Death on Gallows Path (Secret Sleuth #10)

Chapter One

DAY ONE

MONDAY

Tonight, we start a new training class at Zepke’s.

That’ll be fun, right?

Right?

By we, I mean my dog, Gracie, and me, joined by my friend, Clara, and her dog, LuLu.

You might wonder about the guys in our lives — Teague O’Donnell, my significant other, and his dog, Murphy, plus Ned Woodrow, Clara’s husband and LuLu’s other fur parent.

They claimed other commitments.

Ned had a number of short business trips coming up.

Teague left this morning on a ten-day trip including a law enforcement conference, though he hadn’t known about that when we brought up training.

“It is nice you two are doing something together that doesn’t involve murder,” Ned had said.

No barbs projected from his words. So I couldn’t get huffy and say Clara and I did lots of things together that didn’t involve murder.

Like go to dinner with him and Teague as we were when this topic came up, like take the dogs to the dog park most days, like . . . lots of things.

Clara and I debated — briefly — bringing Murphy along to training. But one of us would need to work two dogs.

They’re good dogs. Really.

However, their favorite mode of interaction is playing until they can’t physically play any longer. I don’t see them suddenly being demure at training.

Also, none of them is . . . let’s say perfectly trained. If they were, we wouldn’t be taking classes.

One day, I’d said to Clara, “Gracie’s regressing. She doesn’t always come when I call and she’s jumping on people when she meets them.”

“A refresher session is free at Zepke’s,” she’d said.

I’d taken Gracie to the pet store in town for intro training when I adopted her. Clara and LuLu joined us after we met at the dog park and the dogs insta-bonded.

“I don’t know if one session—”

“You could sign up for the next level. Us, too. With you writing and spending more time with Teague, you have to make sure Gracie knows—”

“If you think Gracie’s jealous of Teague, you’re wrong. She adores him.”

“I was going to say you have to make sure she knows you’re not so distracted that she can get away with things.”

That was different. “I’ll watch that.”

Somehow, we jumped from my casual comments to signing up for this course.

That happens with Clara as my friend. I make a someday, sometime, maybe, possible comment and — boom — we’re doing it.

Unless I found an excuse.

I sure couldn’t claim productive writing on my new project to get out of tonight’s dog training.

Earlier today, at the café over pastries after yoga class, I tried the excuse that it was mean to leave Murphy alone, since he was staying at my house while Teague was at his conference.

Okay, it wasn’t because of the conference. Murphy stayed at my house most of the time. So did Teague.

Nothing official.

Clara had looked at me with her clear, wide eyes and said, “Give him a treat and a toy, he curls up on his bed, and is happy as a clam.”

Whoops. She’d cared for Murphy more than I had before I gave up pretending Teague and I weren’t heading into a serious relationship.

Neither yoga nor pastries helped me on the writing front, either, which was why I was sitting at my desk, staring out the window instead of writing a young adult sci-fi/fantasy.

Or is it fantasy/alternate universe? Because there’s not a lot of science. Although I think of fantasy as creatures such as werewolves or mermen or— Anyway, my story doesn’t include those, though it’s not exactly what you’d expect to encounter in real life.

Writing this was a challenge from my great-aunt. Kit’s made her living as an author for decades, which is a much smaller demographic group than most people expect.

I like this story. Like it a lot. But I’ve been sidetracked by the question of what the story is.

You need to know that to find readers, because — oddly — most readers won’t take a risk on a book described as it’s not exactly what you’d expect to encounter in your real life and the author likes it a lot.

So, the author, along with writing a book, must determine the perfect genre/subgenre/sub-subgenre and three to seven keywords from a list that never includes anything remotely appropriate, which is still supposed to help readers who would like your book find your book.

Write the thing and worry about that later.

That was Kit’s voice.

Not because she was with me in my home office in Haines Tavern, Kentucky, but because she was in my head, wherever I go.

Get the words down. You’re making excuses to put off writing.

Am not.

I’m thinking about my dog’s need for structure and discipline.

Also thinking about books.

They went together. Really.