Paolo roughly broke through a glass window using the corner of a shipping pallet at the back side of the Mason Ridge Veterinary Clinic and Animal Hospital. The sounds of barking dogs erupted from within. Hearing a burglar alarm, he moved quickly. These kinds of suburban neighborhoods were well patrolled, especially along the commercial district. The cops were typically bored and appreciated a good break-in to pick up a slow night.
Stepping through, he found himself in a small bathroom. He grabbed a pair of latex gloves from an open box and donned them. The dogs continued to battle the alarm. Door by door, he worked his way past two examination rooms, an office, and the waiting room. The place smelled of dry dog food, medicines, disinfectant, cedarwood shavings, urine, and feces.
Having marked his watch at the moment of break-in, he estimated he had less than five minutes before the police arrived. In New York City or Los Angeles he might have had twenty to thirty minutes. Not here in Middle America.
He found the stockroom, located a pair of locked cabinets, and used a stainless-steel surgical device to pry it open. He trained his one good eye toward it in the dim light: The shelves were stacked with cloth-wrapped surgical gear. As he turned his talents to the second cabinet, he noticed he’d ripped open the surgical glove on his right hand. Fingerprints! He glanced behind him, attempting to quickly catalog all the surfaces he’d touched. When had it torn?
As it happened, the idiots used their sirens. He heard the mechanical cries growing louder, but they still sounded far off.
The second cabinet succumbed.
He searched the five shelves of prescription drugs, reading for the base compound instead of the brand name, as vets called their drugs by different names.
He pocketed some high-dose antibiotics and finally, mercifully, located a synthetic opiate-a painkiller.
He would have liked to search for a salve for the blistering on his face, but no. The wash of headlights on the windows signaled the arrival of a patrol car far sooner than he’d anticipated.
He hurried back through the building to the window through which he’d come, not trying for his car, eager to disappear up into the woods on the hill behind the small clinic.
Minutes later, he dry-swallowed two of the large pain pills and squirted saline solution onto his swollen face.
Never resting, he pushed up through the woods, reaching a clearing shared behind three large homes, all with garages.
Garages meant cars or bicycles.
From a distance, he could see down to the roof lights of the patrol car flashing red, white, and blue across the vet clinic.
The painkiller wouldn’t kick in for a half hour or so, and by that time he hoped to have ridden a bus back to the motel, hoped to be numb to the sensation of the razor’s edge, and the punishment he so craved.
He would still have to deal with the little girl.
He wondered how tough she was, how badly she wanted her freedom, and whether she possessed the courage to remove the melted contact lens from his swelling eye.