Page 93 of Death on Gallows Path

TUESDAY

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Clara had client business this morning, so we planned to meet at the dog park at our more common noonish time.

Before that, I tried to write.

That spell of flow had been amazing last week. I hadn’t experienced that before, when the real world becomes misty and distant, something to sleep-walk through, while the fictional world presents itself bright and sharp.

Kit often told me those stretches were to be treasured but never relied on. You kept writing, kept working while you hoped another of those periods broke open. That, she said was training the writing muscle.

Flow is built on all the nuts and bolts writing sessions, where you’re putting down words knowing you’ll change them later.

I was having trouble getting down any words, even ones I knew I’d change.

What would Kit say?

And then a bus crashed through the wall.

I’d heard Kit propose that as a way to shake up her thinking, along with And then they all died.

Except there weren’t buses in the alternative world my character was thrown into. As for all of the characters dying . . .

Huh.

That might be interesting . . .

I poked around my work in progress until it was time for the dog park.

* * * *

Donna was gone when we arrived.

Clara grumbled about that, but became distracted when it quickly became apparent that the word at the dog park was that Pammy executed an NFL-level punt on Lucifer.

I did tell a couple people she hadn’t actually kicked the dog, not pulling her foot back or swinging her leg. Her motion was comparable to the leg block I suspected every one of us used to stop a dog from bolting through a doorway. Except Pammy used it to, uh, encourage Lucifer forward.

After the second time I tried to explain and a fellow dog owner stared at me blankly before adding a couple more yards to the account of the kick, I gave up trying to keep the record straight.

But I did mutter to Clara, “Pammy didn’t actually kick Lucifer.”

She directed her open gaze to me. “Her foot connected with his butt.”

“True, but . . .”

I gave up again.

Especially when my phone rang and I saw it was Teague. He must be making his connection.

I would pick him up at the airport in a few hours, but that didn’t make talking to him any less appealing.

After hellos with airport background noises on his end and barking on mine, he said, “Hey, no need to come to the airport—”

“I want to.”

“I want you to, too. But they want me to come straight to the department. Deputy Hensen is picking me up to fill me in on the way. Wasting no time, according to the sheriff.”

“You know they picked up Bryon Georger on Sunday?” I assumed he knew who Bryon was and his connection to the deceased.