I was ready to get back to HotRescues.

But I had no transportation, and it was too far to walk, even if my leg hadn’t been aching.

Detective Garciana was long gone by then, which was a good thing. I was so glad not to be in his presence anymore that I wouldn’t have asked him for a ride even if he offered to chauffeur me in a posh limousine.

Not that I aspired to posh limousines.

Nina might still be at HotRescues. Even if it hadn’t been so late—around midnight—I wouldn’t have called to lure her away from there, even for a short while.

Carlie was a definite maybe. As a veterinarian and TV personality, she kept odd hours anyway. But my curiosity led me to try someone else first: Matt.

Was he still with the cops?

And was my mind still twisting like a whirlwind in fog for even considering suggesting that he come and get me, putting me alone in his presence? He was a suspect in the trap set for Honey and me. I couldn’t completely exonerate him, despite how remote I thought the possibility of his guilt.

The thing was, I liked him. Wanted to talk to him, hopefully to minimize my own suspicions about him.

But even if he was guilty, I doubted he’d do anything to follow up right now, while he was in the cops’ radar—at least for that night’s attack on Honey and me.

Standing outside, on the curved sidewalk beside the ambulance driveway, I called him. He answered on the first ring—a good sign that he wasn’t, at that moment, undergoing a tough interrogation.

“Where are you, Lauren?” he demanded. “How are you? Is your leg all right? The rest of you?”

My smile, which I was glad he couldn’t see, was full of irony. He cared . . . or did he? “I’m okay, but I’d be a lot better if I were at HotRescues right now.”

“Then, where are you? Can I pick you up?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

He got there in about twenty minutes. Meantime, I sat outside the emergency room on a bench in an intense glow that suggested people’s ill health could be cured if they were greeted by brilliant artificial lights. I’d done what I could, before coming out here, to wash some of the blood off my slacks. They were deep blue in color anyway, so the stain wasn’t as obvious as it would be if I’d worn something lighter. But I’d temporarily repaired the slit with the only mending material readily available at the hospital: white surgical tape. It wasn’t exactly invisible.

Matt pulled his Animal Services vehicle up to the curb. I stood and hobbled toward him. He leaped out and helped me to the car. All gentleman . . . maybe.

Once I was settled in, he got back into the driver’s seat. “I’ll take you home so you can rest,” he said, his eyes moving from my face downward.

I figured I looked as bad as I felt. Good thing I wasn’t trying to impress him. “HotRescues, please,” I contradicted.

“But—”

My steady, challenging glare must have told him I’d argue with him, no matter how bad I felt. “Okay. HotRescues.”

He pulled slowly from the hospital, driving as if he feared that any jostling would catapult me into greater pain.

“I’m fine, Matt,” I told him, as if he’d asked again.

“You don’t look it,” he muttered.

I laughed. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”

His turn to laugh. The tense atmosphere melted, replaced by the warmth of a late spring night in Los Angeles.

But congeniality wasn’t exactly on my agenda. “What did the cops ask you?” I said casually.

We were stopped at a light, and he peered at me with suspicion, as if I’d made an official complaint against him. “They seemed to think I set the whole thing up at HotRescues, and that I even called my own cell from there so it would look like someone else was there, framing me.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any truth to that.”

“Lauren, why the hell are you with me now if you think I could possibly have done that?”

The light changed, and he accelerated slowly, not looking at me.

“I don’t. But I’d like you to tell me you didn’t.”

He was silent for a long time. I didn’t think it was an admission of guilt, but I squirmed a little nevertheless.

“I didn’t do it,” he finally asserted. “Satisfied?”

“Yes,” I said firmly, unsure whether I was fibbing. “No need ever to mention it again. So, I really appreciate your coming to pick me up. My leg is sore but it’s bandaged, I’m a little bruised, and I have painkillers. No need to mention that again, either. Nina is waiting at HotRescues. I asked her to make sure that Honey is okay. You can just drop me off there. I won’t be alone.”

We’d turned onto Rinaldi and were only about a minute away.

“I want to go home and get some sleep,” he said. “But don’t argue with me when I say I’m walking in with you.”

I didn’t.

I was both delighted and scared when I saw Carlie there waiting with Nina, both sitting at the visitors’ table in the welcoming area. “Is Honey all right?” I asked immediately. Why would a vet be there at that hour except to take care of an injured animal?

“She’s fine,” Carlie assured me, rising. “I was waiting for you.” She eyed Matt, and I introduced them.

I hadn’t seen my closest friend for a while. She looked as attractive in her jeans and “Pet Fitness Forever” T-shirt as if she was ready to be filmed for a show. Carlie was about my age, wore her highlighted blond hair shoulder length, and looked as youthful with her softly chiseled features and bright violet eyes as if she’d had plastic surgery—which she hadn’t.

“You’re on that animal health show on LVC, aren’t you?” Matt asked.

They chatted for a minute as I sidled toward Nina. “Everything okay?” I asked.

“I hope so,” she replied. My second in command looked pale and even more drawn than usual. “I was really frightened when you called, both for you and for Honey. I called Carlie when I got here, just to be sure. She says Honey’s fine. Are you?”

“Definitely.”

Matt and Carlie ended their discussion and looked across the table at Nina and me.

“Looks like you’re in good hands,” Matt said. I noticed then, in the inside lights, that he appeared as exhausted as I felt. It harshened his features, made him appear more masculine, and maybe more handsome.

