Losing Patients (Animal Instincts Book 4) by Chloe Kendrick Page B

heard $100,000 and decided to take it for themselves after Givens turned up dead. They likely thought that it would never be found, since presumably the wife wouldn’t have known anything about it.
    “If the tapes go back that far, I would suggest looking for her as well. It can’t hurt.”
    “So any thoughts on where the money is? Where is it hidden?”
    “It’s not hidden. Mrs. Givens found it a few days ago. She called me to ask Nelly what the dog knew about that money. Nelly said that Mr. Givens had put it in the crawl space in the attic one day after work.”  It always helped my business when I was able to tell the press that talking to an animal had helped solve a case. In this murder, Nelly would have told me what I needed to know.
    “I’m not even going ask how you figured that out, but she has the money now. I’m betting that one of the victims told those two that Givens had put away money in a hiding spot. Mrs. Givens had all the time in the world after that to look for it.”
    I had a sudden idea that made me think we were on the right track. “Maybe that’s why there was so little furniture around. Perhaps she’d torn it apart looking for the money. She’d have to split some cushions and things like that. So it could explain the state of the house.”
    “Okay, you’ve sold me,” Sheila said. “I’m going to get someone to review the footage and see what we find.”
    I cleared my throat. “Any chance of me getting to hear what happens?” I knew that I was supposed to stay out of the two open murder cases, but now they had all seemed to merge into one big mess.
    I busied myself with things around the house, as I now thought that would be a better path towards staying under the radar.I fixed a gutter and trimmed a few bushes. My neighbors probably wondered what had happened to me to get this miraculous change.
    After a shower, I fed the dogs, and the cat, who seemed somewhat pleased to see me for once. I worried that she felt overwhelmed in a dog and human house, but so far she held her own. She’d just moved to a higher level like people waiting out a flood. Number 32, who still needed a real name, had begun to get used to her and now spent time that did not include worrying the cat.
    The doorbell rang, and I was nearly certain it was Sheila with news of the traffic light footage. I opened the door to find Mr. Adamson standing there. He pushed past me and entered the house.
    This was not a good situation. I had not shared my name, and certainly not my address, with the man, which meant he’d gone to the trouble of tracking me down. It’s never good news when people put that much effort into getting in touch with you. I took a few steps back from him into the house.
    “Imagine my surprise,” he began, “when I saw the ad for the man who talks to pets and it turned out to be the guy who was looking into the house where my wife died. Especially when I learn that you’ve been over at the Givens house talking to their dog Nelly. Was I supposed to believe it was just a coincidence? Business was just so good that you went looking for a nicer house.”
    I shrugged. “No more coincidental than four people who were at a pet rescue seminar who have all ended up dead.”
    “Yeah, Dr. Wilson really screwed us over on that one. Why did she have to open her mouth on that?”
    I looked around for something to use as a weapon, but the logic that had taken everything sharp or dangerous out of the room to accommodate a new puppy also took anything that could have been used for a weapon out of the room as well. I was going to have to hope that my martial arts training would help. My mother had insisted on years of training to ensure that I wouldn’t be snatched away by the same faceless criminals who had taken Susan. Now I had to wonder if that had all been a charade to cover the fact that she’d either been killed by a family member or had left of her own accord. The way I’d been treated by my family