The One Safe Place Read Online Free Page A

ugly, shivering thought that seemed so out of place in Firefly Glen.
    Maybe they’d go. If…
    If Doug Lambert didn’t find them.
    If they were still alive at Halloween.
    Â 
    R EED’S LAST PATIENT of the day was a bunny that had hopped onto a nasty piece of broken glass. Flopsy, the beloved pet of a nine-year-old cutie named Becky, was going to be fine. Becky was another matter. She hadn’t stopped crying for the past twenty minutes.
    Otherwise, though, it had been a light day. And it promised to be an easy night, too. They had only two boarders—a sleepy Persian cat recovering from a routine neutering and a spoiled lizard whose doting owners were out of town and didn’t trust anyone but Reed to shove lettuce into its terrarium properly.
    He appreciated the easy workload, especially today, when Faith Constable and her nephew were set to arrive any minute. It had given him time to make sure the guest bedrooms were presentable—which took longer than he’d expected.
    He had opened the windows to banish any mustiness. He’d been too long without a housekeeper, that was for damn sure. He hoped she was a good one.
    At four-thirty, Tucker Brady, the teenager who helped him with the heavy work, poked his head in the door.
    â€œHey, Doc. Things are pretty quiet back here. Any chance I could dip out a little early?”
    Reed ought to say no. He had promised Tucker’s older sister, Mary, that he’d keep Tucker so overworked and underpaid that he couldn’t acquire any more tattoos. Tucker already had a fire-breathing dragon trailing down one arm, and he was so proud of it he hadn’t worn a long-sleeved shirt since he got it, not even last week, when the temperature dropped below forty.
    But tonight Tucker didn’t look like a boy hot for a tattoo. He had washed his face, slicked back his dark hair and waded into a vat of cologne. He looked—or more accurately smelled—like a boy with a hot date.
    â€œSure,” Reed said, handing the bandaged rabbit back to Becky, who clutched it to her chest tightly. Actually, Flopsy was in far more danger of dying of suffocation than a cut foot. “Just toss some food out for the ducks before you leave, okay?”
    Tucker agreed eagerly and disappeared before Reed could change his mind. Becky’s mom dried the little girl’s tears, paid her bill and departed.
    So far so good. And still twenty minutes left before Faith Constable was due to arrive.
    But Reed should have known that, the minute he started congratulating himself on having things under control, something would go wrong.
    He was washing his hands, waiting for Justine to finish running the computer backup discs so they both could call it a day, when suddenly the room came alive with a raucous honking.
    Justine covered her ears and grimaced. But Reed knew that sound. Something was bothering the ducks out by the back pond. They were making such a violent ruckus that, though the clinic was a hundred yards away, the quiet office seemed full of quacking and honking and the flapping of frantic wings.
    He met Justine’s bewildered gaze.
    â€œAnother fox?” she asked, worried. She picked up Gavin and held him protectively, as if she feared that the fox might decide that the plump, soft baby would make a tastier treat than an old stringy duck.
    â€œIt’s a little early for that—they usually show up at dusk. But I’ll see.” Reed went out the back door. God, that fox was a persistent devil, wasn’t he? He thought he’d scared the scavenger away for good last week.
    Though he knew that ducks in the wild became dinner for foxes every day, he felt a certain responsibility toward these particular silly birds. Melissa had encouraged them to live on their pond—had named them and generally pampered them into lazy, domesticated guests.
    And, as she had always said, laughing, it was very bad manners to let a predator come in and gnaw on