I heard a damp snort and looked over to see our English setter staring at me with sad eyes. Taking a tentative step forward, he nudged my hand then nuzzled in and brought his head to rest on my thigh. I absently stroked his crown and gave him a half-hearted scritch behind the ears. Usually, Quigley the Australian cattle dog was hot on his heels, but last I’d seen him he was sitting in the dining room looking just about as confused as the cats.

Our animals were as close as we had to children-not that we hadn’t tried for one of our own species. Unfortunately, Felicity’s only pregnancy to date had been abruptly terminated by a physical altercation between her and a murder suspect who was making a getaway attempt. Since then, even though everything checked out for both of us according to doctors, we hadn’t had much luck in the conception department.

In truth, it was probably a good thing that we didn’t have children because I had the feeling that right now I would be completely lost. I could easily comfort a dog with a few pats on the head even if he could still sense that something was amiss. On the other hand, I had no clue what I could possibly tell a child that would quell his or her fears in a situation such as this.

“Mommy is going to go with the nice policemen for a while,” just didn’t seem to me like it would do the trick. And, right now, saying something like “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay” could very well be a flat-out lie. Primarily, because I wasn’t so sure that it was going to be okay. On top of that, I knew that my own mental state wouldn’t be particularly healthy for a child to endure either.