached for the syringe and pinched a bit of Sophie’s furry yellow coat.
“You know how to give the injections?” Iris asked.
“Yes, I do.” This time Elizabeth met Wilson’s gaze and held it. She seemed to be silently pleading with him, but he wasn’t a mind reader.
Wil held Sophie’s head in both hands. “Steady, girl. This is going to hurt.”
“If I inject it all in one spot, it can cause a reaction.” She injected Sophie repeatedly in various parts of her body, just beneath the skin. Sophie neither flinched nor whimpered. “All done.” Elizabeth turned to Iris. “See if you can find fifty-six capsules of K1.”
“Right.” Iris followed the order as if she’d expected it.
“That many capsules?” Wil asked.
“Yes, it comes in twenty-five milligrams only, and Sophie’s a large dog. You’ll need to give her four of the capsules every day for the next two weeks.”
No longer questioning her about her knowledge, Wil nodded toward Sophie, who was pawing at the table’s metal surface. “She wants down.”
“Good girl.” Elizabeth ran her fingers through Sophie’s coat. “All right, set her on the floor.”
“She’s going to be all right?” Wil asked, forgetting for the moment Elizabeth wasn’t really a vet. He stooped to pet Sophie, who stood on her own and appeared none the worse for wear.
“She should be. She emptied her stomach fairly quickly.”
Yeah, all over the floor of the den. He almost gagged at the memory. Not that he was squeamish or anything. “Watch for things like bruising, pale gums, or labored breathing. Anything that indicates a bleeding disorder. Will you be able to watch her tonight?”
“You bet.” He ruffled the fur around Sophie’s ears with both hands. “Sophie, darlin’, tonight you’re sleeping with me.”
His golden retriever ended up in his bed most nights, anyway. A fantasy of Elizabeth sharing his bed instead of his dog fluttered through his one-track mind. Would she understand dog hair in the sheets?
“As I said, you’ll need to take her to a vet as soon as you get a chance for blood work, to be sure she’s not anemic or anything.” Iris handed him the bottle of vitamins, and he stood. “Thanks for helping out, Iris.”
“It’s the least I could do.” She gave him a look filled with chagrin. “It’s my mom’s fault, you know.”
“Your mom’s?” Elizabeth frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
Then the resemblance zoomed into focus, and his brain connected the dots. “You’re Hazel Porter’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Afraid so. She’s a maniac with wasp spray and rat poison, I’m sorry to say.”
Wil reached for his wallet and handed her two twenties. He had no idea if the amount was appropriate. When
Iris tried to refuse, he said, “Take it, darlin’. It’s the least I can do for interrupting your Saturday night.”
“Well, I am currently unemployed …” She took the bills and stuffed them into the pocket of her shorts.
“It’d probably be better if we kept this between us, all right?” Damn. He hoped that hadn’t sounded as if he was bribing her.
“I understand.” She dismissed his concern with a wave of her hand. “Do you know what’s going to happen to all this? Dr. Hodges said she’d taken out a huge loan to open her practice, so will her equipment be repossessed?”
“Her mother will have to make those decisions,” Wil said. “She told my deputy she plans to be here next week.” And Wil owed Cathleen Hodges’s estate for the vitamin K1. He’d need to find out the cost. Jamie probably knew from the computer files she’d examined.
“It’d be nice if she could sell it to another veterinarian who’d take over and reopen, but I guess that’s wishful thinking.”
Elizabeth nodded, her eyes strangely liquid as her gaze swept the room. She was probably remembering her dead friend. But question marks littered Wil’s mind. If she wouldn’t explain why a trained veterinarian would become an English professor at a small college and want it kept secret, he’d have to redouble his investigation of her.
Elizabeth hadn’t lied. Not exactly.
She lay in bed staring at the illuminated dial on her clock radio. Four o’clock in the morning and she should’ve been sound asleep. Instead, her mind replayed the night’s events. She had told Wilson she used to work in a veterinarian’s office, which was true. Of course, she’d neglected to mention that she’d worked as a veterinarian. Or that she held a degree in veterinarian medicine. She wasn’t a vet, though—not anymore. She wasn’t certified to practice in the state of Florida, nor could she be until she caught up on her continuing education hours.
