“Really?” She fixed her eyes on Helene. “I’ve been worried about you. I spent months trying to find you after your mom’s accident.”

Helene didn’t understand. “You tried to find me?”

“Ever since your dad disappeared, I did my best to convince your mom to leave Coldwater and move here with me. You know your mom, she was too proud to accept help. But I’d finally convinced her, and she was just about to quit her job, but then she had her accident. I only found out because her phone kept sending me to voicemail, and she didn’t return my calls. I got worried and called the sheriff’s office, and a deputy told me what had happened.

“So I asked the deputy to put me in touch with you. He called me back later that day, saying he’d spoken with you and given you my phone number. He said you were legally an adult, so that was all he could do. But you never called.”

Helene stared at her. “Nobody talked to me. Nobody ever gave me your number.”

“Well, the deputy also gave me the address where you were living, so after a week I got in the car and drove to Montana to find you. The man at that address said you’d gone to Missoula to stay with a family friend. He didn’t have their information, but he said you’d be home soon. I left him a letter for you. I invited you to move here to Brandon, to come live with me.”

Helene felt her heart breaking. “You did?”

If she’d gotten that letter, everything might have been different.

“I wrote a half-dozen more after that,” Aunt Willa said, “but I never heard from you. I was afraid you were lost.”

“I never went to Missoula,” Helene said. “I never got any letters.” She didn’t need to ask, but she did anyway. “Do you remember the deputy’s name?”

“I do, because I wrote it down,” Aunt Willa said. “Bogaloosa. Deputy Bogaloosa.”

Roy laughed, a strange, guttural sound. “Wow.”

“How is that funny?” Aunt Willa asked. She turned her piercing blue eyes on him. “Roy, what’s your last name?”

He laughed again. “You think I’m Deputy Bogaloosa?” He patted the badge on his belt. “No, I’m a South Dakota state trooper. The name’s Wiley.”

“Wiley,” her aunt said. “South Dakota?”

The little TV was still on. Aunt Willa’s eyes flicked to it, just for a moment. Then she cleared her throat and glanced at her watch. “Actually, I do have some appointments this morning.” She reached into her jacket pocket for her phone. “Why don’t you two have a seat in the living room while the coffee brews, and I’ll call my assistant and see what she can reschedule. I can scramble some eggs if you’re hungry.”

But Roy wasn’t fooled.

With a sweep of his left hand, he knocked the phone from her grasp, then raised his right and punched her hard in the face.