Pepper Jack whimpered again. “It’s going to be okay, boy. I’ve got you.” I lifted him into my arms and stood before striding out of the house and back to my truck. I juggled him as gently as possible while opening the back door and laying him across the seat. Then I jumped into the driver’s seat and took off toward Caroline’s office.
I sped the entire way there, glancing every other second at the rearview mirror to check on him. My throat was tight and my heart was beating erratically. I reached back and stroked his neck. “It’s going to be okay.”
He cried, but his eyes stayed closed. I thought back to what I’d recently thrown away and what I’d eaten over the last few days. Fear caught in my throat when I remembered throwing away a carton of old Chinese food. It’d been in the refrigerator for a few days, so it wasn’t fresh and it had onions. “Fuck!” I yelled and punched the steering wheel.
I swerved into the parking lot and pulled into a spot crookedly. I launched out of the truck and picked up Pepper Jack from the back. Caroline’s office wasn’t an emergency vet’s office, but I wanted only her to see to Pepper Jack. I trusted her and, as scared as I was right now, I needed to see her familiar face.
The front desk receptionist must’ve seen me jogging across the lot with Pepper Jack in my arms, because she opened the door for me and Caroline was running to the front. “Do you know who it is?” Caroline asked..
The other receptionist inclined her head toward me.
“Kiernan,” Caroline said, surprised. She ran to me and rubbed her hand along Pepper Jack’s spotted coat. I loved his spots; they’re how I’d come up with his name. It had reminded me of the random spots on pepper jack cheese, my favorite kind. “What happened to Pepper Jack?”
“He ate something, I think. I came home and he was lying on the floor, not moving, but the trash can was knocked over and food was everywhere.”
“Follow me.”
I followed her into an exam room and placed Pepper Jack on the table, but I kept my hands on him, rubbing his hind legs. He kept his eyes on me. A lump formed in my throat. I’d only had him for a couple of months, and I’d already fucked this up, like I did everything else in my life.
I swept a hand through my hair.
“Did he throw up?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see any, but I ran out of the house pretty quickly and didn’t look through the whole house. There was some few-days-old Chinese food in the trash, and my meal had onions in it. I don’t know how he got to the trash can. I put it up on the refrigerator so he wouldn’t get to it.”
“Based off everything you’ve told me, he might’ve climbed on the counter, knocked it off, and then eaten his way through whatever he smelled. We need to give him activated charcoal so he will vomit what he has in his stomach, and I’ll give him a hydration pack in his back to replenish his fluids. We’ll monitor him.”
I nodded. Caroline opened the door to the back of the office and called out orders for the hydration pack and charcoal. I pressed my forehead against Pepper Jack’s. He rumbled and his tail thwacked against the table. “I’m so sorry, bud.”
Caroline rubbed her hand over my shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Kiernan. Sometimes animals get into things, and you did the best you could by putting the trash can on top of the refrigerator. I have to admit that’s a new one.”
I snorted and raised my head to look at her. Her calm presence was bringing down my heart rate. She was petting Pepper Jack, keeping him calm too. “He broke the lid off the first trash can, so I figured there’s no way he could get to the top of the fridge.” I shook my head. “I can never underestimate him. I also found teeth marks on my office doorknob, which I know I closed, and I came home to find that destroyed too.”
“He may need stimulation in the morning before you leave for work.”
“I run three miles with him in the morning and try to come home around lunchtime.”
Caroline bit her lip, hiding a laugh. “He’s persistent and full of life, just like you.”
At that moment, one of her vet techs came into the room with all the supplies to treat Pepper Jack.
“This will be better if he’s on the floor. Will you lift him?” Caroline asked.
I picked up Pepper Jack and laid him on the floor, and I sat next to him on the white and gray speckled linoleum tile. Caroline fed the charcoal to him and injected the hydration pack into his back. A hump slowly rose. “Once that goes down, he’s absorbed all the fluids.”
I nodded. Pepper Jack shifted and got sick. I cringed and kept petting him, hoping that I could keep him calm. He was shaking and looked tired. My phone rang. I pulled it out and rejected the call from Maddox. He immediately called again. I grunted and answered the phone.
“Not a good time,” I said, getting ready to hang up again.
“We found a body. Pretty sure it’s the vet, but it’s hard to tell with the damage that was done to her. There was a thumb drive with the body. It’s encrypted and you’ll be able to crack it faster than any of our guys. Chief wants to bring y’all