So she hadn’t lied. But she’d broken role, something her handler said could get her killed. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had reacted to the emergency without thinking. It had always been her nature to rescue and treat animals, even before her veterinary science training. After earning her English degree and then deciding to go to Auburn to get her DVM, she didn’t surprise anyone who knew her well. Last night, her immediate concern was saving the golden retriever from poisoning, and her training kicked in automatically. Too late, she realized her faux pas.
The keen-minded sheriff wasn’t fooled, either. He recognized her training in saving Sophie. He dropped her off at home after they closed up Hodges Animal Clinic and saw her safely inside her house. Then he gave her the opportunity to explain, but she ignored it. There was no good night kiss or even a close encounter. She saw question marks in his eyes, not romance.
“Just how long did you work in that vet’s office, darlin’?” he asked. He may not have figured out the truth yet, but he was curious. He’d probably google her name the first chance he got, not that he’d find anything for Elizabeth Stevens. The question haunting her now—who would he tell?
Abandoning her bed, she got up and padded to the kitchen. By the glow of her nightlight, she brewed a cup of tea and carried it into her darkened living room. Curling her legs beneath her, she settled into the sofa to enjoy her hot drink. The woodsy scent of Wilson’s cologne lingered in the fabric of the slipcovers where he’d sat Friday evening, reminding Elizabeth of her foolishness.
She’d let him get close—closer than any man since Brendan, though that lying creep could hardly be called a man. How many times had she reminded herself that she could be relocated with little notice at any time? If Sullivan’s hit men figured out where she’d moved, she couldn’t afford a moment’s delay. Once her handler called her, she had to be ready to move. How could a relationship work under such circumstances?
Now she’d compromised herself. It may mean nothing. Or it could lead to her exposure. She feared there’d come a time when she’d be cornered and have to decide whether or not to confide in Wilson. Her instincts, known to be defective, told her he would safeguard her secret. She liked him—too much. Kris nailed it when she said he’d proven not to be a shallow jerk. Kris would tell her to trust him. But should she trust Kris?
Kris had moved to Foster County about the same time as Elizabeth had, but so had Cathleen and Sunny. Did that make them suspicious? She’d read somewhere that a hundred thousand people moved to Florida each week, so newcomers to Drake Springs—particularly a college town—weren’t unusual. Her handler said to confide in no one, though, so she didn’t. All three women considered her a close friend but knew little beyond her phony biography. Maintaining the charade exhausted her.
Unlike Cathleen, who rarely spoke of her family or home, or Kris, whose parents had used her as a pawn in the battlefield of their divorce, Elizabeth had grown up in a loving, happy family. She’d been close to all of them—so close that her heart ached still to talk to any one of them. To do so would endanger not only her but them, too. She’d been warned that she couldn’t risk e-mail, either.
She finished her tea and sat up straight, an idea taking root. She often surfed the internet. Would anyone notice if she logged on to her hometown newspaper? If keystrokes were recorded, couldn’t she access a number of cities’ newspapers to leave a trail of confusion? Seventeen months ago she’d traveled to Georgia by taking flights to various cities under different names. Her handler later set her up in Drake Springs and gave her the Chevy S-10, which she drove to her current identity’s new life. She could follow the same convoluted path with the internet.
Elizabeth powered up her computer, squinting against the sudden brightness of her monitor in the darkened room. Thanks to Ian Davis, she had a high-speed internet connection. He’d installed the software and switched her over from dial-up the first time she’d cooked dinner for him and Sunny.
An hour later she’d soaked up dozens of articles at courier-journal.com, news from Louisville, Kentucky, and southern Indiana. She browsed the headlines, then read through local news. Her favorite restaurant had closed after forty-nine years. Damn! She scanned the obits and saw no familiar names, thank God. Fall racing was about to start at Churchill Downs. She skipped that article. Any racetrack brought back painful reminders of the events that had landed her in this mess.
