Page 29 of Death on Gallows Path

“She what?”

I deliberately had not talked to her about this, deliberately had not asked her for his phone number, instead, had used skills I’d learned from Kit to find the number myself. Okay, it hadn’t been that hard. I knew the jurisdiction name and police departments tend not to hide their contact information.

“Not like you’d call me today. She didn’t say that. But sometime. Unless that idiot got his head screwed on completely straight first. Which obviously, he hasn’t.”

Simultaneously, I felt a surge of protectiveness over Teague, his head, and whether the threads of the screw top attaching it to the rest of him were correctly aligned, along with a strong desire to agree with Quincy.

“I . . . I shouldn’t have called.”

If Teague had wanted us to meet he’d have made it happen. What right did I have to—?

“Sure you should have.” Quincy made it casual and calming, backing way off the tough love toward Teague of his previous comment. Even knowing this had to be part of his soothe-skittish-witnesses toolkit, it worked. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m real glad you reached out to me.”

“It’s nice to put a voice to the name,” I said.

“Exactly. Call any time, Sheila. Doesn’t have to be for a specific reason. To say hello is good.”

We both knew this wasn’t about calling to say hello.

I could feel myself backing away as he spoke. Not because of what he said, but because my brain kicked into high gear with what-ifs.

I’d bet he’d been aware of that happening before I was.

He added, “Just like Clara does. Always good to hear from her.”

“Thank you, Quincy.” For his smoothing over my calling and my backing away, for leaving the door open, but most of all for being a good friend to Teague.

We wrapped up the call like all this was normal.

Afterward, I stared into space.

His comment about Clara left the door open, possibly more than he knew.

True, she didn’t know about my secret past as the supposed author of Abandon All.

But she did know something happened at Teague’s previous department that left him legally blind in one eye and led to his leaving his profession and his home to come here to Northern Kentucky.

Did she know the what and the how? Had she asked Quincy and he’d told her?

No.

Because she would have told me.

Because the reason she would have wanted to know was because she thought I needed to know.

Because she didn’t know how much I’d been keeping from him and was still keeping from her.

Nothing like knots on top of knots and more knots in your personal life to make you forget a little thing like the writing flow going kaput.

* * * *

I was not tempted to skip the dog park.

Perhaps hearing that in my voice, Clara trusted me to drive myself, Gracie, and Murphy to meet her and LuLu at the park.

Clara pulled in next to my car shortly after I arrived.

She looked over at me, did a double-take, then rolled down her passenger window, gesturing for me to roll down mine.