When I reached the little terrier, the star of the circus's dog act, he was dead. He had snatched food from the plate someone dressed as a clown had handed to me. Someone had tried to poison me, in my own house, at the annual party for the circus.
Frozen with fear, I knelt beside him for a moment longer, my hand on his cold muzzle. A Twig snapped in the underbrush nearby. No one knew I'd left the party to hunt for the dog in the woods. Had the killer stalked me here?