I felt sick inside. I’ve seen and heard of bad things, evil things, because of this “gift” the lightning left me. In the past, so many babies died; so many things could go wrong, things that are rare now. I’d stood on many tiny graves and seen the still, white faces, and it never failed to be a sad moment. The murder of a child was the worst of crimes, in my book, the absolute rock bottom of evil.

“That’s what she was assuming. She couldn’t find any birth record. So maybe Mariah had the child by herself.”

“Oh, what kind of woman doesn’t go to the hospital when she feels her time’s there?”

“Maybe one who can’t,” Tolliver said.

I felt my lips compress with disgust and horror. “You mean someone wouldn’t let her go to the hospital? Or simply allowed her to die of neglect?” I didn’t need to say that was cruel and inhuman. Tolliver shared my feelings.

“It’s possible. That’s the best explanation for her having died after childbirth, and there being no record of the child or a hospital stay for her.”

“And if it wasn’t for me . . .”

“No one would ever have known any of this.”

Put that way, I guess it was no surprise that someone wanted me dead.

Thirteen

Thirteen

I ran in place on the treadmill in the “exercise room,” the hotel’s token nod to fitness. At least it was in an enclosed area, which right now meant “safe.” I’d woken up early, and I could tell by his breathing that Tolliver was deep in dreamland.

I had a better picture of why all these awful things were happening around me, but I didn’t have any idea what to do about it. I had nothing to take to the police, nothing, and the Joyces were rich and connected. I didn’t know if all of them were involved, or if the shooter and the murderer (I considered both the deaths of Mariah Parish and Rich Joyce to be murders) were one and the same and acting alone. The three Joyces and the Joyce boyfriend were all capable people with guns, almost undoubtedly. Maybe I was stereotyping, but I didn’t think a western rancher like Rich Joyce would teach his granddaughters how to ride rodeo and neglect to teach them how to shoot, and Drex would have to learn as a matter of course. The boyfriend, too. I knew the least about Chip Moseley. He looked like a good match for Lizzie; he was just as lean and weather-beaten, and he looked competent and down-to-earth. He was skeptical of my claims, but he could join most of the people I met in that respect.