The remark caught Cole off guard. “I came here to use the pay phone. Thought I’d grab a cup of coffee so I can stay awake long enough to ride home and go to sleep.”

She nodded. “Long night.”

“So you know what happened?”

“Doesn’t everybody? I already told you, Cole, I’m the biggest Jackrabbits fan there is. I was in the stands with the rest of ’em last night, waiting for my boys to show up. Of course, they never did.”

“Of course. Mind if I smoke?”

She slid her empty bowl away and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Only if you’ll light one for me.”

They smoked in silence for a while as Tammy Wynette stood by her man on the jukebox.

“How’s Coodles?” Cole said.

“Fit as a fiddle.”

He decided he was too tired not to cut to the chase. “Mona, Coodles was lying dead on my front lawn yesterday morning, wasn’t he?”

She smiled. “Yep, bled out like a stuck pig.”

“And that was the same Coodles I brought to your porch yesterday afternoon, right?”

“Didn’t I say as much yesterday?”

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You know what. How did you heal the cat? How did you do this?” He took off his glove and extended his hand across the table.

Mona looked at it and shrugged.

“What the hell did you do to me yesterday, Mona?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“But how? It’s not possible.”

“Clearly it is.”

Her flippancy was beginning to grate on him. “So it’s true? Everything they say about you is true?”

“Well, I never gave anyone the clap if that’s what you want to know—at least, not by way of mystical forces.”

Cole looked over both shoulders, then leaned across the table. “So where do your powers come from? What is it, voodoo? Satan worship? Some kind of pagan mumbo jumbo or something?”

She looked offended by the suggestions. “I’m a Christian, God-fearing lady, young man. Never miss a Sunday service. Whatever powers I have, I consider to be by the grace of the Almighty.”

“Fine. So how did you come by such blessings?”

“DNA. My mother had the gift. She was raised in a coven outside Shreveport. Some residual powers passed on to me through the genes. It’s not common, but not unheard of, either.”

“A coven?”

“You know, a group of gals who get together to explore the dark secrets of the supernatural.” She said it like she was talking about a bridge club.

“So you’re a witch?”