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scratch dirt over his back—show those punters leaning over the fence what a fine specimen of greyhound he was—that I spotted a flash of purple toward the rear of the spectators. My heart stopped, my stomach lurched toward my cracked black shoes and my grin melted and trickled off my face. The color purple? A man was talking to Big Mick Harrison, a bookmaker. Just a blur of purple and then he was gone.
    Ben sauntered up beside me, bringing his usual practical warmth and reassurance with him. “You okay?” he said, one hand resting on the head of a lightly framed fawn dog in a red racing rug. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
    “I think I have.” A shiver skittered through me as I peered at the crowd gathered around the parade ring. “Did you see him?”
    “See who?”
    “The old guy in the purple pants I was telling you about earlier. You know, the creep who stole Stella.” I tightened my hold on the leather lead and edged the dog closer to my side for protection. “Maybe he’s after Lofty now.”
    Ben shook his head, a look of bewilderment on his face. “Why would he be after Lofty?”
    “’Cos Lofty’s red brindle, just like Stella.”
    “That’s not a reason to steal a dog. Come on, Kat, you’re imagining things. A geriatric guy wearing purple pants to a greyhound track would stand out like a neon sign. If he was out there, we’d see him.”
    “Maybe, but it makes more sense that he’d be after Lofty than a GAP dog.” After all, I know what I’d seen and it was definitely a flash of purple. And what about my gut feeling? I’d be foolish not to trust instincts. When I’d gone off alone to meet Peter Manning, I’d ignored my gut telling me things weren’t quite kosher—and look where that landed me. Inside a pale blue satin-lined coffin at Peter’s father’s Funeral Home. No. The new Kat McKinley was more street wise.
    Less trusting.
    I snorted inwardly as I thought of the way Peter had accused me of being naive and too nice, as though niceness was a debilitating disease. Well, if nothing else, this gal learned from her mistakes.
    Alert to my surroundings, I vowed to do whatever it took to protect Lofty. Even if it meant paying a locksmith to install a foolproof lock on my temporary kennel house. I loved the big ugly dog. He was the star of my racing team. A great character. And oh yeah, he now belonged to my mother and if anything happened to my mother’s dog and she didn’t get her outlay back via his race earnings, she’d not only string me to the nearest gum tree by my ears—I’d have to give up training greyhounds.
    And that was unthinkable.
    The steward at the gate who was calling entrants to line up from one to eight ready to go out onto the track, broke into my musings. Ben gave my shoulder a quick squeeze before positioning his dog beside the gate, first in line, while I tacked on the end with Lofty, who was wearing the pink rug, number eight.
    As I followed the rest of the field out onto the track, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an attempt to disperse all toxic thoughts. Ben was right. It was probably a woman in purple slacks talking to the two men. Two wins and a third—things were going great today and I shouldn’t let a flash of purple in the crowd spoil my euphoria.
    But what if Purple Pants was here at the track? What if at the end of the race he grabbed Lofty and threw him in his piece-of-shit car and drove off with him?
    Oh, God…the deep-breath-letting-out-toxins trick wasn’t working. Okay, time to appeal to the big guns and ask the Universe to take over. Think positive thoughts and allow karma to replace stress. Easier than reciting your A-B-C. Everything was going to be fine. No-one could get to Lofty while we were at the track. Enjoy the success.
    Dragging these thoughts along with much needed air into my lungs, I followed the officiating steward and the other seven handlers past the starting boxes and on another fifty meters along the