Ms. Fuentes sighed and nodded. “He hated it,” she said. “Someone had left him on my doorstep with a note asking me to take him in, and I could read him from the get-go. Most people, they like dogs, but they can’t really understand a dog. And I think that’s how he’d gotten by—slipping under people’s radar, looking and acting like just another dog. So when I saw him for what he was, it was like his cover was blown.”

“What did you see?” asked Amy. “What is he?”

Ms. Fuentes shrugged. “It wasn’t good,” she said. “There was something ambitious about him. It reminded me of that kid everyone knows, who’s a Goody Two-shoes on the outside but kinda mean and self-serving on the inside.”

“We have a girl like that,” said Amy. “Valerie Starr.”

“That was Rover. I could see it from the start. So when things started happening—little accidents here and there, nothing that you could ever blame on a dog—I didn’t hesitate, I tried to get rid of him. But that proved harder than expected, so I called in a friend. A professional.”

“Like a dog whisperer?” asked Amy.

Ms. Fuentes smiled. “Not exactly. Here, let me get you her card.”

As Ms. Fuentes rose from her seat, Amy’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen—Mom.

“Hey, Mom,” she said.

“I just spoke to Chloe,” said Mom. “She said you and Marguerite never made plans today. Where are you, Amy?”

“I think I found someone who can stop Rover,” said Amy.

There was a pause, and them Mom said, “Give me the address. I’m coming to pick you up.”

Chapter 22: Tooth for a Tooth

The next morning, Mom and Amy drove to a diner almost an hour away from their motel, sitting in the middle of a long, flat country route with what looked like a mountain of gravel behind it. In the morning light, the squat building looked like a tarnished tin can with its chrome siding, and Amy could see weathered outlines of dirt and water damage around a neon sign that just said LUNCH. She wondered when it had last been turned on. Out front were three pickup trucks, a motorcycle, and a low-to-the-ground green muscle car that reminded Amy of Stranger Things.

That must be hers, she thought.

The inside of the diner was a little nicer but still looked like it could’ve used a thorough updating after 1994. What was peeling more, the red fake leather of the booths or the linoleum on the tables and counter, Amy couldn’t say. The place reeked of tobacco smoke, all of which seemed to be coming from one booth in the back. That, Amy quickly saw, was where they were headed.