For an instant, I went inside myself, and the vision I saw was more vividly real than Boomer or the surrounding cemetery, the sky overhead or the earth under my feet. I became two people; one small, kneeling on a cheaply carpeted floor, sick with terror and desperation, one grown, sprawled on my back, strangling on my own blood. There was no physical pain, but I knew I was dying. An image began to form in my mind…

Someone grabbed my arm. “Miss Sheepshanks? Are you all right?”

I blinked. Boomer came into sharp focus, and the rest of the environment assembled itself around him in a dizzying, chock-a-block way.

I was on my knees in the dry, sparse grass, hugging myself hard with both arms, as if I might splinter into fragments if I didn’t hold on tight. Bile seared the back of my throat, and I couldn’t speak for that, and for the knowledge that I’d just been inside my mother’s dying body, with the face of her killer about to do a fade-in on the screen of her mind.

A mind we’d temporarily shared.

A horrible thought blindsided me just then, and nearly sent me plunging face down into the rough dirt of that cemetery.

Was I the killer?

Was that the real reason Lillian had whisked me away and cobbled together whole new identities, for me and for herself? Because she thought I’d been the one to pull the trigger and wanted to spare me the consequences?

“Take a swig of this,” Boomer ordered, shoving a water bottle into my hand.

I unscrewed the lid and gulped. Even in that distracted state, it occurred to me to wonder if Boomer and I were swapping germs, but I made a split-second decision to consider the backwash issue later.

Presently, Boomer helped me to my feet and led me to a nearby bench, in the shade of the same cottonwood overarching my parents’ graves.

“You stay right here,” Boomer said. “I’m going back to the office to call 911.”

I caught at his hand, work-roughened and bull-strong, and held on. “No,” I rasped. “I’m—I’m fine. Please…just let me…sit here for a moment….”

Boomer eyed me with concern, obviously conducting an internal debate, then sat his bulk down beside me on the bench, giving a huffing sigh as he did so. I realized I was still gripping his hand and let go.

“It must be an awful thing to remember,” he said hoarsely.

I nodded. Shoved my fingers through my hair. I’d shampooed it that morning, in the guesthouse shower at Casa Larimer, but now it felt sticky and tangled. The malaise seemed to affect me on every level of my being: full-body bedhead, on a universal scale.

“The problem is,” I croaked, “there’s too much I don’t remember.”