Chapter 7 #2
“Bring him straight back,” she directed, leading us to an examination room.
I laid Scout on the metal table while Dr. Miller began her examination. Her hands moved efficiently, checking vitals, palpating the abdomen, looking into his eyes and mouth.
“How long has he been like this?” she asked.
“He started seeming off yesterday,” Ella said, keeping one arm around Nora. “No appetite, lethargic. But this afternoon he got much worse.”
Dr. Miller nodded, her expression giving nothing away. “I’m going to need to do some blood work and X-rays. It might be a while.”
“We’ll wait,” Ella said firmly.
The vet looked at Nora, then at Ella and me. “There’s a coffee shop across the street. Might be better for the little one. I’ll call you as soon as I have some answers.”
I hesitated, not wanting to leave Scout, but I could see Nora struggling to hold back tears, her small body rigid with the effort.
“Come on,” I said gently. “Let’s get something to drink while we wait.”
Outside, the evening air had turned cold, a sharp wind whistling down the main street.
I zipped up my jacket and noticed Nora shivering beside me.
Without thinking, I shrugged out of my coat and draped it over her shoulders.
It swallowed her whole, the sleeves dangling well past her fingertips, but she clutched it gratefully.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
The coffee shop was warm and half-empty. We found a booth near the window where we could keep an eye on the vet clinic across the street. I ordered deli sandwiches and hot chocolate for all of us, adding an extra shot of espresso to my own.
Ella sat with her hands wrapped around her mug, staring out the window, the sandwich in front of her untouched. Her face was pale, lips pressed into a thin line. I knew that look—the one that said she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.
“Scout’s tough,” I said quietly. “He’ll pull through.”
She nodded but didn’t meet my eyes. “I keep thinking… what if it’s not an accident? What if—”
I laid my hand over hers, stopping the words. Nora was watching us, her eyes wide and worried above the rim of her mug.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said, turning to her as she took a bite of her food. “Did I ever tell you about the time my dog ate an entire Thanksgiving turkey?”
Nora shook her head, distracted from her mother’s unfinished sentence.
“Well, it was quite a sight. My mom had spent all day cooking this huge turkey to perfection. She set it on the counter to cool while we went to pick up my grandparents.” I leaned back, warming to the story.
“And when we got home, there was Rusty, lying on the kitchen floor looking like he’d swallowed a beach ball, and not a scrap of turkey left. ”
Nora giggled, a slight, hesitant sound that eased some of the tension from Ella’s shoulders.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“Oh, he was a sick dog for about two days. Couldn’t move from his bed. But then he bounced right back, good as new.” I smiled at the memory. “Dogs are resilient that way.”
Ella’s phone rang, cutting through the moment. She snatched it up, her knuckles white around the case.
“Dr. Miller,” she said, standing up. “Yes… I understand… We’ll be right there.”
I stood too, searching her face. “What is it?”
“She wants us to come back over. She didn’t say much, just that she had some results.” Ella was already gathering her purse, her movements jerky with anxiety.
We hurried back across the street, Nora between us, still wrapped in my oversized jacket. Dr. Miller met us in the reception area, her expression grave.
“Let’s talk in my office,” she said, leading us down a hallway.
Her office was small and cluttered with medical texts and framed photos of animals. She gestured for us to sit in the chairs facing her desk.
“Is Scout going to be okay?” Nora asked immediately.
Dr. Miller’s gaze softened as it landed on her. “Scout is very sick, honey. But we’re doing everything we can to help him.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Ella’s voice was steady, but I could see her fingers digging into the armrests of her chair.
“The blood work shows signs of poisoning,” Dr. Miller said bluntly. “Specifically, antifreeze.”
Ella gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “But how—we don’t even have any in the house!”
“It doesn’t take much,” the vet explained. “And it has a sweet taste that dogs find appealing. They’ll lap it up if they find a puddle.”
My mind was already racing. Antifreeze poisoning didn’t happen by accident, not in January when people weren’t changing their coolant, and not on a property as isolated as Ella’s.
