Page 39 of Fang Fatale

We stand there watching Barnaby enthusiastically dismantle the squeaky duck.

For thirty peaceful seconds, I forget I've ever hunted anything more dangerous than a missing dog.

Maybe there's a better way to do this job.

Maybe not.

I'd settle for sleeping through the night.

I'd settle for knowing I did the right thing.

I glance back toward the porch.

Birdie is kneeling beside Barnaby while he proudly murders the duck with the determination of a dog half his age.

She catches me looking.

For the first time...

...she doesn't look afraid.

Just cautious.

It's progress.

Not much.

But enough.

I lift a hand.

She returns the gesture.

Then I head for the car.

I've got work to do.

And for the first time in my career...

The client wasn't the person I intended to help.

CHAPTER 8

BIRDIE

When I wake, Barnaby is stretched across the length of my bed like a butcher's display, huge paws splayed and the tip of his tongue poking between his jowls. His head is aimed directly at my toes, my foot resting on the crown of his skull as though I sleepwalked into battle with him sometime during the night.

I flex, expecting protest.

Instead, he lets out a snore so deep it rattles the bed frame.

I breathe in the morning, sweet and strange. There's no perfume here, no burning incense—only the faint, green sweetness of moss drifting through the open window and the lingering tobacco scent of the cottage's last tenant.

I search my body for last night's panic and find only a lingering ache in my ribs, the kind you get after coughing too long...or crying but refusing to admit it to yourself.

I'm tired.

But I'm not devastated.