 
Die

Noon

book one of the goodnight mysteries series

elise sax

Die Noon (Goodnight Mysteries- Book 1) is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Elise Sax

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1724740700

Published in the United States by 13 Lakes Publishing

Cover design: Elizabeth Mackey

Edited by: Novel Needs

Formatted by: Jesse Kimmel-Freeman

Printed in the United States of America

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elisesax@gmail.com

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For my cousin, Sareet, who went to New Mexico with me and carried my suitcase.

# Also by Elise Sax

Matchmaker Mysteries Series

Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda

Road to Matchmaker

An Affair to Dismember

Citizen Pain

The Wizards of Saws

Field of Screams

From Fear to Eternity

West Side Gory

Scareplane

It Happened One Fright

The Big Kill

It's a Wonderful Knife

Ship of Ghouls

Goodnight Mysteries Series

Die Noon

Doom With A View

Five Wishes Series

Going Down

Man Candy

Hot Wired

Just Sacked

Wicked Ride

Five Wishes Series

Three More Wishes Series

Blown Away

Inn & Out

Quick Bang

Three More Wishes Series

Forever Series

Forever Now

Bounty

Switched

Moving Violations

Also by Elise Sax

A Note from the Author

Part I: Matilda Moves in and Finds a Few Surprises

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Part II: Matilda Helps Silas and Asks Questions

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Part III: Silas is Attacked by a Flying Saucer, and Matilda Wants Revenge

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part IV: The Plot Thickens, and Chaos Ensues

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part V: Goodnight Has Bad Giraffe Karma, and Matilda Tells It Like it is.

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Also by Elise Sax

About the Author

# A Note from the Author

I'm so excited to share the Goodnight Mysteries with you. Die Noon is the first in this new series, featuring Matilda Dare, who appeared in Book 10 of the Matchmaker Mysteries. If you like a hilarious happy ending with a great mystery, romance, and a touch of what could be the paranormal (to be determined!), then you'll love the world of Goodnight, New Mexico.

Each book in the series will focus on Matilda, her attempts to run a small newspaper, the renovation of her old house, two possible love interests, and a murder mystery, all with laugh-out-loud adventures.

A murder mystery will be resolved at the end of each book in the series, and there will be one overarching mystery, which will play out through the series and will be resolved in the last book.

Goodnight, New Mexico is a crazy, dying town that was created out of my imagination. It's trying to revitalize itself and become reborn...a lot like Matilda. But I'd like to thank the beautiful city of Santa Fe, New Mexico and many of its residents for inspiring me to locate my next series in their wonderful state.

I would like to especially thank the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office, Dr. Spencer G. Lucas, the Director of Research and Collections at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, and Phill Casaus, Editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. In addition, I would like to thank the Madeleine Inn and Café Pasqual's.

Finally, no giraffes were harmed in the writing of this book. The inspiration for the story of Daisy the giraffe came from a real live event in Tennessee in 1916 when a town hanged Mary the elephant, after she killed her trainer. Poor Mary.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy!

\--Elise Sax

# Part I: Matilda Moves in and Finds a Few Surprises

Goodnight Gazette Enters Uncertain Era

By Silas Miller

The new owner and publisher of the Goodnight Gazette, Matilda Dare, arrived in town today from California. She drove here in a beat-up Nissan Altima with no front bumper, a result of her running into a house back home. Ms. Dare has no experience in journalism and has never been to New Mexico before. She inherited the Gazette, along with its headquarters, which is housed in a prominent, historical compound home in the hills above the Goodnight UFOs shop and next to the Friends of Daisy the Giraffe Home for Abused Wildlife.

The former owner and publisher of the Gazette, Chris Simmons, died two weeks ago from an allergic reaction to a hornet sting while walking his dogs in the forest behind the house. Ms. Dare also inherited the dogs.

When asked if she would continue the newspaper or if she would shutter it, Ms. Dare responded: "What? I have a newspaper? What?"

The Goodnight Gazette won the Southwest Watchdog award five years in a row. It's a treasured fixture in the troubled town of Goodnight. Townspeople have been up in arms at the prospect of losing the Gazette. "If that woman shuts you down, I'll tase her," Patrolwoman Wendy Ackerman told this reporter at the Goodnight Diner. "No Californian can come here and tell us how to live."

Derek from Goodnight Fly Fishing Tours discussed his consternation about the newspaper's new owner. "What am I going to do about my advertising? I'll get a refund, right?" he asked over his breakfast of green chili eggs and sourdough toast.

This reporter will update our readers on the future of our paper, if Ms. Dare doesn't close it before he gets the chance. As for rumors that Matilda Dare is insane, calls to her hometown refuted them.

"No, she's not crazy," Gladys Burger, Ms. Dare's friend, insisted. "I mean, yes, she was locked up in a rubber room and shackled to a bed, but it was a mistake. She's as sane as I am."

In addition to being the town's matchmaker, Ms. Burger once found a severed head in a lobster tank, and she claims that she can predict the weather.

# Chapter 1

My name's Matilda Dare, and I might see dead people. I mean, after they're buried and gone. I also have a problem with encountering more than my fair share of killers.

I didn't know any of that when I started my new life in Goodnight, New Mexico. I had only had one up close and personal killer up until that point, and I may or may not have brought a dead woman back to life. But boy, was that about to change.

I had left my old life behind two weeks ago, and I was now the owner of a large house, which included the headquarters of the Goodnight Gazette, two ancient dogs, and enough money to fix the plumbing and electricity and keep the paper running for three months. After that, I was going to have to sell pencils in town to survive.

But, I'm an optimist. So, after I arrived in town and was greeted by the four-person staff of the Goodnight Gazette like I was goose-stepping down the Champs Élysées and they were the French resistance, they informed me that I now owned the place, which was headquartered in my house, I heard myself say, "I plan on making a go of the paper," which surprised the hell out of me. The newspaper was totally unexpected, but it answered the question of what I was going to do in New Mexico. It's always good to know what one is going to do when starting a new life.

"Yeah? You're going to make a go?" Silas Miller, the head reporter, challenged me, while I still held the handle of my suitcase in my hand. "Do you know that the Gazette has never made a profit?"

"Nothing in Goodnight makes a profit," Klee Johnson, the managing editor, added.

"The diner does pretty well," Jack the paperboy said.

"That's true," Klee said. "I do love their smoked trout hash."

"Best green chili in town," Silas agreed. "But nothing else makes money here."

"How does the paper stay in business?" I asked. Klee shrugged, and it set off a wave of shoulders rising. "Well, that doesn't matter," I announced and broke out into panic-induced hives. "I believe in the importance of a free press in a democracy. So, this will be a go."

I made a silent prayer that there would be a major earthquake, which would create a large crevice that would open in the earth to swallow me up. But then I remembered that I wasn't in California anymore. So, I prayed for a fire. But God wasn't cooperating. Instead of sending me a natural disaster, he sent me a financial disaster.

Luckily, just then the paper got a call about a possible UFO sighting over the fracking fields west of town, and the focus moved from me to Martians. Then, I found my room, left to me from a dead relative I never knew I had, and took four Xanax while I scrubbed and cleaned and organized before I went to bed with a couple tiny bottles of booze, which I had taken from the mini fridge at a motel in Phoenix on my way to Goodnight.

But, of course, I didn't sleep. I hadn't slept since I was a teenager. I was hoping that the fresh, mountain air would help, but it didn't. Instead, in addition to not being able to sleep, I couldn't seem to get a lungful of air, no matter how much I tried.

Later, Klee told me that I had altitude sickness and that it would go away in a couple of months. "If you last that long," she added, like she wasn't at all convinced.

She had warmed up since then. In my experience, neat freak insomniacs are hard to love, but we're great landlords. In two weeks, I had scrubbed the living quarters from the floors up to the ceilings and planted flowers in the courtyard. Klee approved. She also liked that I left the Gazette in her hands. It was her territory, and I knew better than to invade.

Little did she know that I planned on victory by attrition, earning my ownership with tiny, imperceptible steps. I was an all or nothing kind of person, but I always seemed to choose all instead of nothing.

In my zeal and tendency to lean toward the extremes, I usually failed in my efforts. But not this time. This time, I was determined to live happily ever after. Especially after what I had gone through back in California.

That's why I sat in on the morning editorial meeting for the first time that Monday, and that's how it all started. My new life. And love, too. If I had been satisfied to leave well enough alone and leave journalism for the journalists, it might have all turned out differently. There would have been no adventures. I would never have found my place. And the rest. Well, the rest would have happened, but I would have never known about it.

The house was made of mud plaster, one-story cut into a square of four wings with a courtyard in the middle. The Gazette's offices were in the front section of the house. I walked in past Klee's desk and sat by the wall, next to two desks that were pushed together. Those belonged to Silas and the junior reporter, Jimmy Sanchez, a thin young man who was convinced that he was better than all this and was destined to make it to The Washington Post. The paperboy was in school and so wasn't at the meeting.

"What're you doing here?" Silas demanded. "Figuring out what to do with this space when you shut us down?"

As far as I could tell, Silas only had one suit, which he wore every day. It was a greenish brown with a stain on the lapel. He had two button-down shirts, both short-sleeved. I figured they used to be white, but that ship sailed a long time ago. His tie was pulled loose so that his top shirt button could rest undone. He was sitting with his legs outstretched, resting on his desk, crossed at the ankle, giving me a good look at the bottoms of his shoes. He wore old-fashioned, brown Hush Puppies slip-ons, and the soles were nearly worn through. His desk was piled high with paper with a narrow tunnel for him and his computer.

Jimmy's desk was bare, with just a computer and not a scrap of paper. On his skinny frame, he wore a tight black suit, which was a couple of inches too short. Klee looked fabulous in flowy slacks and a hand-painted tunic, chunky jewelry, and a handwoven scarf that wound around her neck three times. She was a beautiful older woman with thick, long black hair. Her desk was covered in organization boxes, plastic shelves, and a large phone with a shoulder rest attached to the handset.

"I'm not going to shut you down," I told Silas for the millionth time. I so wanted to shut them down. The paper was like an albatross around my neck. I had no idea about how to run a newspaper or journalism in general, and I had even less of an idea how to make it profitable. "I'm here to learn. And I'm here to help."

Silas's mouth dropped open before it turned into a smile. "You want to help? Hear that Klee? I think we can get some work for the boss. What do you think?"

"I've got the reopening of the Goodnight Community Pool at nine," Klee said, handing me a press release. "How about three hundred words?"

"What? You want me to write?" I asked.

"I heard that you have three PnDs," she said. I did. They were in Floral Management, Bowling Industry Technology, and Leisure Studies. None of them required writing. And three hundred words? How long was that? Twenty pages? I had no idea. But I did know I couldn't write twenty pages.

"Three hundred words. No problem," I said, skimming the one-paragraph announcement about the pool.

"Jimmy, get the woman a glass of water," Silas ordered. "The boss looks like she's going to pass out or have a stroke. One or the other."

Jimmy scowled and went to the water cooler. "I'm fine," I lied.

"Don't worry. I'll walk you through it," Silas said, surprising me. "If we leave soon, we'll have an hour at the diner before you have to be at the pool, and I'll give you the rundown on how to be a reporter."

Klee handed out the assignments. Jimmy was going to take the "if it bleeds, it leads" beat, and Silas had a list of about ten stories to cover, including a big investigative piece on a petroleum company and water rights.

We headed out at about a quarter to eight, and I followed Silas to the diner in my Altima. I was both nervous and excited about my assignment. I enjoyed tackling something new, but I wished I had more time to learn how to do it.

The diner was a centerpiece in town, but since I had been stuck cleaning at home, I had never eaten there. It was located in the plaza, wedged in between the Goodnight Hat Shop and the Goodnight Porcelain Cat Shop.

I parked behind Silas's old, gold, four-door Cavalier on the street in front of the diner and walked in with him. He opened the door, which made a ringing sound, and walked in, not bothering to hold it open for me. The diner had booths all along the walls and about five round tables in the center. The kitchen was at the back of the diner with a long open cutout where the cook put the finished meals to be picked up. Everything was clean, but dingy.

The diner was packed with working men, and they all turned to look at me when I entered. Silas waved at a woman about my age and took a seat in a booth by the window. "Adele, get the boss a menu. She'll probably want one."

I sat down and took the menu from Adele. "It's about time you came in," she said to me. "Nearly everyone in this town is a regular. What're you doing up in that house? Eating cereal? Nobody can survive on cereal. You're in Goodnight, now, sweetie. You need eggs. You need tortillas. I know what you need." She took the menu from me before I had a chance to look at it. "I'm Adele. I know everything that goes on in Goodnight. I know all about your husband in San Quentin, for example. So, you come to me if you need anything. We don't get a lot of people moving into Goodnight, you know. Not with our bad giraffe karma. And then there's the nuclear waste. And the fracking's not fabulous." She said the last bit in a whisper, eyeing the two tables full of men wearing uniforms with a petroleum company's logo on them.

"I'm glad a single woman moved in. Not many of us single gals around these parts," she continued, touching her hair. "I'm a widow, myself."

"I'm sorry for your loss. That's tough," I said. I was in the middle of a divorce to a man who put me away in a rubber room and later tried to kill me, but I thwarted his plans and conked him over the head and turned him in to the police.

Marriage is complicated.

"Doubly tough since I killed him," Adele said, wiping some lipstick off of her front teeth.

"Excuse me?"

"It's not what you think. It wasn't my fault."

"So, you what? Fed him too much saturated fat?"

"Oh, no. The man ate chicken fried steak every day of his life and had arteries you could drive a truck through. I shot him through the head. That's how he died. But it wasn't my fault."

"Are you done?" Silas asked, irritated. "Are you going to branch off into period talk? Waxing? Natural mineral cosmetics? All day with women it's yap, yap, yap."

"All that meanness is going to eat you from the inside out," Adele spat at Silas. "You're a mean, mean man. I should have shot you in the head. Don't worry, you'll get your food soon enough. Not that you couldn't survive skipping a few breakfasts."

"We have work to do," Silas countered. "The press is under attack. We will not be silenced," he bellowed.

Adele hit him hard over the head with the menu and walked to the kitchen.

Silas leaned forward and counted on his fingers. "Who, what, where, how, and why. Can you remember that?"

I nodded.

"No! You're not going to remember that. You're in the journalism game now, boss. Write down everything. Everything. You get me?"

I nodded.

"No!" he yelled, again. "I gave you a reporter's notebook. Get it out, now. A reporter is always writing in their notebook. Facts. Write the facts. So, what're you going to write?"

I pulled the reporter's notebook out of my purse. "Everything," I said.

"Good girl. Good boss. Adele! What does a man have to do to get coffee in this dump?"

"A man could ask nicely," she said and brought the coffee over.

"So, what do I write about at the pool? Do I just watch or should I ask questions?" I asked Silas.

"You watch. You ask questions. And when you've got the who, what, where, how, and why figured out, you leave. Then, you write it down in three-hundred words. Lead sentence is the most important. Lead paragraph, second important, until you get down to the I-don't-give-a-fuck part. Got me, boss?"

"You keep using that boss word, but I don't think you know what it means."

Silas punched me in the arm and laughed. "You're all right, boss."

Adele put two plates down on our table. "Smoked trout hash with green chilies and sourdough toast," she announced. "So good, you'll slap your mama."

I drove the three blocks to the Goodnight rec center. I was fine when I was sitting down, but every time I took a step, I would gasp for air. Goodnight was set up a lot like Santa Fe with old, squat buildings on short streets around a plaza, but the comparisons ended there. Santa Fe was a rich, vibrant city full of artists. Goodnight was a dying town with a nuclear fallout problem.

Nuclear waste or not, breathing or not, I was feeling optimistic. I was on my way to my first reporting assignment, and it made me feel like I was in control, helping the Gazette become profitable so that my new life could be sustainable. Still, my one-minute journalism class from Silas wasn't filling me with self-confidence.

"Who, what, where..." I repeated, as I parked on the street. Damn it. I had already forgotten the rest. A woman knocked on the passenger window, and I stepped out of the car.

"Are you from the sheriff's department?" she asked.

"No. I'm with the Gazette."

"Oh, that must be why you're not driving a sheriff's car. Do you have a gun?" she asked, hopefully. I shook my head. "Oh, well. Mabel has a cattle prod. Normally that would do it, but Norton's got a few more pounds on him than a bull."

"I'm here for the pool reopening?" I said like a question.

"Me, too," she said walking back into the rec center. I followed her. "I'm Nora. I work over at Goodnight Bank. Are you the crazy woman who bought old man Simmons' house?"

"I inherited it. He was some kind of distant cousin. And I'm not really crazy. My husband gaslighted me and put me away."

"I heard you ate a live lizard."

"What?"

It was a small rec center, and we walked through it to the outside where there was a pool and about twenty people standing around holding pool noodles and assorted pool equipment. Everyone was focused on a fracas by the diving board. A tall woman around sixty-years old with a long, narrow nose was pointing a cattle prod at an enormous man wearing a Speedo bathing suit and holding a large, inflatable duck.

"This is a family place!" she yelled at him.

"That's Mabel," Nora told me. "And that's Norton, the one with the duck, and the cleavage."

"I have a family. I'm a family man, and I want to swim," Norton countered.

I took my reporter's notebook and a pen out of my purse. What, where, when, how, and why, I reminded myself. "Is Mabel in charge of the pool?" I asked Nora.

"And the rec center and the library and half of the town."

"Here I go," I muttered and clicked my pen, holding it over my notebook. I walked toward Mabel, making sure to keep a safe distance away from her cattle prod. "Hello. I'm Matilda Dare from the Goodnight Gazette. Can you tell me about the pool reopening? Whoa!"

Standing next to Mabel, I got my first frontal look at Norton. The view from the back had been impressive enough, but the front had a whole lot happening.

"See? See?" Mabel shrieked at Norton. "Even the loony girl is shocked by the sight of you. Now, put a top on or you have to go."

"I'm a man, Mabel. And I need to feel free. I like the water to touch my body. My skin. It's a sensory thing. Are you trying to deprive me of my sensories?"

"But you have boobs!" she yelled. She was right. He had boobs. They weren't the expected man boobs situation of most large men. They were boobs. Beautiful D-cup breasts. I was a B-cup, and my left boob was bigger than my right. But Norton had it all going on. He could have been a boob model, if there was such a thing as boob models and if no one minded the thick patch of black hair on them.

"Body shamer!" he yelled. "Sensory depriver! I gotta be me! I gotta be me!"

"This is a family pool! It's not the Playboy Mansion!" she countered.

"My body needs total immersion in the water without fabric getting in the way. Fascist!"

"Pervert!"

"Commie!"

"Degenerate!"

"Brown shirt!"

"Weirdo!"

"Uptight middle manager!"

It was a boob standoff. It was like a protest at a nude beach but with a twist. What would Bob Woodward do in these circumstances? Would he continue the interview? I was pretty sure he would.

"Did you enlarge the pool, or was it just replastered?" I asked Mabel, averting my eyes from Norton's cleavage, which was no easy task. She didn't answer, distracted by movement near the door to the rec center.

I looked over, too. The sheriff had arrived with a deputy. He was a very tall man and big, but not like Norton. Like John Wayne. He was wearing jeans, a blue button-down, boots, a cowboy hat, and a big, gold sheriff's star on his chest. His eyes flicked to me and then to Mabel, who was waving him over. The deputy with him was a young, slim woman weighted down by her uniform and a heavily laden utility belt. But I didn't look much at the deputy. My eyes were fixed solely on the sheriff.

Here's the thing. I never wanted another man in my life. Never. I had had a man, a husband, and he turned out to be a killer. He also married me in order to get an inheritance and put me away in a funny farm. So, obviously my radar wasn't good about men. If I liked a man, it probably meant that he was a lying, no account murderer. Or worse.

Yes, maybe I had trust issues. Maybe I had been burned once and should have let it go, and whatever the universe threw my way, I should have welcomed with open arms. But my husband was a killer! He married me to get an inheritance, and he gaslighted me and sent me off to a funny farm!

So, damned right I had trust issues. All kinds of trust issues.

If he had a penis and was good-looking, I couldn't possibly trust him.

And guess what. The sheriff was good-looking, and he had a penis. I was sure of it. And when our eyes met for only a fraction of a second, I knew I was doomed. Damned chemistry. It's every woman's enemy.

But I was going to be strong. I was going to resist chemistry. So, I focused on Norton's boobs.

"Hey there, Amos," Mabel said to the sheriff. "I'm trying to reopen the pool, and Norton insists on being Bo Derek."

Amos the sheriff nodded at Norton. "Mornin'," he said. His voice was deep and gravelly, and I could feel one of my ovaries spur into action, shoving an egg down my fallopian tube in hopes of getting some Amos action.

Traitorous ovaries. I couldn't trust them, either.

"Amos, I like the feel of the water on my body. It's a sensory thing. You gotta cook, and I gotta let my body be free," Norton told him. Amos nodded, again.

"But look, Amos! Look!" Mabel sputtered, gesturing toward Norton's gorgeous, hairy rack.

"Freedom!" Norton yelled, raising a hand in the air and making his right boob jiggle like twenty pounds of Jell-O.

"For the love of Pete," Mabel groaned.

The crowd was growing restless. It was a hot summer's day, and the water looked inviting.

"We can do this a couple of ways," Amos said, calmly. His cowboy hat was pushed low over his face. I knew that his eyes were a smoldering dark brown that a woman could get lost in, but for the moment, his face was downturned, thankfully hiding his eyes. "You can do what I tell you to do."

"So, actually you mean we can do this one way," Norton said. The sheriff lifted his head and shot Norton a look. Totally John Wayne. Norton swallowed. "Fine."

Mabel smiled. "Thank you, Amos."

Amos nodded at her. He didn't talk much, and it suited him. With so much swagger and hotness, he didn't need to say a word.

"I'll get my shirt," Norton said.

Norton moved to get his shirt. I stepped out of his way at the precise moment he dropped his inflatable duck. My foot landed on the duck, and I went flying. My survival instinct kicked in, and I grabbed for support, determined not to fall.

Unfortunately, the closest thing to grab onto was Norton's boobs. I grabbed on with both hands. "I'm sorry," I cried and pushed away from him, horrified.

"No problem," he said and then he stepped on the duck, too, and he lost his balance. He teetered, trying not to fall, but he was going over, and he was going over on me. I put my hands out to stop him and whacked him hard in the man-boobs.

They were like magnets, and I was helpless not to touch, hit, or squeeze them. It was like not trying to think of something and then thinking of it.

Norton yelped, unable to regain his balance. "Save yourself!" he yelled, and then he was on me, and we both went over, inaugurating the reopened pool.

I hit the water on my back with Norton's chest smothering my face. As we went down, down, down to the bottom of the deep end, I thought: So this is how I'm going to die. Drowned under an enormous man in a Speedo.

I willed him to get off me, but he was struggling, too, and it dawned on me that maybe his rubber duck was not a toy but a flotation device and he didn't know how to swim. Lying on my back in the deep end, I wasn't having a whole lot of positive thoughts flash through my mind. I had hoped that he would float up, but there wasn't that much floating going on. I had exhaled on impact, and now the last of my oxygen was going fast.

Just as I was giving up hope, Norton flew off me, and a second later, a strong hand grabbed onto my arm and yanked me up out of the water. The sheriff had saved me, picking me up and letting me down gently at his feet on the deck.

I sat on the cement like a wet dishrag, dripping all over the sheriff's boots. Norton climbed out of the pool and looked down on me with concern.

"I guess you're right, Mabel," he said. "I'm too distracting shirtless. She couldn't keep her hands off me."

"I told you," she said, looking down at me, too. "She went after you like you were potato salad on the Fourth of July."

"She squeezed me like she was making lemonade."

"Like she was honking in traffic."

"Like she was picking apples."

"Are you okay, honey? You don't need CPR, do you?" Mabel asked me.

"I...didn't...I, mean...I...oh, forget it," I said and kept dripping.

"It's fine," Norton bellowed, as if I had lost my hearing. "You just took in some chlorinated water. You might have diarrhea later, but it'll pass. Ha! Get it? Pass?" I didn't answer. "I don't think she hears me. You know, I heard she dressed as a bunny rabbit and ate only carrots for a month." He inspected me, like he was looking for traces of leftover bunny.

"I heard she thought she was Wonder Woman and lassoed a high school track and field team at their practice," Mabel said.

Boy, journalism was a bitch.

# Chapter 2

"This doesn't mean you don't have to wear a shirt!" Mabel yelled at Norton, forgetting about me for a moment. He finally acquiesced and put on a shirt and jumped back into the water. The rest of the people took that as their cue to jump in and join in on the fun. I was still dripping on the sheriff's cowboy boots. My purse and my reporter's notebook were at the bottom of the pool.

"I don't think this ever happened to Carl Bernstein," I moaned.

"Get the girl's belongings," the sheriff told his deputy. He yanked me up, and taking my hand, pulled me into the rec center, to a small room with a table covered in deli platters. "Stay here," he ordered and walked out.

He was a man who was used to being obeyed. And this time was no different. I obeyed him and stood in place, dripping on the linoleum floor. A couple minutes later, he came back with a towel and a little bundle of dry clothes. He handed me the towel, and I dried off.

"This has never happened to me before," I said, squeezing the water out of my hair.

"Uh-huh," he said. He was better looking in a small space and smelled like a mixture of testosterone and juniper.

"I'm a very tidy person. Organized. I don't fall in public pools with my clothes on, holding on to...you know." I picked up some bologna from a deli platter and put a piece of it in my mouth.

"Uh-huh."

"I never thought I was Wonder Woman or a bunny rabbit," I continued while I chewed. For some reason, I felt I needed to clear up my reputation to him. "That was my husband who said I was crazy. I mean, ex-husband. Well, technically still husband. He's making the divorce take forever. He's in prison because he's a bad guy. A killer. He said I was crazy. But I wasn't crazy. Totally not crazy." I sounded crazy. A total wackadoo.  And my mouth was full of processed mystery meat, and I was so aroused standing near the sheriff that my wet clothes were steaming.

"I think the deli platter is for later," he said.

"Oh, sorry," I said, scooping up a few more pieces. "I'll just take a couple more. It's a big platter, and it's really good bologna."

He narrowed his eyes, focused on my mouth, which was chewing a half pound of Oscar Meyer. If I didn't want to ever get involved with another man, I was doing a great job at making that happen.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "This isn't some kind of symptom of shock that I'm not familiar with, is it?"

I picked up more bologna and then thought better of it and dropped it back down on the deli platter. "No, I'm fine. I had a momentary need for deli meat, but I feel better now. I'm ready to finish the reporting on the pool reopening. Would you like to make a statement about it?"

He pushed his cowboy hat back on his head and scratched his forehead. "I never want to make a statement, Miss..."

"Dare. But that's my husband's name, and we're not going to be married much longer and then I'll be single. Actually, I'm single now." Shut up, Matilda. Shut up. What the hell is the matter with you? I looked at the bologna, longingly. "What was I saying?"

"I have no idea. I got lost."

"Right. Right." I was getting lost, too. I could barely look him in the eye because every time I did, I blushed. He was tall and all manly man, and I was having some kind of allergic reaction to him, which was making me run at the mouth. "Matilda. You can call me Matilda. Because that's my name. Oh, shit," I said and grabbed some more bologna.

"Matilda," he said, as if he was tasting the name in his mouth. "Matilda Dare. Sort of single. Not crazy. Overly fond of bologna. Flustered. Got it."

And then he was gone.

My heart was pounding in my chest, and I leaned against the wall, trying to catch my breath. I wanted to kick myself for losing it in front of a man. I had decided to never get involved again, but my traitorous body obviously hadn't gotten the message. But worse than that, it was my first real day in Goodnight as a representative of my newspaper, and I had completely humiliated myself. I had squeezed a strange man's boobs. I had fallen into the pool with my clothes on. I had eaten half of a deli platter. Everyone thought I was certifiable, and I was beginning to agree.

No matter how much I had failed, I wasn't a quitter. I knew what I had to do. I was going to get back out there and get the story.

The dogs were waiting for me when I parked the car back home. I stepped out of my car with my bag of wet clothes and belongings. I was wearing a Happiness is a giraffe t-shirt and what looked like a pair of junior high boy's athletic shorts. Abbott, the old beagle, jumped all over me, and Costello, the black lab, sat down and looked up at me with his sad doggie eyes.

