His lips still pulled into a scowl, he got off the scale to put on his clothes, disconcerted by the loud, banging rattle of its beam and platform bearings as they were relieved of his prodigious weight.

Thibodeau was trying to stuff the middle button of his shirt through its hole when he heard three sharp, brisk knocks at his door.

Tom Ricci, man of action. Predictably right on schedule.

“Un instant,” Thibodeau called out, working in the recalcitrant button. “Wait just a minute—”

Ricci gave the door another quick knock, then took hold of the outer doorknob and let himself in.

Again, predictably.

His shirttails out over the open waistband of his pants, Thibodeau looked at him with an annoyance he made no attempt to conceal . . . and a sudden flush of embarrassment that he was hoping could be hidden.

“Thought I asked you to hang on,” he said.

Ricci stood inside the entry, turned the dial of his wristwatch toward Thibodeau.

“Don’t have a spasm on me,” he said. “We’ve got an appointment.”

Thibodeau regarded him another moment, disconcerted. Then he inhaled, holding in the breath—and his stomach—as he tucked, zipped, and hooked himself into his uniform slacks.

“Okay,” he said on his exhale. He nodded toward his desk. “Grab a seat an’ we’ll talk.”

Julia Gordian felt convinced Vivian was a shoo-in for adoption. There was still the cat test ahead, true, but she wasn’t too worried. That was pretty much a guaranteed cinch.

She stood looking out the window of the In the Money Shop at the introduction and walking area next to the center’s dusty parking lot, where Viv, a one-and-a-half-year-old grey whose career as a racer had ended after she’d broken the wrong way out of the gate in two of her first three starts, was being strolled around on a leash by her prospective rescuers, a seemingly nice enough family named the Wurmans—mother, father, and eight-or nine-year-old son—from up around Fremont. The dogs were always brought out to the people who came to look at them, as opposed to the people entering the kennels, which was how it usually worked at animal shelters. This was because, in addition to being weak and malnourished, some of the new arrivals had not yet gotten their vaccinations, were susceptible to canine diseases for which human beings might be unwitting carriers, and were therefore segregated until Rob Howell had gotten them checked out by his regular vet and approved as ready for placement. A small handful of visitors would complain about the policy, wanting to have their pick of all the greyhounds on hand, but Rob tended to send that type on their way as politely as he could—his position being that anybody who couldn’t find a dog to love among the half dozen or so he was willing to show as available candidates wasn’t qualified for greyhound ownership.