“Could he have gotten into it somewhere else?” I asked. “Maybe on a walk?”
Dr. Miller shook her head. “Timing suggests it was ingested within the last 24 hours. And given how sick he is, it was either a substantial amount or a tiny bit over a period of time.”
Nora’s lower lip trembled. “Is he going to die?”
The vet didn’t sugarcoat it. “I won’t lie to you. Antifreeze poisoning is very serious. We’ve started treatment, but it depends on how much he ingested and how quickly we can flush it from his system.”
Ella pulled Nora close, her arm tight around the girl’s shoulders. “Can we see him?”
“Briefly. He’s sedated right now, and we’ve got him on IV fluids. We’ll be monitoring him overnight.”
We followed Dr. Miller to a treatment room where Scout lay on a padded table, an IV line running into his foreleg. His breathing was shallow but steady, his eyes closed. Nora pressed her face against her mother’s side, refusing to look.
“Oh, Scout,” Ella whispered, tears streaming down her face as she gently stroked his head. The dog didn’t stir.
I stood back, watching them, a cold knot forming in my gut. This wasn’t an accident or bad luck. Someone had deliberately poisoned Scout—someone who knew he was Ella’s first line of defense, her warning system against intruders.
The message was clear: You’re not safe, even in your own home.
After leaving Scout in Dr. Miller’s care, we drove back to Ella’s house in silence.
Nora had finally given in to exhaustion, curled up in the backseat with tear tracks still drying on her cheeks.
I kept checking the rearview mirror, scanning for headlights following too closely, but the road behind us remained empty.
At the house, I carried Nora to her bedroom while Ella turned on the lights and checked the doors. The security system I’d installed earlier beeped softly as we moved through the rooms, a reminder that at least now we’d know if someone tried to break in.
After tucking Nora in, I found Ella in the kitchen, staring into an open refrigerator as if she’d forgotten why she’d opened it.
“You should eat something,” I said quietly.
She closed the door without taking anything out. “I’m not hungry.”
“Ella—”
“They poisoned my dog, Jake.” Her voice was flat, emotionless. “They came onto my property and poisoned my dog. What’s next? What if it had been—” She cut herself off, unwilling to finish the thought.
“We don’t know for sure it was them,” I said.
“Don’t.” She turned to face me, her eyes flashing. “Don’t pretend this is anything other than what it is. They’re sending a message. They want me to know they can get to us anytime they want.”
I stepped closer, close enough to see the fine tremor in her hands, the pulse hammering at the base of her throat.
“Then we send a message back,” I said. “We show them they picked the wrong woman to threaten.”
A small, bitter laugh escaped her. “And how do we do that? I don’t even know who ‘they’ are anymore. Could be Mikhail, could be his father, could be hired thugs who don’t care about anything except a paycheck.”
“It doesn’t matter who they are.” My voice hardened. “What matters is that we’re ready for them.”
Ella looked at me for a long moment, something shifting in her expression. “We,” she repeated softly.
“Yes, we.” I held her gaze. “I told you, you’re not alone in this.”
The words hung between us, weighted with everything we weren’t saying. I could feel myself teetering on the edge of something dangerous—not just the external threat, but the way my chest tightened when she looked at me like that, like I was someone worth believing in.
The moment stretched, electric with possibility, until Ella finally looked away.
“You should go home,” she said. “Check on Caleb. Get some real sleep.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Jake—”
“Not happening.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I’ll sleep on the couch again. Or in my truck if you prefer. But I’m staying.”
She sighed, too exhausted to argue. “Fine. The couch it is.”
Later, after she’d gone to bed and the house had fallen silent, I sat in the darkness of the living room, my rifle across my knees. The security system’s small green light blinked steadily near the front door, a technological guardian that felt woefully inadequate against whatever was coming.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Another text from an unknown number:
“YOU CAN’T PROTECT HER.”
I deleted it without responding, then settled deeper into the couch, eyes fixed on the window where moonlight spilled across the floor in silver puddles.
Let them come, I thought. They’d find out just how wrong they were.