And I was alone in the waiting room with Kyle Rogers and the dog we’d rescued.
He grinned at me and I forgot what I was about to say to him. “Are we exchanging names this time, Dr. Vaughn?” he asked.
“Cameron Vaughn.” I held out my hand. “You can call me Cami.”
He took my fingers and held onto them for a beat longerthan a handshake. “You can call me Kyle.” He inclined his head toward the dog. “And do you happen to know Spike’s actual name?”
“Spike?” I raised my eyebrows. “I’m not sure she has a name, but I also don’t think Spike suits her.”
“Her?” He patted her head and she wagged her tail as she gazed up at him approvingly, which further confirmed his good-guy status. Dogs usually know. “Sorry about that, girl. But why wouldn’t she have a name?”
I glanced at the glass front door, then motioned for him to follow me into the back where the dog would be out of sight. “I need to examine her thoroughly and that will give us time to talk.” We passed the clinic’s lead vet tech in the hall. “Gina, can you join us in five minutes?”
“Sure thing, Cami.”
“So, you work with Kat,” I said as he followed me into an exam room. I closed the door and indicated the steel table. “Can you the pup up here?”
“Of course.”
I picked up a penlight and checked her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth more thoroughly than I’d been able to do in the back of his pick-up cab. “The kind of people who had her probably don’t give names to the dogs they abuse.”
“People, not one lone asshole?” he asked.
He worked with Kat who, if I recalled correctly, was in charge of the new security firm that was headquartered here in town. If the rumors were correct, they offered cyber-security services, home alarm systems, and physical protection for high-status clients. I knew and trusted Kat. By extension, I could probably trust Kyle. Besides, there was the gut instinct the dog and I had about him.
Maybe he was a computer expert or a bodyguard. If I were a celebrity or a politician or even a small-town vet, Iwould definitely be happy to have him guard my body. I cleared my throat and focused on the dog.
“I don’t know much,” I said. “The man who brought her to the pet supply store had been there before with her. Before that, he’d been there with a different dog who was in the same kind of poor shape. One of the girls who works there also interns here, and she finally became so concerned, she talked to me about it.”
“In your line of work, I’m sure you know what they—whoever they are—might be doing with the dog.”
I nodded. “It’s possible itisone lone asshole abusing her, but it could also be a fighting ring. If that’s the case, they won’t use this little girl as a fighter.”
He leaned against the back of one of the plastic client chairs. “They would use her for bait.” He looked like I felt, enraged and heartbroken at the same time.
“There’s also the possibility of a puppy mill.” I had made my way back down to her distended abdomen. She howl-whined when I gently prodded. “She’s been bred already, way too young. It would’ve had to have been during her first estrus cycle. She probably whelped less than a month ago.”
“Wait, she has puppies? Shouldn’t they still be nursing?”
“They should be, although given her size and poor health, I’d be surprised if they survived. And now she has an infection. She should be spayed anyway, but this is going to be an emergency surgery.” There was something else, another issue in her abdomen, but until I knew more, I kept that to myself.
He asked more questions as I continued the exam. He requested a description of the man who’d been with the dog. Kyle had caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror, but it had been from a distance. I told him what I could, but I’d only seen the man from the back.
There was a knock at the door and Gina poked her head in.
“Come in,” I said.
She shared that Mr. Fuzzy had been examined and released, since the ribbon was short and not tangled in his intestines. “He’s been sent home with a special diet and should be fine in a day or two.”
“That should make your boss happy,” I told Kyle. I turned to Gina. “The news for this poor girl isn’t as good.” I brought her up to speed on the exam thus far, at least everything I’d told Kyle. She would discover the rest of it when she turned her attention to our patient. “I’ll need you to prep the pup and the OR. As soon as the clinic closes at five, we’ll get her into surgery.”
The wall phone buzzed. Gina answered it, then looked at me. “Darla says there’s a problem at the front desk. A man has come in looking for a lost dog. She’s taken his information, but he’s not leaving.”
Kyle and I exchanged a look.
“Did anyone see you with the dog?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “No one that can’t be trusted.”
