Never Steal a Cockatiel (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series Book 9) by Edie Claire Page A

Irritating, unresolved questions buzzed around in her brain like gnats, but she couldn’t concentrate well enough to address them. She needed to drop off her charges, go home, and get some sleep. Maybe then she could make some sense of the nonsense.
    When they arrived at the clinic, the boys went straight to the basement for their next assignment from Jared, while Allison stuck with Leigh and helped walk Randall through the staff entrance. No sooner had they settled the veterinarian on his stool than a gorgeous mane of honey-colored hair appeared in the doorway.
    “Good morning, Dr. Koslow!” the teenaged wannabe vet, Kirsten, said cheerfully. “Good morning, Leigh! Good morning, Allison!”
    Leigh and her father greeted the girl back. Allison mumbled something under her breath and left the room. Through the doorway, Leigh could see Mathias strutting toward them, fluffing his strawberry blond hair with a comb. Allison rolled her eyes as she passed him and mumbled something else, but Mathias seemed aware of nothing but Kirsten.
    “I hope your foot is feeling better today,” Kirsten inquired politely of the veterinarian.
    “I’ll survive, I think,” Randall responded. Given the frequency of his poorly hidden winces, Leigh was pretty sure the man actually had broken his ankle, but he was still waiting to see the orthopod to confirm it.
    “If you need me to get anything for you, I’ll be happy to,” Kirsten effused. “Everything I do here helps me learn!”
    Leigh proffered a fake smile. Allison was right. Kirsten was a suck-up.
    “Grandpa Randall?” Matthias said importantly, shouldering his way into the room in unnecessarily close proximity to Kirsten. “Jared says we should move the freezer away from the wall, but we’ll have to unplug it for about half an hour. Is that all right with you?”
    Randall looked up at him with an odd expression. “Just keep the lid closed. Jared knows what he’s doing.”
    Leigh stifled a chuckle. No one any less socially oblivious than her father could possibly be puzzled by Mathias’s sudden interest in the sanctity of the freezer contents. Kirsten certainly was not.
    The girl turned toward Mathias, who was more than a year younger than her but at least three inches taller, with a radiant, yet simpering smile. “That freezer must be so heavy!”
    Mathias puffed out his chest.
    Leigh resisted the urge to roll her own eyes.
    The connecting door to the reception room opened and Morgan poked her head in. “Dr. Koslow? Olan Martin is here. Are you ready for him?”
    “Yep,” Randall replied, swiveling on his stool and opening a drawer. Matthias directed one last brazen smile at Kirsten, then retreated from the room. Morgan carried in a kennel bearing a large cockatoo and placed it on the exam table. Behind the veterinary assistant walked a short, heavyset man with a wire travel cage containing a pair of yellow-naped Amazons. Allison reappeared and elbowed Kirsten out of the way to take her usual place at Randall’s side.
    Olan set the cage gently on the floor in the corner. “Hello, Dr. Koslow,” he said in a nervous manner. Olan was always nervous. His gaze passed over the younger girls without interest, but stopped on Leigh with a spark of recognition. “Well, hello, Leigh,” he said in his pleasant, yet nasally voice. “Haven’t seen you in a while! I thought your daughter here had taken over your spot.”
    Leigh nodded a return greeting. “Hello, Olan. And yes, she has. I’m pretty much useless now.”
    Like Skippy, Olan had been one of the clinic’s most active bird clients for decades. He was an unusual figure of a man, being barely five feet tall and pudgy, with a slightly oversized head, large luminous blue eyes, and a thick crop of forever-mussed hair that had once been blond but was now snow white. He was a soft-spoken man and generally meek, but Leigh knew from personal experience that if Olan feared for his birds, Jekyll could turn into Hyde in a