Chapter 1

Come daylight, Dale Kinsall still expected to open his eyes to lush Ohio fields--summer humidity closing in around him, song birds trilling him awake to rolling corn rows. And each morning, the dry bite of high desert air still somehow came as a faint and welcome surprise. The scent of hot Ponderosa pine, the acrid bite of ancient volcanic cinder dust, the dry sting of single-digit humidity--they were all reminders of a new home, new job, new friends...new life.

Dale sighed, wiggling his toes at the end of a bed not quite long enough as he admired the bright splash of late summer sunshine against the adobe textured bedroom wall. Bare bedroom wall. Pretty much past time to hang his pictures. But not there. He hadn't even realized the sun hit that spot, because he was always up and gone before it had the chance.

Up and gone...

Dale snatched up the alarm clock, scattering change, three battered paperbacks, and his cell phone. Way past time to get up, it informed him. Dale made a strangled noise. Any day but a clinic surgery day, oh please! "Why didn't you wake me?" he demanded of the tightly curled bundle of Beagle in the corner dog bed.

One eye cracked open to regard Dale without concern. sleeping.

"Up," Dale said, mercilessly brusque as he rolled out of bed, groping for yesterday's jeans along the way. New jeans, worn once...they'd do. "Up," he repeated, snagging a short-sleeve button-down from the closet without even looking to see which.

Sully Beagle gave a languid yawn, stood up, shook off, and trotted to the recently installed dog door in the corner, right through the wall to the buffered outdoor storage closet on the porch and into the yard. He returned as Dale emerged from the bathroom, toothbrush in mouth, to scoop up his wallet, paw through the sock drawer, and hunt the errant cell phone.

food.

"Later," Dale muttered, dashing toothpaste from his chin before it caused a change of shirt.

Wrinkles of woe appeared, most effective over black-lined chocolate brown eyes and a white-blazed face, long ears set to Flying Nun mode. staaaarving.

"Busy," Dale told him, stretching beneath the bed and hoping the black widows hadn't found this space yet. "C'mon, phone..."

It rang. Right beside his ear, it rang. Dale jerked in surprise, smacked his head on the bedside table, lost the toothbrush, and snatched up the phone from behind a stuffed fuzzy smiley face, not bothering to check caller ID. "I'm coming!"

"Doggy neuterectomy in forty-five," Sheri said, undeterred by his brusque tone. "Snap, snap, snap!"

"Be there!" he said around the toothpaste, as if neuterectomy was really even a word anyway. He hung up on her, tossing the phone on the bed and tossing the smiley face to Sully. His wrist and hand, freed from the cast of this spring, gave its usual single morning twinge and then gave it up for the day.

Dog hair now coated the toothbrush. Dale dropped it in the bathroom trash, spat out the remaining paste, ran wet fingers through his dark hair, and at the last moment remembered to snap up his jeans.

From the bedroom came a half-hearted smiley face squeak. food.

"Later." Dale emerged from the master bath at a near trot. "Time for work."

Sully froze in an instant of quivering glee and then shot past Dale to reach the back door first. No dancing in excitement for Sully Beagle, oh no. He crouched motionless, every fiber of his twenty-two pounds focused on the door knob. Waiting...waiting...

Late or not, Dale couldn't resist. He could never resist. He let his hand hover over the knob, not...quite...touching.

Sully glanced away from the door in disbelief, pinning Dale with a reality check. His astonishment burst out in an explosive "Bawhh!" of demand. His eyes bugged out only a little.

Dale grinned and pushed the door open into the warm morning heat, listening to claws scrabble across garage concrete to the back of the Forester, where he dropped the tailgate so Sully could leap up and crate himself for the short drive to work.

Foothills Clinic. Dale Kinsall, DVM. Soon enough, Dale hoped, Laura Nakai, DVM would be on that sign, next to Brad Stanfill's name. What with the clinic expansion and remodeling under way, they'd have room for a third vet. They'd need a third vet to pay off that loan...

Dale pulled into the parking lot with the careless speed of familiarity, leaving the rest of traffic to commute into Flagstaff. The clinic itself sat in West Winona, the not- really-a-town outside the eastern edge of Flagstaff, Arizona. Seven thousand feet high, one volcanic range, and more Ponderosa pines than a man could shake a stick at, whatever that meant. For Dale it meant escaping Ohio, where a fiery past had damaged his lungs into asthma. Of course, it had also meant immersing himself in the most bizarre series of murders to hit this area since...

Well, since ever.

Didn't matter. That was over, life had settled--as much as it ever did--and he'd met Laura in the process.

Yeah.

Dale glanced longingly at the neighboring RoundUp Café as he slipped a martingale collar and lead on Sully. Not today. He'd grab office coffee and hope for something stale in the new upstairs break room fridge.

But after negotiating the construction detritus in the parking lot, the painter's truck and the ladder leaning askew against the truck, he stopped short--coffee notwithstanding. With Sheri gesturing impatiently at him through the recently installed storefront-type window--get in here!--and his hand on the knob of the outer door, Dale instead squinted suspiciously at the note jammed into the tight space between door and jamb.

Notes. Never a good thing. Never said you've won the lottery, only sorry I lost that winning lottery ticket.

bored. Sully abandoned his obedient dog guise and tugged at the lead, sniffing around the doorway to find the very best place to lift his leg.

"You'd better not." Dale plucked the note free. "You're a year and a half now. You should be setting a good example for Beaglekind everywhere." In the background, Sheri had subsided to angry hands-on-hips mode, her brightly flowered and tightly tailored slacks largely--and mercifully-- obscured by the tunic-length scrub smock she'd taken to wearing lately. More professional, she said, though how she thought it could offset the slacks or even the bright pink streaks currently slashing through her highly coiffed hair, he wasn't sure.

Sully, too, subsided. poop.

And Dale opened the note to read a neat little handwritten verse.

Due to your expertise,
This should be a breeze.
Say what?