I was a sucker for sad doggie eyes. I had never had a dog before, and I had assumed that I would find a home for Abbott and Costello, but they had taken to me immediately. And I had taken to them, too. They were wonderful company in the new house in the middle of the night when it was quiet and I felt the loneliness close in on me.

Abbott and Costello were prodigious at giving me guilt, however. So, I wound up feeding them twice as much as I should have, and I walked them at least three times a day. And a few times in the middle of the night because I was a terminal insomniac. The house was nestled in a forest, and I had begun to explore it with the dogs at night.

"What?" I asked the dogs, as I closed the car door. "I fed you breakfast, already. What is it? Did you miss me? I was on assignment, working on my first story for the Gazette. You're going to be so proud of your mommy. I'm sorry I left you, though. Poor lonely dogs."

"That's not why they're giving you the stink eye," Klee said, walking out of the paper's offices. Her light cocoa skin glistened in the sunlight. She adjusted her scarf and pulled her long hair out of it. She was a beautiful, stately woman, someone I wanted to look like when I got older. My fashion was simple with shorts, jeans, and sundresses, but Klee was all about Southwest style. Natural fabrics, handwoven into stunning, colorful garments.

"They want to tell you that your toilet exploded," she continued.

"What does that mean?"

She threw her hands up in the air. "Kablooey. You can't flush tampons in Goodnight. Our sewer system can't take it. It pretty much can't take fiber, either. Have you noticed you can't buy brown rice anywhere in town? It taxes the plumbing."

"Okay..."

"Don't worry. I called Faye. She'll be right over. Don't forget your story. Can you get it to me in an hour?"

"Sure," I said and lost all ability to swallow. For some reason, I thought I had a few days to write the article. It didn't dawn on me that the Gazette was a daily. "Who's Faye?"

"She's your handyman. She's going to fix up this place."

"She is? She is?"

"I figured a California woman would want an updated modern home, and you've been going at it like Martha Stewart on speed."

"My bank account is slightly smaller than Martha Stewart's."

"It'll all work out."

I went into the living quarters part of the house through the courtyard with the dogs on my heels. There was a definite exploded toilet smell happening. The house was furnished with antiques, and I had thrown out most of the clutter, leaving a pleasant minimalist style. I dumped my wet clothes on the washer and emptied the contents of my purse on the dresser in my bedroom. I was peeling my driver's license away from a credit card when Faye walked in.

She was a beautiful woman about my height and age with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing cutoffs, a pink tank top with spaghetti straps, heavy work boots, and a utility belt.

"Well, you don't look crazy at all," she said and put her hand out to shake.

"Hi, I'm Matilda."

"Oh, I know. The whole town knows. You're the biggest news since the convenient store got supersized ices. You might be the biggest news since the UFOs back in the fifties."

"I'm not big news. I just moved here. That's all."

"I'm glad you moved here," Faye continued. "I've been wanting to get my hands on this place for years. Old man Chris wouldn't let me near it. He said it had character. Yeah, right. If dirt and rat droppings were character, then, yes, there's a whole lot of character here. This house was here when the Spaniards were in charge. It's made of mud plaster, held together with animal blood. That ain't no tract house in Los Angeles, you know."

"Animal blood?"

"Yep, this dump is a real gem. A real beauty." She looked at my bedroom with one eye closed. "You've cleaned it up real nice. Great start. But I guess you just realized the truth about the plumbing."

"Can toilets really blow up?"

"Oh, honey, if Patton had toilets, he would have done that Battle of the Bulge thing in a long weekend. The plumbing here is a hundred years old." She rubbed her hands together. "It's a good place to start. Gut. Gut. Gut. Gonna gut everything."

"Can't we just do a patch job? My financial situation isn't stellar."

"Don't worry about that. My husband says you're a good woman. Responsible. So, we'll work something out."

"Who's your husband?"

"Norton Perkins. You swam with him this morning."

I gave Faye Perkins carte blanche with the house. It was the least I could do since I had fondled her husband's breasts. I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water and doggie snacks for Abbott and Costello. The kitchen had gray walls, which were probably white at one point. There was an old-timey refrigerator and a stove that looked like Benjamin Franklin had used it. The counter space was a worn wood table with four mismatched chairs around it. Next to the kitchen was a large walk-in pantry with assorted foodstuffs, a fifty-pound bag of dog chow, and for some reason, six different coffee makers.

I grabbed a glass from the pantry and filled it under the tap. Costello stole Abbott's doggie treat, so I tossed Abbott another one, and they followed me outside through the courtyard to the Gazette's office.

Klee was busy on her computer, filling out an Excel spreadsheet. Jimmy was away on assignment, and Silas was on the phone, smiling, with his feet up on his desk. I took a seat at Jimmy's desk across from Silas, put my reporter's notebook on the desk, and turned on the computer.

"Is that right?" Silas said. "In other words, you're threatening a member of the press. No, that's exactly what you're doing. Well, I'm not threatening you, dickwad. This is a promise. I've got you dead to rights. I know what New Sun Petroleum is doing, Wade. I'm preparing a five-part exposé on you corrupt bastards, and my friends at the AP and the Times want a piece of it, too. Say sayonara to fracking in New Mexico, and say hello to your cellmate Bubba for ten years to life." Silas smiled and winked at me. "And fuck you, too, Wade! And you too, Steve! I know you're listening. You snake!"

And then he hung up and pointed at me. "The best job in the world, boss. The best job. We shine the light so the cockroaches scatter. We right the ship. We're the moral compass. Truth, justice, and the American Way. That's not Superman, that's Clark Kent. That's the First Amendment. That's journalism."

He turned away and started typing furiously on his computer. I looked at the flashing cursor on my monitor and wondered if I could be Clark Kent. Silas's words hit home to me and filled me with a sense of purpose. I was part of what was right in the world. With my pool reopening story, I was helping democracy flourish. I flipped my reporter's notebook open and tackled the lead sentence.

It took me the full hour, but I finished the three-hundred-words. I printed the story out and handed it to Silas to review before giving it to Klee to format into tomorrow morning's paper.

"What the hell is this?" Silas demanded, skimming the piece.

"The pool article."

"Are you kidding me? Where's the story?"

I pointed at the paper. "There. I did what you told me. What, where, when, who, and how. I answered all the questions."

"The pool at the Goodnight Recreation Center reopened today after a year-long refurbishment," Silas read. "The Olympic-sized pool was re-plastered, and there's now a child pool with a waterfall attached. The cost of the renovations was thirty thousand dollars, and it was paid for by local businessman Rocco Humphrey, co-owner of the Friends of Daisy Giraffe Home for Abused Wildlife."

Silas threw the paper on the floor. "What the hell was that?"

"The story," I insisted. "Who, what, where, when, and how. I did what you told me."

"That's not the story, boss. I heard that Sheriff Amos Goodnight was called in when Mabel Kessler threatened Norton Perkins with a cattle prod because his man boobs were indecent."

"That's true, but that's not really about the reopening."

Silas arched an eyebrow and stood up. A waterfall of crumbs fell off his shirt and rained down to the floor. "Didn't that happen at the reopening?"

"Yes."

"And then, didn't you grab on to Norton's knockers, throwing him off balance and the two of you went crashing into the pool, almost drowning you in his rack?"

"Actually, he slipped on his rubber duck."

Silas squinted at me. "So, where's the story? The price of pool plaster or Norton's knockers?"

"Norton's knockers?" I squeaked, knowing he was right. "But won't Norton be mad about me writing about his...you know what?"

"Truth! Light! Come on, boss. You're in the paper business, now. You don't give a shit about feelings anymore. All the truth that's fit to print. That's us. And Norton's knockers are fit to print. Besides, he's proud of those things. He takes his shirt off any chance he gets. So, get the words out fast."

Klee's head popped up. "You mean she's not done, yet? We need to get this show on the road."

"I'll do it fast," I said, breaking out into a flop sweat, and hopped back to my computer.

The second go-around was easier than the first. I thought it was interesting that the sheriff's last name was Goodnight. Did his family found the town? There was a story there, I thought, and then I was pleased that I was already thinking in terms of stories. It was good to be a nosy parker.

"There," I said, slapping my new article down on Silas's desk thirty minutes later. "I put in the stuff about Sheriff Goodnight, the cattle prod, and the mammaries."

Silas picked up a red pen and went to town on my article. He ran red lines through a lot of it, moved sentences around, and changed wording. My heart broke. I had thought that I had done a good job, but now there was more red on the paper than black. But Silas surprised me. "Very good, boss," he said when he finished. "You might become a reporter, yet. Give this to Klee."

She took the marked-up paper from me. "You have time to work on the events calendar?" she asked me.

"Sure," I answered, giddy that she wanted my help.

She handed me a stack of papers. "Just incorporate these into the calendar. I'll send you the link to get into the file."

I returned to the desk, just as a woman walked in holding a large basket, which smelled out of this world delicious. My stomach growled, even though I had eaten a huge amount of bologna.

"Hey there, Gloria," Klee said. "Have you met our new owner, Matilda?"

Gloria was looking at Silas, but then she turned her focus to me. "The one who attacked Norton at the pool?" she asked.

"I slipped on his duck," I explained.

Gloria offered me her hand. She was a nice looking middle-aged woman, wearing a cotton dress and flats. "I'm Gloria Corbella, the tamale lady. Homemade tamales and burritos. I come every day. Do you like tamales and burritos?"

"Sure. I love them."

"You only think you do. You haven't eaten real tamales and burritos. I know because you haven't eaten mine. I'll give you some free today and then you'll be hooked. I've fed Silas every afternoon for sixteen years."

"And I'm not dead, yet. Go figure," Silas said, not looking up from his story.

She gave me a tamale and a burrito, and I took a bite of the tamale. She was right. It was the best I'd ever tasted.

I was going to get so fat in Goodnight.

Writing the Gazette's calendar led to calling the printer, which led to picking up printing paper, which led to going back to the store to pick up highlighters, which led to listening to Silas lecture Jimmy for a good thirty minutes about "digging deep" and not taking "guff" from the "corporate vampires." Jimmy did a lot of eye rolling and mentioned once again how he was destined for greater things, like The Washington Post.

I didn't blame Jimmy for wanting greater things in his life, but he was an irritating pinhead about it.

By the time I helped Klee lock up the office, it was dark out, and I was completely exhausted. "You did pretty well," Klee told me, as she put her keys back in her purse. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? For what?"

"Everything I said about you behind your back. See you tomorrow morning."

I walked with her, with Abbott and Costello on my heels, through the courtyard and to the gate and watched her drive away in her Cadillac. For a moment, I wondered what the salary was for a managing editor of a tiny local paper, but I was more interested in taking a hot bath and going to bed. Just the walk to the gate had me gasping for oxygen. The altitude sickness was getting worse, not better.

Closing the gate, I walked through the courtyard to the right where the living quarters were. As far as I could tell, the left and the back wings of the house had been left to fall apart and for storage and probably flat out trash. At some point, I would get to that part of the house, but it was going to be a doozy of a job to get it livable. Because the home was historical and had great views of the forest and the town below, I figured I could maybe bring in renters or use some of the space for income potential. I had to do something to bring in money. My solvency was running out, and my husband was forcing me to rack up lawyer bills.

Inside the living quarters, the lights were already on. The smell of the exploding toilet was gone, so I assumed Faye had fixed it. If she left already, she hadn't asked for money, which was a good sign. I walked through the dining room to the living room and went back into the courtyard to walk to my bedroom door. The house was very much an inside-outside lifestyle, which I liked.

My bed had a metal frame, and there was a chest of drawers on one wall. Two walls were all windows, which gave me gorgeous views of the sunrise every morning, but now it was just black. I let my clothes drop to the floor and padded to the bathroom. I was never more grateful for hot water. I was going to soak in it for hours.

When I walked into the bathroom, I screamed.

"Hey, can't a man have some privacy?"

Silas was lounging in my bathtub. Steam was rising, along with cigar smoke, as he inhaled sharply on his gnawed-on stogie. Luckily, Silas was taking a bubble bath, and the bubbles covered his private bits, but that didn't change the fact that he was naked in my bathtub. Come to think of it, I was naked, too. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself.

"What are you doing?"

"Gee, boss, I thought you were an intelligent woman. I'm taking a bath. Men do that after a hard day's work."

First of all, I had doubted Silas ever washed himself, and second, I never imagined he took a bubble bath. And lastly, "Why the hell are you taking a bath in my bathtub?"

He leaned his head all the back with his eyes closed and puffed heavily on his cigar. "I don't have a bathtub in my place. I had an arrangement with Chris to use his. Haven't you noticed that I've taken a bath here every night since you arrived?"

"No!" I yelled and then slapped my forehead. "No wonder the ring around the tub keeps coming back."

I would have argued with him, but I didn't have enough oxygen in my lungs. Since Silas didn't seem in a hurry to get out of my tub, I fed the dogs and made myself a cup of tea and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I sat in the kitchen eating my sandwich in my towel and longed for a television. I probably didn't have enough money to fix exploding plumbing and buy a TV, but I so needed to binge-watch something. I could have even gone for an infomercial.

As I took a sip of my tea, there was a sound in the courtyard. The dogs froze. So did I. "It's probably just Silas," I said, but I could hear him still splashing water in the tub. "Or a serial killer," I added. The dogs' tails dropped low between their hind legs. "Nothing to worry about," I said, holding up the butter knife I had used to make the sandwich. "I'm an empowered single dog-mother. A businesswoman."

I stood up and willed my knees to stop knocking. There was another noise from the courtyard, and Abbott and Costello ducked behind me. "So much for guard dogs," I croaked. "It's probably just a cat. Or a bear. Or a serial killer." Damn it. I kept going back to that one.

"Fine. I'll go and see. It's probably the wind. Or a serial killer." Dammit.

I walked into the courtyard, and the dogs stayed behind in the kitchen. Sure enough, there was a young woman standing barefoot on the adobe bricks. She was just barely a young woman. She was mostly a child at the age where she could probably legally get a credit card, but she still slept in a canopy bed with a pink bed ruffle. She was blond and pretty, but she was a mess, as if she had wandered through a sea of brambles to get to me. She was wearing men's pajama pants that were too big for her, and a t-shirt from the Goodnight UFOs shop that was two sizes too small for her.

"Hello?" I said like a question. "May I help you? Are you lost?"

She blinked a few times, finally settling on my face after looking around for my voice in the darkness. "I want to go home. Or to Los Angeles. I was on my way to Los Angeles."

She spoke with a thick Southern accent. She was slim. No, skinny. She was skinny, like she was hungry.

"Are you hungry? Would you like a sandwich?"

She perked up. "I'm so hungry. He won't let me eat much. And it's so cold." She hugged herself. It wasn't cold at all. It was a hot summer night. "I'm trying to escape. I guess I have," she said looking around, again.

Even though it was hot, a chill ran up my back. "Escape from what? From who?"

She shushed me and lowered her voice. "He's strong. He likes to hurt me. He..."

She stopped, as if she heard her attacker coming. I braced myself for impact and raised my butter knife up in the air for protection. But nobody came.

"I..." she started and then she disappeared.

I mean, she disappeared. She wasn't there anymore. I looked at my butter knife, wondering if there had been something fishy in my Skippy that was making me see things.

"Hello? Hello? Girl?" I called, walking to the place where she had been standing. There was nothing and no one. "Girl? Girl?" I continued to call.

I backed away, facing the lights in my kitchen, trying to find her. "Girl?" I called. There was a boom behind me, and I jumped three feet in the air.

I screamed.

"Sonofabitch," I heard someone say in a low, gruff voice. I whipped around to see a tall man. I screamed, again. "Sonofabitch," he repeated. "Can you keep it down?"

He took a couple steps in my direction, and that's when I realized how big he really was. Tall, muscles, lots of man wearing nothing but boxer shorts, and he was coming right at me. What was it with naked men, lately? I was being attacked left and right by naked torsos.

I did what any independent woman would do. I screamed my best karate yell and attacked him with my butter knife.

# Chapter 3

He was bigger and stronger than I was. And faster. He fended off my knife attack with ease, sending the butter knife flying through the air to clang on the ground on the other side of the courtyard. My towel fell off, and I quickly wrapped it around me, again. He turned me around, pressing my hands against the wall above my head, and leaned into me.

Boy, he was big. His hair was wild, and his face was covered in a thick scruff. His breath smelled of Gloria Corbella's tamales. He was going to kill me. He had done something horrible to the blond girl, and now he was going to do something horrible to me.

"What did you do to the girl?" I demanded.

"What girl?"

"If you kill me, Silas will know, and he'll get justice for my murder. He's very big on justice."

"I'm not going to kill you. What the hell's the matter with you? I just want some peace and quiet. I'm tired, you know."

I screamed again, and he let go of me. "Sonofabitch," he grumbled, stepping away from me. "You're a hell of a landlord, lady."

"What?"

"Can't a man take his nightly bubble bath in peace?" Silas yelled, coming out of the house, holding his towel in front of his naked body and still smoking his cigar. "Oh, hey there, Boone," he said to the other man. "Back in town, I see."

"He did something to a girl," I told Silas.

"What girl?"

"There was a girl here. She was barefoot, and she was wearing a small shirt, and she said that he doesn't feed her and that she wanted to escape, and then she disappeared in front of my eyes."

Silas whistled long and slow. "Come on, boss, I told everyone that you're not crazy. Don't make me out to be a liar."

"But..." I said, pointing at the man that Silas called Boone.

"I'm your roommate. I've got a year lease on half of the house," Boone explained, gesturing behind him.

"You mean the storage area? The condemned part?"

He cocked his head to the side and smiled. "Don't ever talk about a man's condemned part."

"There's a girl. There's a girl," I insisted.

"I don't know about a girl," Boone said.

"Boone's a good guy," Silas said. "I'll vouch for him. He would never hurt a girl. If there was a girl."

"Fine," I said. "He's a good guy. He's my tenant. How much rent do you pay, by the way? No, no, I'm sorry. We can go over that later. We need to call the sheriff, now. There's a girl in trouble."

Boone threw his hands up. "Sheriff? I'm out. I'm not sticking around to see that asshole."

Silas adjusted his towel with one hand and took his cigar out of his mouth with his other and gestured to Boone and me with it. "You know, this is kind of awkward. I mean, if someone saw us right now with the towels and the boxers. Awkward."

Fifteen minutes later, Sheriff Goodnight arrived. Boone had locked himself back in his part of the house. Silas finished drying off and got dressed in his dirty suit. I slipped on shorts and a tank top.

Sheriff Amos Goodnight looked exactly how he did at the pool, but the night's shadows made him seem even bigger. I was thankful for the night because my traitorous face kept blushing.

"There's a girl in trouble," I told him, as we stood in the courtyard. Blush. I gave him the rundown about the barefoot girl who was trying to escape her captor. He took in my story without any visible reaction. His face was impassible. And it was a crazy sexy face. Blush.

"Matilda's got a doozy of a case of altitude sickness," Silas said, rocking back on his heels. He smelled like cigar and my lavender vanilla shampoo.

"That's true," I said. "I can barely draw a breath."

The sheriff nodded. "You want me to take you to the clinic? Get you some oxygen?"

A date? Blush. Holy crap. He was looking right at me. Our eyes locked, and if I couldn't breathe before, I really couldn't now. Maybe I should let him take me to the hospital, I thought. We could sit together in his SUV, and maybe our elbows would touch on the armrest. Blush.

Then, I realized what was going on. "Wait a second. Are you saying I'm seeing things because of my altitude sickness?"

"It happens," Silas said. "Oxygen is sort of important."

"But I spoke to her," I told the sheriff. This time I wasn't blushing. He had that look in his eye, the one that said I was hallucinating and wasting his time. "She stood right here in the courtyard." I leaned in closer to the sheriff and lowered my voice. "There's a suspicious man in that part of the house," I said, pointing behind him. "He says he's leasing. His name is Boone. Do you want to question him about the girl?"

The sheriff adjusted the cowboy hat on his head. "I'm not talking to that asshole," he said, adamantly. "Here's my card. Call if the girl returns. I'll make sure my men make double rounds in the area to look for anything out of the ordinary." He drew out the words "out of the ordinary" like he was making a personal point. His fingers grazed my hand as he dropped his card in it. Blush. Holy cow, the chemistry was off the charts.

But I was still technically married to a killer who tried to put me away as a loony bird. So, I wasn't too fond of the whole man thing. Maybe I'm mistaking altitude sickness for chemistry, I thought hopefully. Sheriff Goodnight tipped his hat to me and walked away. Blush.

Nope. It was chemistry.

I slept with a crowbar. Rather, I hugged it to my body while I laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling in my bedroom, trying to sleep. Replaying the conversation with the mysterious girl in my mind, I was sure that there was an evildoer somewhere close.

Silas was certain that Boone was a good guy, but I figured there was a pretty good chance that Boone had something to do with the girl in the UFO t-shirt. My curiosity was getting the better of me. I needed to know if Boone was a good guy or bad. I sat up in bed, and the dogs hopped up from the floor and looked at me. Costello put his head on the bed and shot me his sad doggie eyes, while Abbott jumped around in a circle.

"We're not going on a walk," I insisted. "I googled dog ownership. I know that you're not supposed to walk a dog in the middle of the night. You hoodwinked me before, but no longer. The Dog Whisperer doesn't walk his dogs at night. He sleeps." Abbott stopped hopping and shot me his sad doggie eyes, too. They were very good at guilt. I didn't stand a chance. "Fine, then. You can follow me into the courtyard but no further. You'll defend me if Boone locks me up in his dungeon, right?"

Costello waggled his eyebrows, and Abbott scratched behind his ear with his hind leg. They didn't look like killer attack dogs, but they did enjoy me feeding them, so when push came to shove, I figured they would defend me against a killer.

And I had a crowbar.

"Here we go, dogs." I thought about putting a bra on, but my plan was to spy on Boone, not the other way around. Besides, he had already seen all of me when my towel dropped. I held the crowbar out in front of me and opened the door from my bedroom to the courtyard.

Outside, the air was dry and warm, and the sky was full of stars, like splotches of white paint against a black background. I tiptoed across the courtyard and plastered my face against one of Boone's windows. Nothing. Not a light. Not a thing. When I first moved in, I had peeked through the windows and saw a bunch of trash, including rocks and debris, as if the outside had moved inside. I assumed that part of the house wasn't used and had gone to pot. It never occurred to me that someone would live there.

I moved on to the next window. Holding the crowbar between my legs, I put my hands against the window and tried to see in. Abbott howled and ran out through the front gate, while Costello laid down by me and fell asleep.

"Where the hell is he?" I whispered. "Maybe he's torturing that poor girl in the basement. If there were a basement. Did you see his cold, dark eyes? Those are murderous cold dark eyes."

"Most women say I have dreamy eyes," I heard a deep voice say behind me, scaring me. The crowbar fell to the ground with a loud noise, and Boone picked it up and handed it to me. I looked at it suspiciously.

"What're you doing here?" I demanded.

"I told you. I have a year lease. Paid in advance. No knife this time? What's with the crowbar?"

I took it from him. "I'm handy."

"At three in the morning?"

He stepped forward, and his face was outlined in the glow of light coming from my bedroom. He was right. He had dreamy eyes. He was tall and unkempt, but he had great bones. All of his bones.

"I don't keep normal hours," I said. "I don't sleep."

He nodded. "I see. I'm living with a vampire."

"We're not living together. And I'm not a vampire. I'm an insomniac. It's a thing."

"What about spying? Is that a thing?"

"I wasn't spying. I..." But I couldn't think of a good lie. "What're you doing in there?" I demanded, taking the offensive.

He stepped forward again, invading my personal space, but for some reason I didn't mind. "My personal life is my personal life. This is twice in one night that you've bothered me. I heard you were crazy, but that excuse only goes so far. So, no more, Matilda. You hear me? Let Boone sleep."

"But..." I started. He put his finger on my lips, effectively shushing me.

"Don't be naughty, Matilda. Nobody likes a naughty landlady."

He put his hands on my upper arms, and squeezing, he lifted me up and placed me down on the other side of him. "Are we clear?"

"But..." I tried again.

"Don't be naughty, Matilda," he repeated, interrupting. Then, he winked and flashed a brilliant smile at me, and I stumbled backward. "Sweet dreams, pretty lady," he said and walked through his door into his mysterious part of my house.

I spent the rest of the night scrubbing the grout in my shower, replaying the scene with Boone over and over in my mind. As soon as I heard Klee drive up in the morning, I made a couple of cups of coffee and brought them out to the office with the dogs following me. "Here you go," I said, handing her a cup.

She was wearing another beautiful hand-painted tunic and flowy slacks. "I could get used to this," she said. "Are you ready for another assignment today? Goodnight UFOs is having a thirty-percent off sale in celebration of the sixty-third anniversary of the mass sightings. We need three hundred words. You have longer to write it this time. Tomorrow at noon would be fine."

She unlocked the office door, and I followed her in. I helped her open the blinds and the windows. "What about a bigger story, like Silas is doing?" I asked. "An investigative piece."

Klee barked laughter and sat down at her desk, hooking an earpiece to her ear. "You just moved into town. A story like that, you need sources. You need to know the lay of the land. You have to walk before you can run, boss."

"What about the bleeds articles that Jimmy's writing? Maybe I could write one of them."

"Maybe in a month or so. And don't step on Jimmy's toes. He's just a kid, but he takes this all deadly seriously. He doesn't share bylines, and he doesn't accept any hiccups in his plan to get out of here and join The Washington Post."

"He does seem determined to make it big."

"Between you and me, I'll bet my Caddy that he'll wind up working at his folks' dry cleaners. He doesn't have what it takes."

"What does it take?" I asked.

"You have to be crazy. Just like Silas. That whole justice thing. Jimmy just wants fame. That's not enough. How about you? You want justice or fame?"

"I want to pay my cable bill."

"Cable? There's no cable here. Not even a TV."

"Exactly."

The door opened, and a short man with a thick head of gray hair wearing a Hawaiian print shirt and khaki shorts walked in. "Hello, Klee," he said. "Is this our new Goodnighter?"

"Hey, there, Rocco. This is Matilda Dare, the new boss."

He pulled up a chair by me and shook my hand. "Rocco Humphrey, local businessman. You've probably heard of me. I invented pumpkin ice cream. I invented artichoke ice cream, too, but with much different results."

I nodded. I had no idea who he was, but I loved pumpkin ice cream. Silas walked in wearing the same suit he wore yesterday, and he plopped down on his chair. He had a large bruise on his forehead, and his lip was slightly cracked.

"Hey, Rocco. Wade and his goons jumped me. Don't they know that the pen is mightier than the sword?"

"I wish you wouldn't antagonize them," Rocco complained. "I'm trying to revitalize this town, and we can't do that without big business."

"They're poisoning the water supply," Silas said.

"That's a mighty big accusation. Do you have proof?"

"I've got Jimmy out right now, undercover. A Pulitzer Prize will revitalize this town, Rocco. Then, you can donate a decent amount to the Gazette."

"I donate every year. Least I can do," Rocco told me.

"Exactly," Silas spat. "The least he can do."

Rocco ignored him and gave me his pitch. It turned out that he had been the ice cream baron of Omaha and had followed a woman to Goodnight three years ago. Since then, he had been trying to lift up the town from its dying depths, which was no easy task.

"You know we have a lot of bad giraffe karma," he said.

"I heard that," I said. I didn't know what it meant, and I didn't want to ask.

"I'm bringing in a whole herd of giraffes into town to make up for what these yahoos did to poor Daisy back in 1882. They're going to be paraded through the Plaza to show that Goodnight loves animals. You know, especially giraffes."

I took a swig of my coffee. "You're going to parade a herd of giraffes through town to show that Goodnight loves animals?"

"Genius, right?"

"Uh..." I said.

Silas's phone rang, and he answered it. "Kiss my patooty," he yelled into his cellphone. "The press cannot be silenced!"

"Are you in?" Rocco asked me.

"Am I in what?"

"The giraffes. Here's the thing," he said, lowering his voice and leaning in to me. "Goodnight has one good-looking woman. Two, now that you're here. We need a pretty girl to ride the lead giraffe."

"Excuse me?" I said.

Silas barked laughter into his cellphone. "Oh, yeah? You think you can? You and what army?"

"Of course, Faye's a damn fine specimen of femaleness," Rocco continued. "But she's not what you'd call feminine. She likes power tools. She won't take off her utility belt. But you would be perfect. You're a real stunner. The men in town are drawing lots to see who's going to court you. So, you could put on a pretty dress and ride through town, leading the parade. Can't you just picture it?"

