Tell-Tail Hearts was sandwiched between In Your Attic, which by the looks of it sold junk, and a music store called Love Notes, which was having a going-out- of-business sale. A sign hanging on the pet store’s dingy white front door read Closed, but all the lights were blazing, and on the counter was a big foil bag of take-out barbecue from Adam’s Ribs, three doors down. Parked in front was a black Cadillac sedan, with a driver in it and the engine on.

The driver seemed to be watching Shrew as she opened the front door and walked into an invisible fog of air freshener, the spray can on top of the cash register.

“Hello?” she called out, not seeing anyone.

Puppies began to bark and stir and stare at her. Kittens snoozed in beds of wood shavings, and fish fluttered lazily in tanks. A counter wrapped around three walls, and behind it, reaching almost to the water-stained ceiling, were wire cages filled with tiny representatives of every breed of pet imaginable. She avoided making eye contact with any of them. She knew better.

Eye contact led straight to the heart, and the next thing she knew, she was carrying someone home she hadn’t intended to get, and she couldn’t have all of them. And she wanted all of them, the poor, pitiful things. She needed to research her selection intelligently, ask questions, and be convinced of what would be the best choice before anyone removed a puppy from its cage and placed it in her arms. She needed to talk to the manager.

“Hello?” she called out again.

She walked tentatively toward a door in back that was slightly ajar.

“Anybody here?”

She opened the door the rest of the way. Wooden stairs led down to the basement, where she could hear a dog barking, then several others began barking. She started down, one slow step at a time, careful because the lighting was poor and she’d had too much bourbon. Walking all the way here had helped a little but not nearly enough. Her thoughts were dull and sluggish, and her nose felt numb the way it got when she was tipsy.

She found herself in a storage area that was thick with shadows and stunk like sickness, feces, and urine. Amid piled boxes of pet supplies and bags of dry food were cages filled with filthy shredded paper, and then she saw a wooden table with glass vials and syringes, and red bags with Biohazard Infectious Waste stamped on them in black, and a pair of heavy black rubber gloves.

Just beyond the table was a walk-in freezer.