Atlanta frowns. “By doctor, you mean the vet. And by patient, you mean, like, an iguana.”

“Veterinarians are doctors.”

“Okay.” She really didn’t know that. “When will Doctor—” Atlanta leans left to get a look at the name on the door. “Ch . . . Chenna . . . Pro . . . Pra?”

“Chennapragada.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“She’s Indian.”

Atlanta drums her fingers. “So, the doc? Free soon?”

The woman flits her gaze toward a boxy old CRT computer monitor. “Not until two thirty.”

“That’s, like, two hours from now.”

“That’s her schedule. If you’d have called . . .”

“No, I’ll . . . I’ll wait.”

Atlanta goes and sits back down, flips through some magazines. Allure—ugh, girls too skinny, skinny like those harsh, knobby cheekbones. Field & Stream—really? There’s a magazine about fishing? Seems like there’re magazines for everything. Jogging. Walking. Knitting. She spies a Food Network Magazine, thinks maybe to steal it and give it to her mother—either to teach the woman how to cook or instead to roll it up into a tube and swat the woman’s nose any time she reaches for a kitchen implement.

Like the cat, Atlanta gets up and paces the waiting room. Across the far wall is a corkboard, and she goes over, starts perusing. John Deere tractor for sale. Free kittens, which Atlanta figures is about as redundant as it gets, because who in their right mind would pay for a kitten? (Probably the same weirdos who read fishing magazines.) Dog missing. Then another dog missing. A third. And fourth.

One’s a cairn terrier (“Pepper”). Another a dachshund (“Oscar”). Third is a . . . vizsla puppy, whatever that is (no name given). Third a Lab puppy (“Lucky”).

Three of the flyers have addresses.

And all three are up in Gallows Hill.

Atlanta’s heart leaps the same time her gut sinks.

She goes to the counter, reaches over—ignoring the protestations of Little Miss Cheekbones—and snatches a pen, which she then uses to write the phone numbers on the inside of her arm.

“Here,” Atlanta says, tossing the pen back to the counter lady. “I don’t think I need to meet with the vet doctor anymore.”

Pepper: The man is icy like a frosted-over windshield. Tells Atlanta over the phone that the terrier was a show dog, a regional winner and a state winner once, he’ll have her know, and he’ll pay whatever it takes to get Pepper back, and then he says his “partner” is the dog’s trainer, and Atlanta thinks, oh, okay, he’s gay—which adds up because he seems buttoned tight and has a clipped and lispy voice—but then she hears a woman’s voice in the background calling for the man, and he ends the conversation with a sudden good-bye, cutting it short as if with a pair of scissors, snip, snip, click.