I should have been too tired to notice.

“I sure am,” I told him.

“Good. I’m leaving.” He approached, took me into his arms with all other eyes in the room on us, and gave me a kiss. A brief one, to be sure. But it felt like more than a pleasant contact between friends. “Let’s talk tomorrow.” He said goodbye to the others, then left.

“So why didn’t you tell me about him?” Carlie demanded, motioning for me to sit down. She joined me at the table.

“Is it okay for me to leave now?” Nina asked from behind the counter.

“Sure. One question first, though.”

She slung her purse over her shoulder and looked down at me. “What?”

“Were there any animals that you learned are scheduled for euthanasia first thing tomorrow when you were at the East Valley Care Center this evening, before you came here? Any we can rescue?”

“Oh. Well, I wound up not going tonight.”

She hadn’t mentioned that before. “Everything okay?” I asked.

“Sure. I just . . . I mean, I checked and they had enough other volunteers tonight, so I went home.”

I didn’t know where the thought came from, but I realized that Nina could easily have sneaked onto the HotRescues property and put Honey into the storage building under those awful circumstances. She’d have no trouble lifting those bags, attaching the knife. She might have known I’d been with Matt and could have called him. Set him up.

I’d demanded answers from him, but I was too tired to get into it with her.

Besides, I had no idea what her motivation could have been.

Throwing her onto the pile of suspects had to be an offshoot of all the insecurity floating in my brain. A result of painkillers gone awry. Whatever. But when I wasn’t so tired, I just might type up a page on her for my Efram files.

“Thanks for checking on Honey and everything,” was all I said.

She bent and gave me a quick hug, then left.

“So you’re really okay?” Carlie eyed me critically, as only Carlie could do, with her veterinarian’s appraising glare.

“More or less.” I could be honest with her.

“I’ve checked on Honey more than once and taken a peek at the rest of the animals,” she told me. “Everyone appears fine. Time for you to go home and get some sleep.”

“I agree.”

“You up for lunch tomorrow? I want to interrogate you about this whole situation.”

“You and the cops,” I said with a doleful shake of my head.

Carlie reached across the table, rested her hand on mine. “Number one: no matter how miserable that Efram slime-ball was, I know you didn’t hurt him. Number two: whoever did kill him probably is now out to hurt you; hence the incident tonight. Number three: you’re too tired now to be coherent, but tomorrow we’ll discuss your plan of attack to make sure whoever is doing this is caught.”

“Number four,” I said, smiling faintly. “You’re a hell of a good friend.”

When I woke, I ached all over. First thing, I called HotRescues and learned that Nina wasn’t there yet, either, but Ricki, the volunteer who answered the phone, assured me that everything was fine. “Pete Engersol came in early as always. He and I are holding down the fort.”

As long as the fort included the entirety of HotRescues, that was great. I dressed quickly, ate a quick bowl of cereal so I wouldn’t take my painkillers on an empty stomach, and hurried there.

I did my first walk-through right away. Honey was right where she belonged, cute as always, and I entered her kennel to give her a hug.

“I’m going to concentrate on finding you a new home,” I assured her. “I doubt anything else bad will happen to you here, but you deserve someone who’ll pamper you all the time.”

The possibility of taking her home myself darted through me. But I wasn’t the right person for her . . . even if she’d been the right dog for me. Which she wasn’t.

I contacted EverySecurity. Spoke with Ed Bransom, who’d come in early, too, despite his late night. He said they still didn’t know who had gotten into HotRescues last night but were looking into it, checking out the camera feeds, et cetera.

Of course they were. We paid for services that I’d considered adequate . . . before. Now, they had to prove they weren’t completely useless—and I suspected that would be as impossible as ensuring that every abandoned pet in the LA area had a loving home by tomorrow.

But even if I wanted to fire them, I would need Dante’s okay. He was good buddies with their CEO at their corporate headquarters in Chicago.

Next, I thought about calling Matt. Instead, I phoned Carlie and arranged to meet her for lunch at a restaurant specializing in pies, located halfway between her veterinary clinic and HotRescues. I wasn’t after dessert, just a salad. Same went for her.

We both arrived on time. “So,” she said after a server had taken our order, “you’re doing better today, right?” She gave me a critical once-over again. She was dressed pretty much as she’d been last night—casually. I knew she wore a white veterinary jacket while seeing patients and also, often, on her show. Right now, she was off duty. But that didn’t mean she was off my case.

“Well enough.” I knew better than to try to convince her everything was perfect. Besides, the knife wound still hurt.

“Then tell me everything—but keep it brief and to the point.”

I did, describing the rescue from the puppy mill, my reason for being there, how much I’d wanted to strangle Efram . . . and how I’d found him at HotRescues without harming him myself. “There’s a homicide detective who seems to think otherwise, though.” I sighed.

“You’re not just letting life batter you around that way, are you?” She looked at me shrewdly. We’d learned a lot about each other in the six years since she’d been the first adopter of a pet from HotRescues and we’d become friends.

“Not hardly.” I told her even more succinctly about the unofficial investigation I was conducting on my own behalf.

“That’s my girl!” she exclaimed. “I’ll want to see those organizational charts and files one of these days, in case I can give you any helpful ideas.”

“We’ll see,” I said as our lunch was finally served.

Carlie was definitely insightful, and her input might be helpful.

Though I always preferred taking care of things myself, I wasn’t above seeking assistance when I needed it.

And in this situation, I definitely needed it.