Me on a giraffe, riding through town? No, no I couldn't picture it. "People ride giraffes?" I asked.

"I'm getting a special saddle made," Rocco explained.

"Come on, Wade!" Silas yelled. "The press is bullet-proof. If you shoot me, there'll be someone to take my place. I'm looking at one right now." He winked at me, and I broke out into a sweat. "Our new boss is gung-ho. She'll take a bullet for truth, and she'll smile as the bullet tears through her flesh and ravages her internal organs."

"Uh..." I said.

"So, you're in, right?" Rocco asked me, again. "You just watch. Once we shrug off the bad giraffe juju, this town is going to rebound. We'll be the next Santa Fe. Better than Santa Fe! You know, because we have the UFOs, too. Folks love UFOs."

"Fine! Shoot me! Shoot the boss! Democracy laughs at your poisonous corporate aggression!" Silas yelled and clicked off his phone. He began to type furiously at his computer in a frenzy of euphoria. "What a great story. Pulitzer, Pulitzer, Pulitzer," he muttered to himself.

Jimmy walked in, and he seemed euphoric, too. "I've got the story," he announced. "I meet with my source tomorrow. It's locked in."

He noticed me sitting at his desk, and his smile dropped. I quickly stood to give him his desk back. "That's wonderful, Jimmy," I said, shaking his hand.

"Hello, Washington Post. Goodbye, nuclear waste dump," he declared with glee.

Silas nodded at him. "Good work, kid. I'm glad I sent you out there early this morning. Who's your source?"

"I'm not sharing that information, Silas. You'll steal him from me and take the credit."

Silas laughed. "Jimmy, you'll be a great guy once your balls drop. But for now, you're a real pinhead."

"When am I getting this great story of yours, Silas?" Klee asked.

"If Jimmy isn't lying, set up part one for Friday and parts two through five after that."

Klee nodded and typed on her computer. Gloria, the tamale lady, walked in. "I know I'm early," she said. "But I've got a special delivery out by the fracking fields today, and I didn't want you to go without." She eyed Silas when she said this, but he was busy writing about corrupt corporations and ignored her.

"Just the woman I wanted to see," Rocco told Gloria. "Can you make tamales and burritos for Saturday's parade?"

"Sure. How many do you need?"

"I think forty thousand will do it."

"I can give you two hundred."

"Deal," he said.

"Will you shut the hell up?" Jimmy demanded. "I'm trying to work here. I'm a Washington Post man sitting in a Goodnight Gazette seat. Talk about crimes against humanity."

"Don't talk to your elders like that. I know your mother," Gloria chastised and threw a burrito at Jimmy, which hit him in the head hard and made him fall backward.

Silas stopped typing, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out a box of cigars. "How about we celebrate a little early? Come on, everyone. Grab a stogie. Let's celebrate our scoop. It's not every day that we take down corporate America. You okay, over there, Jimmy? Any permanent damage?"

Jimmy moaned and sat up, rubbing his head. The cigars were passed around, and everyone started lighting up. The smell of cigars made me nauseated, so I left the office. I took a deep breath outside, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was breathing better. I still wasn't normal, but at least I wasn't gasping for air. Abbott circled me, and Costello stood in place, looking up at me with his sad doggie eyes.

"Fine. I'll take you for a walk. Let me change my shoes first."

I changed into my sneakers, and when I came back into the courtyard, Jimmy was standing there, staring at me, as if he had been waiting for me.

"Hi, Jimmy. Do you need something?" He tugged at his tie and let it drop to the ground. "What are you doing?"

He ripped open his shirt, sending buttons flying. Taking a step toward me, he began to pant.

Uh-oh.

What was it with men and their naked torsos, lately? Was I wearing a sign saying that I wanted to be attacked by half-naked men? I thought about what Rocco said about the men in town drawing lots to see who would court me. Had Jimmy won?

"Jimmy, you're a nice guy," I lied. "But I'm going through a divorce, and I'm not ready to date. Or to watch a man strip in my courtyard."

He stepped forward, again and panted harder. I stepped back and wagged my finger at him. "What on earth, Jimmy? This is not the way to ask a woman out."

He slapped at his naked chest, and his pants turned to gasps. His eyes were wild, searching my face for something. For answers? No, for help. He wanted me to help him.

"Jimmy?" I asked. Whatever I had thought he was doing, I was wrong. He was in distress. I put my arm around him. He convulsed against me and dropped to the ground. "Help!" I yelled.

Abbott howled and ran away, and Costello licked Jimmy's face. Boone opened his door, and seeing Jimmy on the ground, flew into action. "Call 911!" he ordered me. I ran into the house and made the call. When I returned, Boone was giving Jimmy CPR, but Jimmy's face had lost all color.

I had seen this before. I knew what it was.

"He's gone," I said, kneeling next to Boone.

"No, he's not," Boone insisted and continued the CPR.

There was a siren in the distance, and it was coming closer. I put my hand on Boone's strong back. "He's gone. He's not coming back."

But then I wondered if maybe he would come back. I had touched a woman the month before and brought her back to life. It was worth a try. Ever so gently, I touched Jimmy's leg and waited.

But Jimmy didn't come back. Poor Jimmy Sanchez was dead, cut down in his youth. And that made me wonder.

# Part II: Matilda Helps Silas and Asks Questions

Potluck Memorial Planned for Goodnight Diner

by Silas Miller

The Goodnight Diner will host an informal memorial for Jimmy Sanchez Friday at 8 PM. Mr. Sanchez was the junior reporter of the Goodnight Gazette and dreamed of one day working for The Washington Post.

"Tell the folks it's potluck," Adele Dees, owner of the Diner, said. "But please no lasagna. When Fred died last year, we had twenty lasagnas. Would it hurt to make a tuna casserole for a change? Or a pot roast?"

Mr. Sanchez died Tuesday morning after announcing he had a new source for the Gazette's expose on the New Sun Petroleum company. Sheriff Goodnight refused to comment about the ongoing investigation into Mr. Sanchez's death, but according to Doc Greenberg, "It doesn't take a genius to see he was murdered. A boy doesn't just drop dead at nine in the morning."

Officials from New Sun Petroleum have made it clear in the past that they would stop at nothing to prevent the publication of the Gazette's startling story about their practices. This reporter isn't claiming that they're responsible, though.

Not yet.

The new owner of the Gazette, Matilda Dare, reaffirmed her desire to keep the paper running and to help the authorities in any way they need.

"I tried to un-dead him," she explained. "But it didn't work this time. He stayed dead. I'm so sorry."

Ms. Dare later explained that she had not confessed to the murder. The newcomer to Goodnight is suffering from altitude sickness and saw a blond girl in her courtyard who wasn't there. She will bring chocolate chip cookies to the memorial. Rumors that Mr. Sanchez died while performing sex acts with Ms. Dare in her courtyard are so far, unfounded.

# Chapter 4

"Damn it!" Boone shouted, as the paramedics pronounced Jimmy dead. I walked him into my kitchen and sat him down at the table. "It's not right. A kid shouldn't die," he said.

I put the kettle on for tea, and I sat next to him, taking his hand. "Maybe he had some kind of seizure," I said. "He was just there, panting, and then he was on the ground."

"You're comforting me, but I should be comforting you." Our eyes locked, and I felt my face go hot. It wasn't a blush. It was something more. His thumb lightly caressed my palm, and an electrical current ran through my body. "We got off to a bad start, not counting poor Jimmy," Boone said. "Maybe we can change that. Would you like to..."

He was cut off when Sheriff Goodnight walked into the kitchen. He took his hat off, and his eyes went to Boone's hand touching mine. The tea kettle began to whistle, and I jumped up to get it.

"Boone." The sheriff dragged out the word slowly, like he had eaten something bad, and he couldn't believe that it had been in his mouth.

"Amos," Boone said back to him, like he had eaten the same thing.

"Would you like some tea?" I asked the sheriff, and I blushed like an idiot. Sheesh. I just saw a young man die in front of me. The least my hormones could do was to give me a break.

"No bologna?" he asked, looking down at me, and for the first time, he flashed me a brilliant, hotter-than-hell smile.

"Okay," Boone announced, standing. "Enough of this. I'm not a moron."

And he walked out.

"Boone is a hard man to like," the sheriff told me.

"Would you like some face?" I asked. "I mean, tea! Tea. Would you like some tea?"

"I wouldn't pass on a cup of coffee, if you got it."

"I have a lot of coffeemakers, for some reason. Do you want cream and sugar?"

"Yes." He sat at the table and slapped a notebook down on it. "I need your statement."

I was happy to be busy with making him coffee, so I didn't have to face him while I gave him the rundown. I didn't have much to tell, however. The whole incident hadn't taken two minutes.

"Poor Jimmy," I said, handing him the coffee. "Would you like a cookie, Sheriff Goodnight?"

"Call me Amos. Everyone does."

His dark eyes were framed with long eyelashes. He had high cheekbones, and his hands were large. I took all this in as I watched him stir his coffee, but I was gripped with a strong desire to run my fingers through his thick, dark blond hair.

Amos was as sexy as sexy got.

"Amos," I started. "Did Jimmy have a seizure? A heart attack? He was so young."

"We're sending his body down to Albuquerque for an autopsy. His family wants it back in a hurry. The funeral is going to be family only, in case you were wondering. Did you see Gloria hit Jimmy with a burrito?"

"Yes. Wait a minute. Did Jimmy die from burrito-related injuries?" It was hard to imagine that a person could die from a burrito blow to the head, but Gloria's burritos were dense and generously portioned.

Amos shrugged, his muscular shoulders reaching his perfect ears. Lately, I had been seeing a lot of naked men torsos, but I would have paid to see his. "We don't know yet. Anything's possible."

He downed half of his coffee and drew a line under his notes. "Anything to add?" he asked.

"No. Did you find the girl?"

He smiled again. "No girl."

"Do you think the girl and Jimmy's death were related?"

"Who's interviewing who? The journalism bug has bit you."

"I feel responsible. Jimmy was my employee." As the words left my mouth, I realized they were true. He was my employee. I was his boss. On some level, I was responsible for him. "When will we get the autopsy results?"

"We? I ordered a rush. They're bumping an overdose for him. I should know more tonight." He stood and picked up his hat. "Matilda, do me a favor. Don't get in any more trouble. Let me do my job. You can report on it after."

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. Something in me knew that I couldn't mind my own business. I couldn't let Amos do his job. I had to stick my nose in where it didn't belong.

Amos studied my face and sighed. "That's what I thought. Trouble has come to town." He put his hat on, and tipped it toward me. "Miss Trouble, you have a nice day."

He left, and I dunked my head under the tap.

"You've got it bad. I watched the whole thing." Faye walked in and leaned against the stove. She was wearing cutoffs again, and her usual boots and utility belt. Her t-shirt announced the thirty-percent sale at the UFO shop.

"What did you watch?" I asked, turning off the tap and wrapping my hair in a kitchen towel.

"You and Amos. He hasn't smiled at another woman since his wife died."

"I'm sure he was trying to comfort me after what happened with Jimmy."

"Adele shot her husband in the head by accident, and Amos didn't smile at her. Nora's son got hit by a drunk driver and was in the ICU for a week, and Amos didn't smile at her."

"I'm still married, and a man just died in my courtyard," I said.

"That's what I thought. You didn't actually deny the thing between you and Amos. I guess I should tell the guys in town to forget about drawing lots to see who gets a shot at you."

I was secretly thrilled that she thought Amos was interested in me, but my new journalism bug was biting me. "I need to give my condolences to Jimmy's family. You think they'll like a casserole?"

"Sure. You want me to go with you?"

"You'd do that?"

"I have a banana bread I could bring. Would you mind picking it up at home with me?"

We stopped at the Gazette office on our way out. Silas and Klee were in shock over Jimmy. They were also on the rampage. Silas was convinced that Jimmy had been murdered by the New Sun Petroleum company, who were hell-bent on putting the kibosh on his article.

"You're going to have to pick up the slack, boss," Silas informed me, while I held two pounds of macaroni and cheese in a disposable metal pan. "I'm going to be 24/7 on nailing those environment-raping, kid-killing bastards. So, you'll have to write the other stories."

"The other stories?"

"You know. Everything else. You have to write everything else."

"I've only ever written one story, and you hacked it to pieces."

"Don't worry," Silas said. "I'll edit whatever you write. You won't have to be embarrassed about publishing something stupid."

"That means you need to get the UFO shop story done today," Klee announced. "And the fish pedicures. We need four hundred words on those. But it should write itself. I mean c'mon...fish pedicures."

"I didn't know fish had feet," I said.

I followed Faye's truck to the Goodnight UFOs shop, which turned out to be owned by her and her husband, Norton, and they lived on the second floor. Norton ran the place, and if I were honest with myself, I would have had to admit that I was nervous about seeing Norton again after squeezing his man-boobs. Faye didn't seem upset at all, however.

The shop was down the hill from my house, located on a corner, three streets away from the Plaza. It was hard to miss the shop. It took up half of a city block, and the roof was a huge flying saucer, which made a whirring noise and spun around, as if it were taking off or landing. It must have cost a fortune. "30% Off Entire Stock! All Your Alien Favorites!" was written on the windows in thick blue and pink lettering.

I parked on the street in front of the store and left the macaroni and cheese on the front seat. Faye drove her truck into the alley, and I assumed she parked behind the store. I opened the door and walked inside.

Norton greeted me as I entered. Fortunately, he was dressed. Still a huge man, he looked happy as a lark, dressed in a pyramid hat, an "I Want to Believe" t-shirt, and pants with pictures of alien heads on them.

"Crazy girl!" he said, and slapped my back. "I'm so happy to see you, again. Are you here to stock up on your extraterrestrial supplies?"

"Strictly speaking, I'm not crazy. That was just my husband who said that, but it wasn't true."

"I heard you saw an invisible woman. Would you like an alien divining rod? It comes with a ten-year guarantee. It saved two of Harry Hayes' prized cows."

"Matilda and I are here to pick up a banana bread to take to the Sanchez's," Faye explained, walking up behind Norton with a foil-wrapped loaf.

"Oh, that's nice," Norton said. "Jimmy was a pinhead, but his parents are good people. They must be in shock. Is it true that he died having sex with you in the courtyard?" he asked me.

"No! He just dropped dead."

"But he was sort of naked, right? That's what I heard," Norton said.

"I heard that, too," Faye said.

"He took off his clothes, but that had nothing to do with me."

Norton and Faye nodded.

"I promise," I added.

 "I missed you," Norton told Faye. They kissed, and he gave her a light pinch on her butt. They weren't the most obvious couple, but they were obviously in love.

"I'm coming back, though," I said. "I'm writing a story about the sale."

Norton clapped his hands together. "Wonderful. I have a lot to show you. When will you come back?"

"We'll be back in about an hour," Faye said.

"I'll prepare for you, crazy girl. I've got a piece of one of the original UFOs from the close encounters in the fifties to show you. I've got it in my safe in the back."

"I look forward to it," I said. "But I'm not crazy. That was just something that my husband...oh, forget it."

We weren't the only ones visiting the Sanchez family. At least half of the town was there. I was glad that I was giving my condolences and not there to write a story. Faye and I took separate cars, again, because she had a ceiling fan to fix after, while I was going to go back to Goodnight UFOs.

The front door was open and we walked in, holding our food out in front of us like we were using it as a buffer. The Sanchez family lived in a small adobe house on a short street. The front door opened to a living room, next to a kitchen.

"How nice that you've come," an old woman greeted us. "You're Jimmy's kind, unbalanced boss, the one he had a dalliance with right before he died."

I sighed. "Matilda. I'm so sorry for your loss."

She turned out to be the neighbor. Jimmy's parents and siblings were in Albuquerque with his body and weren't going to return until he was cremated and they could return with his ashes. Person after person came up to me to meet the crazy lady who owned the Gazette.

"I hate this so much," Faye whispered to me.

"Death? Grieving?"

"No. Socializing. I'm not good at parties. We'll give it another ten minutes and leave. Okay?"

"Sounds good to me."

There was a sign-in book, and I left a condolence message in it. "Matilda, right?" a man in an expensive suit asked me. He was about forty years old and good-looking. "Goodnight Gazette? I'm Wade from New Sun Petroleum."

Silas's arch enemy. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. There was a possibility I was standing face-to-face with Jimmy's killer. Should I run for my life? Should I kick him in the shins? Should I get the story? Silas would have beaten him up, but I didn't think that was the way to go. Besides, for now there wasn't any proof that Jimmy had been murdered.

"You seem more reasonable than your reporter. He's been very irresponsible, and he's determined to write a poorly researched pack of lies. Can I assume that you will put a stop to his so-called story?"

"Silas is an excellent reporter," I said.

"Let's be clear. You need to act responsibly. Your health depends on it."

Faye walked between us and removed her hammer from her utility belt. She held it up, like she was going to pound a nail in Wade's forehead. "What're you saying to my friend, Wade?"

"We're just getting to know each other."

"Well, don't. She's with me, and I'm watching you."

Wade walked away. "Thank you, Faye," I said.

"Stay away from him. He's trouble. Is that ambrosia on the table? I love ambrosia."

She went to get some ambrosia, and I watched Wade walk to the other side of the room and fall into a deep conversation with Rocco Humphrey, the ice cream baron who wanted to revitalize the town. They were in a huddle, whispering, and I would have paid a million dollars to know what they were talking about. I pretended to look at the photos on the wall and got closer to them, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

It wasn't a long conversation. Wade said goodbye to Rocco and made his way out of the house. In a moment of clarity, I knew what I was going to do.

"Faye, I'm going to follow Wade," I told her.

"It's not safe, Matilda," she said with her mouth full of ambrosia.

"I have to tell you something. I'm not scared of anything."

"Not even spiders?"

"Well, of course spiders. Isn't everyone afraid of spiders?"

"What about rats?"

I shuddered. "Yes, rats, but..."

"Heights, closed-in spaces, door-to-door salesmen?"

"Yes, all of that, but that's normal stuff to be afraid of. I mean other stuff doesn't scare me. I'm not afraid of New Sun Petroleum. Well, maybe a little, but...Oh, hell. I'm going to follow him. I'll talk to you later."

I skulked out of the house, following Wade. He slipped into the back of a large black Mercedes. I fumbled in my purse for my keys and got in my Altima. I started my car just as his Mercedes pulled away from the curb.

"I'm not afraid of anything. I'm not afraid of anything," I repeated, as I followed them out of town and onto a back road. I turned the air conditioning on full blast. Fantasizing about getting justice for Jimmy and making Silas proud of me, I drove ten miles, following Wade's Mercedes. "He thinks he can scare me," I said out loud. "But he can't and nobody can. I'm an independent, strong woman. Nothing scares me."

The air conditioning sputtered, and there was a noise coming from the vent. "Don't you dare break," I told the air conditioning. "I can deal with murderers and exploding toilets, but I need cold air." It made another noise, and suddenly the vent grate popped out and fell in my lap.

"What the hell?" I said and peered into the vent, as I continued to follow the Mercedes.

When I was a kid, I lived in a series of foster homes. None of them lasted long. Maybe because I would organize their closets in the middle of the night while they were sleeping. I also had a penchant for alphabetizing everything in the kitchen, and nobody likes allspice blocking their garlic salt. I was an orphan, but otherwise, I had a pretty normal life before I married. But since then, nothing's been normal. And since I moved to Goodnight, my toilet exploded, I fondled a married man's breasts, a woman vanished in front of my eyes, and my employee died in my arms. None of that could be considered normal.

But looking into my car's air-conditioning vent and seeing eyes staring back at me pushed normal completely out of my life. At first, I thought everyone was right and I really was crazy. But then the eyes got closer, and I saw the tongue.

I screamed.

I had been doing a lot of screaming lately.

Like something out of a horror movie, a slithering, large snake pushed its way out of the vent, its tongue seemingly focused on me. I tried to shrink away from it, but there was nowhere to go, and I couldn't swat at it because I didn't want to touch it. The snake was coming at me like I was lunch.

I edged my hands away from the snake and hit the steering wheel, making the car swerve violently. I stomped on the brake, but my foot slipped, and I hit the gas instead. I tried to right the car, but the snake had wrapped itself around the steering wheel.

Would I prefer to die in a car crash or touch a snake?

I now knew the answer.

# Chapter 5

I kept screaming, and the car kept going. It went off the road and down into a long ravine, finally coming to a stop when it reached a hill. The snake appeared totally unconcerned and unwrapped half of its body from the steering wheel and seemed to levitate in the air. Its tongue focused on me again, and I knew the snake was ready to strike.

"Who does this happen to?" I moaned. I shut my eyes for a moment and wished that I was hallucinating or already dead and was in hell. Anything but this.

The snake made a terrifying noise, and even though I was scared to move, my hand flew to the door handle, and miraculously, the door opened and I fell out without being bitten by the snake.

I struggled to stand in the brush, and I ran backward a safe distance away with my eyes never leaving the car to see if the snake followed me out of the car. It didn't.

The front of my car was decimated, and the hood was folded like an accordion. I was unhurt, and the airbag hadn't deployed, but now there was smoke coming out from under the folded hood. My purse with my cellphone was in the car, and I was in the middle of nowhere, where there were probably more snakes.

"Me and my buttinski self. Look what I've gotten myself into. I'll be stuck here forever," I said out loud.

But I was wrong. A minute later, a beat-up pickup truck stopped at the top of the ravine. The driver's door opened with a loud creak, and a tall man stepped out.

Boone.

What were the odds?

"Sonofabitch," I heard him say. He climbed easily down the ravine and checked me for injuries. "You're a one-woman wrecking ball. What happened?"

I pointed at the car. "Snake. A snake attacked me. It was hiding in the air-conditioning vent. It was going to kill me."

"What?"

"It was lying in wait. It wanted me dead."

Boone put his hand on my forehead. "You don't feel feverish."

"Snake! Snake!"

"All right. I'll check," he said, walking toward my car. I followed him, using his body as a shield against venomous reptiles.

"Does this happen often in New Mexico?"

"I've never heard of a snake in an air-conditioning vent. You've brought a lot of firsts with you. It's probably just a king snake. Totally harmless. It went in there to sleep, probably, and you woke it up."

"It made a sound. A scary, murderous sound."

"You probably just thought it did. Imagined it."

The car door was open, and he ducked his head in. "I don't see anything," he said.

"It's still in there. I've been watching."

"Nothing. I see the vent's plastic covering on the seat, though."

"See? Proof."

He ducked down, spying under the seat. "Nothing. Whatever you saw is long gone. I told you so. It's the altitude sickness. It's playing tricks on your...Sonofabitch!"

He flew backward, like he was pulled with a rope, and hit into me hard. We both landed in the brush. He rolled over, lying on top of me and supporting his weight on his forearms. "There's a rattlesnake in there," he said breathlessly. His eyes were wild.

"A rattlesnake? They're poisonous. Did it bite you? I told you so!"

"It's huge. Half of it was wrapped around the gear shift. It was perfectly camouflaged. I almost put my hand on it. Then, it rattled, and I realized it was there."

"The sound! I told you there was a murderous sound!"

"I've had a lot of close encounters with rattlesnakes, but that was the closest."

"You're on top of me." He was nestled between my legs. I could feel his entire hard body. It was definitely an R-rated moment.

His eyes re-focused, and I could practically see the gears in his mind shift. His pupils widened into large, black saucers. His breathing stopped, and I noticed that mine did, too. It was one of those life-altering moments, depending on what path one took.

"Sorry," he muttered and rolled off me, obviously on the less involved path. He sat next to me in the brush and ran his fingers through his thick hair. "I guess the sheriff wouldn't like me being on top of his girl."

I sat up. "I'm not his girl. I just met him."

"I know what I saw."

His expression changed again. He was impatient with me and maybe combative. He stood up and slapped the dirt off his jeans. Putting his hand out to me, I took it, and he helped me up. "I'll call a pal who's a snake wrangler, and then we can get a tow truck to get your car to a shop."

"That sounds expensive. And long. I have two stories to write today."

"Fine. I won't help you," he said, marching up the hill to his truck. I followed him.

"Wait. Wait. You have a truck. Can you give me a ride to the UFO Shop?"

"You are the world's most stubborn woman. Just wait here for the tow truck."

"I have to write all the stories. Silas said so. I don't have the time or money to deal with a tow truck." I reached him and yanked on his arm, turning him around. "I'm a damsel in distress. You can't not help a damsel in distress. It's a law."

"You're mistaking me for someone in a big hat and a shiny badge."

"What do you have against the sheriff?"

"He's an asshole."

"That's funny. He said the same thing about you."

Boone threw his head back and laughed. He had a great laugh. Loud and infectious. "Fine. I'll drive you. Get in the truck."

I hopped in before he had a chance to change his mind. I looked back at my car in the ravine as we drove away. My insurance rates were going to skyrocket, and it would take forever to fix the Altima. Goodnight had been one disaster after another. I was more than a little tempted to forget about my inheritance and move back to California. But there wasn't anything for me there, either. I was starting a new life and not making a big success at it.

My thoughts moved from my failures to Wade. He had gotten away, and I didn't know what he had spoken about with Rocco.

I distracted myself by examining Boone's truck, which was a mess. There were tools strewn on the floor, and the seats were covered in a thick layer of dust. My stomach growled, and I regretted not eating at the Sanchez family's house.

"What were you doing out here?" Boone asked.

"Driving."

"Outside of town?"

"I was tailing someone."

"Tailing? Who? The invisible woman?"

I adjusted myself in the dusty seat. "For your information, I was tailing a suspect in Jimmy's murder."

"Since when was Jimmy murdered?"

"Since...well, he was too young to die naturally, and I'll know more this afternoon. Meanwhile, Wade at New Sun Petroleum is suspect number one."

"Oh, that bastard. He's suspect number one for a lot of things, I'll give you that."

We got back to Goodnight UFOs in a few minutes, and I convinced Boone to go in with me because I still needed a ride after.

There were a few customers at the shop, who had traveled in from Colorado for the sale. Norton was delighted that I returned and had brought Boone with me. "You finally going to get the ET socks, Boone?" Norton asked him.

"I'm giving my landlady a ride. She crashed her car, and a snake tried to kill her."

"I've got a picture of an alien that tried to kill me," Norton said. "I'll sell it to you for three hundred dollars. That's a deal in the extraterrestrial business."

"May I interview you about the sale?" I asked.

"Oh, sure. Come on back, and I'll show you the UFO piece."

Boone grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from next to the cash register and handed them to me. "I'll wait here and read the Martians Daily magazine," he told me.

I followed Norton to the stockroom in the back, which was a huge cavern with rows of metal shelving with merchandise on it. In the corner was an old beat-up desk and chair. He sat down. "I have to get it out of the safe," he told me and worked the combination on a small safe. He opened it and pulled out a piece of metal. "Be careful with it," he said, handing it to me. "It's part of one of the original ships. You know about the arrival in the fifties, right?"

I wanted to say yes, but I had no idea about the arrival, and I knew that Silas would crucify me if I returned without the who, what, where, when, how, and why.

"No. Was there a sighting?"

Norton's face brightened, full of the excitement about the arrival. "The entire town saw them," he breathed. "Can you imagine? The entire town."

I tried to imagine an entire town seeing UFOs. Of course, I figured they were really secret Air Force planes, or maybe the town was high on a funny mushroom. But I had seen Star Trek and Star Wars, and I couldn't resist the idea of an alien invasion.

"What did they see?" I asked.

"The entire intergalactic army from the Vega quadrant," he breathed and threw his hands up for traumatic effect.

"There's an intergalactic army?"

"Look at this," he said, pulling a framed photo from under a stack of paper on his desk. He handed it to me. Most of the picture was black, but it had a series of white dots on it. "You can't look at that and not believe. Am I right?"

"What is it?"

"The army. The aliens from Vega. The Vegans. Where do you think the name for Las Vegas came from? They had an advance guard here, and they funded their invasion with mob money, working for Bugsy Siegel."

I wrote furiously on the pad of paper. What a story! I was definitely going to get a Pulitzer.

"Is that where vegans come from? The ones who don't eat meat?" I asked.

"No, as far as I can tell, those are just crazy people who don't like bacon."

I kept writing. "Does the government know about this?"

"Don't get me started about the government."

"So what happened when the Vegans invaded?"

"Well, they didn't land. Vegans have a terrible phobia of snakes, and that year we were having a weird population explosion of rattlesnakes. They scared them away. If you ask me, I think the rattlesnake thing was just a strategy by the Andromedans."

