Саманта Сильвер: Barking Up The Wrong Tree

“So now you’re basically Donald Trump,” I replied, crossing my arms.

“Hey, let’s not say things we can’t take back,” he laughed. “But basically, yes. Not quite that rich.”

“So you get to live a life of leisure now?”

“Oh hey, I didn’t say that. I can’t simply while the days away doing nothing. I’ve gotten myself a job.”

“And what kind of job did you get?” I asked curiously. I had to admit, I never really thought of Jason Black as having a real job.

“Believe it or not, I’m a qualified journalist. I can find out all your secrets,” he said salaciously, and I unconsciously felt a twitter of butterflies in my stomach. No, no, no. Absolutely not. Just because he wasn’t a murderer didn’t mean he wasn’t super annoying, and frustrating.

“Maybe I don’t have any secrets worth discovering,” I lied.

“Ohhh, I don’t think that’s true,” Jason replied, grinning. Why did his smile have to be so… perfect? “Anyway,” he continued, “I found out that the local paper was looking for a new journalist. In that, the only journalist quit, and the owner, who acts as the editor, doesn’t want to do the job themselves. He pretty much fell over his shoes asking me to join the paper when I mentioned I’d had some stuff published in the New York Times.”

“Wait, so you actually are a journalist?” I asked. “You didn’t just make that up?”

“There’s more to me than meets the eye,” Jason winked. “I am a journalist. I’ve been working as a freelancer in New York since graduating from journalism school. I have to say, it’ll be nice to get a steady paycheck for once.”

“You just said you don’t need the paycheck, you’re Donald Trump rich now,” I replied.

“Yeah, well, just because I have the money doesn’t mean I need to spend it all. A paycheck to live off is still nice. The one I’m getting from The Willow Bay Whistler isn’t enough to live off, but it’ll be nice all the same.”

“Well, I’m glad everything’s working out for you. If you happen to see a red and white dog who answers to the name of Sprinkles, give me a call, will you?” I asked, handing him one of Charlotte’s posters.

“That’s certainly a sly way to give me your phone number,” Jason told me, and I glared at him.

“It’s not my number, it’s my sister’s.”

“Well, can’t blame a man for trying. I’ll see you around town, Angie,” Jason replied, giving me a wink before walking back to his bench.

The man was infuriating. I could never figure him out. Not that I wanted to, of course.

Chapter 5

By the next morning there was still no sign of Sprinkles. I’d spent half the night in the backyard where we lived, taking care of the animals that lived in the little stables out the back of our place (currently: a doe with a broken leg that was just about ready to be released in the wild, an injured owl and two sheep whose owner we were looking for, that animal control weren’t set up to care for) in the hopes that Sprinkles might happen to find his way onto our property.

Finally, I gave up and went to bed, hoping the poor little guy would be ok spending the night out there alone.

I woke up so exhausted the next day that I ran to Betty’s café and begged her to make me a double shot vanilla latte before I had to open the vet clinic. It seemed to do the trick, and it had to: my first client of the day was a new guy in town, Gareth Sims, who brought in his German Shepherd Boss, who’d been poisoned.

“I’m not sure what he got himself into,” Gareth told me, looking worriedly at his dog. “We’ve only lived in the area for about three weeks, we came up from California. I’m afraid I might not have been looking at what he was doing when he was off-leash, and I don’t exactly know what to look for up here anyway.”

“Can you tell me what his symptoms have been?” I asked. Boss wasn’t really speaking, he was just lying on the examination table looking sad. When he’d come in he was stumbling slightly, and he threw up in the lobby.

“Yeah,” Garret told me, running a hand through his hair. He was in his early 30s, with brown hair and eyes and about a day’s worth of stubble. Basically, your average looking guy. “I took him for a walk around midnight last night. Couldn’t sleep, you know. Plus he normally has enough energy to go for as many walks as I can take him on. We walked around the block a few times, and he was totally fine. I took him down to that big park and let him off the leash and threw his ball around for him. He seemed fine. Went into the forest once or twice. Then after we got home, he started to look weird. He started stumbling around, and he threw up once or twice. When he wasn’t better this morning, I came here.”

“You did good to do that,” I said. I gave Boss a good look over, physically. The whole time, I still couldn’t get Sprinkles out of my head. I hoped the little doggie was ok. Boss physically seemed pretty normal, but his eyes were definitely dilated; I was fairly certain I knew what had caused the illness. “Unfortunately for some kids out there, I think they’re going to be disappointed when they find that their stash of plants has gone missing,” I told him. “I’m almost certain Boss is suffering from marijuana poisoning.”

“Damn… so you’re saying my dog is high?”

I nodded. “Yes. It’s not as uncommon as you might think, but it is relatively serious. However, I do want to keep Boss here for a few hours. We’ll give him some IV fluids, and some activated charcoal to try and absorb some of the toxins, but mainly I just want to make sure that he’s under watch while he sleeps it off, so to speak. He’ll almost certainly be fine,” I told Garret with a smile.

“Oh, thank God,” he replied. “Sure. Keep an eye on him for me, for sure. Thank you so much.”

“No problem at all,” I replied. “I’ll give you a call when he’s ready to be picked up, probably late this afternoon sometime. You did good to bring him in.”

A couple minutes later Sophie and I were leading Boss into a comfortable kennel.

“Come on buddy, you just gotta sleep it off,” Sophie was telling him. “You’re high as a kite right now, you gotta learn to pace yourself.”

I smiled as I set up the IV at the counter. “It’s going to be ok, Boss,” I told him. “You’re going to rest here for a few hours, then Garret’s going to come back this afternoon when you’re feeling better and take you home.”

“Thanks,” I heard Boss mumble slightly before he fell back asleep. Not all dogs got very lethargic when they got high, but some did, and Boss certainly fell into that category.

“It just goes to show how many dangerous things there are for dogs out there,” I said, almost to myself, and Sophie nodded.

“I know. I wish we could just leave and look for Sprinkles. I hope he made it through the night ok. I can’t help but worry that he got his leash caught on something and he’s trapped, or worse.

“We can’t think like that, Soph. Listen, let’s go out at lunch and look for him, ok? We’ll only have an hour, but it’s better than doing nothing, right?

“Definitely. Good plan,” Sophie told me, just as Karen came in to let us know our next patient was waiting for us in exam room two.

I could worry about Sprinkles later. Right now, my focus had to be on the dogs like Boss who needed medical help and that we had access to.

I checked my cell quickly for any messages before going in to see the next patient, just in case someone had found Sprinkles. Instead, I found a text from my sister.

Dinner tonight with Lisa. The diner. 7.

Oh boy.

Is this guy gonna be there? I replied.

How should I know? came the immediate response back.