Page 70 of Animal Tamer
“It's perfect.” My voice comes out toneless. I makemyself step inside. Make my boots cross the rug. The bolts are in the floor where the chair's sight line lands, discreet steel rings set flush into reinforced planking, and there's a drain Jonah cut that the rug hides. “He's going to walk in here and lose thirty years off his spine.”
“That's the design.”
I turn in a slow circle. There's a bookshelf with a leather Bible on it, spine out. A framed cross-stitch on the wall.BE STILL AND KNOW.Cole's handiwork, and I don't know where he found it, and I don't ask, because my chest is doing something between rage and gratitude and there isn't a word for the mixture.
“The hands,” I say. “Where?—”
“Workbench folds down from the wall panel. Left side.” Elias points with the cane. “Jonah tested the restraints against his own grip. They'll hold.”
I look at the folded panel. Behind it is the answer to twenty years of lying awake, and it looks like nothing. Like a cabinet in someone's garage.
The door opens behind us, and Silas comes in with his laptop under one arm, wrinkles his nose at the pine cleaner, and doesn't comment on it, which from Silas is a kind of mercy.
“Two things,” he says. “One, Harlan spent Sunday inside his house. Didn't go to church. First Sunday he's missed in nine years. The suspension's eating at him. His curtains stayed shut and his casserole ladies stayed home.” A cold flicker of a smile. “Two—there are whispers in town this morning. The good veterinarian didn't show up to work.”
My whole body goes still. “Vance.”
“Vance. His clinic opened at seven. He wasn't there. Staff's been calling him for two hours. His truck's in hisdriveway, so someone will drive out eventually.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Sooner than the mail carrier. Fine either way. The scene doesn't care who finds it.”
The staff's been calling him.
Wren is the staff.
My phone is in my hand before I've decided anything. I type and delete twice, keeping it clean, keeping it like the text a boyfriend sends and nothing more.
Everything alright at work?
Then I stand in a room built to break a man who broke me, staring at a screen, and Elias and Silas have the grace to talk quietly about drains while I wait.
Three minutes. Four. The gospel radio murmurs. My thumbnail finds the seam of the phone case and worries it.
The screen lights.
Weird morning. Dr. Vance didn't show and nobody can reach him. Paige has called him like ten times. Dr. Reyes says his truck’s home, but he's not answering the door. Sheriff's sending someone by his place. Hope he's okay.
Hope he's okay.
I read it out loud, and Silas's smirk spreads across his face.
“Hope he's okay,” he repeats, savoring it. “Nothing incriminating. Nothing defensive. Concerned coworker, appropriate distance, checkable facts.” He looks at me over the laptop. “I'm proud of her. That's better message discipline than Teddy had his first month, and he's a trained federal agent.”
“I'm telling him you said that,” Elias murmurs.
Silas's grin turns wicked. “Please do. He sulks beautifully.”
“She'll need to be visibly shocked when the news breaks,” Elias adds, back on topic. He's moved to the oxblood chair and stands behind it, gloved hands resting on its high back, surveying the room the way he surveys the Big Top before a show. “Shocked, saddened, and busy. Grief with a schedule is unremarkable.” His pale eyes come to me. “Which raises the question I already know the answer to. She's joining us?”
“She's joining us.” Saying it out loud in this room, of all rooms, does something strange to my ribs—like planting a flag in poisoned ground. “Staff vet. Full time. She's giving her notice as soon as the Vance situation settles and there's someone to give noticeto. She travels with the menagerie.”
“With the menagerie,” Elias repeats dryly.
“With me.”
“There it is.” He almost smiles. “Deke will be insufferable. He's already planning her breakfasts a week out. There's a list on the prep board.”
“She fixed his dog's ear,” I say in explanation.
Elias gives me a meaningful look. “She fixed all of us in a way,” he says, mild as anything, and lets go of the chair.