"The who?"

"The Andromedans. You know, the aliens who have already infiltrated American society. I think they shipped in the snakes to scare the Vegans away so they wouldn't compete with them. The Andromedans have it good. They invented the Ziploc, you know. They didn't want to lose that income stream."

"Holy crap. There was a rattlesnake in my air-conditioning vent today."

Norton pointed at me. "It's happening again." He looked up at the ceiling, as if he expected aliens to be flying over his head. I looked up, too. "The rattlesnakes are the first step. I have to rally the Goodnight UFOs social media group. We might be seeing a new arrival by the Vegans."

I scribbled furiously on the pad of paper. "Holy crap."

Boone ran into the room. "Matilda, hurry. Come look."

He took my hand and ran me out of the room. "Shhh," he whispered and pushed me behind a tower of tin hats. His arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me in so that my back was up against his front. "Look," he whispered into my ear. "It's Wade, and he's talking to Mabel."

"The woman who runs the pool?"

"She runs half of the town. Rocco runs the other half. Wade and his goons fund it all."

"Holy crap. It's a conspiracy. This is Watergate wrapped in Teapot Dome."

"Wade seems very active today. Like he's running scared. I think you might be right. I think Jimmy was murdered, and Wade had something to do with it."

"I told you. You thought I was crazy."

We tried to listen in to the conversation, but the shop had spooky alien music piped in, and it was drowning out the voices. "We're going to have to follow him," I said. "Blow this thing wide open."

"God help me. You're starting to make sense."

Wade handed something to Mabel, and she put it in her purse. Then, Wade left the store. Meanwhile, Mabel leaned down and tied her shoe.

"What're we doing?" Norton asked, tapping me on the shoulder and making me jump. Boone let me go and stepped back.

"Nothing. Nothing," Boone said.

Norton handed me a cordless phone. "It's Silas. He wants to talk to you."

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

"Are you done over there? You're supposed to be at the fish pedicure story. Remember, you're picking up the slack."

"I might have a lead on Wade."

"Let me worry about Wade."

"But..."

"Did you get the UFO sale story?" Silas interrupted.

"Oh, yes. It's a good one."

"Fine. Now go let some fish eat your feet and be back here pronto. Where's your cellphone?"

"A snake got it."

"See you soon."

"I have to get a fish pedicure," I said, watching Mabel leave the UFOs store. "Where's the fish pedicure place?"

"You're asking me?" Boone asked. "I didn't even know that fish had feet."

"It's at the rec center," Norton said. "Mabel's running it. She's trying to bring some of the spa business that Santa Fe has. I was going to go, but I have the sale to handle."

He gestured around the store. The four customers from Colorado were looking at the book section of the store. Otherwise, there was no one there.

Boone drove me the few blocks to the rec center. When we walked inside, Boone stopped at a vending machine and bought three bottles of water. "Here. Drink them all. You need to keep hydrated when you have altitude sickness," he said, handing me the bottles.

"All of this?"

"Drink up."

It didn't take us long to find where the fish pedicures were taking place. Unlike the UFOs sale, a large crowd had turned out to have fish eat their feet. They were waiting in the hallway for the door to the room to be opened. I had brought the pad of paper and pen from the UFOs shop, and I took it out of my pocket to start interviewing.

"Hello there, Matilda," Adele from the diner greeted me before I had a chance to ask the first question. "Where were you today? Don't you like my diner?"

"I forgot to eat today," I said. My stomach growled, proving my point. "It's been a big day."

"You're telling me. The entire town wants to know if you killed Jimmy Sanchez with your vagina."

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"That's my cue. I'm going to find the men's room. I'll be back," Boone said.

As soon as he was gone, Adele pulled me aside. "Are you and Boone a thing? Faye told me that you and Amos were hot and heavy. I never believed the Jimmy thing. Why eat hamburger when you can have a steak. Am I right?"

"Uh..."

"That doesn't mean I don't think that Jimmy tried something with you and his heart stopped with just the thought of it."

"That's not what happened." At least I didn't think so. But maybe it did. I needed more information. I wasn't getting very far in my investigation. Maybe Klee was right about me not being ready to do big articles.

"So, Boone, huh?" Adele pressed.

"No. He doesn't like me." And he lived in a dump. And Amos called him an asshole.

And he might be a serial killer.

Oh, yeah. I had forgotten about that little nugget.

"He doesn't like you? He's looking at you like a man watches Monday night football."

I turned around and caught Boone watching me, and a warm wave washed up my body. He caught me catching him, and he looked away, as if he was more interested in studying the wall.

"Amos is a great man, but his heart is still filled with his wife," Adele continued. "At least it was. Maybe you changed all that."

"I barely know him. I mean, I don't know him. I just met him twice, and once was when he was taking my statement after Jimmy died."

"What are we talking about?" Boone asked, returning. "Are we off the other topic?"

"I was asking Adele about fish pedicures," I said, winking at her. "Have you had one before?"

She winked back at me. "No, but I'm very excited about getting one. My heels grow callouses like you wouldn't believe. I once got a tack in my foot and I didn't know it until I put my shoes on the next morning."

I interviewed a couple more women before Mabel opened the door and let us in. The room had two rows of folding chairs, each with a plastic bin in front of it.

"Ladies, take your seats," Mabel commanded. The women took their shoes off and sat down. There was more than one woman who looked into their bin suspiciously. I didn't blame them.

"I wish I had a camera," Boone said to me.

"Oh, pictures are a good idea. I don't have my phone. Would you take pictures with yours for me?"

He took his phone out of his pocket. It was an ancient flip phone. "No camera," he said. "I'm old school."

Flip phone aside, the man was two steps away from homeless. As far as I could tell, he didn't have a job.

"I hope the Gazette gives this the attention it deserves," Mabel told me. "Fish pedicures are the newest thing in luxury self-care. Why aren't you writing this down?" I wrote it down. I wanted to ask her about her relationship with Wade and Jimmy Sanchez and what Wade had given her, but Mabel was an imposing person, and she was determined to push her fish.

"Sit here," she told me, pointing at a chair. "Take your shoes off."

"Yeah, take your shoes off," Boone repeated.

"I'm the reporter. I'm not here for a pedicure," I said.

"Haven't you heard of gonzo journalism?" Mabel asked. "You have to get your feet wet--so to speak--to experience a story."

Was that true? Boone smiled. He was enjoying this way too much.

"The thing is..." I started, but Mabel stared me down. She was a good five inches taller than I was, and she had a way of pursing her lips and not blinking for extended periods of time that made it clear she would brook no argument.

I took off my shoes and sat down. "Okay, ladies," Mabel announced. "Don't be afraid. Gently place your crusty feet into the bins, and in fifteen minutes, your feet will emerge soft as baby bottoms."

I looked inside my bin. There were little fish swimming around.

I raised my hand. "Mabel, may I ask you something?" She came over, and I pointed to the fish. "I think something's wrong with my fish."

She looked in the bin. "They look fine to me."

"Oh my gosh, they're eating my feet!" a woman yelled with glee.

"Good! Good!" Mabel yelled back.

"No, I think there's something wrong with them," I told Mabel.

"They're fine. Put your feet in."

"But Mabel, they're glowing," I said. Boone looked in the bin and covered his mouth with his hand.

"This is Goodnight," Mabel said. "Half of the town glows."

"It does?" I asked, noting that down on the pad of paper.

"You're scaring the customers. Put your feet in the bin, or I'm getting my cattle prod."

I put my feet in the bin, and the fish went after me. It didn't tickle, and it didn't hurt, but it wasn't a pleasant feeling. It was also gross, knowing that fish were eating my skin. I tried to distract myself by taking notes on the reactions of the customers. Finally, the fifteen minutes were over, and I took my feet out of the bin.

They were baby smooth. Maybe Mabel's madness had a method to it. Maybe she would revitalize the town with luxury self-care. The customers filed out, most of them pleased with the results, but more than a couple saying they wouldn't do the procedure again. Boone was obviously impatient to leave, but as the people left the room, I spotted Mabel's purse.

I need to find out what Wade had handed to her. "Cover me," I told Boone.

"What?"

I wandered over to Mabel's purse, as if I was memorizing the room for my article. To his credit, Boone cornered Mabel and asked her about the price of the fish, and if he could buy some for personal use. I thought I was going to make it to her purse without her seeing, but Mabel was a formidable woman, and she seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to her purse.

She came up behind me and threw her purse over her shoulder. "I'm trying to revitalize the town," she said, looking down her pointy nose at me.

"I know. You're doing a wonderful job."

"I can't give this town the shot in the arm it needs if people keep dropping dead at the Gazette."

My stomach lurched, and I stopped breathing. I couldn't believe that she was bringing up Jimmy's death when she was suspect number three.

"It was a tragedy," I agreed.

"A tragedy that can't happen again."

"Wait a minute. Do you think I had something to do with it?"

"That's the word on the street, Matilda."

My face got hot, and I began to grovel. "I swear I had nothing to do with it. He just walked into the courtyard and died. I promise. Please believe me."

Somehow, the conversation had turned from me wanting to grill her about Jimmy's death to begging her to believe that I had nothing to do with it.

"I was there. She had nothing to do with it," Boone said, approaching.

Mabel looked him up and down, as if she was trying to decide if he was a trustworthy witness.

"No more deaths," she said finally, pointing at my chest.

"I promise I'll do better," I heard myself say, earnestly. And then for some reason, I began to worry about more deaths. There was the mysterious girl, and now Jimmy. Was the nightmare over, or was it just beginning? And was Mabel giving me a message about them that I didn't understand?

# Chapter 6

My stomach growled as we left the rec center. "Is that you, again, rumbling and grumbling?" Adele asked, coming up behind me. "How can you let yourself grow hungry like that? I haven't been hungry since 2009. I'll give you a ride to the diner. We need to fatten you up. You're way too skinny for this town."

I needed to get back to the Gazette and write the two stories, but eating a big meal sounded too good to pass up. "You want to come?" I asked Boone.

"I think it's time for me to move on. Thanks for all the crazy today," he said, digging his keys out of his front pocket. "Don't get into more trouble."

"Okay...thank you for your help."

Boone narrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head to the side. "I couldn't ignore a damsel in distress," he said, locking eyes with me. "It's a law. At least I heard that somewhere."

Adele and I watched Boone walk away and get into his truck. "He wears jeans good," Adele said, licking her lips. "I'd jump his bones if I thought he'd be willing."

"You don't think he'd be willing?"

"I'm not his type. He likes brainy women."

"He does?" I asked, watching him drive away. "He doesn't seem like the brainy type."

Adele laughed. "Boone is a 'still waters run deep' kind of guy. There's a lot there to mine, if you have the patience."

"I've given up on men. I'm focusing on me."

"Aren't we all, honey? But it's nice to take a break every once in a while and focus on something with biceps."

Goodnight Diner was enjoying a lull in business. There were only a handful of between-meals diners. I sat in a booth by the front window. "What can I get you, honey?" Adele asked.

"A rattlesnake has my wallet."

"No problem. We'll start a tab for you. I'm sure you'll be a regular, just like everyone else in town."

"Thank you. I think I need comfort food," I said.

"Got it," she told me. "Morris, make Matilda the Friday night comfort special," she called to the cook. He saluted her and got to work. Adele got us a couple of drinks, and she down across from me.

"Isn't this fun?" she asked, taking a sip of her drink. "Taste it. It's an egg cream. I learned how to make it when I was in New York on a theater trip when I was in high school. I saw Cats. Greatest day of my life."

I took a sip. "Delicious."

"Rough day, right?" Adele said, compassionately. "We haven't given you the best welcome to Goodnight."

"No, it's fine," I said, but then a tear popped out of my eye and ran down my cheek. Adele put her hand on mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"You've been through the wringer. But at least your heels look fabulous."

"That's true."

"And you're about to eat a good meal, and...oh, look who's here." Adele stood and waved at someone behind me. I turned, and felt an electric shock zing through my body. Sheriff Amos Goodnight had walked in and took off his hat. I turned back around and willed myself to stay cool and not be a blathering idiot.

You've given up on men. You don't like men. You're in the middle of a divorce. A boy died today.

There were so many reasons to give Amos the cold shoulder. Unfortunately, I wasn't listening to myself.

"Afternoon, Adele," Amos said, his voice dripping deep, velvety soft sexy tones.

"Hey there, Amos. You hungry?"

"I could go for roast chicken, if you got it?"

"I got it."

She walked away to the kitchen, and Amos walked to my booth and hovered over me. "Afternoon, Matilda. Would you mind if I sat with you?"

"I...you...uh...I...you..." Crap. I was in a loop, and I couldn't get out. Finally, I managed to nod yes, and Amos slid into the seat across from me, setting his hat next to him.

Somehow, he had gotten sexier. His face had a strong afternoon shadow, and his skin was tanned and hardened from the sun. For the first time, he looked familiar to me, as if I had seen him somewhere before I had ever seen him. I sucked greedily at my egg cream so I wouldn't have to make eye contact, but I knew that he was studying my face, making me worry that I had a long chin hair or something in my nose.

"Are you enjoying Goodnight?" Amos asked, and then it was his time to get flustered. "I mean, besides today."

"It's a very nice town," I lied. Goodnight was located in a beautiful location, but it was one UFO away from being a ghost town and one giraffe away from being an environmental disaster. Still, the people were nice, and I was enjoying my new job more than I had ever enjoyed doing anything else.

"The people are nice," I added, and heaven help me, I batted my eyelashes.

Adele arrived with our meals. She put my plate down in front of me and then Amos's plate in front of him. She had made me chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and peas. Amos had roast chicken with French fries and green chili cornbread.

"Amos is our resident gourmet chef, so I'm honored that he's eating here today," Adele said.

"I'm not a gourmet chef," Amos told me, slightly embarrassed. "I cook to relax."

"Maybe you can cook for Matilda one day soon," Adele said and elbowed me. "You know what I'm going to do to celebrate this moment? I'm going to give you two my peach cobbler. On the house. You're going to love it."

She turned on her heel, leaving Amos and me alone. I cut into my chicken fried steak. It was delicious, definitely comfort food. "How's your altitude sickness?" Amos asked.

"I'm a little better."

"Keep hydrated, and in time, it'll pass."

We ate for a while in companionable silence until Adele returned with two generous helpings of warm peach cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream. Amos and I pushed aside our meals and dug into dessert. "I like sweet things," he said.

He likes sweet things. Everything he said sounded pornographic. I was weak, weak, weak, and my determination to be done with men was waning. The peach cobbler was acting like an aphrodisiac, or maybe it was just Amos's pheromones that wafted over the table, making my resolve melt away.

"How long have you been sheriff?" I asked, trying to make conversation.

"Five years. Fifteen in law enforcement."

"And your name? Goodnight? Does that mean...?"

He nodded and smiled. "Yes. My great-great-great grandfather founded the town. But he had nothing to do with the giraffe thing. So, my karma is fine."

"What is the giraffe thing? I never got the whole story."

He opened his mouth to tell me, but his phone rang and he answered it. A minute later, he hung up and gathered his hat. "You seem to be taking to the reporting thing," he said.

"I like it, although I've only done small stories so far."

"Have you learned about 'off the record', yet?"

"Not really."

"If, let's say the sheriff told you 'off the record' and then proceeded to give you information, you couldn't report on it. That's what it means."

My skin broke out in goosebumps, and I leaned in closer to him. For the first time, I managed to look him right in the eye without blushing. My nosiness had overcome my horniness.

"Information?" I asked him.

"Off the record information."

"Okay," I said, quickly. Even if I couldn't write about it, I couldn't refuse an offer for juice. "What is it?"

He pushed aside our peach cobbler and leaned forward so that our faces nearly touched. "Jimmy Sanchez was murdered."

"He was?" I breathed. "Who did it?"

"Don't know that yet. But I know how. Do you want to know how he was murdered?"

The how in Silas's who, what, where, how, and why. "Yes! How was he murdered?"

"His cigar was poisoned."

I thought back to the morning. "He was smoking with Silas, Rocco, and Klee. Did you test the other cigars?"

"Not yet, but obviously they weren't poisoned. Just poor Jimmy's. There you go. That's your scoop for the day. Remember that it's off the record. We have to keep some information for the Sheriff's Department." He stood up and put his hat on his head. "I have to go. There's a disturbance at the giraffe center. And no, there's been no sign of your distressed girl yet."

He tipped his hat to me, handed Adele some dollar bills, and left the diner. As soon as he was gone, Adele plopped in the seat next to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. "Oh, honey. You got it bad. I thought you were going to swallow your tongue every time you looked at him."

"No, that was my altitude sickness," I lied. "Was it that noticeable?" I asked after a moment.

"I don't think Amos noticed. He was too busy swallowing his own tongue. You know, that's the first time I've seen Amos eat alone with another woman since his wife died."

"Maybe he was just being polite."

Adele sighed and swiped some cobbler with her finger and put it in her mouth. "You're stubborn. I like that."

She was right. I was stubborn. And right now, I was stubbornly thinking about Jimmy's murder and the poisoned cigar. It didn't seem like an intelligent way to kill him. Why would he be murdered with a cigar?

He wouldn't.

The cigars belonged to Silas, not Jimmy.

"Adele, I need to get to the Gazette in a hurry. Would you drive me?" I asked.

"Of course, honey. Let me get my purse."

The dogs greeted me at the Gazette. Adele honked twice at me in her Saturn Vue, and I waved goodbye and watched her drive away. I wanted to get into the Gazette office right away, but the dogs were giving me guilt.

"I'm sorry I've been away. I'm a big-time reporter, now," I told them. "You want a bone? You want a bone?"

They wanted a bone. They told me so by jumping around me, even Costello the black lab, who never jumped. I passed through the courtyard on the way to the kitchen and paused at the spot where Jimmy had died just a few hours earlier.

There was no sign that anything out of the ordinary happened. No blood. Nothing disturbed. No proof of the trauma that I felt having Jimmy die at my feet. It wasn't fair. There should have been some lasting mark, out of respect for Jimmy's life.

Abbott howled, reminding me that they were my priority. I dug two bones out of a bag in the kitchen and handed them to the dogs. They ran off to eat in private, probably on my bed. The kitchen was how I had left it with the pot from the macaroni soaking in the sink. I turned on the tap and filled a glass with water and took it with me to the Gazette office.

Inside, Klee and Jack the paperboy were hard at work. But there was no sign of Silas. I was working on a theory, and I had to find Silas quickly.

"There you are," Klee said. "Did you get the stories?"

"Yes," I said, showing her my feet. "Where's Silas?"

"Out on a story."

"Where?"

Klee shrugged. "Top secret. He said he was going to break it wide open."

"Break what wide open?"

Klee shrugged again. Since Jack was at Jimmy's desk, I sat down at Silas's and picked up his phone. I tried his cell, but there was no answer. I didn't know how secret "off the record" was so I didn't tell Silas about the cigar on his voicemail, but I told him to call me back as soon as he could and to watch his back because he was in danger.

I hung up the phone and took out his cigar box, inspecting it for anything out of the ordinary. At first glance, it didn't look like it had been tampered with, but then I saw that the second layer of cigars were placed differently. It was possible that Silas had rearranged the first layer, but it was more likely that the poisoner had done it. I used two Kleenex to put the box into a plastic bag and hoped that there would be fingerprints left on it to point to the killer.

I picked up the phone, again. "Amos, it's me," I said. "Matilda. The woman at the Gazette. The one you had lunch with. If that was lunch. It might have been an early dinner. I ate the chicken fried steak, and you ate the roast chicken. And then we had peach cobbler. And you talked to me this morning after Jimmy died. And then you told me something after we ate, the thing off the record. And..."

"I remember you," he interrupted. "Trouble."

"Excuse me?"

"Trouble. That's you."

"Oh." There was a tightening in my chest, like a heart attack, but in a good way. "Trouble" could be an insult, but coming out of his mouth in his rumbly, velvety voice, it made me want to jump around in happy circles, like Abbott with the promise of a bone.

"Is that what you call me?" I asked.

"What can I do for you, Trouble?"

I blushed and flipped my ponytail and realized that I had forgotten why I had called him. "It was something important," I started. He was quiet, waiting. I looked around me, trying to remember. Finally, my eyes landed on the bag with the cigar box in it. "I know!" I put my hand around the mouthpiece and turned my head away from Klee and Jack so they wouldn't hear. "I have Silas's cigar box. I think it's been tampered with."

There was an almost imperceptible sigh on the phone. "Trouble, don't touch it."

"I put it in a plastic bag. Don't worry. I used Kleenex to carry it. Just like in CSI Miami."

"Okay. I'll pick it up in the morning. Don't touch anything else. Don't get involved. This is police business." There was another sigh. "I'm spitting into the wind, aren't I?"

"A little bit."

"That's what I thought." And he hung up.

I hung up too and spent the next few minutes deciding what I was going to wear in the morning when Amos came to pick up the cigar box. I had a nice miniskirt with a floral print on it, and it would go great with a pink top I owned. I looked down at my feet. They were baby smooth, but my toenails needed new polish. I would have to do that tonight before bed.

"How're those stories coming along?" Klee asked me.

"Getting right on it. Klee, if you hear from Silas, can you let me talk to him? I'm worried about him."

"He's got his phone off. He goes dark when he's got a hot lead. He's determined to nail New Sun Petroleum to the wall."

"I hope he's being careful."

"Once Silas was reporting on the nuclear waste," Jack said. "And those nuclear guys met him out in the forest about five miles from here, knocked him out, threw him into their trunk and drove him into the desert in the basin. They dumped him way out there. Old Silas survived drinking his own pee and eating cactus. For five days. He still wears the suit he wore in the desert."

"He walked for five days back to town?" I asked.

"No, he didn't get to town. He was way out there. Boone found him. Isn't that right, Klee?"

"For four days, I had the Navajo trackers looking for him," she said. "My no-good cousins. Then, I fired them and asked Boone to find him. It took him half a day."

"Boone? The Boone who lives here?" In a condemned part of the house, filled with trash?

"He spends a lot of time in the basin," Jack explained.

"Jack, get back to work. We're behind," Klee complained.

"Klee got me out of school until Silas is back to his general beat," Jack whispered to me.

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen. But I've been in the paper biz for four years."

He was a cute boy, and he looked familiar. "What's your last name, Jack?"

"Goodnight."

That was it. He looked like a younger, miniature version of Amos Goodnight.

"Is Amos your...?" I asked.

"Father? No. He's a cousin. We have a really big family. We make up a good part of the town. But we had nothing to do with Daisy."

"Daisy?"

"You know. The giraffe."

"Am I the only one trying to get a paper out?" Klee demanded in a quiet but very firm voice.

I put my notes on the desk, and Jack and I started typing. I worked on the fish story first because it was a lot more straightforward. I led the story with the ladies squealing in pleasure as the fish ate away at their calloused feet. Then, I added in some details about how many women were there and what Mabel was trying to accomplish. Then, I added in some colorful quotes and ended with details on when the next round of fish pedicures was going to take place.

I printed out the story and handed it to Klee, who handed it to Jack. He picked up a red pen and went at it, like he was painting a masterpiece. I broke out in a sweat, watching him cover the page in red. When he was finally done, he handed it to Klee.

"Good job," he told me with a smile.

I shook my head and started the next story. Journalism was a head scratcher.

Writing the UFOs story was a lot more fun. I had a ton of good quotes from Norton, and the whole history of the UFOs invasion in the fifties was fascinating. After I finished the article, I printed it out and handed it to Jack.

He held the red pen poised over the paper and started reading to himself. A wide smile broke out on his face, and then he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed and laughed. When he finished reading, he looked up with tears streaming down his face. He hadn't marked a word with his red pen.

"That was awesome!" he exclaimed. "I love the stuff about the mob. That's so perfect. And the Andromedans and the Ziplocs? Classic! Can I save this and show it around? Where's the real article?"

My face dropped, and I broke out into a sweat. "What do you mean? That's the real article."

"Ha! Funny one. Nah, where's the real one?"

I stared at the paper on his desk.

"Oh," he said after a moment. "Well, don't worry. We can fix it." He took out all of the Norton quotes except for three. "It's not about the aliens invading. You see?" he explained, patiently. "It's about the shop having a sale. So, we put in about the sale and the inventory, a little about the history of the store and the owner with one or two colorful quotes. See?"

I walked around the desk and stood behind him, watching him write an entirely different story in red between the black letters. "There you go. It wasn't hard," he said and handed it to Klee. "When you get more experience, you'll input all the changes yourself. For now, Klee does it faster."

"That's for sure," Klee said under her breath.

"Thank you, Jack. I'm going to make you cookies. Do you like cookies?" I said.

"Do I ever!"

He was the nicest fifteen-year-old boy I had ever met. He deserved a lot of cookies. But when I went to the kitchen, I realized I didn't have the ingredients to make cookies, and I didn't have a car to go shopping with or my wallet to pay for it.

Suddenly, I was exhausted. The day had been five days' worth of stress, trauma, and anxiety. But I had been productive, too. I had reported on and written two articles, and I had brought food to a grieving family. An insomniac like me is always tired, but when exhaustion hits like it was hitting me, it offered the happy possibility that I might be able to get some sleep. I took a short bathroom break and then snuggled under the covers of my bed and closed my eyes.

The second my eyes closed, however, my sleepiness stepped aside, making room for my worry about Silas. If he had been the true target for murder, he was in real danger. I had tried to get in touch with him, but he was nowhere to be found, and his phone was turned off. He might be back in the basin, but this time, he might not have been left alive, and Boone might not be able to find him.

Boone. Maybe I should ask him to help me find Silas before something bad happened to him, I thought. Or Amos. Amos could put out an alert and have his deputies find him. I should have told him on the phone, but all I could do was blather on like an idiot. Having a crush was a pain in the butt.

I tossed and turned for another fifteen minutes, trying to clear my mind so I could get some sleep, but it was no use. I threw the covers off of me, made the bed, and walked out into the courtyard. The sun had set, and it was dark. It was a hard decision to make between knocking on Boone's door for help or to call Amos again, but as I stood in the courtyard with the dogs at my feet, the decision was made for me.

Klee stumbled out of the Gazette office with her hands outstretched, as if she had turned blind. It was the first time that I had seen her lose her composure, her face was highlighted by the light coming from the office, filled with panic and something else. Despair.

I took her hand. "Klee? What is it? Are you okay?"

"Silas," she croaked. "It's Silas. He's been murdered."

# Part III: Silas is Attacked by a Flying Saucer, and Matilda Wants Revenge

UFO Falls on Local Reporter

by Jack Goodnight

Goodnight Gazette Senior Reporter Silas Miller is in serious but stable condition at the Goodnight Clinic after a UFO fell on him Tuesday evening. Mr. Miller suffered a concussion and several broken bones. He's expected to remain in the clinic through the weekend.

"They tried to kill me. It's not the first time someone tried to kill a story by killing me, but you can't kill Silas Miller by throwing a flying saucer on my head. I'm a lot tougher than a UFO," Mr. Miller said from his hospital bed.

The UFO in question was situated on top of the Goodnight UFOs shop. It was a landmark in town, covering the store's roof and half of a city block. It spun around when an ON button was pushed inside the store.

According to Mr. Miller, he was set to meet a confidential source on the roof when he was pushed off. A minute later, the flying saucer fell off the roof, too, landing on him.

"The horror! I saw the UFO fall to the ground. It was like losing a baby," Norton Perkins, owner of Goodnight UFOs said at the scene.

The UFO was said to cost the price of a house, and it was a one-of-a-kind feature in American retail. The sheriff's department said it was investigating the accident as a crime, but there were no suspects at the time of this article's writing.

The thirty-percent sale at Goodnight UFOs is still going on, according to Mr. Perkins. "We promise nothing will fall on your head. Just walk around the flying saucer. We'll give a free moon keychain for every purchase of twenty dollars or more. We may be in the middle of an intergalactic war, so get your extraterrestrial merchandise now," Mr. Perkins said.

# Chapter 7

As usual, I didn't sleep Tuesday night, but neither did half of the town. News of Silas's death had been premature, but we didn't know that when we rushed to Goodnight UFOs. When we got there, it looked like all of Norton's fantasies and nightmares had come true, right by his front door. At first glance, it seemed that a giant UFO had crashed, like it was the second arrival of the Vegans, just as Norton predicted.

But it became clear pretty quickly that the flying saucer on the ground had been the thing on the roof, and that somehow, it had fallen off and hit Silas dead on. When Klee and I arrived, the paramedics were already working on him, but he was still unconscious. They quickly took him to the clinic.

