Page 39 of Spiced!

“Send the imaging,” I said. “I’ll take a look.”

“Thank you, Dr. Davis. She’s—she’s a good animal. The staff is very attached to her. We’d like to figure this out.”

“I understand,” I said. “Give me some time with the imaging, and I’ll circle back.”

I hung up and pulled up what I knew about Malayan tapirs, which was very little but not nothing. Complicated cases had always held my attention longer than straightforward ones. That was either a professional asset or a personality trait. The line between those two had always been blurry for me.

Diane knocked on the open door. “Room one. Schnauzer, annual wellness. Owner brought cookies.”

“For us or the dog?”

“Apparently both. She bakes.” She frowned at me. “You’re doing the face.”

“What face?”

“The one where something interesting landed on your desk and you’re going to think about it until it makes sense.” She leaned on the doorframe. “What is it this time?”

“Zoo consult, a tapir.”

Her professional composure slipped approximately forty percent in under two seconds. “A tapir? The little hippo-looking thing with the long nose?”

“Rhino-looking thing, but yeah. This one’s a Malayan, eleven years old.”

“Brendan.” She straightened as a grin crawled across her lips. “I’m going to need photos.”

“It’s a medical consult.”

“I understand that. I’m going to need photos regardless. This sounds like adorable waiting to happen, and I want to see it.” She pushed off the doorframe. “The schnauzer is ready when you are.”

I shoved the tapir issue into the section of my brain where things waited their turn, put on my good doctor’s face for the schnauzer, and ate one of the owner’s cookies because they were excellent and a day with a chinchilla named Fluffington the Turd deserved its small rewards.

The tapir imaging arrived Friday afternoon. I spread it across the kitchen island that evening after dinner, which meant moving Puck twice, a pepper grinder once, and accepting that Puck was going to sit on the corner of the least convenient image for the duration of the review.

Despite my best, most professional efforts, I had no say in the matter.

“You’re not helping.”

He dook’d.

“I’m aware you think you are.”

He spread out and rested his head on a bent elbow like some saucy pinup from the 1930s. Had I not been annoyed at how he covered the image, I might’ve taken pictures and sent them to everyone I knew. It was an adorable pose and one I hadn’t even known a ferret could pull off.

The imaging told a story that was interesting. It wasn’t straightforward or alarming, but it was layered and couldn’t be rushed. I worked through it methodically, making notes, cross-referencing what Dr. Reyes had described on the phone with what I was seeing, and building a picture that was clearer in some areas than others.

Puck fell asleep on the corner of the imaging, his tiny head falling off his Marilyn Monroe paw and landing on the photos.

So I worked around him.

By nine o’clock, I had a direction, several questions about behavioral changes, and the beginning of a theory that I wanted to think about overnight before I put it in writing. I stacked the imaging, carefully moved Puck to my shoulder, and stood at the kitchen island in the quiet of a Friday night.

Gerald was on the windowsill.

The imaging was on the island.

Puck was asleep on my shoulder making small sounds that suggested he was dreaming about something urgent.

My phone dinged.