“She looked like a nice person.” Laughing. “That’s a stupid thing to say.”

“Not at all, Heather. You’re searching for answers. Everyone is.”

She sat there for a while, shredding the tissue, letting flecks fall to the immaculate rug. “I saw the hole in her head. She was shot, right? I asked the cops but they wouldn’t tell me.”

“She was,” I said. “How’d the topic of the baby come up?”

“Soon after they finished asking me questions one of them got a call on his doo-what, his radio, then he hung up and the two of them started discussing something. They looked nervous so I asked them what’s up. They didn’t want to tell me but I cried and bugged them. Because that always works with my parents. Finally they told me. Was it her baby?”

“We don’t know.”

“Don’t you think it was? Why would both of them get killed the same time in the park? Nothing ever happens in the park. I’ve been running for months and the worst thing I ever saw was a coyote, that was way back when I first started. Just standing there, all bony and hungry-looking. I screamed and it ran away.”

“Spotting the body was a lot tougher.”

“The flies,” she said. “That was the grossest. At first I thought it was one of those dummies in the department store—a manikin.” Giggle. “They should call it a womanikin, right? She had one bare foot and that’s what got my attention, real pale, almost like plastic. Then I saw the rest of her, then I heard the flies.” She sighed. “I guess someone had to find her.”

“Keeping your wits about you and calling 911 took presence of mind.”

“Actually my first thought was to book as fast as I could, but then I thought what if someone’s still around and they try to shoot me? So I took a second to look around, check out the area, figure out the best escape route. The park was so quiet and that kind of made it even freakier. A nice morning, the sky was blue, and she’s just lying there. When do the cops think they’ll know who she is?”

“There’s no way to tell, Heather.”

“That sucks. So … my dreams don’t mean I’m a head-case?”

“Your brain’s using sleep to take in what happened and give your mind time to integrate. And yes, talking about it can help. Because one way or the other people need to express themselves.”

She finished destroying the tissue. Deliberately sprinkled the fragments onto the floor. “Is this talk totally secret?”

“Absolutely.”

“No one finds out? Not the cops? Not my parents?”

“You have total confidentiality.”

“What if I want you to say something to someone?”

“Your choice.”

“I’m in control.”

“Yes.”

“That’s … interesting.”