"It's like the entire staff of the Gazette is being targeted," Klee said to me, as we watched the ambulance drive away. She eyed me up and down, as if I had something to do with the demise of the Gazette's reporters. She had a point. I arrived and then everyone started to drop dead.

"It's not my fault," I told her. "I'm not a jinx. I didn't put a hex on the paper."

Klee put her hands on her hips. "Just because I'm a Navajo doesn't mean I believe in jinxes and hexes."

"I didn't mean..."

She waved her hands. "No time for that. Let's get to the clinic."

As we left the scene, two sheriff vehicles arrived. I watched as Amos's tall frame got out of his SUV and sauntered toward the flying saucer.

Klee and I spent the rest of the night at the clinic. She left when Silas finally woke at four in the morning to tell us about the "bastards who pushed me off the goddamned roof." But I stayed on, since I didn't sleep anyway. Klee was going to go home and change and then head back to the paper and feed the dogs.

Silas looked like a mess. His head was bandaged, and he had two legs in casts and traction, and one arm in a cast. But the near-death experience had sparked something in Silas. He was nothing short of euphoric. His attempted murder proved to him that he was a real journalist. A dangerous one. Someone important enough to throw off a roof.

He was also excited by the idea that it was a second attempt, the first with the poisoned cigar that had been inhaled by poor Jimmy. "They can't get me," he told me with earnest glee, as he pushed the button for more morphine. "I'm immortal. Do you know why?"

"No. Why?" I asked.

"Because I'm the press, baby. I'm the First Amendment. I'm democracy and all that's the best of this wonderful and terrible country of ours. Do you understand?"

No, I didn't understand at all. One man was dead, and another almost killed. I wasn't sure that a water rights story involving frackers was worth a life. "I guess so?" I said like a question.

"And that means that you're immortal, too, boss. You get me? You're immortal. And now you're going to be my eyes and ears. My legs, boss. You're going to be my legs."

I tried to swallow, but I couldn't. "I'm not sure I can be your legs," I said.

"You don't want to find out who killed Jimmy?" he asked. "You don't want to find out who tossed me off the roof of Goodnight UFOs?"

"Yes," I breathed. My pulse began to race, and my breathing grew ragged. I wanted to find that out more than anything. It was like a disease, like a crack addiction, but with me it was simple curiosity. And a matter of justice, too.

Oh my God, Silas was contagious. I had been bitten by the justice bug. I had whodunititis.

"I do want to find out."

"You're in luck, boss. I know who did it. Wade and Steve from New Sun Petroleum."

I pointed at his bandaged head. "I knew it. Did you see them on the roof?"

"No. I was ambushed. I didn't see a thing. But it makes sense. My story was going to hang them out to dry. Ruin them. They couldn't afford to let me live."

"You want me to call the sheriff?"

"No, we need proof. Amos is irritating about proof. I wish Deputy Sheriff Adam Beatman was in charge. He doesn't care a thing about proof. Are you ready to accept this mission, boss?"

"Just like Tom Cruise," I said. I could hear the Mission Impossible music play in my head, and my pulse sped up.

"You want breakfast?" Silas asked. "They make a good scramble, even if they push the whole wheat toast thing like it's the cure for cancer and heart disease or something."

"I could go for a little something."

"Maybe we can convince them to give us white toast."

Faye surprised me at seven o'clock. "Adele, Nora, and I heard that you're out of a car. So, we're going to take turns being your right-hand man. Klee says you're going to find Silas's almost killer. She says you have experience with psychos."

I asked her to take me to the scene of the crime. Even though there had been nothing at the spot where Jimmy had been killed, I had more hopes for the roof of Goodnight UFOs. Pushing a large man like Silas hard enough to send him flying probably meant that the roof had been disturbed and maybe Wade had left some signs proving that he was guilty.

We drove over there. Faye turned the corner and had to drive around the large flying saucer that had landed in the middle of the road. The street was packed with parked cars, and a group of lookie-loos were inspecting it, hanging back behind the police tape that surrounded it, as if it was an exhibit at a zoo.

"Amos isn't letting me repair the shop until the investigation is over, but we've never had so much business," Faye explained. "Norton's hoping the investigation takes years."

She turned into the alley and parked behind the store. We went inside, and I could hear the store buzzing with activity. "This way to the roof," Faye said, and I followed her up the stairs two flights to the roof.

It was covered in tar paper and gravel, a cheap roof, damaged now that the giant flying saucer had been ripped off its moorings. We stood over the broken metal that it had been attached to. "It was crudely done," she told me, inspecting the damage. "They should have used an angle grinder, but it was cut with a hacksaw. And see how there are different marks? I think the person who did this came back here more than once. They didn't do it all at once."

"Or maybe it was more than one person," I suggested.

"That's a good point. Klee was right. You're like a detective."

I loved the compliment. For the first time in my life, I felt important. I felt like I was doing what I was good at. Snooping.

"So, maybe Steve helped Wade," I said.

"Steve and Wade from New Sun Petroleum? I think they would know how to use an angle grinder."

My face dropped. "They would?"

"But maybe they wanted to use a hacksaw," she said, obviously trying to save my feelings. "They're men, so they're dumb. So, anything's possible."

I kneeled down and searched the area to see if something was dropped, like a driver's license or something else that would pin the attempted murder on Wade and Steve. "Do you smell that?" I asked Faye.

She squatted next to me and sniffed the air. "What? Maybe juniper?"

I sniffed the air, again. "It's gone, now. Perhaps it was juniper. But I don't think so. It was more man-made. I can't place it, and now it's gone. Drat." A whiff of a scent didn't seem like a big deal, but something told me that it was.

We moved on to the edge of the roof where Silas had been pushed off. I found a half-smoked cigar, which was obviously Silas's. "I found something!" Faye yelled. She pointed down, and I followed her finger to a spot on the roof. There was a torn piece of paper. I picked it up and then remembered about possible fingerprints.

"Let's not tell Amos about this," I said. Screwing up fingerprints twice wouldn't get me on his good side.

Faye winked at me. "I got you. We're undercover. Top secret. My lips are sealed. What is it?"

"There's no words on it, but there's part of a picture here. I can't make it out. Can you?"

She studied it. All I saw were a couple black squiggly lines and a splotch of color. "I have no idea. Do you think the killer dropped it?"

I folded it and put it in my pocket. "I'll show it to Silas. It might be his, and if not, he might have an idea what it is. Wow, it's higher up here than I thought."

We inched closer to the edge and looked down. Norton was outside by the flying saucer, regaling the crowd with his story of the fallen UFO. He was also telling them about the coming of the next intergalactic war.

"Isn't he wonderful?" Faye gushed over her husband. "We've been married for five years, but it's like we're still honeymooners.

"He's a great guy," I agreed. "Very nice."

"He'll give you the shirt off his back."

Been there. Done that.

Faye's phone rang, and she answered it. "Yes, she's here. Hold on," she said.

She passed me the phone. "Hello?" I said.

"Matilda, this is Rocco Humphrey. How're you today?"

"Well..."

"Good. That's grand. Can you meet me over at the Friends of Daisy Giraffe?"

"I guess so. When?"

"Now, of course."

"Actually, I'm working. Can we make it in a couple days?"

"Matilda, I'm trying to revitalize the town," he said like that said it all. "We have very important things to discuss. I need you here pronto."

I wanted to yell at him about poor Silas and Jimmy and the importance of finding justice for them, but then I remembered about Rocco's conversation with Wade at Jimmy Sanchez's house. While Rocco was wasting my time, I could grill him and get closer to getting the dirt on Wade. I could also get Rocco's rundown on what happened in the Gazette office from the moment that Silas handed out the cigars to when Jimmy died.

"I'll be there in a few minutes," I said, and returned the phone to Faye.

"He's a jerk, but I make a ton of money off of him renovating his house," Faye said. "It's like the Rocco Mystery House. He's never satisfied. He imported rocks for his front yard that have to be polished every week. I mean, Goodnight has no shortage of rocks, right? Did he need to import rocks that have to be polished? Between you and me, I charge him triple. That's my funding plan for your house."

"It is?"

"Don't look at me like that. I can't wait to get my hands on your place. It's historical, you know. It'll be a gift to Goodnight to have your house restored to its previous glory. Besides, Rocco is a jerk who bleeds money. If he can import rocks like an asshat, he can pay me two hundred dollars to install a television."

"I guess you have a point," I said, slowly, imagining my house restored to its previous glory. I gnawed on my cheek. This was probably how the mafia started, with a promise of new flooring.

We went downstairs and visited the shop. Norton was ecstatic about the wave of business. Faye gave him a kiss, and he wrapped her in his arms, making her completely disappear in his girth. He was at least three times her size around. Two older men who looked just like Norton and were about the same size as him walked over.

"Dad, Gramps, this is the new girl in town," Norton said, introducing me.

"The one who dressed like a monkey and threw her poop?" the grandfather asked.

"I didn't do that," I said.

"She's not really crazy," Faye said, coming to my rescue. "I haven't seen her do anything crazy, yet, anyway. I'm sure the whole thing about lifting her leg and peeing on a taxi was completely exaggerated."

"And not true," I added. "I mean, none of these things about me are true."

Norton's grandfather nodded, but he didn't seem totally convinced.

"Have you come for the sale?" Norton's father asked me. "We're doing bang-up business. We'll finally be able to invest in an alien beam-up booth."

Norton high-fived him. A couple of men in goatees brought a large pile of merchandise to the cash register, and Norton hopped to it. "You found the Venetian glass," he said to them, happily. "Great purchase. It'll keep you regular."

They also bought a bunch of t-shirts. As Norton lifted each one up and folded it, I thought back to the mysterious girl in the courtyard and her Goodnight UFOs t-shirt. I described it to Norton's father.

"I know that one. Remember it, Dad?" he said to Norton's grandfather.

"Oh, yes. That's an oldie but a goodie," the grandfather said. "We haven't sold that for at least ten years."

"More like twenty, Dad," Norton's father said. "You know what? I think we have one in the stockroom."

I followed him to the back, and he found the shirt quickly. He held it up for me, and I got chills. "You don't sell this anymore?" I asked.

"Nope. We keep some stock back for our collection."

It was the exact t-shirt that the young woman had worn that night in my courtyard, except that this one was clean. Somehow, the girl had bought the shirt at least ten or twenty years ago, or it was bought by her captor. It had to be her captor because she wasn't older than eighteen.

Suddenly, I had the realization that all roads seemed to end at Goodnight UFOs. The disappearing girl wore one of the shop's t-shirts, Wade met with Mabel at the store, and now it was the scene of Silas's attempted murder. Was there something about the store that was the key to the murders?

Norton's father was staring at me, either waiting for me to throw poop at him or he wasn't as innocent as he seemed, and he wanted to do me harm. "Is it hot in here?" I asked. "Let's go back. Thank you so much for showing me the shirt."

I tossed it back to him and practically ran out of the stockroom. Back at the cash register, Nora was waiting for me to take up the chauffeur baton from Faye. I hadn't seen her since the pool re-opening. She was holding a toddler in each arm, and three kids ran around her, like Abbott ran around me when he wanted a bone.

"Thank you for inviting me," she said, brightly, raising her voice over her children, who were making a real racket. "Faye told me about our mission," she said, leaning in, conspiratorially. One of her toddlers had a runny nose, and Nora wiped it with her finger and then wiped her wet finger on her jeans. "I don't have to be back to the bank until two. This is a real treat for us. A field trip. A little adventure. Isn't that right, kids?"

"I'm hungry!" one of the boys complained, which sent off echoes of "I'm hungry" from her other kids. Nora had a massive tote bag slung over her shoulder, and somehow she managed to dig out five granola bars without dropping one of the kids. She tossed the bars to her children, which made them happy.

"Nora has thirteen kids," Faye whispered in my ear. "Three sets of twins."

I gulped. Nora had chewing gum in her hair, and one of the kids was pulling on her shirt, revealing her beige bra. "I read a lot of mysteries. At least I listen to the audio books. I can do that while I cook and clean," Nora told me. "I'll be a good Dr. Watson for you."

We went out the front door, and three of Nora's kids ran around the downed flying saucer, shooting each other with invisible laser guns. The crowd had grown. It was the first time that I was up close and personal with the UFO in daylight. It was huge and probably weighed a ton. It was a miracle that Silas survived.

I followed Nora across the street. I turned around to see her three little ones still running around the UFO. "Are they going to be okay?" I asked.

She unlocked a large van and tossed her toddlers inside. "Oh, yeah. They follow the food. Kids, in the van!" she shouted, and the three ran across the street and jumped into the van.

"Do you need help getting them in the car seats?" I asked.

"Thank you, but no. The older ones handle the little ones. Hop in the front. We're not going far."

Sure enough, the older kids who were no older than seven belted in the toddlers. They were content, finishing off their granola bars. We drove a few minutes into the hills until we hit a long driveway. At the foot of it, there was a large sign announcing "Friends of Daisy Giraffe Home for Abused Wildlife." It was right next door to my house, separated by acres of forest.

The Giraffe Home was a one-story round, wooden building. "Have you been here before?" Nora asked me.

"No."

"Oh, you're in for a treat. They're hoping to bring back the town by making it up to Daisy."

"What happened to Daisy the giraffe?"

"I'm thirsty!" her daughter yelled, and the rest of the kids joined the chorus. Nora dug five juice boxes out her tote bag and tossed them in the back while she parked the van. We got out, and she opened the van's sliding door. The kids started yelling and jumped out. She corralled the toddlers, scooping them up in her arms.

I opened the door for Nora and the kids, and I followed them in. Once we were inside, Nora let the toddlers down and they ran after the other kids, screaming like banshees as they ran free. Nora stretched her back and straightened her hair, pausing for a second at the glob of gum.

"So, here we are," she said.

It was dark inside, and somber music was playing. It was a lot like entering a funeral home. It made a statement, like I was supposed to be sad, or at the very least, pensive. We walked down a long hallway, and Nora stopped at a glass enclosure, which had a stuffed giraffe in it.

"Is this Daisy?" I asked.

"No, they ate Daisy. The museum bought this one to show. Probably not a good idea to have an actual dead giraffe here. A picture would have been good enough."

We walked on to the next exhibit. "What is that? Some kind of artisan craft?" I asked. There was a tall ropelike sculpture about the size of a man behind the glass.

"That's the noose."

"What noose?"

"The noose. The one they used."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't you know about Daisy?"

"It's a tragedy," Rocco interrupted, joining us. "And the dumbest thing ever done. They cursed the town. Blackened Goodnight's name."

"It happened a long time ago," Nora said. "In the 1800s. I don't think we still need to feel guilty about it."

"That doesn't work," Rocco said, wagging his finger at her face. "We have to be repentant. We have to show America that we're truly and totally sorry about what we did, even though we didn't do it because the ones who did it died before the turn of the 20th century."

"What?" I demanded, growing impatient. "What did you not do to Daisy the giraffe?"

Nora's kids ran past at us, miming getting hanged. They each had a hand up in the air, and their heads were cocked to the sides with their tongues sticking out. I looked at the noose. It was about six feet long, the perfect length to fit around a giraffe's neck.

"No way," I said, catching on. "You hanged a giraffe? You monsters!"

"See?" Rocco said, pointing at me. "It's the go-to reaction. We can't overcome until we wash the deed off us. We need to show that we love giraffes. Prove to the world that we're giraffe lovers. That's why the Friends of Daisy Giraffe Home for Abused Wildlife is essential, and that's why we're doing the giraffe parade on Saturday."

"You hanged a giraffe?" I repeated. "I mean, really? You really hanged a giraffe? Who does that? How is it possible? And why? Why would you hang a giraffe?"

We walked to the next exhibit, which had three large photographs of the hanging.

Poor Daisy.

"Oh my God!" I shouted, looking at the photos. "You hanged a giraffe!"

After that, I had to sit down. Rocco brought us to the Daisy Mourning Room, which had black leather chairs and couches and a large fireplace under a portrait of Daisy in happier days. The sad music was even louder in here, presumably to drown out the sounds of mourning visitors. Rocco handed me a bottle of water from a custom refrigerator that blended into the cabinetry. When the kids saw the fridge, they attacked, cleaning it out of snacks and drinks. Nora leaned back in one of the chairs, like she was at a spa.

"Daisy was part of a circus," Rocco explained. "They came into town, and it was time for the show, but Daisy didn't want to perform."

"What kind of performance does a giraffe do?" I asked.

"You're missing the point of the story," Rocco said.

"Sorry. Go on."

"Let me tell it," Nora said. "I'm used to getting to the point, and I promised the kids hamburgers."

"Hamburgers!" they yelled.

Nora counted on her fingers and spoke quickly, getting to the point, just like she promised. "Daisy was pissed off. She didn't want to perform. Her trainer was a douche nozzle. She killed him. The townsfolk tried her and sentenced her to hang. And voila! They built a gallows for two solid months that would do the job. And then for some reason, they took a lot of pictures."

Rocco nodded, sadly. "And that's when the town died, and it never came back."

It was the craziest thing I had ever heard. Much crazier than an intergalactic war. "And this happened in the 1800s?" I asked.

Rocco nodded. "It's a black cloud on our town. Otherwise, we could be the UFO town. Everyone loves Star Trek. We could have been the Leonard Nimoy of American towns. I mean, instead of the giraffe killer town."

"I loved Leonard Nimoy," I said. "Okay. I'll do whatever you want. But not because it's PR for the town. I'll do it to make it up to Daisy."

I know I sounded stupid. Why did I care that the jerky town hanged a giraffe a hundred and fifty years ago? But I had recently seen a young man's life cut down in front of me, and Silas had almost died. Not to mention that my husband was a killer. Daisy's demise touched me, and I was feeling melancholic. Besides, how could I face Abbott and Costello if I didn't do something? So, I was going to do whatever it took to make it up to Daisy the giraffe.

"I'm not doing this," I said, crossing my arms in front of me. "Nuh-uh. Daisy can go to hell. The town can die and stay dead. Who cares that some yahoo country bumpkins hanged a giraffe? She probably had it coming. I mean, she killed a trainer. Live by the sword, die by the sword, baby. I'm out of here. Screw Daisy."

"I'm not sure what I'm looking at," Nora said. "And I'm afraid for you to tell me, Rocco."

We were in the employees' lounge. Two ladies with measuring tapes were standing next to Rocco, who was holding what looked like a BDSM outfit. I saw rubber and latex and a lot of straps.

"We ran into a snag with the giraffe saddle," Rocco explained. "But never fear. This is going to work. It's a custom-made sling. We're going to measure you for it."

"I'm going to ride a giraffe in a sling? A BDSM sling?"

"Right," Nora said. "This can't possibly go wrong." She rolled her eyes for emphasis.

 "I'm going to ride a giraffe in a BDSM sling?" I asked, again. "At a parade for the town to show that it's wholesome and kind to animals?"

"I have to hand it to you," Nora said to Rocco. "You've picked a genius way to fix Goodnight's reputation." She rolled her eyes again.

I had to get out of there, but I knew Rocco was going to argue the situation. So, I needed to bring in backup. I needed a diversion. "Kids, hamburger time!" I yelled. They ran in and yelled "hamburger!" over and over and pushed Nora and me out of the room, like they were a tsunami.

"Smart," Nora said, as we walked out of the Daisy Home. "Faye said you were smart, and she was right. I'm glad you're not crazy, too. That's a plus."

"Thanks," I said, opening her van's sliding door.

"I totally understand why you forgot to ask him about the murder," she added.

I slapped my forehead. "Oh, no. I forgot to grill him. I was going to interrogate him about Wade and the cigars and Jimmy's death. I'm a total failure."

We got into the van. "Totally understandable," Nora said, starting the van. "It was your first Daisy experience. It threw you. But now you have something over Rocco. He wants you to ride a giraffe in a kinky sex sling, and you want information. It's a good trade."

She had a point. I now had leverage. "But I'm never going to ride a giraffe in a kinky sex sling," I said.

"Of course not. Nobody is. But Rocco doesn't need to know that."

"You're a genius, Nora."

"Thank you. Finally, somebody noticed."

# Chapter 8

Nora dropped me off at home on her way to get her kids fast food. The dogs greeted me at the gate, and I sat down on the ground to pet them. I was feeling guilty for being out so much and not giving them the attention they deserved. Distracted by the dogs, it took a moment to realize that my car was parked next to Klee's Cadillac. It had returned, somehow, under mysterious circumstances. The damaged hood had been removed, revealing the motor, but otherwise, it looked pretty good. I peeked through the driver's window. There was no sign of a rattlesnake.

My car was definitely good news. I hoped it was also a good omen for the rest of the day. I walked through the gate with the dogs on my heels and went into the Gazette's office. It was empty, except for Klee, who was busy making the newspaper run. She was incredibly organized and competent. It was clear that the newspaper couldn't survive without her.

"Oh, good," she said, noticing me. "Jack's on assignment. Thank goodness that Goodnight High is giving him work study credits to help out on the Gazette while Silas is out, or we would be screwed." She handed me a piece of paper with a name and address on it. "I need five hundred words for this one, but if you can only do three hundred, that'll be fine."

"What's the story?"

"I'm going to leave that as a surprise for you. You know, to brighten your day."

"Do you know how my car got here? Who brought it?"

"I didn't know your car was here. It wasn't here when I arrived. I fed the dogs, let them out for a run, and I've been at work ever since. I hope Gloria gets here soon. I'm starving. I could eat three burritos."

I sat down at Silas's computer and Googled New Sun Petroleum in New Mexico. My new assignment was located on the way to New Sun's headquarters. Perfect. It was time for the mountain to come to Mohammed.

Before I headed out, I needed to change and get cleaned up. The dogs and I left the office. In the courtyard, I stopped a moment and glanced over at Boone's section of the house. It was completely quiet with no sign of him. I was tempted to break in and find out what his story was, but I was too busy.

I walked into my section of the house through the door to the living room and went back to the kitchen pantry, where I refilled the dogs' water bowls and gave them two bones. Remembering to hydrate, I filled a glass under the tap and drank it all. My altitude sickness was a lot better, but I still gasped for air if I walked too quickly.

I stripped down, as I walked through the house to my bedroom. The house needed a lot of work, as Faye had pointed out, but it was starting to feel like home. My belongings were in place, I had a job, and I was making friends. I was settling in. There was still the pesky problem about income and how to make the Gazette bring in more money, but I had time to work that out.

I dumped my dirty clothes in the hamper and took a quick shower. After, I went to my bedroom and stopped dead when I saw my purse, cellphone, and keys on my bed. There was a little note on the purse.

No need to thank me.

The short note was written in perfect, deliberate handwriting. It was the handwriting I imagined belonged to Sheriff Amos Goodnight. He was that kind of man. Perfect. Deliberate. It also turned out that he was chivalrous, returning my belongings without asking for payment or even thanks.

I picked a terrible moment to give up men.

After I gave the dogs a short walk, I grabbed my purse and at the last moment, decided to take the crowbar with me. If I was going to snoop around suspected killers, I wanted some semblance of protection.

It took fifteen minutes of searching the car before I actually sat in it. Just as I finally took my seat, Gloria the tamale lady drove up. I opened my window and asked for a burrito to go.

Driving away, I unwrapped the burrito and took a bite. It was the best Mexican food I had ever tasted, and it came to my door every day. It was my second good news of the day. I drove with the air-conditioning cranked up and the Bee Gees playing on the radio. I was wearing cotton shorts and a Disneyland t-shirt that I had bought during my California days. I was amazed that the car could run after the accident, but I guess a hood isn't important.

It took nearly a half hour to reach the address for my new assignment. It was a small rundown house out in the middle of nowhere. I checked the name. Simon Whitehead. I parked in front next to a sheriff SUV, and my heart danced around in my chest, just looking at the words "sheriff" on the side of the car.

Darn it. I forgot to wear the floral miniskirt.

I knocked on the door and dug my reporter's notebook and pen out of my purse in order to take notes. A middle-aged man answered. He was meticulously dressed in slacks, a short-sleeved button-down, and a red bow tie.

"Are you more cops?" he asked.

"No, I'm Matilda Dare from the Goodnight Gazette."

"The new one? The crazy girl who sang the National Anthem backward at the World Cup?"

"No. That was someone else. I've lived here for thirty years." I had grown tired of defending my sanity. It was a lot easier just to lie and say I wasn't me.

"Oh. In that case, come in."

Even if the outside of the house was rundown, the inside was tidy and decorated like a doll house with handcrafted doilies and afghans everywhere. I looked around for Amos, but he wasn't there.

"The patrolman lady is in the kitchen, taking notes," Mr. Whitehead said.

I followed him into the kitchen. I said hello to Wendy Ackerman, the deputy I had met the night I saw the vanished girl. She was taking notes in a reporter's notebook at the kitchen table, and she was eating cookies from a small plate.

I sat next to her and Mr. Whitehead offered me a cookie, which I accepted.

"Where was the stolen good when it went missing?" Wendy asked him.

I jotted down where in my notebook. Mr. Whitehead showed Wendy a small plate, the kind that doesn't break when it's dropped on the floor.

"It was on this plate, and wrapped with this plastic wrap," he said.

He showed her the piece of crinkled plastic wrap, which was striped with grease.

I wrote down plate and plastic wrap in my notebook. Wendy wrote some notes, too.

"Have you noticed any suspicious characters hanging around, sir?" she asked. "Anybody. Think hard. Perhaps a deliveryman that shouldn't have been here. Even a kid selling lemonade would be suspicious in a case like this one."

I jotted down lemonade kid.

"So?" Wendy asked. "Have you seen anyone suspicious?"

Mr. Whitehead gave me a pointed look, like I was suspicious. "I just got here," I said. "I've never been here before. I don't even know what was stolen."

"My retirement, that's all," he said, angry. "My entire retirement was stolen!"

Grand larceny, I wrote down. Wow, Goodnight seemed like a sleepy town, but it was bursting with crime. No wonder Klee wanted five hundred words. This was a big story. It might even need a thousand words.

"You kept your retirement on a plate covered with plastic wrap?" I asked.

"In the refrigerator. Where else would I keep it?"

I wrote that down. "How much was in your retirement fund?"

Wendy shot me a nasty look. I was stepping on her toes, since she had been the one asking questions, but I knew that Silas would want me to ask all the pertinent questions, and he would never have allowed law enforcement to stop him.

I shrugged at her and gave her an I'm sorry smile. Mr. Whitehead sat down at the table. "That's the thing," he started, his voice lowering with the seriousness of his story. "There was one that looked like Dolly Parton sold on eBay six months ago for ten large. So, I figure that one that looked like Abraham Lincoln would be worth at least ten times that much."

"So, one hundred thousand," Wendy said, writing it down.

"Wait a minute," I said. "What are we talking about? Dolly Parton? Abraham Lincoln?"

"Keep up," he complained.

"Mr. Whitehead purchased a ten-piece McNugget box at McDonalds two days ago, and one of the nuggets looked like Lincoln," Wendy explained to me.

"A chicken McNugget," I repeated.

"Looked like Abraham Lincoln," she repeated. "Kind of like seeing a girl who isn't there."

Ouch. Burn. Wendy wasn't nice, but she had a gun and a Taser, so I just smiled and took more notes.

"When did it go missing?" Wendy asked, and I wrote when in my notebook.

"Two hours ago, along with a box of Pop-Tarts, and half a bottle of orange juice."

I was having a bad feeling about the Lincoln nugget's chances for survival. "Any idea who would have stolen it?" Wendy asked.

"Yes. My nephew, Jamie. He's like a lawnmower around food, and he's out of work. I was keeping the nugget secret, but he probably took one look at it, recognized it as a goldmine, and made off with it. You have to find him!"

I wrote furiously while Wendy radioed for an alert on Mr. Whitehead's nephew. "Suspect might be in possession of a valuable chicken McNugget," she said on the radio hooked to her shoulder.

"What?" a voice demanded in the radio. "Are you playing with me, Wendy?"

"The McNugget looks like Lincoln," she continued, ignoring the question.

"For the love of Pete. If my loser kids had gotten jobs, I could be retired by now," the voice complained.

Wendy stood and nodded to Mr. Whitehead. "We'll be on the case. Don't worry."

"I'm worried!" he yelled. "A hundred thousand dollars! Stolen! Or eaten. And if it was eaten, we can't retrieve it. I mean, we could, but it wouldn't look anything like Lincoln anymore."

