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“You said we. That means you and her.” I don’t take my eyes off the front door. The dogs have been barking loudly enough for us to hear them outside. It seems odd that no one’s come in or out for the last thirty minutes. Maybe vet appointments take a long time.
“'We’ could mean you and me if you wanted it to, but you spent years rejecting me, and so I moved on.”
“I’m going to tell Emma she was your second choice.” I should go inside instead of waiting in the car.
“Speak to her with those words and I’ll have to kill you. I’ll be sad about it, and I’ll cry at your funeral, but you’ll have to die.”
“Noted.” I open the door.
Vincent scrambles to put down his mostly eaten sandwich. “Wait a sec. I thought we were just here to ‘observe.’” He makes the air quotes with his fingers.
“We have observed. Now we’re interacting with the subject.” I glance for traffic and then jog across the empty road. Vincent is right on my heels. While I’ll never admit this to my friend, if Emma had to end up with someone, I’m glad it’s Vincent. He’s a decent guy with a deep pocketbook and appears to be madly in love with my sister. And if it falls apart, I’ll take him up in a plane and drop him out of the back without a parachute.
A bell above the door can be barely heard above the noise of the barking. The front desk is empty. A chill runs up my spine. Vincent and I exchange glances before I bolt to the back. Vincent pulls a gun from his ankle holster. The smell of blood and urine hits me hard. Out of instinct, I drop low to make myself a smaller target while Vincent hangs behind, using the doorframe as a cover. The blood is dried when I reach it, and from the brown coloring, it’s not fresh. The dogs in the kennels yip and bark at me. Their food dishes are empty, and the urine smell appears to come from the cages.
Around the corner, I find the first body. Dressed in blue scrubs, the young woman is lying on her face. Just beyond her are the sturdy shoes of the vet, a male who I guess could’ve been attractive when he was alive—enough so that Melody might have entertained the thought of dating him. I guess.
I back out slowly, careful to step in the tracks I made coming in so I don’t disturb more of the scene. Once I’m back by Vincent’s side, he pulls out his phone. I stop him before he can make the call.
“They don’t have a police chief anymore,” I remind him. Chief Blake Finley got run out of town earlier for being a serial abuser.
“There’s other officers.”
I shake my head. “This is a small town. He’s probably got five maybe six other assistants, but Blake would lead the investigation.”
Vincent tucks his phone away and crosses over to the receptionist’s desk, where a bottle of sanitizer and a box of latex gloves rest next to a credit card machine. He tosses me a pair of the gloves. “Then get to work, Chief,” he says.
I do make a phone call to the acting mayor, Alderman Reid, so that any evidence we gather isn’t spoiled. She sighs heavily. “I’d like to blame this on Finley, but he doesn’t seem to be the murderous type. Too messy and the victims don’t match his profile.”
“No, I don’t think it’s Finley. He and his father are holed up in a beachfront property in South Shore.”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on him?”
“Just a few.” Vincent and I weren’t sure if he was going to come back for Emma.
“I’m going to send Deputy Ryder over to make sure it’s all official. You’re in charge now if you start investigating,” she warns.
I knew this before I placed the call. “Yeah. I’ll stand in for now until the next election.”
“No one is going to let you leave after this,” Alderman Reid says cheerfully.
“Unless I don’t solve it, and then they’ll be glad to see the back of me.”
“You’ll figure it out.” She hangs up.
“What’d the mayor have to say?”
“That you’re going to have to call me Chief.”
“I love it.” Vincent smacks his thigh.
“Hope you’ll be saying that after we’re done here. By the way, I’m deputizing you.”
“Aye, aye.” He gives me a salute.
After that, we get to work, bagging and tagging evidence that we can find. Vincent takes photos with his phone, and I catalog every piece of human hair I can find. We move carefully. The floor of the clinic is clean, and the surfaces are dust free. Despite the antiseptic nature of the rooms, there is little evidence that we can find. I glare at the assortment of dogs, cats, and lone bird. “If you could talk, it’d be helpful.”
