Chapter 2

      Elissa drove her black SUV down the narrow forest-surrounded mountain roads and reached the 101 Freeway on her way home fairly quickly. The traffic was moving well. If it continued like this, she would be home in fifteen minutes.

      Although she’d put the radio on, the current music she preferred didn’t keep her mind off her earlier meeting.

      Or off the K-9 police officers—particularly one.

      Well, so what if she’d had a momentary attraction to handsome Officer Doug Murran? And so what if she admired that he worked with a highly trained dog to protect people and catch bad guys? She had other things to think about.

      She had caught up with a slow-moving big rig. Putting on her turn signal and checking carefully for other cars around her, she passed it.

      And forced her mind back onto what she’d been thinking about earlier, when she had started her drive down the mountain. What she needed to think about.

      Her demonstration tomorrow.

      She’d talked a bit more about it with Amber, who was incredibly nice and knowledgeable. The kind of person Elissa could see herself working for and loving it.

      Plus, she was wise. She’d known that new therapy dog handlers were usually volunteers who received free training from experienced handlers. She had therefore obtained a grant from a charitable organization focused on helping people in need to help pay for the more comprehensive lessons she would provide, starting from the basics. As a result, she had funds toward the salary of whoever she hired as a part-time instructor—hopefully Elissa—so the student handlers in training would only be asked to pay a token amount. Not that Elissa would get rich, either, but that was fine.

      And Amber had also mentioned that she was writing a book on dog training with her chief trainer Evan Colluro. She wasn’t sure when it would be done or how she’d get it published, but she wanted to include a chapter on therapy dogs and their handlers, so that would be another fun thing Elissa might get involved with.

      Regarding tomorrow’s demo, Amber had told her there would be other people present who would act as if they were in a hospital environment and could potentially be helped by a therapy dog. That would be fine with Elissa. It would allow her to show off what she, and Peace, could do and teach.

      And if she was hired, she would need to learn more about the local hospital as well as long-term-care centers, schools for special-needs children and other similar facilities around Chance where therapy dogs and their handlers would be welcome. She needed to know where she could take her students to show them how it worked and, when they and their dogs were trained well enough, to make use of what they learned.

      Would that include Officer Maisie Murran? Elissa hoped so—both because she liked the woman and what she did, and because Maisie had indicated she’d like to participate, or at least watch.

      Too bad her brother hadn’t seemed interested.

      Enough. Elissa had to erase Doug from her thoughts. She had only just met the guy. He might actually be the kind of person she would detest or despise.

      Although she doubted it. How could a dog aficionado like him be so terrible...?

      Good. She saw the sign for her exit in San Luis Obispo. It was about time.

      A few minutes later she drove along the nearest major road toward her house. She soon pulled off onto her street and drove up the driveway to the small, aging stucco house she had rented. She’d found it almost immediately after she had moved here and, though she had some problems with its electrical system sometimes, she had remained, considering it home. Her landlord was nice, though slow to respond to her requests, and so far he hadn’t raised the rent too much—so far being the operative words. He’d been hinting lately that a substantial increase would be imposed soon.

      Elissa pushed the button to open the garage door and waited while it creaked upward till it stopped. She drove her SUV in, picked up her purse from the passenger seat and opened her door.

      And expected to hear Peace’s cheerful barks welcoming her home. That was what the sweet girl always did.

      But not now.

      Immediately, Elissa began to worry. Was Peace there? Was she okay?

      Was Elissa worrying for nothing? After all, the poor dog could just be in a deep sleep at the far side of the house and not heard her.

      But Elissa wanted to find out for herself. She pushed the button on the wall to close the garage door and used her key to unlock the windowed entry door beside it. She couldn’t see into the kitchen because of the taut draperies on the inside of the door that she’d installed for privacy and security.

      She hurried through the door into the cramped and outdated kitchen. Peace barked and leaped toward her on the dingy linoleum floor, then crouched and looked at Elissa. No longer barking, she began circling the kitchen. Its door into the house was shut, which was unusual, but Elissa sometimes closed it with Peace inside. She must have done so this morning.

      That didn’t explain Peace’s actions. What was going on? This was all entirely uncharacteristic of her sweet and sociable dog.

      “Peace, are you okay?” There were times she wished she could hold conversations with her lovable pup and this was one of them. Instead of stopping and sitting and acting normal, Peace sprinted out of the kitchen the moment Elissa opened the door.

      Throwing her small purse down on the kitchen table, Elissa hurried to follow. Peace wasn’t really a puppy, but nearly three years old. She was smart. She was fast. And Elissa felt exceptionally close to her thanks to their therapy work.

      Right now Peace was popping into each room of the house as she reached it down the center hallway: the living room, the bathroom, the guest bedroom and then the master bedroom. She sometimes sniffed the floor, sometimes kept her nose on the ground, all the time appearing as if she was tracking something—and tracking wasn’t one of the many skills she’d learned to become a therapy dog.

      “Peace,” Elissa kept saying softly, rubbing her dog’s soft, furry back each time she got close enough. “What is it?”

      Eventually, whether because of exhaustion or running out of places to explore, Peace stopped dashing around. She wound up in the living room, on the polished wood floor, next to the tan sofa on its deep-colored wooden frame. The colorations went well with Peace’s golden coat—usually. Right now, the way Peace was panting, all Elissa could do was worry about her.

      She knelt on the floor beside her dog, bending to hug her tightly. “Are you okay, girl? What’s wrong?”

      Of course Peace didn’t answer.

      Or maybe she did. She put her head up and licked Elissa’s