She scowled at the ground, her heavy shoulders slumping. She had brought a shovel.

“The sheriff knows I’m here,” Fanta tried again. “I’m a friend of hers.”

“But I’ll be in the history books by then,” Golly told Faith. “So it’s gonna be your medicine, your call. You’ll be on your own.”

Fanta watched her lips move silently.

“You don’t need time, or France,” he told Golly once more. “You don’t need to go anywhere. Just bring the world to you. All you need is—”

Golly cocked the weapon behind him.

It’s OK, Fanta told himself. You were killed a long time ago in Vietnam…

With all his dwindling voice he bellowed his final words—“Jump! Run!”—and the last two things he saw were the fuzz of a live child vaulting off a sod roof, and the fast-departing swish of Tippy’s tail.

… You just didn’t die until today.

CHAPTER 31

By the time Sheriff Kick called from the ridge road, heading home in final daylight, the sky was deep indigo, with stars pushing through and hung with what seemed like an oversized and faintly pink gibbous moon. The Charger’s dash said ninety-five degrees.

“Denise, before you punch out, contact that outfit that’s spraying for the gypsy moths. I want to go up with them first thing in the morning. I need to get up high and look for somebody living deep off the grid. Pay them whatever.”

“Ten-four, my queen.”

The obvious struck her. “How did you know that Fanta was asking about the Golly property in Town of Leavings?”

“What?”

“The emails you’ve been sending me. Aren’t you Oppo?”

“Emails? What are you talking about?”

“You won’t lose your job, Denise. Trust me, by tomorrow Rickreiner won’t be running for sheriff anymore. And thank you for the tips. I’m putting it all together.”

The sheriff turned on her headlights and the air exploded with insects, a billion motes of alien energy hopping and swirling and flowing over the Charger, ticking its surfaces like hail.

“Heidi,” Denise said, “check behind your ear for a tampon.”

At home, Harley met her cheerfully in the front yard and towed her into the porch light to show her the first good news she had seen all day: two sealed white business envelopes that read in scrawly blue crayon from taylor kick.

“He did it, hon! These are his apologies for pushing people at the pool yesterday. This one is for Dylan and Grammy Belle.”

To this envelope, Taylor had attached a red T. rex sticker—favorite color, favorite creature.

“And, of course, this one.”

To the envelope for Becky Rilke-Rickreiner and her boy he had affixed a sticker of a green germ.

“That’s hardball right there,” her husband joked. “He might have a future in politics.”

She put her forehead against his thick chest and listened to his heartbeat.

“Oh, God, Harley.”

“What?”

“Rumors.”