Read The Better to Hold You for Free Online Page B

subway when we opened the doors to Ward B and discovered that the day’s excitement wasn’t over.
    Pia was gone.
FOUR
    Everyone else went to look for our missing patient. I went to the bathroom.
    I’d started to bleed right after Hunter and I made love. Just a little spotting, but I knew I’d need to check on things in a little while. I suppose every veterinary and medical student goes through a hypochondriacal phase. Mine wasn’t too bad; I was only frightened of getting rabies from a bite, contracting a little flesh-eating bacteria on a wound, or dying of toxic shock after forgetting I had a tampon in for twenty-four hours.
    That may sound disgusting, but let me tell you, after being on your feet for forty-eight sleep-deprived hours, you’re liable to forget a lot of things that aren’t written on a chart. Which is why I tend to use sanitary pads, messy as they are.
    So I opened the door to the bathroom and walked back to the farthest stall—the big, disabled one.
    There, crouched beside the toilet, was Pia, the dun triangles of her ears pressed flat to her head. The scruffy owl man from the subway was kneeling beside her.
    I think I gave a quick little huff of surprise and squeaked, “This is the ladies’ room!”
    Pia growled.
    “Quiet, now.” The man glanced down at the dog, then back up at me with a rueful smile. “Bit of a sissy, this one.”
    I said nothing, and the man stood up. “Well, now,” he said, “I admit this looks a bit peculiar, but I can explain.” He ran a nervous hand through his graying auburn hair, which was cut in the kind of close-crop that looks fashionable on a man in a good suit of clothes and vaguely institutional on a man in dirt-stained jeans and a cheap white T-shirt.
    “So explain.”
    Pia growled, low in her throat.
    “Hush, girl. This place makes her nervous,” he said apologetically.
    “Yes, I heard she started howling earlier this morning.” I tentatively held out my hand for Pia to sniff, still hesitant to meet the man’s eyes. A thought occurred to me. “My colleagues thought she was scared of what was happening to another dog, but I’m wondering if it had something to do with you.” Oh, smart thing to say, Abra. What if the man’s crazy? I’d forgotten the first rule of New York City: Don’t antagonize the crazy man.
    “She sure did raise a fuss when she smelled me. Expect she wanted out of here.” The man ruffled the fur at the back of Pia’s neck. He had a gentle, sure touch and the dog seemed to accept it without too much hunching of the shoulders. “You work here?” He pointed to my white lab coat.
    “Yes.” Without thinking, I crouched down to give Pia a pat and then realized I had just done something incredibly stupid. Now I had placed myself at this stranger’s feet. Worse still, I was crouching in a bathroom stall, and the floor’s cleanliness didn’t hold up under close inspection. The man was looking at me with an odd, slightly preoccupied expression, his head cocked a little to one side, his nostrils flaring.
    Hang on, did I smell? I looked down and continued stroking Pia as if this thought had never crossed my mind. When the stranger spoke, his voice was so low and soft it took me a moment to register what he’d said.
    “I make you nervous.”
    I straightened up, then realized that I was now standing too close to this man. “Well, a little.” I forced myself not to back up, because dogs and serial killers have an instinctive, aggressive reaction to retreat.
    “You make me a little nervous, too.” I met his steady, amused regard and realized there was something pleasant about his looks. He had the kind of lean, high-cheekboned, weathered face I’d seen in pictures of the Depression.
    “And why is that?”
    “I’m kind of hoping to make my way on out of here without too much fuss, and you seem the kind of woman not to walk away from a fight.”
    I brought up my hands reflexively. “I’m not looking for a fight …”
    “But