Free Stray Hearts by Jane Graves

them safe. How could she stand here and let one of them get away?
    Kay took off running. When she reached the end of the alley, she spied Rambo three houses north, cavorting around a lawn sprinkler. For the next half hour she hop-scotched after him, nearly catching him a dozen times, only to have him slip from her grasp at the last minute.
    She chased him down streets, across yards and through alleys, sharpening her vocabulary of four-letter words the whole way. Finally she saw him engaging in an intense sniffing contest with a little brown rag-mop of a dog through a chain-link fence. She tiptoed up behind him, clamped her hand onto his collar, then dug her heels into the grass and held on as he tried to take off again.
    She yanked her belt from around her waist and looped it through Rambo’s collar, muttering really nasty things under her breath. She proceeded to drag him, leaping and panting, back toward the shelter, trying to pretend she really didn’t have a hundred pounds of canine hurricane on the end of a very short leash. The sun hovered low on the horizon as she finally pulled him through the gate into the backyard. About to drop from exhaustion, she climbed the back steps and reached out to open the door.
    It was locked.
    She beat on the door, calling as loudly as she could. No one answered. A feeling of foreboding oozed through her. Everyone was gone for the day.
    Hadn’t they noticed she was gone? What about Rambo? How could they possibly have missed the fact that he wasn’t there?
    In desperation she pulled Rambo through the backyard and headed next door to Matt’s clinic. Her panic escalated when she saw that no lights shone through the windows either upstairs or down. She banged on the front door. No response. Had he stepped out for a few minutes, or would he be gone the whole evening?
    Call him.
    She reached for her phone, only to realize she didn't have his cell number.
    She stuck her phone back into her pocket and slumped onto the bench beside the front door, Rambo panting wildly beside her. “I can’t believe this,” she muttered, staring dumbly ahead. “I simply cannot believe this.”
    She looked at her watch. It was twenty-five minutes until When Zombies Attack. If she wasn't home for that, Sheila was going to kill her.
    She dragged Rambo down the steps to her car and hustled him into the back seat, thankful she’d thrown her purse in the trunk and her car keys in her pocket. She slid into the driver’s seat and glared at the dog in the rearview mirror.
    “Now, listen up, dog. I can’t sit here all night, so you’re coming home with me. You’re going to go into my kitchen like a good little monster, where you’re going to stay until I get a hold of Matt. You are to keep your paws to yourself. Do you understand? You are to—”
    Rambo took a flying leap into the front seat and slurped his tongue the length of Kay’s face. She shoved him away with disgust. He spun around and slimed the passenger window with his wet nose, then let out a bark that reverberated inside the car like an atomic explosion.
    Kay started the car. “This is a bad idea,” she muttered. “A very bad idea.”
     
    Matt stood at the makeshift podium in the cafeteria of Thomas Jefferson Middle School, wrapping up his address to the ladies of the McKinney Metropolitan Ladies’ Club. Over the past year he’d been asked to speak to a variety of groups about the shelter, which was good because it usually resulted in a few donations, and bad because he detested public speaking.
    “...and as I said before,” Matt said, “you’re welcome to drop by the shelter anytime and see how we help these animals. And please consider volunteering some of your time, either at the shelter itself or as a temporary foster parent for one of our animals. Or adopt a pet yourself. We have plenty to pick from.” Oh, boy, do we. “There are lots of ways to get involved, to make a difference.” Matt flashed the most sincere smile he could