Page 1 of So Wicked

PROLOGUE

Dr. Rachel Summers loved her life. She had to be just about the happiest cat lady who’d ever lived. She was forty-three years old, unmarried and never planned to be married, and lived alone with Sherbert, Sprinkles and Sugarpie. Yes, those were silly names, but so what? They were silly cats.

And she had her own veterinary practice. Ever since she was three years old, she’d wanted to be a veterinarian, and by golly, she had done it. Life was good.

Tonight, however, it was hard to remember that. She hated putting animals down. All vets did, but Rachel took it harder than most. Her cats were her family, and losing them would feel absolutely like losing children.

What she hated most of all was the fact that so many owners abandoned their pets right at the moment they needed them most. She couldn’t understand it. Why would you raise an animal from infancy, care for it generously its entire life, spoil it, love it, and then at the end, dump it at the vet and claim that it was too hard for you to be there when it was euthanized?

Most of the time, Rachel was able to work around that by giving the animal medicine that helped it sleep before she put it down. She would ask the owners to at least stay until their pet was unconscious so it could slip away on a dream, with its last waking memory being of its best friend beside it.

Sometimes, that didn’t work. Like today. Tommy was a Dachsund who at fifteen years old was finally succumbing to multiple health issues that made his life painful and joyless. Georgia, his owner, was finally ready to let him pass in peace and spare him further pain.

But she refused to see it. She refused to even see the anesthetic enter his body.

“I can’t. I can’t watch his eyes close. I want my last memory to be of him awake and alive so I can hold his spirit in my memory forever.”

No amount of coaxing or gentle scolding would cause Georgia to budge. She just couldn't handle it.

Well, it was a good thing for her that she didn’t see what poor Tommy did as soon as Georgia left the room. There was nothing more heartbreaking than watching a fifteen-year-old dog panic and struggle, too weak even to call out for its owner, desperate for one last moment of comfort, one last moment of love. Watching the life fade from an animal at peace in the arms of its best friend was hard enough. Watching it try to figure out why its best friend had abandoned it at the end was unbearable.

“It’s a shame,” a voice said.

Not Rachel’s voice.

She lifted her head. A vague alarm told her that no one else should be here at this time of night, but she was too caught up mourning Tommy to heed that warning. The last thing she saw before the syringe plunged into her neck was an open locket with a picture of a dog swinging from the neck of the figure holding the syringe.

CHAPTER ONE

“We now commit into your arms the soul of our brother, Grant Monroe. Lay him on your bosom and carry him to the highest Heaven. Permit him to drink of the river of life and rest at the throne of grace for all of eternity. As he served you in life, so now reward him in death, that in his new life, he may glorify God.”

“Faith?”

Special Agent Faith Bold stirred. “Yes. Sorry. Um… can you repeat the question?”

Dr. Perth smiled sympathetically. She always smiled sympathetically, just as she spoke sympathetically, walked sympathetically, tapped her chin sympathetically and laughed sympathetically. Faith wondered sometimes how much of her sympathy was real and how much had been practiced in front of a mirror so she could pass her Board of Psychology exam.

“I was asking if you’ve thought about taking some time off to grieve.”

Faith resisted the urge to laugh. Why did so many people react to grief by stopping? When Faith scraped her knee as a girl, her parents would always tell her to walk it off. This was no different. “No, I’m not going to take time off. I’m going to find the person who did this and bring them to justice.”

Dr. Perth shifted in her seat. That meant she was about to disagree with Faith. In a completely sympathetic way, of course.

"Faith, you, of all people, know how damaging grief is. This isn't just a scraped knee you can walk off."

That was another greatly irritating trait of Dr. Perth. She seemed to be able to read Faith almost as easily as Faith read killers. Easier, even. Faith really didn’t like that. The last time someone was able to see through her so easily, he’d used thatknowledge to psychologically torture Faith for years, not to mention beat her boyfriend nearly to death and kill her mentor and an old friend from the Marine Corps.

Not that she suspected Perth of the same intention. She’d vetted Perth so thoroughly that she could recite the woman’s internet history for the past eight years if she needed to.

It just bothered her.

“Faith?”

She sighed in exasperation. “Yes, I understand that. I’m not saying that I want to ignore my grief and pretend that it doesn’t exist, but I also don’t want to wallow in it. That fucker’s still out there, and I’d very much like to make him not out there.”

“And do you feel you’re in the right state of mind to accomplish that?”

“Doyoufeel I’m not in the right state of mind?”

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