“I pumped it full of enough tranquilizers to kill a horse, and we blindfolded it and closed its mouth with duct tape. I chained it up by the side of the road.” Amy saw Nurse Becca had tears in her eyes. “I knew I should’ve just finished it … but I couldn’t. Not to a dog. Even that dog.”

She pulled into the lot by the bus station. The two sat there in silence for a minute, staring out the windshield. Amy knew they were both staring at Rover in their mind’s eyes, both meeting his cold, dead gaze. Wondering if somehow he’d heard them talking. Scared of him, if he had.

“Here,” said Nurse Becca. She reached into the back seat and pulled out a thick manila folder. “I did some research when everything happened, and here’s what I found. Newspapers, rumors, old vet reports … that’s all I know.” After another moment’s silence, she stammered, “When I realized what was happening, I thought maybe it was something in a disguise, you know? Like an alien, or some creature hiding in plain sight? But I think that’s too easy. I think it’s just bad, the way some people are bad deep down. It’s just a bad dog. Bad in its mind, in its soul.” She laughed again. “Bad dog. Bad dog, Rover.”

Amy’s bus pulled up. She tucked the file into her hoodie, got out of the car, ran to the door, and paid the driver. When she finally reached her seat, she looked out the window and saw that Nurse Becca had gotten out of her car and was sitting on the asphalt, hunched, in the rain.

Amy knew how she felt. She wondered if that would be her someday, broken inside, ruined by Rover.

She stared down at the manila folder, clutched tightly in her lap.

There was only one way to find out.

Chapter 21: Pedigree

The first thing she saw was a farmhouse on fire.

The photo was printed in stark black and white at the head of a yellowed newspaper clipping. The building was engulfed, the windows spewing massive jets of flame. The headline screamed TWO DEAD IN TRAGIC BLAZE, with a date of August 12, 1997. Amy’s eyes scanned a series of words that made the inside of her mouth taste like wood—words like catastrophic and swept through and unspeakable and beyond recognition. A smaller photo displayed a long shape covered by a white sheet, being wheeled out of the house on a gurney.

In the article itself, someone had circled one sentence:

The family’s dog, a German shepherd named Rover, could not be found, and is also believed to have died in the accident.

Amy swallowed hard.