yards per second, you have to give the command for the obstacle at least five yards before he has to set his course toward it. This means you often have to give the commands faster than your dog can run. Sometimes that’s possible; sometimes it’s not. Either way, it all happens in a blur.
The last two obstacles were straight-line jumps leading to the finish line, a piece of cake except for the fact that the jumps were positioned behind the table. “Here” was the one word I knew with a fair amount of certainty that Cisco would respond to, even with the temptation of his best friend’s bark to distract him, so I called, “Here!” and, “Over!” in the same breath. Cisco sprang off the table, racing toward me like a jet rocket, just as I spun around to direct him toward the jumps. One of us miscalculated.
He barreled into me full speed, cracking his forehead against my nose before bouncing off. I saw stars. Blood sprayed the sand, and I went down like the proverbial sack of lead.
~*~
FOUR
Twenty-two hours before the shooting
Buck got tied up on a call with one of the commissioners, and he had a conference call with the state police at two. Just before three o’clock, Rosie brought in the schedule of court appearances and a stack of forms for him to initial, which he did without glancing at them. “Did you find the file on that Berman fellow?”
“It was in the basement, from 1993 when the case was closed, before we started putting everything on the computer. You know, if you could get the commissioners to authorize just two clerks, we could start scanning some of that stuff in.”
“Yeah, that and other dreams.” He scrawled his last “BL” and glanced up at her. “Well? Where is it?”
“The sheriff—that is, Mr. Bleckley took it with him.”
He stared at her. “He did what?’
“That’s what you wanted it for, isn’t it? I mean, I didn’t think to ask… I just figured…”
Buck bit down hard on his temper. His back teeth ached with the effort. He pushed up abruptly from the desk and strode toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Lunch.”
“But it’s almost three o’clock!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Buck…” She sounded worried. “Did I do something wrong?”
He sucked in a breath as he looked back at her and then compressed his lips tightly against the words that wanted to be blurted. In the end all he said was a terse, “Next time, ask.” And, because she was still in the room, he didn’t even get the satisfaction of slamming the door on his way out.
Buck had always found that it took less energy to let his anger go than to hold on to it, and if he got mad about everything that went wrong in this office, he wouldn’t have time to do anything but get mad. By the time he walked the three blocks to Meg’s Diner, he’d calmed considerably. Roe’s SUV was parked in front, just as he figured it would be, which saved him a trip out to the country.
This late in the day Meg wasn’t officially serving, but she looked up from wiping the counter when he came in and called, “Afternoon, Buck. Don’t tell me you’re just now getting around to lunch.”
“I’m afraid so, Meg. What’ve you got left over for a poor starving lawman?”
The place was nearly empty. John Williams, from the bank, was chatting over coffee with Preacher Barton, and a couple of women at a window table lingered over pie. Roe was in a booth, and he looked up, unsurprised, when Buck came in.
“How about I whip you up a club sandwich and a fresh batch of fries?” Meg offered. “I’ve got some blueberry pie, too.”
“Meg, I swear, I’m going to marry you some day.”
Meg, who was easily twice his age, winked at him and replied, “I’m not going to wait forever, you handsome thing,” as she disappeared into the kitchen. Buck made his way over to Roe, stopping to speak to John and the preacher and nodding pleasantly toward the women at the window table. They smiled back at him.
He slid into the booth opposite Roe. “You know you can go to jail for stealing official government documents.”
Roe leaned back against the seat with a small frown. He closed the file and pushed it toward Buck. “I just wanted to see if it made any more sense now than it did back then.”
Buck turned a couple of pages. “Looks pretty