A tiny ad in the sidebar caught her attention: “Mustang Sally’s Garage—for the best in auto restoration.” Her heartbeat quickened. That had to be her sister-in-law’s business. Mustang Sally’s Garage had outfitted her secondhand motor home for her mobile veterinary business. Sally hadn’t owned a computer at the time, but now she appeared to have entered the information age. Or Sally had sold the business, for all she knew.
She’d missed so much of her family’s and friends’ lives since she’d gone into hiding. Against her better judgment, she clicked on the link. MustangSallysGarage. com filled her screen, and a smile filled her face. Right away she recognized the handiwork of her brother Joey. She touched a finger to the screen as if to bring her in contact with him. Had he and Sally started a family yet? What exactly was the name of his employer? Could she find anything about Joe on their Web site?
In her moment of weakness, Elizabeth started to save Sally’s Web site to her favorites but reconsidered. She could remember the URL easily enough, and it wouldn’t do to send trouble to Sally’s door. It wouldn’t do for her to do a search on her brother, either. Up until now, the Feds had succeeded in protecting her family, going to great lengths to paint a picture of her as estranged from the Desalvo family. Fortunately—if anything about this mess could be seen as fortunate—she’d lived and worked in Lexington, not Louisville, seventy miles from the closest family member.
Seventy miles or seven hundred miles: would it matter to a man on trial for murder and racketeering?
Exhaustion finally claimed her. Yawning, she shuffled back to bed without turning off her computer. She’d be up again in two hours and could check for new posts on the Shakespeare forum before going to the early service at St. Helen’s, the tiny Catholic church in downtown Drake Springs. Attending mass was her one concession to her previous identity. This was no time to give up praying.
At 10:30, she’d pick up Kris. Or should she call first? If Kris had followed through on her idea to invite Adam over for the evening, she may have gotten lucky. Barely finishing that thought, Elizabeth fell asleep.
Sunday morning, Wil swung by the Nite Owl Convenience Store on First Street, grabbing a breakfast burrito and hot coffee on his way to the station. He missed his usual breakfast at the diner but couldn’t blame Boyd and Lorraine for closing one day a
week. He missed seeing Elizabeth, too, although he’d been with her last night. The entire episode with Sophie had unsettled him, not that he wasn’t grateful for Elizabeth’s help. In fact, he’d been so focused on saving his dog he’d overlooked a few things that later resurrected in his thoughts.
Elizabeth seemed at home in a strange veterinary clinic, using language and expertise beyond that of a former aide. Or had she actually said she’d worked as an aide? Something else niggled at the back of his brain—something she’d said that he’d meant to follow up on but now couldn’t recall. He definitely intended to spend more time investigating her, if for no other reason than to satisfy his curiosity.
Still, her behavior last evening had triggered his detective radar. He’d learned to trust his instincts, and he couldn’t ignore his misgivings about her even if he did lo—like her. Lo—like covered it perfectly because he was halfway in love with Elizabeth. And he had yet to kiss her.
With so many troubling thoughts, he’d slept poorly and then overslept, which pushed him to get to the office by ten. He’d intended to go in at eight. To his amazement, he hadn’t forgotten his weapon and holster. Ordinarily, the county sheriff could take a Sunday off. But Wil had an unsolved homicide and a police force working extra shifts to find evidence.
He unlocked the back door that led directly to his office, and slipped inside. After finishing off his breakfast, he toured the station, speaking to Rebecca Gibbons, the dispatcher on duty. “Any trouble this morning?”
“Not since I came on, Wil.” She handed him the clipboard containing the printout of the day’s calls. “Here’s the log.”
Wil scanned the list of traffic and disorderly conduct calls. “Amazingly light for a Saturday night.”
“Especially the first weekend after classes start. The biggest trouble came late last night, when Fred Fischer caught Ralph Sapp breaking into the Dairy Queen again.”
“Fred didn’t arrest him, did he?” Ralph Sapp had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old and had a weakness for Dilly Bars. Most folks in town helped his elderly mother keep him out of trouble.
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