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Tucker

2-Down: Fallacy; hallucination (8 letters)

“Doc Wright?” ot a visitor! Where’d you get to?”

I froze, pencil indown my nose, half an unchewed mint Milano cookie between uilt

I reached up and flipped off the light on my headlamp

Vienna Goodley had one of those voices that carried—as in, through the walls of round floor of the old Victorian and up the stairs to hway, southwest as far as Nashville, and east to the Sly efficient, but the way she yelled made vases tremble and cracks appear in the enamel of my teeth

Still, I couldn’t exactly fire her For one thing, I genuinely liked her , I hadn’t ever really hired her I’d just sort of inherited her when I bought the practice from Doc Thorne before he and his wife retired to Cape Coral a couple of years back, and I’d found it easier not to question things

My firstin the house, I’d stepped out of the shower dressed only in a towel and found her co out of the utility roo an enormous wrench

“Mornin’, Tuck! I’er,” she’d said cheerily, once I’d peeled“I remember you from when you were a little boy Noticed the hot water pressure was a little wonky, so I fixed it for ya”

I hadn’t known it then, but this was Vienna’s MO: she identified a problem, and she solved it, by God And she preferred to ask for forgiveness rather than permission