While she chopped up vegetables and leftover chicken, Fiji thought about how to resolve the town crisis. The death of Aubrey was no longer Bobo’s tragedy—or at least, not only his. Aubrey’s murder surely tied into the legend of the missing guns. Fiji feared that bad men would keep showing up as long as Bobo lived, in search of the mythical treasure trove of death.

Fiji heard the shop doorbell tinkle, and she dumped everything on the chopping board into the pot of chicken broth. As she washed her hands, she thought of having corn bread with the soup tonight. As she was drying them, she told herself how much better the soup would be without the corn bread, and failed to convince herself that could be so. As she hurried down the short hall to the front of the shop, she called, “I’m coming.”

She was already smiling when she stepped into the front room. The smile vanished when she saw a tall man in a cowboy hat standing in the middle of the display cases. He was draped in a cheap yellow rain poncho, dripping water all over the boards and throw rugs. She was not a psychic or a telepath, but she knew bad intentions when she saw them, and Price Eggleston meant her no good. She spun on her heel to run down the hall and out the back door, but in three big strides he went around the chairs and table, seized her by the shoulder, and wrapped one arm around her middle. Then he clapped the other hand over her mouth.

Fiji struggled with all her might, using her elbows and kicking and squirming, but he was a strong man. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Snuggly. He’d jumped out of his basket and was hiding in the shadows under the shelves. She fought all the harder, hoping her assailant would not notice the cat and do him harm.

“Keep still, you bitch!” Eggleston growled, and she kicked backward to strike his shin. He was hampered by the plastic poncho and by his instinctive avoidance of the furniture and fixtures of the shop. But when he let her down a little, enough so her feet could touch the floor, Fiji planted them on the floor and pushed backward with all her might. She succeeded in causing Eggleston to slam into a clear case full of small glass ornaments and sun catchers, and the case went over. Fiji was trying to leave a record of what had happened, and when she heard the crash as the case hit the floor, she knew she had succeeded.