I don’t know how long we lay there, when it was over, cross-wise on the bed, our arms and legs entangled, our bodies still joined. Presently, Tucker rolled to one side and fell asleep. I forgave him, since he’d been working undercover for days and he’d just given me the ride of my life.

I kissed him on the forehead, covered him by doubling the bedspread back, and got up. I didn’t sleep after sex; it always energized me.

I took a quick shower, put on jeans and a tank top and started for my computer, intending do a little Googling on the list of names Greer had given me the night before.

The first thing I saw was the chow mein box, lying open on the floor. Before I could get mad about the mess, I spotted Russell. He was full out on his right side, and he was way too still.

Alarm—the instinctive kind—clenched at my insides like a fist made of cold steel, and for a second or so, I couldn’t move at all. “Russell?” I whispered, and that broke my inertia; I dropped to my knees beside him, much the way I’d done with his master the night before, under the pool table. “Russell!”

He didn’t lift his head, but he did raise one eyelid.

“Tucker!” I shrieked. “Tucker, come quick, there’s something wrong with Russell!”

Tucker appeared in less than a minute, jeans fastened, tugging on his shirt. “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” I cried. “I just came out here and found him like this—”

Tucker went back to the bedroom, returned in a flash with a blanket. He dropped to one knee, wrapped Russell, and got to his feet again. “Come on, Mojo,” he said. “We’ve got to get him to the vet.”

I nodded, grabbed my purse, pulled out my car keys.

“You’d better drive,” Tucker told me.

I couldn’t think. Which vet? Where? I was beside myself.

I did the only sensible thing, and that was panic.

We got downstairs to the Volvo, somehow, and I took the wheel.

Quietly, Tucker directed me to turn left out of the parking lot. We passed several restaurants.

“Right at the light,” Tucker said.

“Where are we going?” I asked, none too calmly.

“Just keep driving,” he answered, cradling the blanket-bundled Russell as gently as he would a feverish child.

We’d probably traveled three miles when Tucker indicated the next turn, through a gate and up a long driveway toward a large Territorial-style house.

“Go around back,” Tucker instructed.

I did what he said.

“Okay, you can stop,” he told me. He got out of the car, still carrying Russell, and strode toward a long, low building of white stucco.