Mr. Whitehead walked Wendy to the front door. When he returned, I asked if he had a photo of the stolen meat. He did and showed it to me on his phone. It didn't look anything like Lincoln. It looked like a chicken McNugget with maybe a hint of Elton John.

He texted me the picture so I could publish it in the Gazette. I had gotten the who, what, where, when, why, and how. Journalism wasn't hard at all. Carl Bernstein wasn't such hot stuff after all.

I thanked Mr. Whitehead and left. Outside, Wendy was pushing buttons on her car's computer. I knocked on her window, and she opened it.

"You were great in there," I said, trying to butter her up. She wasn't easily buttered, however. She pursed her lips, as if she was impatient. I skipped ahead to the point. "Have you discovered anything in Silas's case?"

"Yep. He fell off a roof, and a flying saucer landed on him."

"He says he was pushed."

"If he was, we don't know who did it."

"How about Jimmy?"

Her pupils dilated, and she looked up and to the right. I knew what that meant. She was figuring out a lie to tell me. "Sheriff Goodnight is handling that case, personally. I don't think he has any leads, but he's not keeping me informed."

I nodded. "Well, thank you, anyway."

I got in my car and drove off. My mind was racing a mile a minute. Why would the patrolwoman lie to me? What was happening with Jimmy's murder case that would warrant deception by law enforcement? And why would she act differently about Jimmy's case than Silas's case? I had been under the impression that they were the same case. That Jimmy's murder was actually a failed attempt to kill Silas.

Was I wrong?

Did the killer mean to kill Jimmy? Were there actually two different killers? Were the two murders not related?

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. Maybe I wasn't so good at the detective thing as I thought. Still, my best theory so far was that Wade from New Sun Petroleum tried to kill Silas twice and murdered Jimmy by accident. At least, that's what Silas believed. And he was a real journalist.

I couldn't get anywhere near New Sun Petroleum. There was a long fence topped with razor wire that bordered the miles of property. The entrance gate was manned by an armed guard, and I couldn't see any buildings in the distance, so I knew that I was far out.

I pulled over to the side of the road and debated whether I should tell the truth to the guard and hope that Wade would let me in or if I should lie to the guard, so that I could sneak in and spy.

For some stupid reason, I decided on the truth. I pulled up to the guard's gate and told him that the Gazette wanted to speak to either Wade Georgia or Steve Wright. The guard was nice enough, even flirting with me. But his calls to Wade and Steve were rejected. They didn't want any part of the Gazette, and if I didn't leave immediately, the flirty guard would have to get mean with me.

He shrugged. "I can't shoot you, but I can pepper spray you," he explained. "I've had to do it four times already."

"No problem. I'll get out of here," I said.

He took his phone out. "Can I get your number first?"

"I'm married," I said, which was technically true.

"Shoot. Can I get your picture, at least? I can lie to my buds, tell 'em you're my girl."

I let him take my picture, and then I made a big show of turning my car around. But I wasn't going to give up. It served me right to be honest. But now I had a different plan. When I got out of eyesight of the guard's gate, I turned off the road and followed the fence.

My plan was basically to break in and somehow get the proof that New Sun Petroleum had killed Jimmy and had thrown Silas off a roof. I drove for a while before I found a patch of fence without razor wire. I dug a blanket out of my trunk and tossed it over the fence.

"Here we go, eighth grade P.E. class," I said, pushing my tennis shoe through a hole in the fence and pulled myself up. It was easier than I thought it would be to scale a ten-foot fence. Thankfully, I had narrow feet, and my toes fit easily into the holes in the fence. It was dicey when I got to the top and had to climb over, and I almost fell once, but finally I got over to the other side.

The altitude sickness hit me hard then, and I sat down on the scrub to try and catch my breath. Stupidly, I hadn't brought any water, and I thought back to the story of Boone finding Silas after he drank his pee for five days. Would Boone search for me? Would I have to drink my pee? Finally, after a long moment, I felt well enough to walk.

"Now what?" I asked myself. I started walking in the direction of what I hoped was the New Sun Petroleum building. Luckily, it only took about fifteen minutes before I saw a series of buildings, standard industrial park construction. After another fifteen minutes, I was standing on the pavement, a few feet from the entrance to the main building.

No way was I going to try and enter that way. It was time to be sneaky. I walked around the building until I got to a side door. I said a little prayer and tugged at the door handle. Miraculously, it opened. I took a deep breath and walked inside.

It was a sterile, no frills office building. People came and went through the hallway. Some were dressed in suits, and others wore work clothes. Apparently, I didn't stand out, even in my shorts, and nobody asked me who I was or what I was doing there.

The building was only three stories, so I didn't think it would be that difficult to find where Wade was hiding. I took the elevator to the top floor, assuming that he would want to be above everyone else. I was right. As I left the elevator on the top floor, I spotted Wade at the other end of the hallway before he turned into an office.

My pulse raced. I couldn't believe I had managed to break in and find him. I was so cool. I was Lara Croft. I was Wonder Woman.

I was caught.

Two security guards came up behind me, each taking one of my arms. I struggled against them, but it was no use. "Let me go!" I yelled, drawing the attention of the workers. But nobody came to my rescue. I was dragged back into the elevator, and one of the security guards hit the button to the ground floor. "I wasn't doing anything wrong," I insisted. "I was visiting a friend."

I offered them half a dozen excuses for why I as there. No matter what I said, they didn't react. They held onto my arms, and after the elevator doors opened again, they took me to a small room and forcibly sat me down in a chair.

And they zip-tied my hands together in front of me.

This is so much worse than drinking my own pee.

I sat in the small room for a long time with the two guards never letting me out of their sight. My imagination didn't let up. It came up with a never-ending supply of scenarios where I ended up murdered in horrible ways and in sixty-seven percent of the scenarios, my dead body wound up cut into bite-sized pieces and fed to Rocco's parade of giraffes.

Did giraffes even eat meat?

Finally, the door opened, and Wade entered. I stood up with my hands zip-tied in front of me, but one of the guards pushed me back down onto the chair. This was bad, I thought. Real bad.

And stupid. How did I get so stupid?

"Klee knows where I am," I told Wade. "So, if anything happens to me, you'll have a world of hurt come down on you. There'll be nowhere you can hide. Your ass will be grass. Your hide will be tanned. You won't be able to breathe. You won't be able to live. You won't be able to say boo."

"She's in here, Sheriff," Wade said. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. That only happened when I ate hot fudge and when Amos Goodnight was near. Sure enough, Amos walked around to face me and took stock of the situation.

His face was impassable. He had no visible expression. As usual, I didn't know if he was angry or not. Actually, I was pretty sure he was angry. His cowboy hat was dipped low, practically covering his eyes. He had a gun in a holster on his hip, and his shiny badge on his chest.

"Breaking and entering. Our cameras caught her climbing over a fence. If she damaged it, I expect payment, of course," Wade said.

As Wade spoke, Amos continued to look at me, his eyes boring through me. I could imagine what he was thinking. Trouble. I was lots of trouble, and now I had crossed a line, literally. I had climbed a fence and trespassed, and now I was zip-tied in a small room and about to go to jail.

"Am I going to jail?" I asked. My voice cracked with fear. I willed myself not to cry, but my body wasn't cooperating. My nose filled up, and my eyes burned. It was the typical pre-crying position.

"Damn right, you're going to jail," Wade spat. "Read her her rights, Sheriff."

Amos slowly turned toward Wade and shot him a cold look. Wade took a step back. Amos took a tool off his belt and cut the zip-ties off my wrists, letting them fall to the floor.

"Are you letting her go?" Wade asked, incredulous. "You can't do that. She's a criminal."

"Mr. Georgia, don't you worry about what I'm going to do or not do," Amos said, his voice hard as steel. "I do my job. That's all you need to know. And I'm doing my job right now."

Amos wasn't a man used to being told what to do. That much was clear. He touched the back of my arm, and I stood. He walked me out of the small room, past Wade and the two security guards, without saying another word.

We left the building. Amos's SUV was parked in front, and he opened the passenger door for me. I climbed into it, and he closed the door behind me. A few seconds later, he was sitting down, and he peeled out with a loud squeal of his tires against the blacktop.

"I don't want to go to jail," I said, as he nodded to the guard at the gate and drove through at eighty miles an hour. "I was just doing my job. I mean, visiting a friend. I mean, finding justice for Jimmy and Silas. Putting me in jail doesn't make the world safer. It doesn't help society. Yes, I shouldn't have climbed the fence. Yes, maybe I shouldn't have snooped around. Okay, technically I'm a criminal. I'll give you that. Technically, I should be in jail. But don't put me in jail. I have dogs to take care of. I'm a nice person. I..."

He took his hat off and threw it into the back seat. "Haven't you ever watched Law & Order? Don't say anything without a lawyer."

"I can't afford a lawyer. I already have a lawyer to fight my killer husband, who is making divorce impossible. I don't even have enough money to go to a movie. I like movies. I... I'm doing it again, aren't I? Where are we going?"

"South."

"What's south? Is that where the jail is?"

"No, that's where my place is. Where I live. I'm taking you home, Trouble."

# Chapter 9

Amos owned Yellowstone, or at least it looked like that was where he took me. We drove through miles of lush land and forest across a bridge and over a wide, winding river. His ranch house was huge, made of beautiful wood, and it was surrounded by a barn and a large paddock.

"Holy cow," I said. "You're J.R. Ewing."

"I can't complain," he said, the first words in fifteen minutes.

I didn't know why we were going to his house. I was hoping that it was because he wanted to get me naked and seduce me.

At least, I would have hoped for that if I wasn't done with men.

Amos parked the SUV in front of the house. He opened the front door, letting me in first. The inside of the ranch house was breathtaking. The door opened up into the living room, which had tall ceilings with massive beams and big, comfortable ranch furniture. It was hard to believe that a man had the taste to decorate a house this way, even if it wasn't frilly. But then I remembered that Amos was a widower, so it was more likely that his wife had decorated the house.

As we walked through the living room to the kitchen, we passed a wall of photos, most of them Amos with his wife, a woman with long blond hair and no makeup. A natural girl. Fresh. Pretty. Amos's type.

Amos tossed his hat on a chair in his chef's kitchen and washed his hands. Opening the refrigerator, he took an armful of ingredients out and put them on the large marble island.  I pulled up a stool at the island and watched him cook.

"What're you making?" I asked.

"Dinner."

He wasn't a talker. But that was okay because he was a looker. He had rolled up his sleeves, revealing the corded muscles on his strong forearms. His back was wide, pushing against his shirt. Physically, he looked like a protector. Competent, strong, a hero. He also had the face of a model. The Marlboro Man. Looking at his face made me want to take up smoking.

"Is this my last meal before you take me to jail?" I asked.

He chopped vegetables on a cutting board, and his mouth turned up into a small smile. "Only if you consider my cooking jail."

"Won't you get in trouble if you don't arrest me?"

"Trouble," he repeated, half-laughing.

"You shouldn't arrest me. I'm on assignment," I explained. "There's a good chance that Wade and New Sun Petroleum killed poor Jimmy and threw Silas off the roof."

Amos pointed his knife at me. "You're right," he said, surprising me. "It might be a good idea to stay clear of them. You know, so you don't get into trouble."

I rolled my eyes. "I can't very well stay away from them and prove that they're killers."

He tossed some ingredients into a pan on the stove, and it made a loud sizzling noise.  His hands moved quickly, adding, mixing, cooking. It was like watching an episode of Iron Chef. He plated what he was making, and he pushed the plate in front of me.

"Appetizer," he said. "Eat up."

I didn't know what it was, but it was delicious. I closed my eyes in appreciation. "This is the best thing I've ever had in my mouth," I said.

When I opened my eyes again, Amos was staring at my mouth, his eyes big and dark. "This thing can't happen," he said.

"What? Was I eating it wrong? I don't know about fancy food. Was I supposed to use a special fork?"

He shook his head. "No. This," he said, gesturing toward me like I was a prize on a game show. "It can't happen."

"I agree," I said. "What? What can't happen?"

He walked around the island, slipped his hand under my legs and pulled them wide apart, settling his body between them. Gently he put his finger under my chin and tilted my head up. "This," he said, his voice deep and gravelly.

Then, he kissed me.

His lips were warm and rough, and they possessed mine with a wild passion that was also sweet and caring. I closed my eyes and leaned into the kiss. Our tongues met and caressed, and the interaction sent waves of arousal through me. My core throbbed, and heat consumed me. Amos ground his hips into me, his arousal pressing high up against my inner thigh. My legs wrapped around him, and his hands reached under me and picked me up like I weighed nothing. He carried me into the living room and laid me down on a couch. I pulled him down on top of me, our lips never parting.

It wasn't an exaggeration to say that it was the first time I had ever been kissed like this. I had had my share of passionate kisses by big men, but this was this was the first time my body reacted this way.

It was on fire. I wanted to get naked fast. I wanted to erase all of the touches I had ever felt by other men in my life and only remember Amos's hands and Amos's lips and his arousal growing and growing, pushing against me like he was demanding to take me. Like a soldier conquering new territory.

He fumbled with his jeans button, and I moaned in anticipation.

As the sound left me, Amos froze in place. After a second, he lifted himself off of me and sat on the couch, laying my feet on his lap.

"This," I said, breaking the awkward silence. "This is what you can't do."

He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. "This," he repeated, exhaling.

My eyes were drawn to the fireplace and the mantel above it. Pictures of Amos and his wife at their wedding, pictures of him and his wife on horseback, pictures of him and his wife at the Goodnight Diner. And love. Pictures and pictures of love.

"You're right," I said sitting up. "You can't do this."

He took my hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it gently. Standing, he tugged me up. "I'm starving. Obviously," he added with a slight smile. "Let me make you dinner. While we eat, I can lecture you about staying away from New Sun Petroleum."

"You're just going to leave them alone? You're just going to let the bad guys win?"

"I said you need to stay away from them. I'm a different matter."

While Amos cooked, I wrote the McNugget story and emailed it to Klee. After a wonderful dinner and two glasses of wine, Amos drove me home. I was surprised to see my car parked by the gate. "I had my men retrieve it," Amos explained.

"Again?"

"Huh?"

"You brought my car back to me twice."

"What're you talking about?" Amos pointed to a place outside the SUV. "Looks like we have company."

The dogs were jumping up and down by the car. I opened the car door and was ambushed by Abbott and Costello. I was late with their dinner, and they knew it. Amos insisted on walking me through the courtyard to make sure I got into the house all right, but I noticed he didn't cross the threshold into the actual house. He tipped his hat to me and walked away.

Yes, I was disappointed that Amos couldn't do this, but I was also giddy with the knowledge that I was driving a man mad with desire. I knew that there were a few cold showers in his future, and I was the cause of it. The idea made me feel sexy and powerful, like I was the Mata Hari of Goodnight, New Mexico.

There was also the not-so-small reality of my situation. I was trying to get out of a toxic marriage that had left me bruised and battered and almost dead. I had a man in San Quentin fighting me in every way. I was trying to re-start my life. Reinvent myself. Find happiness. If I jumped into a relationship right away, I would never fix myself, and the relationship probably wouldn't be healthy, anyway.

Still, Adele was right. Amos wore jeans good.

After feeding the dogs, I decided to take them for a walk in the forest to make up for not giving them a lot of attention lately. I took a flashlight from the pantry and opened the door to the courtyard. Across the way, Boone's part of the house was dark and quiet. Where was he? He had mentioned that he had just gotten back into town, so maybe he traveled a lot and was gone again. I couldn't imagine where he would go. Did he have another storage shed that he lived in part-time?

Abbott sniffed the air, howled, and took off out of the gate. Costello looked up at me, as if he was asking whether I was ready or not. "Sure," I said, turning the flashlight on. "Let's have a little adventure."

The forest was spooky at night, full of shadows and animal sounds. Costello stayed by my side, which comforted me, while Abbott was in the distance howling at whatever he was chasing. The air smelled of juniper, and I had to stop and rest every few feet to try and gather air into my lungs. Above me, the sky was overcast, hiding the normal show of stars.

We walked deeper into the forest with my flashlight shining a sliver of a path in front of us. Costello stopped suddenly, and looking up at me, whined. "What is it, boy?" I asked and realized that the animal noises of the forest had stopped completely. There was a loud noise as something ran toward us in the underbrush, kicking up debris as it went.

"Are there bears in this forest?" I asked Costello, and he whined in answer. "Perfect. I'm going to get eaten by a bear. That really tops this day off nicely. At least I got kissed on my last day of life."

The noise got closer. I shined my light in that direction but couldn't see a thing. I was just about to turn and run for home when the girl in the UFO t-shirt appeared from behind a tree.

I jumped in the air and dropped my flashlight when she surprised me. I bent to pick it up and noticed how it illuminated her dirty and bloody feet. As I stood back up, it lit her dirty, baggy pajama bottoms and the torn, too-small t-shirt. Finally, I shined it on her face, careful not to get the light in her eyes. She still had the lost look on her face as she looked back at me, like she was also surprised to find me in the forest. But now there was something else on her face. Terror.

"Was that you, running in the forest?" I asked her.

She blinked, as if she was trying to focus on me. "You didn't help me," she said, quietly.

"You disappeared. I didn't even know your name. Come back with me to the house, and I'll help you."

"You didn't help me. I'm lost. He hurts me. He's going to hurt me more."

"Who? Who's hurting you? Is it Boone?" I didn't want it to be Boone, I realized. And not just because he was my roommate. I didn't want it to be him because I liked him. He had been kind to me and saved me when I was stranded because of the rattlesnake in my air-conditioning vent.

"He keeps me in a cage. I screamed and screamed, so he moved me down."

"Down where?" I asked. Even though it was a warm evening, my skin had sprouted goosebumps.

"With shackles," she continued and lifted her arms to show me the red and bruised marks on her wrists. "You didn't find me. You didn't help me."

"Let me help you now," I said.

I was getting the impression that she needed some professional help. Maybe some pharmaceuticals. She wasn't playing with a full deck. But all that aside, she appeared abused, and I imagined that there was more than a little truth in what she was saying.

"Help me," she repeated. Her voice was barely audible. "There's others, too, you know," she added.

"What?"

"Save the others. Save them before..." She looked around her, scared of something. "I have to go."

"No, come back with me," I said. "Let me help you. I don't even know your name."

"I am ninety-seven," she said. "Watch out."

"Watch out?"

"He will come for you," she said, pointing at me.

Then, she disappeared. It was just like before. One second she was in front of me, and then next second she vanished into thin air.

"Girl? Girl? Where are you? Where did you go?" I called.

There was no sign of her. The forest was quiet, and then, I heard footsteps and a muted popping sound, followed by a tree branch breaking next to me.

Costello went wild, barking up a storm. Abbott howled in the distance, coming toward me fast.

There was another popping sound, and another tree branch broke. "What the hell?" I said. "Am I being shot at?"

I was being shot at. I knew because the third shot hit Costello in the leg, make him howl in agony. "Someone shot my dog!" I yelled. There were more footsteps, and Costello whimpered. I kneeled down and touched his leg, which was sticky with blood. Dropping the flashlight, I picked him up and ran for it.

Running at night in the forest while being shot at, carrying a hundred-pound dog while I had altitude sickness, wasn't the easiest thing in the world. But adrenaline is an amazing thing. "It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right," I repeated over and over to Costello as we ran for cover. Abbott was running, too and coming closer, never stopping howling. There was another shot, and this time, I could feel the bullet whiz by my head.

"Stop shooting at us!" I yelled.

That's when I tripped over a rock and went flying. Costello went flying, too. I heard footsteps, again, this time running full-out in my direction. "Matilda, are you okay?"

It was Boone. He reached us, and checked me for injuries. "Sonofabitch," he said.

"Someone shot at me. He got the dog. What're you doing here?" I demanded, suspiciously.

"I heard you yell, and I came out to see what was wrong. With you, there's always something wrong."

"Are you sure you weren't shooting at me?"

He ignored my accusation and scooped the dog up into his arms. Costello licked Boone's face, which could have been taken as a sign of Boone's innocence. Or Costello could have just been a dumb dog, licking the face of his attacker. I didn't know which was the right answer.

"Don't worry, boy. I'm going to get you help," Boone told the dog. The beagle reached us and continued to howl. I followed Boone to his truck. He got in the driver's side and laid Costello on his lap. I picked up Abbott and got in the passenger's side.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The vet. I think it's a flesh wound, but he needs antibiotics and stitches. What kind of monster shoots a dog?"

"I think I was the target," I said.

"What were you doing out there?"

"Walking the dogs." I didn't know if I should tell him about the girl, again. What if Boone was her captor? What if he had been shooting at me? I could choose to believe him that he had heard me and came running to my defense.

But I had believed my husband, and it turned out that he had been gaslighting me. I wasn't good at believing anymore.

"You're not a serial killer, right?" I asked.

"This again? I don't know if I should be insulted or flattered. I'm not a serial killer. It's like you want me to be a serial killer. Wait a minute. Did you see the girl again?"

I sunk down in my seat and petted Abbott. "I'm not saying yes, and I'm not saying no."

"Who was shooting at you and why? What have you done now?"

"Nothing! Well, I did break into New Sun Petroleum to get the dirt on Wade and have him imprisoned for murder and get his polluting, corrupt company shut down." I paused and thought about that for a moment. "Okay. I apologize."

"For what?"

"For thinking you shot at me. It's far more likely that Wade shot at me."

"Gee, thanks for your confidence in me."

"I should probably call the sheriff," I said.

"I'm not sticking around to talk to that asshole."

"What do you have against him?"

"What don't I have against...your dreamboat."

"He's not my dreamboat," I insisted and blushed.

"Uh-huh."

"On second thought, I'm not going to call him," I said. "He'll just tell me to mind my own business and stay away from New Sun Petroleum."

"And you're not going to do that, I take it."

"Of course not. I'm on assignment."

It turned out that Costello had a flesh wound. The vet sewed his wound up and gave him antibiotics, just like Boone said he would. I asked the doctor to send me the bill and we left with Costello still in Boone's arms. When we got home, we put the dogs on my bed. Abbott refused to let Costello out of his sight. In less than a minute, they were fast asleep, snoring and farting into my blankets.

"You want a cup of coffee?" I asked Boone.

"It's pretty late for coffee, isn't it? You won't get to sleep."

"I never sleep."

"Never?"

"I once took a nap on a ferry."

"I sleep nine hours a night. Like clockwork," Boone said, making me want to punch him in the throat.

"How about chips and onion dip? I've got that," I said.

"How can I refuse chips and dip?"

We sat at the kitchen table, scooping potato chips into a bowl of onion dip. I decided to skip the coffee, and we drank water. I was bone tired, and we both had Costello's blood on us. Boone made himself comfortable, resting his legs on the chair in front of him, crossed at the ankles.

"Did you get shot at a lot in California?" he asked me, chewing on a chip.

"This was a first."

He seemed to think about that for a moment. "Hmmm...interesting. How about rattlesnakes?"

"That was a first, too."

"So, you move to a Podunk town in the middle of nowhere and then you get into trouble?"

"I don't get into trouble. None of it has been my fault. Why do people keep saying I'm trouble?"

Boone shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe because they're right?"

He was chewing on a chip, but he was chewing slowly, while he studied my face, locking onto my eyes. He had a whole smoldering thing happening, but he suddenly gave a half-smile and looked down at his hand.

"Where were you tonight?" he asked.

I sat up straight in my chair. "Why? How did you know I was out? Were you spying on me?"

He arched an eyebrow. "Klee knocked on my door, looking for you. She said you owed her a chicken McNugget."

"I emailed it to her," I said.

"You emailed her a chicken McNugget?"

"It's a long story."

"And where were you when you emailed her the McNugget?"

"I was..." We locked eyes, again, and I couldn't get myself to tell him that I was at Amos's fancy ranch. There was bad blood between them and whatever crush I had on Amos had spooked Boone away. I was sure that he had tried to ask me out before he realized there was a spark between the sexy sheriff and me. But now, Boone was careful to keep it all platonic.

He put his hand up to tell me to stop. "I don't need to know. I don't want to know."

"You so want to know."

"No, I don't. There's nothing I want to know less. You might have a fine ass, but your ass has nothing to do with me."

"Whoa, that came out of nowhere."

He shrugged. "It might have been on my mind. You can't blame a guy."

"I know what else has been on your mind," I said.

"I doubt that."

"Oh, I know all right. You've been wanting to know where I've been tonight."

"Sorry. No."

"You want to know so much you're ready to explode with it."

"That's the onion dip. It's backing up on me."

"Nope, it's not the onion dip," I said. "It's you. You want to know. It's killing you. It's eating at you like a cancer. It's like flesh-eating bacteria. It's like Alien, ready to rip your chest apart."

Boone crossed his arms in front of him. "I'm curious, but I don't have Alien ready to rip my chest apart."

I held my fingers out about an inch apart. "Little bit," I said.

"I don't have to ask. I know where you were. You were with him."

"Say his name."

"Asshole."

I took another chip and dunked it into the dip. "That's not his name. You know his name. It rhymes with rich cowboy stud muffin."

"I don't think you understand how rhymes work."

"Fine," I said, moving my hands, like I was erasing the air. "This is getting ugly. I was only there for dinner. He arrested me and fed me steak. Then, I came back here and got shot at."

We were quiet a moment, while we ate more chips. Finally, I decided to tell him about the girl. "I saw her again. The vanishing girl."

He arched an eyebrow and looked behind him. "You're seeing her now? Is she here? What's her name? Should I say hello?"

I threw a chip at him. "No, not now. Before, in the forest. Right before I was shot at. She told me she was being held prisoner. Hurt. She mentioned a cage and something underground."

"Spooky. What was she doing in the forest?"

"I don't know. She wouldn't go with me."

"Maybe she's unbalanced. There're some folks who live out in the basin who've been alone for a long time, and they're not right up here," he said, pointing at his temple.

"You're probably not wrong. But here's the thing. She said there are others she wanted me to help. And...she told me to watch myself, like I was in danger, too."

Everything seemed to stop, like the earth had ceased revolving and the atoms in the room were rearranging themselves. "And then you were shot at," Boone said. "Sounds like the two are related, right?"

"Of course they are. How could they not be?" But I wasn't sure they were related at all. I had a feeling that I was in danger from multiple forces, and that the girl represented something far bigger and more dangerous, and I might not find out what it was until it was too late.

# Part IV: The Plot Thickens, and Chaos Ensues

Alien Fans Descend on Town as Rumors of Intergalactic War Grow

by Jack Goodnight

Nearly one hundred people have arrived in Goodnight after rumors of an imminent intergalactic war here have grown since a flying saucer fell on Goodnight Gazette reporter Silas Miller. Visitors have come for a front row seat to what they believe will be an onslaught of UFOs from the Vega quadrant, which will incite the Andromedan aliens--who already live in the United States--to defend their territory.

"It's going to get real here, real soon," the Goodnight UFO's owner, Norton Perkins, explained. "We've got all your intergalactic needs here at the store. If you're team Vega, we have your t-shirt for only $19.99. If you're team Andromeda, we've got your t-shirt, too. It's a little more expensive because it has multicolored stitching."

Intergalactic war fever has spread to Goodnight locals, who are hurrying to tidy up their spare rooms to rent out to Vega and Andromeda supporters. Local businesswoman Mabel Kessler is offering a five-dollar discount off every fish pedicure to mark the event.

"Do yourself a favor and get a fish pedicure," she told this reporter. "Have you looked at your heels? They need fish teeth to clean them up. And don't believe the stories about the toenail issues. That shyster podiatrist doesn't know his butt from his elbow. Who becomes a foot doctor, anyway? I've never heard of such a ridiculous thing."

Goodnight was the scene of a town-wide UFO sighting back in the fifties. Since then, Goodnight has been known for everything outer space.

But some locals feel that any talk of an intergalactic war should be pushed aside to make way for the cleansing of the town's bad giraffe karma. "Don't forget about the giraffe parade on Saturday," local millionaire, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Rocco Humphrey said. "Spread the word to the world that we love giraffes, despite what our very, very, very distant ancestors did to poor Daisy."

Alien visitors suggest Goodnight residents watch out for rattlesnakes, a favorite weapon of the Andromedans against the Vegans.

# Chapter 10

Faye showed up unannounced at seven in the morning. She walked through the unlocked door without knocking. She was wearing her normal cutoffs and work boots, a tank top and utility belt. She was carrying additional tools in a bucket with her right hand, and over her left shoulder was a bunch of ductwork.

"I can't wait to get my hands on your pipes," she said, tossing her tools onto my kitchen table. "What happened to your stove?"

