Free Fear the Darkness: A Thriller by Becky Masterman Page A

fifteen miles over the speed limit down Oracle, while I was in charge of cursing at the red lights and hoping if we got pulled over I would know the cop personally. By the time we pulled into the parking lot of the emergency veterinary center I was counting maybe one breath a minute and the dog’s body felt boneless, it was so limp.
    We ran through automatic sliding doors into a lobby any human hospital would be proud of. The receptionist glanced at the dog, picked up a phone, and shouted, “Triage!” While Carlo signed paperwork, an assistant rushed me into a back room where a vet didn’t bother to introduce herself but completed a two-second inspection and said, “Toad. How long ago?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    She had already grabbed the dog and was moving out of the room with me following close behind as she asked, “More than a half hour ago?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “How big was it?”
    “I didn’t see it.”
    “Did you flush him?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Activated charcoal probably useless,” she muttered, and I felt as if she could as easily have been referring to me. We had entered a small room with a sink next to which she placed the dog. She turned on a faucet with a hose attached and stuck it in the side of the dog’s mouth. I almost shouted no in horror, but controlled myself and watched the stream pump in one side and out the other. Some no doubt went into his stomach and just a little into his lungs as he coughed and retched and threw up some more.
    When she was finished waterboarding my dog she took him into another room and, after shaving a tiny patch on his leg, hooked him up to an IV that the assistant had ready. She got the needle into him without his reacting, watched him for too long as he stabilized, and only then explained what was happening.
    “Colorado River toad,” she said, as we both finally breathed. “They’re deadly, and with all the rain we had over the winter I’ve seen a few cases, even though it’s not quite the season for them yet.” The dog was as unresponsive as it had been in the car, the only indication that it was alive a light movement of its rib cage as it took an occasional breath. But it wasn’t drooling or seizing anymore. Whatever was in the IV seemed to be working. The vet raised one of the Pug’s heavy velvet chops and showed me his gums. “See how pale they are? He’s dehydrated from the vomiting.”
    “Will he be all right?” I said with a wobbly voice that wasn’t mine.
    “Hopefully between the vomiting and the flushing I gave him we got a lot of the poison out of his system.”
    “What are his chances?” I whispered, lifting one of his paws and finding no resistance.
    The vet put her arm around me and gave me a brief hug like I’ve never known from a physician. “Excellent chances. Tell you what. Leave him here and we’ll continue to give him intravenous fluids to decrease his dehydration.”
    “There’s no antidote?”
    “Nothing. If we caught it right after ingestion we could have flushed him with a solution of activated charcoal that absorbs the toxins before they get into the bloodstream. But he’ll be okay.”
    The assistant had shown Carlo into the room while we were talking, and he stood there with the healthy Pug draped over his arm and his other arm draped lightly around my waist.
    “He won’t die,” I told Carlo. I felt like those words made me God and gave me the control that was necessary to do the job I used to do. You can’t save everybody, but “This dog won’t die.”
    Gemma-Kate turned on the computer in Brigid’s office, keyed in Peter’s number. When he answered she didn’t ask if he’d been asleep. “Go to your Skype, Peter.”
    Peter yawned. “Why?”
    “I need to see your face while I’m talking to you. It’s serious.” She waited, then whispered, “Good. I can’t sleep. I think I’m in trouble, Peter.”
    “What happened?”
    “Their dog got poisoned.”
    “Is it dead?”
    “I