She returned to her stool in a better humor than she had left it, and felt better still when she had gotten half the drink inside her.

'Say, I sure didn't mean to offend you,' the bartender said. 'It gets lonely in here, afternoons. When a stranger comes in, my lip gets runny.'

'My fault,' Anderson said. 'I haven't been having the best day of my life.'

She finished her drink and sighed.

'You want another one, miss?'

I think I liked 'purty lady' better, Anderson thought, and shook her head. 'I'll take a glass of milk, though. Otherwise I'll have acid indigestion all afternoon.'

The bartender brought her the milk. Anderson sipped it and thought about what had happened at the vet's. The answer was quick and simple: she didn't know.

But I'll tell you what happened when you brought him in, she thought. Not a thing.

Her mind seized on this. The waiting room had been almost as crowded when she brought Peter in as it had been when she dragged him back out, only there had been no bedlam scene the first time. The place had not been quiet – animals of different types and species, many of them ancient and instinctive antagonists, do not make for a library atmosphere when brought together – but it had been normal. Now, with the booze working in her, she recalled the man in the mechanic's coverall leading the boxer in. The boxer had looked at Peter. Peter had looked mildly back. No big deal.

So?

So drink your milk and get on home and forget it.

Okay. And what about that thing in the woods? Do I forget that, too?

Instead of an answer, her grandfather's voice came: By the way, Bobbi, what's that thing doing to you? Have you thought about that?

She hadn't.

Now that she had, she was tempted to order another drink … except another, even a single, would make her drunk, and did she really want to be sitting in this huge barn in the early afternoon, getting drunk alone, waiting for the inevitable someone (maybe the bartender himself) to cruise up and ask what a pretty place like this was doing around a girl like her?