The ancient stove was lying in a heap of parts on the kitchen floor. "I cleaned it last night."

"You sure are thorough," she said. With at least fifty years of grease and grime, I wanted to get every nook and cranny cleaned, and once I started, I couldn't stop. I began to take it apart to get inside, and one thing led to another and in the end, the stove was lying on the kitchen floor, like it had been violated.

"I haven't figured out how to put it back together, yet," I said.

"I'll do it. I love these old girls."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course!" She touched one of the burners. "Boy, you really cleaned it."

"I like to clean. And I don't sleep."

She studied the stove debris and scratched her head. "You even cleaned the screws. I've never seen that before."

Insomniacs are weird. We have to do something in the middle of the night, and I didn't have a television, not that 3 AM TV was any good. "I can still make you coffee. I've got six different coffeemakers," I told Faye.

"You got any coffee cake to go with it?"

"I have a package of Oreos."

"Deal."

We sat at the kitchen table like Boone and I had the night before. I opened the package of cookies and served the coffee.

"This is nice," Faye said. "It's a madhouse over at the shop. Nonstop sales. Norton's on cloud nine. People are coming in from all over after word got out on Twitter about the coming intergalactic war. We're housing ten people in our shed."

"Ten?"

Faye nodded and took a sip of her coffee. "That's nothing. Nora's stuffed twenty people into her three-bedroom. She's convinced some of them to sleep under her kids' beds. She says she's already made enough money for the next three Christmases, which is saying something since she's single-handedly repopulating Goodnight."

We chatted for another fifteen minutes or so and then she slapped her thighs and got up. "I can't wait to start with your house. I've been wanting to do this since Daddy gave me my first hammer when I was two years old. This old house is special, you know. It's not just old. It has history."

I looked up at the mud ceiling and over to the walls and realized that I was already thinking of it as home. I thanked her again and offered her money, but she explained that Rocco was paying for it. That niggled at my conscience, but I decided to wait to decide how to handle it.

"I better get into work, if the town is in chaos," I said. I wondered if Klee would give me a juicy assignment now that the town was going to hell, or if I was doomed to do chicken McNugget and fish pedicure stories forever.

Abbott and Costello followed me to the Gazette office, pausing a moment to pee just outside the front gate. Costello had already licked off his bandage, but Boone wouldn't let the vet put a cone around his neck.

"Let the guy have some dignity. Isn't it bad enough that he has permanent flatulence?" Boone had said.

Somehow, Costello knew to leave the stitches alone, however, and faced with eating breakfast and a bone, he completely forgot that he was injured. In fact, there was no sign that he was hurt, and he even walked without a limp.

"There you are," Klee said when I walked into the office with the dogs. "I heard you got shot at last night."

I told her about it, omitting the part about the girl. She typed while I spoke. "Good," she said. "Thanks for the quote."

"Am I a story?"

"Everything's a story."

"Do I have an assignment today?" I asked.

"Not yet. Silas wants to see you. Can you go over there now?"

I left Abbott and Costello with Klee, and I drove to the hospital to see Silas. On the way, I passed Goodnight UFOs. The flying saucer was still in the street in front of the store. Now, there was an even bigger crowd gathered around it. Norton was out, selling t-shirts to the group, and I waved to him as I drove by.

The town was buzzing with visitors. I was happy to see Goodnight get some much-needed good attention. Rocco and Mabel had worked hard to revitalize the town, but it turned out that all it needed was a near death experience and a really good conspiracy theory.

After parking in the hospital parking lot, I walked in and found Silas in his room, yelling at two nurses. The tamale lady was there, too.

Silas was in his bed with his hand wrapped around a foil-covered burrito, and one of the nurses was tugging at it, trying to get it away from him. "This will block up your bowels, Mr. Miller," she chastised him.

"My bowels need this, lady. I'm a journalist! I'm a member of the free press. If you take away my burrito, that's like Erdogan imprisoning reporters. You're supposed to be a nurse, not a fascist demigod!"

"Don't you curse at me, young man," the nurse screeched.

"Who're you calling 'young man,' you old battleax." They played tug of war until the burrito exploded in a spray of beans, cheese, and shredded beef. Silas crammed his part of the broken burrito that had been left in his hand into his mouth and smiled, even though he couldn't get his lips together with his mouth full. The nurse threw her hands up in the air, and she and the other nurse stormed out of the room.

During the dispute, Gloria the tamale lady cowered in the corner of the room. "Hello, Gloria. How are you?" I asked her. "Do you have any more burritos? Or maybe a tamale?"

"I had four burritos, but Silas ate them. He's a very good eater." She beamed at him, but he ignored her, beckoning to me to come over.

"Come on, boss. Move your butt," he said. Burrito bits flew out of his mouth when he spoke. I moved to the side of his bed and leaned in. "How's it going with Wade? I heard you got arrested. I like your moxie, boss. Very Carl Bernstein of you."

He punched my arm with his hand, and I wiped cheese off my cheek where he spit at me.

"I climbed the fence, and they found me and zip-tied me," I told him. "Sheriff Goodnight took me away, but he let me go after."

"He's a good guy. Fair. Here's what I found out," he started.

"I guess I'll be on my way," Gloria said from her corner. She gazed at Silas while she took a tentative step toward the door.

I elbowed Silas. "What?" he demanded.

"Gloria's leaving."

"So?"

Men. Were any of them any good? They either ignored you or tried to kill you.

"Bye, Gloria," I said, feeling sorry for her. "You'll probably get a surge in sales with all the intergalactic people in town."

"They're not tamale people. They want tacos. I don't make tacos."

"Bummer," I said. "Well," I continued, trying to think of something to say. "Watch out for rattlesnakes. The Andromedans might drop a whole bunch on the town."

"I don't care about snakes. Not scared of them one bit. I grew up with them around the house. But I don't like tacos. I like my food completely wrapped, not hanging out for the world to see."

"Can we get back to work?" Silas asked as Gloria left the room. "I found out that something's about to happen over at New Sun Petroleum. I think they infiltrated the water supply. This is dark. This is dark. I can't do anything from here. You're going to have to be my legs, again."

"What should I do?" I asked him. "I don't know how to get Wade to talk." I told Silas about my suspicion about Rocco and Mabel and how they might be involved and maybe that was a direction we could go in to make him confess.

"Rocco and Mabel have nothing to do with it," Silas said. "They're all about making the town grow."

"But don't you see? Your article was going to make waves. It was bad press for the town."

"I wanted them to clean it up, get rid of the fracking. Make Goodnight more attractive to families."

"That doesn't matter. That's the long view. It was going to be bad press. It would have scared people away in the short term. Rocco and Mabel can't possibly want that article out."

Silas's eyes grew big. "Look at you, boss. You're smart. I didn't know that you were smart."

I shrugged, delighted he thought I was smart. "This is my jam. I used to spy on my neighbors, too. One of them got chopped up in pieces." I bit my lower lip. I didn't want to tell him that it was my husband who chopped the man up. "I helped with that investigation."

"All right. Question Rocco and Mabel. But be careful. Mabel carries a six-shooter in her bra, and I wouldn't put it past Rocco to have some bodies buried in his backyard."

My skin erupted in goosebumps as I thought back to the girl and what she said about the cage and the underground. Could Rocco be her captor?

As I drove away from the hospital, my stomach growled. Coffee and Oreos were not cutting it for breakfast. I decided to stop at the diner to eat, and now that I had my purse back, I could pay Adele what I owed her.

I had to park two blocks away and walk. My altitude sickness was getting a little better every day, but it was still difficult to walk that far. There was a line out of the diner, but Adele spotted me and rapped her knuckles against the glass, urging me to push my way in.

"Sorry. Excuse me. Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry," I said, squeezing my way into the diner.

Boy, intergalactic war fans were ornery if a woman got between them and their omelets. As I pushed my way to Adele, there was more than a handful of grumblings. "Shut up!" Adele yelled at her customers. "This is my friend. She eats before you. It's not what you know. It's who you know." She stopped in the middle of the diner and looked around, presumably trying to figure out where to put me. "Don't worry, Matilda. I'll find you a place. There!"

I followed her eyeline to a table for two with Boone and Jack already sitting at it. "I'll be right back," she told me and went to the kitchen for a minute before she came back holding a step stool and two phone books. "Good enough for government work," she said and put the stool with the phone books on it down by the table. "Get your butt up, Jack," she said, giving him a little shove, as he ate his pancakes. "Your boss needs to sit in a real chair."

"Geez, why do kids always get the short end of the stick?" he grumbled.

"Jack Goodnight, I know for a fact that your mother does your laundry," Adele said with her hands on her hips. "Ask your boss who does her laundry."

"Who does your laundry?" he asked me.

I raised my hand.

"Okay, fine." He slid the plate over and shifted seats. I sat next to Boone, who was eating steak and eggs, toast, green chilies, pancakes, French fries, and a hot fudge sundae. He didn't have an ounce of fat anywhere on him. He was big and muscular, but he seemed totally unconcerned with how he looked. As usual, his clothes were covered in a fine layer of dust. They weren't dirty, but they were dusty, like he had rolled around on the ground. His thick, dark blond hair was mussed, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to just below his elbows.

"French fries are good today," he said to me, pointing to the fries with his fork. "Nice and crispy."

My stomach growled. "I'll get you a good breakfast," Adele told me, not waiting for me to order.

"Go ahead," Boone said to me with his mouth full. "Grab a fry. You know you want to."

I took a fry. "Do you always eat like this?" I asked him.

"No. Normally I eat a big breakfast. Most important meal of the day."

He cut a big piece of steak, dipped it in his runny eggs and plopped some chilies on it before putting it in his mouth. My stomach growled, again.

"Is she staring at me?" Boone asked Jack.

"Yep."

"It's because I'm the best-looking man in town."

"It's because you have egg yolk on your chin," I lied. I liked being with him. He made me feel comfortable, even though my overabundance of trust issues had me doubting him up and down. Like maybe he was a killer, kidnapper, and shooter of dogs. Doubts like that.

But watching his handsome face scarf down five pounds of food made him endearing to me, and no matter how I tried, I couldn't picture him as the nemesis of the girl in the forest. And what would it hurt to befriend Boone? I was off men for the foreseeable future, and my big crush on Amos Goodnight was going nowhere.

So, what would it hurt for me to share Boone's fries?

So to speak.

I took another one. He was right. It was crispy.

"I gotta go," Jack said, stuffing the last bite of his pancakes into his mouth. "I have three more stories to write today. This is so much better than geometry. I'm going to see if Klee can get me out of school forever."

"No, you're not," Boone said. "You're going to graduate and then go onto college. You can't be a journalist if you're ignorant."

"But Uncle Boone..."

"Get out of here, or I'll make you pay for your breakfast."

Jack bolted like the step stool was on fire and pushed his way out of the crowded diner. Adele put a plate in front of me. "Steak and eggs. I saw how you were eyeing Boone's. I've eyed Boone's steak and eggs for years, but he never shared his fries with me." She winked at me.

"Hey, can I get some hot sauce?" a man called from another table.

"Keep your shirt on!" Adele yelled back. "I've only got two hands and two feet. I'm not one of your Vegan aliens, you know."

When she left, I made a show of cutting my steak. "Uncle Boone?" I asked.

"Term of endearment."

"How long have you known Jack?"

"You have a lot of questions today."

He was a man of mystery. I didn't know anything about him, and he wanted to keep it that way. "Amos tells me more about him, and he barely speaks."

Boone smiled and wiped the rest of the eggs off his plate with a slice of toast. "Nice one, Matilda. Low blow. I like that. Low and blow," he added arching an eyebrow at me. I took another bite of my steak and washed it down with some coffee.

"Are you flirting with me?"

"No."

"Good because I'm finished with men. I want nothing more to do with them."

"Really? So no more cowboy hat and gold star? Best news I've had in weeks."

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, what the hell?" A young man in a booth caught my attention. He was showing something small and beige to his dining companion. Holy crap. It was Jamie, the chicken McNugget thief, and he had the Lincoln nugget.

"Get him! Get him!" I shouted standing and pointing at Jamie with my fork.

"Is it him? The shooter?" Boone asked. He turned around to see who I was pointing at. I was too surprised and excited to answer him.

"I see you! I see you! Get him!" I shouted.

A veil of terror fell over the McNugget thief's face. He clenched the chicken in his hand and shot out of the booth. Boone flew into action. Jamie had a hard time running away because the diner was filled with people. Boone had an easier time because he forcibly pushed them out of the way.

"Stop!" Boone yelled at him.

"Out of my way!" Jamie yelled, just as Boone reached him and tackled him like he was at the Superbowl. Jamie went flying onto a table with Boone on his back. The momentum pushed them forward, sailing over the one table and onto the next, knocking plates and cups onto the floor like they were playing a crazy bowling game. After the third table, they fell to the floor with Boone on top of Jamie.

Boone turned him over. Jamie held the chicken nugget in his outstretched hand. "No! It's mine!"

"You attacked a woman! And a dog!" Boone yelled at him.

I stumbled over overturned tables and chairs to reach them. "The chicken McNugget!" I yelled in my best aha voice. "I found it! I found it!"

"It's mine!" Jamie yelled.

"What're you talking about?" Boone said.

"The Abraham Lincoln chicken McNugget," I said. I had solved the case. I did what the sheriff's department couldn't. I was a hero.

"The chicken McNugget," Boone said. "Sonofabitch."

I looked down at Jamie's hand. "Wow. In person, it really does look like Lincoln."

The sheriff department was called, and Wendy showed up to arrest Jamie and confiscate the chicken. I stayed back to help Adele clean up, but I didn't have to do much. The alien lovers were so hungry, that they righted the tables and picked up the plates and cups in a couple minutes.

Boone, on the other hand, was going to take a lot longer to clean up. He was covered in food and angry as spit at me. I followed him out of the diner, as he marched down the street. "I'm sorry," I said. "I was so shocked that I found the nugget that I couldn't be clear to you."

"I thought it was the shooter."

"Well, he was a criminal. That's close to a shooter."

Boone turned and pushed me in the alcove in front of the porcelain cat shop. He put his hand on the window above my head, and he wiped his face with his other hand. "You're radioactive, lady."

"That's an exaggeration."

"No. You're Chernobyl. You're Fat Boy."

"I'm sensing that you're insulting me."

"Are you involved with Amos Goodnight?"

"What?"

"It's a simple question. I'm not speaking in a foreign language."

The space between his eyes was filled with lines, and his face took on an anguished quality. "I'm not involved with him," I said. But I didn't say that Amos's erection had been pressing against my inseam the night before, and that he'd kissed me so well that my head almost exploded. And then he remembered his dead wife, and...no, I was not involved with him.

Boone took a deep breath, and his face relaxed, slightly. "Does he know that you're not involved with him?"

"It was his idea. His wife..."

Boone nodded. "So, he wants to be involved with you, but his wife."

"Something like that. Yes."

He took another deep breath. "Complicated."

"Is it?"

"Oh, yeah."

# Chapter 11

Somehow, since I had decided I was done with men, I had never been so un-done with men in my life. It was raining men all over me. Not that any of it was going anywhere. But there were two gorgeous, tall, hunky blond men in town who wanted me bad. And in a gender-bending role reversal, instead of the girl being anguished about it, the men were the ones who couldn't cope.

I didn't understand the dynamic. I couldn't figure out what was going on between them and how I fit in to whatever battle they were waging against each other. Normally, I would have stopped at nothing to find out, but I was distracted by murder and attempted murder, flying saucers, giraffes, being shot at, and a vanishing girl.

Halfway to my car, my cellphone rang. "Hello, Klee," I said.

"Get to the bank, get the story and come back here," Klee told me. "I need a thousand words."

"A thousand words? That's a big one."

"Yes. Get over there while the scene is still hot."

A hot scene. I was going to write a story about a hot scene. "What hot scene? By the way, I caught the McNugget thief."

"Great. That's another three hundred words. You're going to be busy today."

The bank was on the other side of the Plaza. As I walked into the bank, I heard sirens coming my way. Inside, the bank was empty except for Nora, and an old man who was hunched over a rickety desk, reading the Gazette.

Nora waved at me, and I walked over. "Hi! Are you opening an account? We have a deal on scratch and sniff checks. Two thousand free checks with a new checking account. You interested?"

Hmmm. Was that what Klee wanted me to write a thousand words about? "I'm on assignment. I'm probably supposed to write about the scratch and sniff checks." I took my notebook and pen out.

"Oh, okay. You want to scratch and sniff them, like for research?"

"Do you have strawberry?"

"Yep. Strawberry, coconut, and kiwi."

The sirens came closer and finally, three Sheriff vehicles parked in front of the bank. "I wonder what they're doing here," I said.

"They're probably here about the bank robbery. Have you gotten any further with your snooping? I've got some time tonight if you want me to help you break into Rocco's house. I know his alarm code."

"You do? That might come in handy. Wait a minute. What bank robbery?"

Deputy Wendy Ackerman and a young, serious patrolman wearing dark glasses burst through the front door with their guns drawn. "Freeze!" they shouted.

I put my hands up. Nora checked her nails and chewed on a hangnail.

Amos marched in behind his deputies, shaking his head. "For the love of God," he bellowed. "Put your guns away."

His eyes slid to me for the briefest moment and then moved on to Nora. "Hi, Amos," she said.

"What's this about a bank robbery, Nora?" he asked.

"He got twenty grand."

I gasped. She didn't act like she had just been in a bank robbery. Maybe she was in shock, I thought. "Are you okay?" I asked her.

She blinked twice. "Oh, yeah. We get robbed about twice a month. You want his contact information, Amos?"

He craned his neck, and cocked his head to the side, as if he was trying to hear better. "You have his contact information?"

She gestured to us to follow her behind the bank teller window. She handed Amos two pieces of paper. "It's my new strategy. I told him in order to rob the bank he had to provide two forms of identification. His driver's license was expired, but I accepted it. That and his credit card."

I peeked around Amos to look at the paper. They were photocopies of a driver's license and a credit card. "He just handed these over?" I asked.

"He was also interested in the scratch and sniff checks, but he didn't have time to open an account."

"Nora, you're a genius," I said.

"No, just bored. It's been slow. None of the UFO business adds to our business. They're strictly debit card users. They don't even use our ATM."

"We'll get right on this," Amos said. "It should be easy to track him down."

"And if that doesn't work, you can use the GPS tracker," Nora said.

"There's a GPS tracker?" Amos asked.

"I put it in the bag with the money bait. Oh, and there's an exploding dye pack, too."

Amos closed his eyes. "I think we'll start with the GPS." She punched some buttons on a computer while we waited. "Matilda," he said and tipped his hat to me.

"Amos."

He looked everywhere but at me. Boone was wrong. I wasn't radioactive. I was Kryptonite. It took a couple seconds to track down the stolen money. After Amos left, I stuck around to get more details from Nora. Fifteen minutes later, Wendy called to tell Nora that the robber was in custody. The dye had blown up, turning him blue, and he was cleaning himself off in the do-it-yourself Goodnight Car Wash when Amos caught him. I was scared to write my first thousand-word article, but there was more than enough information to write a lot more than that.

"So, you want to open that checking account?" Nora asked after she gave me the full rundown.

"Sure. And about Rocco's alarm code..."

Rocco lived east of town in a mansion on top of a large hill. He had acres of land. Not as many as Amos, but impressive nonetheless. I didn't have to break in, because Rocco's butler answered right away when I rang the doorbell.

I followed him into a cavernous living room, where Rocco was watching the cooking channel. He was pleasantly surprised when he saw me. "Wonderful," he said, hugging me. "Have you had second thoughts about the parade? We need to make a big splash to show those alien-loving freaks what's what."

"Yes, I've been thinking about it."

"Sit. Sit. Would you like a drink?"

The butler brought me water in a crystal goblet. "That's water from Easter Island," Rocco explained. "I co-own a spring there with Bezos."

"It tastes good," I said. It tasted like water. I never understood the purpose of designer water. My hand shook as I put the glass down on the coffee table. It was time to grill Rocco, and I was losing my nerve. I thought seriously about running away, but Silas would never let me live it down. I had to track down every lead to the big story. After all, I was the publisher of the Goodnight Gazette, and an earth-shattering, big news, news story could help push our paper into the black and my new scratch and sniff checking account into the black along with it.

"I might change my mind about riding the giraffe," I began, lying through my teeth. "If you give me something in return."

Rocco blinked. "I've got my sights on another woman."

"No, I don't mean that. I meant something else."

"You mean money? How much do you want?"

"Really? You'd pay me?" That might be easier than trying to get a Pulitzer for the paper. I was about to agree to his deal, when I remembered why I was there. Murder and attempted murder. "I mean, no. No money. I want information. I want truth."

"Oh." He leaned back on his couch and rested his arms on the back of it. Power position. I had seen it on a TED Talk. "What kind of information?"

"I want to know what dirty dealing you have with Wade and New Sun Petroleum."

His face hardened. He stared at me, unblinking. Fear creeped up my body. "I'm a businessman," he said, finally, all friendliness gone from his voice. "I do business with many people and corporations. I'm afraid the details of that are confidential."

"I don't want to know about your business dealings. I want you to tell me that New Sun Petroleum murdered Jimmy Sanchez and pushed Silas off a building. I want proof, and I think you can give it to me."

"And if I do that, you'll ride the giraffe in the parade?"

I swallowed. "Yes."

"Fine. I'll see what I can do, but between you and me, I think you should look closer to home."

"What do you mean?"

"I wouldn't get too chummy with Boone. He's a dangerous man. And unpredictable. What do you think he does when he leaves town for weeks on end? Nobody knows. But a man who has secrets like that can't be trusted. He had means and opportunity."

I tried to breathe, but my body shut down in shock. "What's the motive?" I whispered.

"Who knows? You're the newspaper woman. Find out."

I left Rocco's mansion, indescribably sad. I thought I was a woman with trust issues. I thought I was neurotic, traumatized by my marriage to a sociopath. But now my trust issues were being borne out by reality. Boone was not to be trusted.

But I wanted to trust him so much.

The rest of Thursday was a whirlwind of writing. I spent the day locked to Silas's desk in the Gazette office, writing my two articles. Jack was in and out, juggling story after story. When we finally finished, Klee sent it all to the printer. While Jack was doing the reporting job, his friend was taking over the paperboy job.

I ordered pizza for Jack, Klee, and me to celebrate keeping the paper going, despite all the odds. We were doing well with the day-to-day stories, but I was no closer to making any headway on Jimmy's murder and Silas's attempted murder. Not to mention whoever had shot at me, and the vanishing girl.

I wondered where Amos was on her case, and at what point I was supposed take it seriously enough to start researching who she was and how to help her. Still not convinced that she was real and that my altitude sickness was playing tricks on my mind, I hadn't pushed it, but the girl was constantly on my mind. She had asked for my help, and I hadn't given it to her.

Besides that, she told me that I was in danger, too.

By the time Klee closed the office and drove home, I was bone tired. I fed the dogs, and went to bed. Without taking a shower or brushing my teeth or even getting undressed, I slipped under my covers and snuggled in bed with Abbott and Costello.

The next minute, I was asleep.

It was the deep kind of sleep without dreams. The healing, reparative sleep that I never got, usually. But it only lasted seven minutes. Seven minutes of sleep. I woke with a start, sitting up in bed.

"Bad dream?" At first, I thought I was still asleep and dreaming. Amos was sitting on the chair next to the bed. His hat was on his lap, and his long legs were crossed at the ankle out in front of him.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

"I just saw tomorrow's paper. Why didn't you tell me you were shot at?"

"They shot the dog."

"Why didn't you file a report?"

"It could have been an accident." I was pretty sure it wasn't an accident. There aren't many hunting accidents in the forest at night.

"Trouble," he said, as if he was tasting the word in his mouth. "You come into town, and all hell breaks loose."

"I'm radioactive," I said, echoing Boone's words.

"For sure."

"So, what're you doing here?"

"I'm watching over you until this gets worked out. Go back to sleep."

"I don't sleep."

"You were just asleep."

I looked at my pillow, as if I didn't know how it wound up in my bed. "I know. I can't figure out how that happened."

"Go back to sleep, Trouble. I'll watch over you."

"What if I snore?"

Amos smiled. "Go back to sleep."

He was a man used to being obeyed. I laid back down and pulled the covers up under my chin. "Do you think Boone shot at me?" I asked him, sleepily.

"Boone is an asshole, but he would never hurt a woman."

"That's what they all say."

I closed my eyes and willed myself to fall asleep, but it was no use. Whatever miracle had gotten me to sleep before was over. While I laid in bed, I replayed the past week in my mind, trying to find clues. All roads led back to New Sun Petroleum, but I couldn't find any proof of their guilt. As I went through the events of the past few days, I remembered that tomorrow was Friday. It was the day of Jimmy's wake and the day that Silas's article was supposed to be published. But Silas had put it on hold until he could get out of the hospital and finish it, and I didn't want to go to Jimmy's wake. Of course, I needed to pay my respects, but I had barely known Jimmy and showing up as his employer was awkward for me. This was the first time in my life when I was the boss, and I didn't wear the title well.

The thoughts went round and round my mind, and finally I gave up on falling asleep and opened my eyes. Next to me, Amos was sound asleep in my chair, his chest rising and falling, as he snored softly. I put a blanket over him and walked to the kitchen, where I made myself a cup of tea. Faye had completely put the stove and oven back together again. I looked around for more things to clean while I was up.  That's how I wound up scrubbing the grout in the bathroom until the sun rose the next morning.

"Psst. You look great," Adele told me. We were at the Goodnight Catholic Church in town. There was a closed casket at one end of the church's event hall, and about thirty guests roamed the room, eating finger food and drinking soda.

I was wearing the only black outfit I owned. It was a stretchy mini-dress that I had last put on when my husband I went to Vegas. Adele was wearing black slacks and a white top. Nora and Faye were also there, and we gathered together. Nora had brought only two children with her, and they were keeping busy, cleaning off the food trays and stuffing every pig in a blanket into their small mouths.

Besides us, Klee was the only other non-family member at the wake. She made the rounds, talking to Jimmy's family, and more or less ignored me. I gave Jimmy's parents my condolences, but I was bad at parties and loathed mixing and mingling, so I was happy to stay with my three new friends.

"I heard that Jimmy's grandfather has a social security check forging scam going," Adele said to our little group.

"Oh, that must be why he's in the bank five times a day," Nora said. "It's a miracle he hasn't gotten caught."

"Anybody want a crab puff?" I asked. "I'm going to fill a plate."

I got their orders and moved on to the food table. Nora's kids had done a good job at decimating the platters, but there were still a dozen crab puffs left. I was putting them on my plate when Jimmy's mother touched my back. I turned around.

"I need to talk to you," she whispered and urged me to go into another room with her. I followed her out, and she took me to a small utility closet, where she closed us both in. "I know you've been butting in all around town and you're good at it," she said.

"I wouldn't say butting in. I've been on assignment."

"I heard you broke into New Sun Petroleum. I heard that you shot up someone in the forest."

Living in Goodnight was like living in a perpetual game of Telephone where everyone knew half-truths and misinformation about everybody else.

"Well..." I started, but she cut me off.

"This is important and off the record," she said. Damn. I hated off the record. "You might not know this, but my husband's family are bad people. Not so much bad, but rough. Yes, that's the right word. Rough. They wanted Jimmy in the family business, but he wouldn't shut up about The Washington Post."

"I heard him mention it once or twice," I said, charitably.

"My husband's family was very angry about this," she continued. "Very angry. When I say angry, I don't mean like your family gets angry. I mean, it's much worse. Do you understand?"

"Very angry," I said, catching on. I put a crab puff in my mouth.

"When the family would get together for dinner, they would talk."

I was riveted to her story, sure that I was about to hear something important. I put another crab puff in my mouth. "What did they talk about?"

"Your reporter. The good one. Silas Miller."

"Silas?"

She nodded. "They blamed him for turning Jimmy away from the family business. Do you see?"

"I don't think Silas did that. Jimmy had his own plans for his life and career. Silas just happened to be there at the Gazette."

"That's not important," she said, growing impatient. "They blamed Silas. They blamed him. Do you understand?"

I didn't understand. "Yes, I totally understand," I said.

"Good. Tell your sheriff boyfriend. If I do it, I'll wind up like my poor Jimmy. Tell him that my husband's family hated Silas. Start there. I want them to pay. They took my son away from me, and I won't rest until they never rest again."

