Free The Silence of the Llamas by Anne Canadeo Page A

been knitting as long, either. Maggie thought she was quite able but lacked confidence. She needed to break through the argyle ceiling on her own, if possible.
    Lucy was not the only one to bring Maggie her knitting mishaps. Not by a long shot. Maggie sorted out just about everyone’s tangles and lost stitches. It was her particular genius and calling. Her friends had started calling her the local EFT—Emergency Fiber Technician. An odd little nickname, but it fit her pretty well, she had to admit.
    Lucy closed the bag and hooked it over her arm. “Oh, I’ll figure it out. I’d better get Monday started.”
    Maggie was surprised but impressed. “It’s the right thing to do, Lucy. Sorting out your own knitting problems builds character.”
    “Thanks for the tough love. I’ll try to remember that when I’m about to throw this mess across the TV room.”
    “As long as you don’t throw it at Matt, I think a little venting can be a good thing,” Maggie advised.
    Lucy waved and headed out the door. Alert to her approach, the dogs were both up on their hind legs, noses pressed against the big bay window at the front of the store.
    Maggie thought Tink and Walley looked very cute, though she’d have to send Phoebe out later with some paper towels and a bottle of Windex. Lucy’s canine friends had fogged up the entire lower half of the glass.
    •   •   •
    Lucy hadn’t thought much about Maggie’s tough love when she left the shop that morning. But that night after dinner, when she took the vest out of her knitting bag and spread it out on her lap, she suddenly regretted that she had not persuaded her knitting mentor to fix the messy spot and leave her to build character with some other, more important, life challenge.
    Picking over the wayward stitches and trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong, she sighed out loud in frustration.
    “What are you working on, honey?” Matt was stretched out on the couch in their small sitting room, channel surfing. The dogs were stretched out side by side on the area rug, working on chew toys.
    “Building character. ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,’ ” she mumbled, quoting Friedrich Nietzsche and knowing Matt had no idea what she was talking about. She looked up at his puzzled expression. “I’ve messed up your vest, and Maggie wants me to figure it out for myself. She thinks it will make me a better person.”
    “I get it. Well, I think you’re a pretty cool person right now. I don’t see much room for improvement. Can’t you just cut out the tangled part or something?”
    Lucy had to smile at his compliment and the suggestion. “Wish I could. But, once again, knitting imitates life.”
    She dug the pattern out of her bag and tried to figure out where she’d gone wrong. Matt finally stopped the remote on a nature documentary about giant grizzly bears. Not Lucy’s first choice. But at least it wasn’t sports and he wasn’t bouncing around the channels for hours, which gave her a headache.
    The mighty brown bears were ambling through rushing streams and gorging on wild salmon. Matt was dozing off, one hand hanging off the couch, absently patting Walley on the head.
    His cell phone rang, jarring him awake, and he pulled it from his shirt pocket. “Dr. McDougal,” he answered as he abruptly sat up. “Really? That’s terrible. . . . Where is the wound?”
    That single word and the sharp tone of his question caught Lucy’s attention. He was totally focused, listening with a somber expression to the pet owner on the other side of the line.
    “Keep pressure on it. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
    Lucy had already dropped her knitting and waited for him to end the call. “Who was that? What’s wrong?”
    Matt picked up one of his jogging shoes and pulled it on without untying the laces. “The Kruegers. . . . One of the llamas was just stabbed. Dot found it out in the pasture. I have to get over there right away.”
    “How