“I could strangle you, Summer.” Furious, I added, “How could you not have told me all this?”

“Lots of times I don’t know what to say, and I’m afraid everyone is going to be mad at me.” She said this like a little girl, and my rage dimmed, but my resolve was not to be messed with.

Tom opened the sliding door of the bus and looked as surprised to see its internal transformation as we had been. I considered what to do. Should I race out, confront the man? I knew Tom, and if you went at him, he would fight you to the finish. He held all the cards in this situation. I needed Holly. She would know what to do.

“What else do you know, Summer?”

“Misty isn’t all bad. She texted me that he was on his way. She hoped that I’d still have room for her on my new talk show despite this snafu.”

“What talk show?”

“What?”

“What talk show did you promise Misty?”

Summer looked at me. “I don’t have a talk show anymore, Sam. You know that.”

I let out a groan of frustration just as Tom closed the side door of the bus. I couldn’t see him anymore, but the gravel crunched under his feet as he moved to the driver’s side of the vehicle. The door screeched open, and the bus listed with his weight as he crawled in the driver’s seat.

“He’s going to take the bus without even talking to us?”

“That’s what quid pro quo is, Sam.”

“Summer,” I hissed, not wanting to alert Tom but wanting Summer to understand how serious this was. “He’s taking our only wheels. How are we going to get home?”

“I thought I was helping! Misty thought Tom would be as happy as she was to see the last vestiges of that marriage. But she got it wrong.” She was speaking quickly, trying to deflect blame. “Tom is still super pissed at Katie—you know, for whatever reason men are pissed at the women they divorce after they’ve been caught in an affair.”

I watched Tom, my anxiety ratcheting up as our ride pulled out of the driveway.

“I’ll stop him!” said Summer like an energized Tinker Bell, but I grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back. As if her bones were hollow, she ricocheted away from the door and crumpled next to me.

“We can’t overpower him. We have to have a strategy. He’s going up to get Peanut.” I wrenched my phone out of my fanny pack and dialed the vet clinic number. I waited, and when the line connected it was the answering machine: “This is the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Veterinarian Clinic. We are working with the animals right now. Please leave your name, number, and message, and we’ll call you back.”

At the tone I said, “Griff, this is Sam.” I thought about what to say—there was no time: “Don’t give Peanut to the man.” I hung up.

Summer said, “Nice, Sam.” And she gave me a closed-fist solidarity hand signal like we were part of a teamsters’ picket line.

I slapped her hand down and said “Summer!” like I’d said “Maddie” a thousand times before. “We have to get up there. We’ve got to stop Tom.” I pulled up Holly’s number and texted her: Tom’s here. Has Van. Peanut!! I hit send, and immediately I heard a buzzing sound. Holly’s phone sat on the bedside table. “What? She always has her phone!”

“I texted my pig guy,” Summer said, looking at her phone. “He said we can use a golf cart to get up there. But Sam. He’s going to take Peanut. We can’t stop him.”

“That is not happening,” I said. “Not happening!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SUMMER SANDY

“Doesn’t this thing go any faster?” We rolled up the canyon at a speed that felt so much slower than the blood rocketing through my veins.

Summer, to try to make up for her crap, leaned forward like a champ, willing the vehicle up the winding unpaved path. There were two roads on opposite sides of the sanctuary that led to the veterinarian clinic at the top of Angel Canyon. Tom surely had used the paved road, where the VW couldn’t topple over into a canyon. We were on the shorter, rougher route.

What would we do when we got to the clinic? Confront Tom? Kidnap Peanut? Disable the camper? When we got up there, I’d go get Holly from Cat World. We’d need her firepower if we were going to go head-to-head with Tom.

“I’m going to fix this for you guys.”

“Just go to the clinic. Try not to make things worse.” She mewled like she’d taken a hit. “Summer, I know you were trying to help, but we can’t lose Peanut. I’m not mad.”

