“I'm not hoarding anyone?—”
“Then explain the face,” she interrupts.
I play dumb. “What face?”
“That one. The one you're doing right now.” She leans against the exam table, arms crossed, victorious. “You stayed after the show. You stayed after the show and somethinghappened, and you're going to tell me every?—”
The back door bangs.
We both snap upright like soldiers. Dr. Vance comes down the hall looking like he lost a fight with his own bed—shirt wrinkled, eyes bloodshot, hair messy. He doesn't even glance at us. He walks into his office and shuts the door hard enough to rattle the framed diploma in the hallway.
Paige and I exchange a look and scatter. She takes the phones. I take the appointment book, the autoclave, the fecal samples nobody ever fights me for. For two hours, we are the most industrious veterinary staff in the county, and Vance's door stays shut, and the only sound from behind it is the occasional creak of his chair.
At eleven-fifteen, the bell over the front door jingles,and Earl Dobbins comes in carrying a beagle wrapped in a bath towel.
“She got up on the workbench,” he says, out of breath. “Went right through a coffee can of roofing nails. Bled all over the truck.”
“Bring her back.” I'm already gloving up. “Exam one.”
The beagle—Dixie—has a slice across her left front pad, deep enough to gape but shallow enough to close without drama. She trembles on the table while I flush the wound, and Earl hovers, hands opening and closing, until Paige puts a cup of coffee in them just to give him something to hold.
“She'll be fine,” I tell him, threading the first suture. “Two stitches' worth of cut. She won't even limp by Sunday.”
“Thank the Lord.” He exhales and sags into the plastic chair. Then, because he's Earl and Earl has never met a silence he could tolerate, he says, “You girls hear about Sam Harlan?”
I furrow my brow. “The hardware store guy?”
“The hardware store guy.” Earl leans forward, coffee forgotten. “Somebody painted up his whole house last night. Bible verses, four feet tall, right across the front door. Something about sin finding you out. And the porch says something about a millstone. Ruth Simmons drove by twice this morning just to read it all.”
“Vandals,” Paige says, restraining Dixie's shoulder with one practiced hand. “Kids, probably.”
“That's what I said. Except.” Earl lowers his voice, though the clinic is empty. “They got the store too. Back wall of Harlan Hardware, big blue letters. And here's the thing… it wasn't just cussing or, you know, drawings. It said folks ought to ask Sam about hisscholarship boys.”
The suture thread goes still between my fingers.
“His what?” Paige asks.
“He runs that scholarship. Through the school board. For boys from tough homes, you know, gets them interviewed and everything, real hands-on.” Earl scratches his jaw. “Whoever painted it made it sound like—well. Like somebody ought to be looking into it. Like there's somethingtolook into.”
“That's a heck of an accusation to spray-paint,” Paige says.
“That's what Bill Stilton said at the diner. But then Mavis said—and I'm just repeating it—Mavis said whoever wrote it obviously knew things. Kids write curse words. They don't write about scholarships.”
Kids and scholarships.
I finish the stitch on autopilot. Knot. Snip. My hands know the work, which is good, since my brain has left the room entirely.
Because I'm thinking about the timing. The carnival rolled into Thistlewood two days ago. Thistlewood, where Samuel Harlan has lived his whole quiet, hardware-store, front-pew life without anyone ever painting a word on him—until this week.
I'm thinking about scars. Shiny, raised lines on a man's forearms. Maybe elsewhere too.
I'm thinking aboutscholarship boysanddisadvantaged backgroundsand a man who can't be touched.
The hair on my arms lifts. Every strand, all at once, like the air before lightning.
“Wren?” Paige is looking at me. “You okay? You went white.”
“Fine. Fingers cramped.” I flex my hand, place the last suture, and smile at Earl with a face I assemble piece bypiece. “There. Dixie's all set. Keep it dry, cone stays on, bring her back in ten days and I'll pull the stitches for free since she's been such a good girl.”
