Page 119 of Death on Gallows Path

“It’s time for class,” Clara said quietly.

“Do you know more about what happened to Damon Swindell?” I asked Oscar.

“I don’t.”

“Willow?”

“No.”

To believe them or not to believe them.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

“That was brilliant, asking Oscar for his explanation, as if you knew about the incident before Willow said it,” Clara said in the hallway to the training room we had to ourselves for a moment. “Unless you knew—?”

“Nope. I had no idea. Pretended I was Kit.”

She chuckled, then went serious. “Even if Willow did feel a moral injury from what happened to Oscar and Jean, her copying the papers was the way she channeled that.”

“Not necessarily. Copying the papers might have given her the promise of satisfaction, but after returning them, she could have felt a major letdown — fear that there wouldn’t be justice and the renewed recognition that no matter what, it wouldn’t bring Jean back.”

She didn’t like that. Her fairness made her say, “We have to talk about that more after class.”

She opened the door to the training room and walked LuLu directly to where Donna sat with Bernie and Layla.

I followed docilely. Gracie, less docilely.

“Did Bryon Georger find you this afternoon?” Clara asked Donna.

“Yes.”

That sounded grim for an affirmative answer.

“He thought you still had Izolde. Did he find—?”

“We found her. Her and Lucifer. At the animal shelter.”

“What? She put them in the pound?” Clara’s outrage turned every head toward us.

It also stirred the dogs to uneasiness.

Donna’s grimness lifted. “We got them out. They’re both at my place with Layla’s mother right now.”

“Right, because Bryon’s in a hotel,” Clara said. “But later—”

“Later will be decided later,” Donna said.

Leo came in then. “Okay, let’s settle now.”

We took the seats we’d had the first class, though settling would have been too strong, with Clara plainly seething.

Oscar and Quasar, joined by Willow, came into the training room.

With that believe-or-not-believe question up in the air, they remained suspects.

On the other hand, what danger could they pose here?

I decided not to dwell on that question, but to focus on the positives.