We pulled the golf cart into a side stall, and Summer bolted. She crouched and in a zigzagging pattern, like she was dodging sniper fire, ran to the clinic. If I hadn’t been so pissed, I would have laughed.

I looked over my shoulder at the clinic and jogged to the cat house. I took the front steps two at a time, pushed the door open, and called out, “Holly?”

Cats draped on every surface, climbing tree, countertop, and armchair sat up with startled expressions as if to say, Must you?

“Holly Dunfee?” I turned a corner and ran into a volunteer cuddling the fattest feline I’d ever set eyes on. “I’m looking for a tall woman. Holly?”

The woman did not match my intensity and scratched the chin of the languorous cat. “Bossy? Kind of grouchy?”

“Hey,” I said, suddenly defensive. “She came to help. She has her own ideas, sure . . . but”—I shook my head—Keep going, Sam. “Yes. Where is she?”

The woman said, “Maybe the cafeteria?”

“She eats only at mealtimes. It’s not breakfast or lunchtime. She’s not looking for snacks.” I said the last sentence like I was Norma Rae protesting a textile mill. She’s not looking for snacks!

“Whatever you say.” I could almost hear her describing this encounter with the other cat ladies: Dude, it was intense.

I jogged a quick circle through rooms that resembled a grandmother’s cottage: overstuffed chairs, chintz cushions, and a smell that might have been urine but could also have been soup. Holly was nowhere. I pivoted and charged out of the cat house. Summer left too long unsupervised was problematic.

At the clinic I eased open the side door. I heard Tom: “I realize you have procedures, but I’m sure you understand my position. My dog was erroneously donated. I’ve come to retrieve him.”

From where I stood at the side entrance, I could see Tom facing off with Griff. Neither man saw me as I stood protected by the corners and equipment. Tom had his arms crossed, sleeves rolled up, and chin lifted. Griff was relaxed in his authority, unintimidated.

“I do understand, but we have a process for adoption.”

“I’m not adopting this dog,” Tom interrupted without rancor. “I’m reclaiming him.” He looked around. “Where are the women who drove the camper?”

“He came to us quite ill,” Griff said, ignoring the question.

“Oh, I get it.” Tom smiled, part of the bro network. His wallet in his hand, he extracted a credit card. “You need your money. I get it. How much?”

This was what he’d been like with Katie: reasonable, logical, emotionless, and in the end, demoting all Katie’s concerns to a matter of money. I remembered when he did that early in her health issues. He wanted to go fishing in Canada, and Katie had just had a suspicious pelvic exam. She’d asked him to stay until she was certain her mysterious bloating was nothing. Instead of staying and holding her hand, waiting with his wife for the results, he’d offered to send Katie and me to a spa for a long weekend while we awaited the results.

“Go wherever you think will help you feel better. Take Sam. Hell, take Sam and Maddie. She never goes anywhere without that kid anyway.” He’d said this like I was needy and weak to want to be with my daughter.

I’d overheard all of it. I’d been in Katie’s kitchen. We were filling baggies with Chex Mix for one of Maddie’s bake sales. I’d had the impulse to rush into their conversation. Call Tom out on his selfishness. Instead, I continued putting the salty cereal mix into individual snack bags and pricing them. My conflict avoidance forever in attendance.

This time I wasn’t going to stand around and do nothing. Katie needed Peanut, and even though we didn’t have a leg to stand on, at least we could put up a fight. This time my I was a we, and if Holly, Summer, and I weren’t exactly an army, we were definitely a noisy quorum.

I straightened, took one step toward Tom and Griff, and thought, Shut up and join the fight, Sam.

Before either man saw me, a barking frenzy broke out. Two staffers held the clinic doors wide while Summer strode through them, restraining four enormous Great Pyrenees dogs. She looked like the goddess Diana holding back remarkably friendly hounds of hell. Each animal had the full white-toothed grin of the Pyrenees breed, and each dwarfed Summer’s diminutive but regal posture.