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going suddenly still and barking, and then I felt someone grab me . . .” She paused and Anders watched her closely. Several expressions flickered across her face in quick succession. Fear, anxiety, and anger were among them. Finally she said unhappily, “I think he kicked Roxy. I remember her yelping in pain and then he dragged me up against his chest and . . .”
    Valerie hesitated again and he suspected she was trying to decide what she should and shouldn’t tell him. No doubt she felt mentioning fangs and being bitten might make him think she was crazy. He wasn’t surprised when she suddenly shook her head and muttered, “The next thing I knew I woke up in that cage in the dark. My neck was bleeding and I was weak and disoriented. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel the bars of my cage and hear a woman sobbing. I called out and . . .” She closed her eyes briefly before continuing, “They answered one by one, scared voices in the dark; Cindy, Bethany, Janey, Kathy, Billie, and Laura. One of us for every night of the week.” Swallowing, she met his gaze and said, “Leigh told me Bethany and Janey didn’t make it.”
    It was a statement rather than a question, but he nodded anyway, verifying that it was true.
    Valerie sagged in her seat, looking more resigned than anything as she said, “Both of them sounded pretty weak and exhausted the night I arrived. They just got worse as the days passed. They’d been there the longest and weren’t doing well. I guess that’s why they weren’t taken up the first week I was there. It was only five days after I was kidnapped that I was taken upstairs myself.”
    “You ate at first?” he asked, but thought she must have. She’d been there ten days. She wouldn’t have had the strength to do what she had if she hadn’t eaten the whole time.
    Valerie nodded. “The first daily ration of oatmeal and fruit was brought around the night after I got there. At least I’m guessing it was a full day and night after.” She shrugged. “Igor took Cindy upstairs after passing out the bowls. I asked the others why he’d taken her and where, but they didn’t want to talk about it and just told me to eat or Igor would force-feed me. I was starved, so I ate.”
    She grimaced. “Things got pretty fuzzy after that. I know he came back and cleaned Cindy’s cage while she was gone. But I don’t think he collected the bowls until he brought Cindy back. I’m not sure. Like I said, things got fuzzy and all I wanted to do was sleep.” She shook her head. “I should have realized it was the oatmeal, that it was drugged, but I just thought the exhaustion and constant sleeping were due to the wound on my neck.”
    Anders nodded, and then asked, “When did you figure out the food was drugged?”
    “After my own first ‘night out,’ ” she answered with a grim smile.
    “Night out?” he asked.
    “It’s what we called it. The night out of our cage. Not a full night, just a couple hours really.” She shrugged. “Five nights after I got there, everyone else got a bowl but me, and I was taken upstairs.”
    She paused again, this time holding her breath, and Anders tensed, afraid that these memories might be too much for her, but after a moment, she let her breath out on a small puff and continued, “I don’t usually lose my cool in a crisis. I mean running a veterinary clinic can sometimes be as stressful as a hospital ER. Dogs are hit by cars, or have other accidents or ailments and are rushed in, and we have to be able to jump into action. We can’t freak out, or fall apart.”
    “Of course,” he said when she fell silent. It seemed to encourage her.
    “By the time Igor came for me it had been twenty-four hours since our last feeding, and the drugs must have been wearing off, but I was still off balance. My vision was affected, or maybe it was my brain,” she muttered grimly. “Whatever it was, everything seemed distorted, my hearing was going in and out like a