Death Indoors: Target Practice Mysteries 4 by Nikki Haverstock Page A

sides were still heaving. "Man, did they run him ragged?"
    "Pretty much. I wanted to get Moo fed so he was set for the rest of the day. By the time I wrestled him away, I was running late. How are you doing?"
    I shrugged. "Okay. This is the first end, so you didn't miss much. The screaming coach is gone. I wonder if they kicked him out."
    "Could be." He raised his eyebrows. "Don't worry about that now. Go kick butt. Hey, Jess."
    Jess had come up behind me. "You doing okay, Di? I saw some of the kids crying. What's up?"
    "The girl on my left was upset because Coach Ron wasn't there. I'm not sure what happened to the girl on my right, Davey, er... I think her mom said her name was CarolAnn. She had some bad shots, and that upset her."
    Jess nodded. "A lot of times the archers will do well one round then horrible the next, or the reverse."
    "Why?"
    "They get to overthinking. Wanting to do even better the second round or something. Then a bad arrow can throw them off. The key is to always focus on your form. Scores can be a distraction. What are you focused on?"
    "Strong, aggressive shots."
    "Good. Keep your head together."
    ***
    By the fourth end, it took everything in me to stay focused. The caterwauling of Coach Ron was gone, but in its place the archers around me were falling apart. The redheaded archer behind me, along with Davey in front, had cried their way through four ends. Serious Matt hadn't cried, but he was snippy and had grunted and groaned his way through the scoring.
    Mouse had a pass-through, where her arrow went completely through the target. They used the existing marked holes in her target, which she had changed after the first round, to determine which hole was made by the pass-through. Afterwards, they removed all paper target faces on her target mat and rolled out a new mat to her target stand to prevent it from happening again.
    Jess was talking to Brian off to the side as I approached Liam. Moo got up, stretching his front paws all the way out front, with his chest on the floor and his butt high in the air. His tail whipped back and forth while he stretched. Eventually he stood up and walking over to me.
    I knelt down next to him, and he jammed his wet nose into my eye. "Thank you, buddy." I scratched behind his ears as Loggin approached.
    "What is going on this round?"
    "What do you mean?" I stood up and wiped my hands on my black pants, leaving a trail of white dog hair across my thighs. Moo leaned into my legs, and with a sigh, I continued to rub his back as he rubbed an even layer of dog hair across the entire front of my pants.
    "Everyone's falling apart. I've not seen this many tears since I told the local ladies I was moving to Salt Lake City."
    "It's the same around here." I leaned in and lowered my voice. "What's going on?"
    "There's something in the air or something. It tends to be catching. A few people start shooting badly, and everyone around them catches it. Wait a second." He stepped away from me and held up his hands to ward off any bad energy. "How are you shooting?"
    I rolled my eyes at him. "Not awesome, but a little better than I was first round." It was true. I wasn't shooting as well as I had in practice this past week, but I had managed to pull myself together as well as I could. I stood a little taller. That wasn't a bad accomplishment.
    "Good, you're safe then. Did the screaming coach ever come back?"
    "No, actually." I looked around for Jess, who was no longer talking to Brian, and waved her closer. "Jess, what happened to Coach Ron? Did they kick him out?"
    She was chewing on her lip but stopped to answer. "No, they were going to ask a few more questions of him, but they couldn't find him. Instead, they asked Marie if she would be okay with them continuing the tournament and not ruling on either protest until they could talk to him."
    Marie Johnston must be the reverse-mullet mom who screamed that she would kill Coach Ron for filming her daughter. "That's ominous."
    Jess's