# Chapter 12

Adele, Nora, Faye, and I left the wake. I had eaten the rest of the crab puffs while walking back to my little group, full of information that Jimmy's mother had just given me. For the first time, I seriously doubted that New Sun Petroleum was behind Jimmy's murder. It was possible that Silas had been completely on the wrong track. It wasn't the evil, polluting, corrupt energy company that pushed him off the roof. It was Jimmy's family who did it, angry at Silas for luring him away from the family business with the glamour of the mighty press.

Out on the sidewalk in front of the house, Amos was waiting for me in his parked SUV. He hadn't let me out of his sight since he found out I had been shot at. "Look at him waiting for you," Adele said. "It's like I'm watching a good movie starring John Wayne and Gene Tierney. Will John Wayne find love again with the beautiful stranger? Will Gene Tierney allow room in her heart for the tall, handsome cowboy?"

"That's a good one," Faye said. "I can see him swinging her around as they declare their love for each other."

"And the sun is setting behind them," Nora added. "And he throws her on his horse, her bottom nestled between his thighs, and they ride off toward a mountain range."

"This is the best movie, ever," Faye said. "So much better than Twilight."

"There's no movie," I told them in a huddle. "John Wayne doesn't want to find love with Gene Tierney, and Gene Tierney has given up on men. Gene Tierney's husband is a killer who tried to put her away and is fighting her divorce. Gene Tierney doesn't get over that so easily."

They didn't look convinced.

"Well, that's okay," Faye said, finally. "If John Wayne won't work out, I think Gene Tierney would go great with Steve McQueen."

Adele clapped her hands together. "Steve McQueen! Yes, that'll work."

"Gene Tierney isn't riding off into the sunset with Steve McQueen, either," I said. "Steve McQueen is a dusty, secretive guy who thinks Gene Tierney is radioactive. Besides, like I said, Gene Tierney is off men."

"Fine. No men. So, let's do ladies night," Adele said. "We'll go to Matilda's, drink prosecco and eat fried chicken."

I loved fried chicken. I wanted to marry fried chicken. I wanted to take a bath with fried chicken. But I was on the trail of a killer, and I didn't have time for ladies night.

"Ladies night," Nora breathed. "I need a ladies night more than I need a new, less-tired uterus. Please let's have a ladies night!"

"I'm in," Faye said. "I need a break from intergalactic war. Since this started, Norton hasn't touched me. It's all about aliens and sales and nothing about my sensual needs."

"Okay, you convinced me. Ladies night," I said. Even though I had a killer to catch, I was happy to have three new friends. I didn't have any friends in my last town until I met Gladie. So, having three friends right off the bat was exhilarating. "I have to tell John Wayne something first."

I stuck my head through the open passenger window of Amos's car, and I told him about the conversation with Jimmy's mother. "Makes sense," he said.

"You knew already?"

"It's a small town, and I'm the sheriff."

He had a point. "What about the girl? The one who disappeared. Have you found anything out about her?"

"No. Nobody in town is missing. My men are still keeping their eyes open for her."

It wasn't enough. I wanted to find her and get her help. As soon as Jimmy's murderer was behind bars, I was going to stop at nothing to find her.

"We're having a ladies night," I told him, gesturing to my three friends.

"Oh, geez. Will I have to do my hair and talk about Shaun Cassidy?"

"Holy crap. How old are you?"

"I don't know good pop culture references."

"I think we're going to get drunk and binge-eat fried chicken legs. And it's a ladies night not a ladies plus a man night. You're off bodyguard duty tonight."

"Sorry. Not until we find the shooter. I'm stuck to you like glue."

"Between us, we can fend off a shooter," I said, but as the words came out of my mouth, I realized that I wasn't so sure. Maybe I was pooh-poohing the danger I was in. "Faye has a hammer, and I have a crowbar, and Adele is highly aggressive," I continued, despite my doubts. "And Nora's kids can chew through steel. One of them ate through a table leg in Jimmy's family's house."

Amos sighed. "Text me every thirty minutes, and I'll set up hourly patrols at your house."

"I'm not going to text you every thirty minutes."

"How about every forty-five minutes?"

"What time do you go to bed?" I asked, and his face flushed slightly.

"Normally, I'm in bed by eleven, but lately I've been having trouble sleeping," he said, making me blush in turn.

"Okay. How about I call you at eleven so you know I'm still alive?"

"I don't like this," he said. "This isn't the way to do things."

He had a point. "Look, nobody's getting past Adele."

Amos's head slumped against the steering wheel. "Fine," he said, finally, wagging his finger at me. "Listen, would you try to stay out of trouble? Just for once?"

"I'm the most stable person I know."

"That's so sad," he said and drove off.

Adele drove me to get a bucket of chicken and a carton of ice cream, while Faye picked up the prosecco, and Nora wrangled her kids and gave her husband his childcare instructions for the evening. We met back at my house, and Nora brought four kids with her.

"Only four kids," she said excitedly. "It's like I'm on vacation."

We walked in through the kitchen and set up the food in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor around the coffee table. Nora threw some chicken at her kids, and they stirred into action, running screaming through my house. The dogs were delighted that fried chicken was flying around the house in the hands of little people. They chased after them, barking and jumping in glee.

Meanwhile, we got down to drinking, eating, and gossiping. They mostly wanted to know about my investigation. As much as word had spread about me being insane, word had also spread that I had mad detective skills.

I gave them the rundown, omitting the part about the girl showing up again. They were very impressed about me getting zip-tied. "You're James Bond," Faye said. "I would have peed my pants."

"I was dehydrated," I explained.

"I hate those New Sun people," Nora said. "They're all kinds of fishy."

"They're very determined but totally inept," Adele pointed out. "Poisoning, shooting, and pushing Silas off a roof. They're all over the place, like they can't make up their minds."

"Can you imagine Wade injecting a cigar with poison?" Nora asked.

"You're right," Faye said, pointing at her. "It's like with contractors. They have a style, a way of doing things, tools they like to use. They don't change unless they're forced to. It's weird that Wade would change up his style."

I stopped breathing. Faye was right. Wade's style didn't include getting his hands dirty. I couldn't picture him lying in wait on a roof, waiting for Silas.

But Silas had been meeting someone on the roof about his article. Who was it? Someone from Jimmy's family? Suddenly, I was certain that it was an important piece of the puzzle, and I was getting more and more desperate to solve the puzzle quickly. The bad guys were moving in, and they might try and kill Silas again.

And they might try to kill me again, too.

All of a sudden, there was a blood-curdling scream, which made me jump in my seat. Certain that this was it and the murderer was on us, I moved to get up, but Nora waved me back down and shook her head.

"That's just the kids," she said. There was another loud scream, followed by something big crashing to the floor. "Yep, just the kids," Nora said, happily.

"Don't worry, I'll fix whatever they break," Faye whispered to me.

We finished the chicken and moved on to the ice cream. We gossiped about most of the town, and by the time ten o'clock came around, they were all sound asleep. Faye was asleep on the couch, Nora and Adele were asleep on my bed, and Nora's kids were sleeping on the dogs on the floor.

There was no way I could sit up all night watching them sleep. There was no way I could read a book while my brain was going double speed, figuring out who killed Jimmy. I had to talk to Silas, and I had to talk with him, now.

Tiptoeing out of the house, I shut the door with a soft click. On the other side of the courtyard, Boone's lights were all on. It was the perfect time to spy on him, but I was in a hurry to get to Silas.

At the hospital, I walked down the linoleum-covered hallway to Silas's room. When there were footsteps behind me, I assumed that a nurse had caught me there after hours, but when I turned, I was surprised to find Boone.

"What're you doing here?" I demanded with my hands on my hips.

"What're you doing here? You're not supposed to be out on your own."

"Since when? Have you been talking to Amos?"

He scowled at me, his handsome face downturned. "I don't talk to that asshole," he said.

"Well, I can take care of myself," I insisted. Even to my ears, it sounded wrong. I was terrible at taking care of myself. My choices and decisions were wrong most of the time, mostly stemming from trusting the wrong man. I had been put away as a crazy person, almost murdered several times, and I had fondled a married man's breasts. Even so, I was determined to turn that around and prove to the world that I was smart, competent, and able.

"Mind your own business," I added.

"Fine," he said, obviously hurt. "I'll mind my own business. I'll leave you alone. That's a better option for me, anyway."

"Good."

"Good."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"All righty, then," I said, slowly, turning around and instantly regretting rejecting his company. "I'm going to do this myself."

Boone surprised me by taking my hand. "Like hell you are. Someone will shoot at you again, and this time instead of the dog getting it, it'll be me or some innocent kid in the cancer ward."

"Gee, your concern for me is overwhelming and touching," I said.

He shrugged. "I feel like I should wear a hazmat suit around you."

"Okay. Okay. Tone it down, bud. I'm not that bad. There were a few hiccups before, but it was just bad luck. It's not like it happens every day."

"Every day since I met you."

"But it doesn't happen every hour, every minute."

Just as we reached Silas's room, a figure dressed in black ran out and down the hallway. We walked into Silas's room and found him on the floor, a pillow on the floor. He gasped for air, clutching at his throat.

"Sonofabitch. I'll get help," Boone said.

"What happened?" I asked Silas when Boone left the room.

"I don't know," he gasped and sputtered. "I woke up with the pillow on my face. I struggled against it, but it was heavy."

I heard Boone returning down the hallway with the nursing staff. "Quick, Silas. Who were you meeting up on that roof?"

"My source."

"I need to know your source."

He sighed, finally resigned to tell me. "Wendy Ackerman from the sheriff's department. That's between us."

"She was the one on the roof?" I asked.

"No, she told me after that she never made the appointment with me. Someone else called me, pretending to be her."

The nurses arrived and helped Silas. A sheriff's patrolman was on his way to protect Silas. With everything in hand, Boone and I left the hospital.

"Something's not right," I said, outside. "It's like I have all the puzzle pieces in front of me, and I've tried to smash them together to fit, but they're not fitting."

"Stop smashing them together and see what happens."

"That's pretty dumb advice."

"I think I've proven I'm pretty dumb," he said and wrapped his arm around my waist and walked me to my car.

The next morning, my friends woke up early and left the house to tackle the day. It was Saturday, the day of the giraffe parade and another day closer to the intergalactic war. They were expecting a huge influx of people for the weekend. The Gazette's offices were closed on the weekend, but there were still stories to cover.

I took a long, hot shower and dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers. The day was already hot, and the sun was brutal. After I fed the dogs, they insisted on staying inside where it was cool. Klee had the day off, but Jack was going to be covering the giraffe parade, and I was going to continue working on the Silas story and check in with the visitors searching for an intergalactic war.

Driving down to the Plaza, it was impossible to find parking. It was completely blocked off for the giraffe parade, and outside of the Plaza, each parking space was taken up by alien tourists. In fact, it looked like there were precious few people there to honor poor Daisy's memory. Most people were wearing Vega and Andromeda t-shirts, and there were a whole lot of goatees happening. I parked three blocks away and walked back into the Plaza. By the time I arrived, I was sweating and gasping for air.

I took a moment to catch my breath. My altitude sickness seemed to get worse with the heat. As I stood in the Plaza, gasping, I took in what Rocco had accomplished since the night before. The area was completely decked out in preparation for the giraffe parade. Each storefront was decorated in streamers. There were balloons and flowers on every lamp post and tree. There was a brass band warming up in the center of the Plaza, and a slew of concession stands surrounding the bandstand. And everywhere, on every surface, there was a custom-made poster, marking the event. On each poster was written "In Honor of Daisy" and the date and time of the parade.

And there was a picture.

Each poster showed a happy giraffe, and around its neck was a BDSM sling and in the sling, was me.

Me.

Somehow Rocco had gotten my wedding photo, and had cut out my face from it and Photoshopped it into his poster.

I looked like a very happy BDSM devotee who had a thing for giraffes.

"Rocco!" I shouted.

I was going to kill him. I was going to poison him, push him off a roof, shoot him, and smother him with a pillow. I was going to do it all.

Grabbing the first person I saw, I asked where Rocco was. "Last I heard, there was a problem with the giraffes. Hey, don't I know you? You look familiar."

"No!" I said a little too loudly.

I wished for the days when I was the crazy girl instead of the BDSM girl. I searched the plaza for Rocco, finally finding him at the corn dog stand. His face brightened when he saw me.

"You changed your mind?" he asked me. "Thank you! This is going to be perfect. Don't worry about the giraffes. They're a little stressed right now, but I'm sure they'll relax for the parade."

"No!" I yelled at him. "I didn't change my mind. I want no part of your giraffes. Take down the posters!"

"What? Why?"

"Why? Why? You put my head on it! You made me look like a freak!" I pointed to a poster, and that's when I saw him.

Wade was standing on the other side of the Plaza, and when he saw me, his face set, as if he decided something. I took a step back, and he took a step forward. He raised his hand, and forming it into the shape of a gun, shot me. Then, he patted his chest, and the message was clear. He had a gun under his blazer, and he was going to use it on me.

"Gotta go," I told Rocco.

My heart raced. I walked quickly in the other direction, and turning my head, I saw that Wade was following me and getting closer, fast. I sped up, and so did he until I was running full out.

Of course, I couldn't outrun him. I could barely walk slowly without gasping for air. Now, I was on the verge of passing out. But a survival instinct is a funny thing. It'll push a woman to superhuman feats. I ran down the street, weaving in between Vegan supporters and Andromedan supporters.

As I passed the diner, strong hands grabbed me and pulled me to a stop. I struggled against them until I realized it was Adele who had me. "Wade. Gun. Help," I said.

She looked behind us at Wade, who was coming fast. She pulled me into the diner and pushed me past all of the customers, through the kitchen, past the cook, and through the back room to the alley. "Go to Goodnight UFOs," she told me. "I'll tell Faye you're on your way. Girl power," she said, raising her fist to the sky.

I ran like hell. My mouth was wide open, trying to bring oxygen into my lungs, but it was no use. After a couple of blocks, my vision got blurry, and I was stumbling over my feet. I didn't think I was going to make it. I was going to get shot and the last picture of me was going to be in a BDSM outfit, hanging off a giraffe.

Just as I thought I was going to finally collapse, I spotted a group of obvious intergalactic war fans gathered in a parking lot just ahead. I had made it. Running around them, I opened the back door to the UFO shop and entered. Faye was waiting for me.

"Adele's got him delayed in the diner, and I called Amos. So, you're safe," she told me.

"Thank goodness," I gasped.

"Uh-oh," Faye said, looking out the window.

"What?" I looked out the window, too. "Oh, no. Who's he?" There was a man running through the parking lot on his way to the back door, and he had a not-too-well-concealed gun under his blazer, just like Wade.

"That's Steve," Faye said. "Wade's partner. Come on. I have an idea." I followed her to the stock room. She opened a box and pulled out a costume. "Norton had this custom made by a guy in Switzerland who was abducted four hundred times by the Andromedans. He says it's an exact replica. They'll never recognize you."

I stripped down out of my clothes and put the costume on. It hugged me tight like a second skin and made me look reptilian with long, narrow, webbed hands and feet. Faye put the alien head on me, which locked into place, and made me look like I had giant fly-like eyes and antennae.

"I can barely breathe," I said.

"Can you breathe?" she asked. Obviously, she couldn't hear me from outside the mask. I gave her the thumbs up. "Go out there and mingle. He'll never find you."

As I left the stockroom, I saw Wade's partner search through the store for me. Slowly, I made my way to the front of the shop. Faye was right about nobody recognizing me. She was also right about the outfit being an exact replica. Before I got to the front door, whispers went around the store that a real live Andromedan had arrived. "No, it's just me," I said, but of course nobody could hear me from inside the costume.

"All hail the Andromedans!" one man shouted, which incited about ten more to yell the same thing. That sparked an outcry from the Vegan supporters.

Pro-me or anti-me, everyone wanted a piece of me. They lunged forward like a small wave, and I tried to make my escape. Now, instead of just having two armed killers after me, I had hundreds of conspiracy theorist nerds after me.

I managed to get the door open, and I ran for it. Running with altitude sickness was hard enough. But running in an alien mask was another thing, entirely. Not to mention that my reptilian alien feet were twice as big as my own and slapped the ground as I ran, threatening to trip me with every step.

I ran away, my reptilian feet flapping the ground and my hands flapping the air, as I tried to pump my scaly arms. I could see great through the fly-eyes, but I couldn't hear very well, so it wasn't until I turned my head that I saw the extent of my predicament. A sea of unwashed humanity was after me. Some wanted to be me. Some wanted me to move aside for the coming Vegan invasion.

I waved my hands in the air to get them to stop as I ran, but this seemed to rev them up even more. There was no way I was going to make it out of this horrible situation. I had run out of steam before I had ever put the costume on. Meanwhile, my pursuers were gung-ho and full of concession stand goodies.

I was a goner.

I was so focused on being run over by alien lovers, I didn't notice that I had entered the parade area and that the giraffes had started their parade in memory of poor Daisy, who had been murdered by the town so many years ago.

For some reason, the giraffes were parading through the Plaza without any handlers, perhaps not to replay the horrible accident when Daisy killed her trainer. For whatever reason, they weren't following the parade route. They were running to all four corners, understandably freaked out to find themselves in the middle of a small town's downtown in New Mexico.

They were beautiful creatures, but I now had a sixty-percent chance of being trampled by one or more of them, if the people chasing me didn't get me first.

Do you ever wonder how you got to this place in life? Do you ever second-guess your choices? I was doing a lot of both of those things as I made a sharp right past Gloria's burrito stand and jumped over a stack of funnel cakes.

It was more than bedlam. Bedlam would have looked at this situation and thought it was over-the-top. The giraffes were everywhere, the alien fans were chasing me and trying to avoid the giraffes, and one lone Andromedan was flapping her arms as she tried to stay upright and alive.

And then the sheriff's department showed up. Amos screeched his SUV to a stop in the middle of the Plaza and hopped out like a cowboy hero. In the middle of the chaos, he spotted me.

"Freeze!" he yelled and drew his gun on me. I waved my hands at him and ran toward him, relieved to finally be saved.

"Freeze or I'll shoot!" he yelled again and aimed his weapon.

# Part V: Goodnight Has Bad Giraffe Karma, and Matilda Tells It Like it is.

Toenails Fall Off in Epidemic of Nail Matrix Trauma

by Jack Remington

At least a dozen Goodnight women have suffered the loss of their toenails this week after they paid for fish pedicures at the Goodnight Community Center. Mabel Kessler imported the fish in order to build a spa-like business in town and bring in tourists.

"Don't you dare say those women lost their toenails because of the fish pedicures," she told this reporter. "There's no proof the two have anything to do with each other. It could be a simple coincidence. Why aren't you in school? How old are you?"

According to the toenail sufferers, their complaints began the day after they had fish pedicures. It started with tingling toes. "I was doing the laundry and folding my husband's underpants when I looked down and my toenails were gone. Poof!" Laura Scott said. "I look like a seal, now. Seals don't have toenails, right?"

According to Doc Greenberg, the fish caused a toenail matrix trauma, which made the toenails fall off. It's not sure if the toenails will grow back, according to him.

Even though Ms. Kessler insists that the fish had nothing to do with the toenail issues, she reported that she had returned the fish. "No fish were harmed," she explained. "They were shipped off in fish-friendly packing materials."

Fish pedicures are popular for women with thick, crusty callouses on their feet. The fish eat the dead skin, leaving the feet smooth.

"I'll never do that again," Sarah Drew said. "Sure, my heels look great, but my toenails fell off at the grocery store in the cereal aisle. I'll never live that down."

# Chapter 13

I put my scaly hands up and prayed that he wouldn't shoot me. "Get down! I'm talking to you, alien thing! Get down on the ground!"

It took me a second to understand that I was the "alien thing" he was talking to and that he didn't recognize me. I flopped onto my belly so I wouldn't be shot.

But it turned out that he wasn't aiming at the "alien thing." He was aiming at Wade, who was behind me with his gun drawn.

It was a standoff, just like in the Wild West, except that giraffes were running by, townspeople were fleeing from them, screaming, and a hundred men were having a shoving war over who was better, Vegans or Andromedans. I had to hand it to Silas. What he was planning to write in his article must have been dynamite in order for Wade and Steve to go stark raving mad and run around the town with their guns drawn. At least that's what I was assuming it was. It could have been me who made them crazy.

"Drop your weapon!" Amos shouted at Wade. While still on my belly, I turned my head to see Wade standing with his arm outstretched, his gun aimed directly at Amos. The seconds ticked away, and I was sure that someone was going to die.

Wade's face changed slightly, and I knew that he was going to fire his gun. But before he could, a giraffe ran right into him, throwing him up into the air. I sat up and watched Wade hit the bandstand. Luckily, the musicians ducked for cover, but a tuba and a trombone took a direct hit.

Another giraffe ran by, almost running me over. "Watch out, alien thing!" Amos yelled. But I wasn't the one who needed to watch out.

"Amos! Watch out!" It was Boone. He leaped into the air and tackled Amos to the ground, just as a shot was fired. I spun around to see Wade's partner Steve with his gun pointed at Amos. Luckily, the shot missed Amos, but it took down the cotton candy machine.

Amos pushed Boone aside and jumped up and shot Steve in his shooting arm. Boone ran to Steve and subdued him on the ground. "I don't need your help, asshole," Amos said, handcuffing Steve and securing his gun.

"I saved your life, asshole," Boone snapped.

"I was doing just fine without you."

And then another shot ran out from the bandstand, and this one got Amos right through his cowboy hat. "Amos!" Boone yelled.

Miraculously, the bullet missed his head and only got his hat. Amos was fine. Wade was standing in the middle of the bandstand, ready to shoot again. "Sonofabitch," Boone growled and ran right for him.

I stood up and put my hands on my alien head, watching with dread as Boone leaped through the air and tackled Wade in much the same way he had tackled Amos. It was lunacy.

But it worked. Wade went down with a terrible noise, as his body hit the tuba again. He was sure having a bad day. I would have thought he would have just laid there, but he fought against Boone. This time, Amos came to the rescue and subdued Wade, handcuffing him.

I ran to Amos and Boone. Since Amos was on the ground, I hugged Boone.

"What's going on?" Boone asked. I stepped back and tried to get my alien head off. Unfortunately, my alien hands couldn't do the job.

"It's me!" I yelled from inside the head, but of course, he couldn't hear me. I could hear everyone, but nobody could hear me. I wondered if the real Andromedans had the same problem.

"Oh, our dear Andromedan lord," a man said, bowing in front of me. He was backed by a group of about thirty guys, all with torn clothes and bruises. It had been a free-for-all. The intergalactic war turned out to be much more localized with the warring sides merely science fiction fans.

"I'm not an alien!" I yelled. I fumbled with my head, again, and finally it popped off, fell to the ground, and rolled down the street, where it got kicked by the last giraffe to pass through the town on its way to freedom.

"Sonofabitch," Boone said.

"I'm not an alien," I repeated. "I'm a Californian."

There was generalized shock. I would have thought the giraffe stampede and the gunfight would have been the cause, but it was really a woman in an alien costume. Go figure.

The crowd disbursed. Their disappointment was palpable. The Plaza that was hundreds of years old was more or less destroyed. Whatever good giraffe karma Rocco was hoping to make had run away into the wild. I hoped they could hire a giraffe tracker to find them all, but I was doubtful. Wade and Steve were handcuffed, and a paramedic was treating Steve's wound.

My head was a sweaty mess, and Adele came out of the diner to give me some water, but I couldn't hold the glass with my alien hands.

"I've never seen anything like that before in my life," Adele said, raising the glass to my mouth for me. "And I lived in a circus for two years."

Amos and Boone stood side by side, but they were looking at the ground. "Go ahead," Boone said. "Kiss her. Hug her. She's yours. Go ahead."

"I saw her hug you. She's yours. You go and kiss her," Amos said.

"No you."

"No you."

"It's like they're arguing about who's going to pick up a pizza," I said.

"Maybe one of the giraffes got them in the head," Adele suggested.

"Are you rejecting her?" Amos asked Boone. "How dare you! She's a wonderful woman!"

"I'm not rejecting her. But I'm not going to get in the way if she's yours."

"Bullshit. You're rejecting her."

"I'm not. Believe me. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but there's a lot more fury when a man gets between another man and his lady love," Boone said, jarring me.

Amos put Boone into a headlock and they fell to the ground, rolling around as they wrestled. "You shut up!" Boone yelled.

"No, you shut up!"

"No you!"

"No you!"

"I'm not sure what I'm looking at," I told Adele.

"Family can be a difficult thing," she said.

"What?" I asked, surprised. "Boone and Amos are related?"

"Didn't you know? They're brothers. Fraternal twins. Boone's ninety minutes older."

Of course. Now it seemed perfectly clear. I had thought Boone looked familiar, and it was because he looked like Amos. Twins. Boone had been Mr. Secretive, and he had never told me his last name. Boone Goodnight.

And Boone had been right. It was complicated. "This is like the Bible," I said to Adele, as we watched Amos and Boone continue to roll around the ground, wrestling.

"Cain and Abel," she agreed.

But which one was Cain and which one was Abel? There had to be a lot of bad blood between them to make brothers hate each other so much, but Boone did save Amos's life, so maybe the bad blood was only surface deep. Maybe all of the rancor was based on a simple misunderstanding.

"Can't we all just be friends?" I called to the two men.

"They'll work it out," Adele said. "They've only been fighting for a few years."

"Years?"

Adele shrugged. "Goodnight men are stubborn. They also have large penises. At least that's what I hear."

While Boone and Amos continued to wrestle, Adele walked back to Goodnight UFOs with me to get my clothes. I apologized to Norton for losing his alien head, and Faye apologized to me for losing my sneakers. I bought a pair of Martian flip-flops and picked up my purse and went back to the Plaza.

When I returned, Boone and Amos had finally calmed down. Amos had put Wade and Steve in the back of his SUV, and now he was standing with Boone, studiously ignoring him.

"Don't worry. They'll be behind bars for a long time," Amos told me, touching his bloody lip. "Bastards almost killed me. They'll get justice for Jimmy."

"They didn't kill Jimmy," I said.

"What?" Boone asked. He looked at me through one eye because his other eye was swollen and bruised.

"They didn't kill Jimmy. I know who did that now," I said.

"You do?" Amos asked. "Who?"

"This might sound strange, but I want to tell you in front of Silas," I said. "He was almost killed three times. I think he deserves to hear the whole story."

Amos surprised me by agreeing to move our discussion to Silas's hospital room. I also asked him to invite a large group of people to come, too.

Along with Amos, Boone, Silas, and me, I asked that Faye and her husband Norton, Adele, Nora, Mabel, Rocco, Klee, Jack, Gloria, Wendy, Jimmy's parents, and Wade and Steve come hear about what really happened.

Silas was delighted to have the company in his hospital room, and even more delighted to see Wade and Steve handcuffed.

"I knew I would get you guys," Silas told them with glee. "You murderers."

"Almost murderers," I corrected. "They tried to kill me and Amos, but otherwise they're innocent."

"Right. Innocent," Silas said, sarcastically.

"Go ahead, Trouble," Amos said. "Tell us what you brought us here to say."

All of a sudden, I got nervous. I had never spoken in front of so many people before. But I knew I was right about the killer, and I couldn't wait to tell the world.

I stood next to Silas's bed and faced everyone.

"Let me start by saying that I'm not crazy, and I never wore a BDSM sling and rode a giraffe." I shot Rocco the stink-eye so bad that he had to look away.

"It started when Jimmy came into the Gazette office, thrilled that he had made progress to the story about New Sun Petroleum," I began. Jimmy's mother wiped at her eyes. "He was a good young man," I added. "Talented and enthusiastic. Silas wanted to celebrate, so he passed around cigars. I don't like cigar smoke, so I left. A little while later, Jimmy came out into the courtyard, and we all know what happened.

"There was no shortage of suspects right off the bat," I continued. "Anyone could have poisoned the cigar at any time. But why kill Jimmy? What was the motive? It quickly became clear that only one cigar had been poisoned, and it had been meant for Silas. Poor Jimmy was collateral damage. Now, the mystery became more mysterious. I mean, everyone wanted Silas dead, right? No offense, Silas," I added, patting his shoulder.

"No journalist worth his salt is liked," Silas announced. "Being hated is a sign that I'm doing my job."

"The first suspect, of course, was my roommate," I said. Boone's eyes widened. I nodded back at him. "He was so secretive. And dusty. And he was always at the scene of the crime. Those were way too many coincidences for my taste."

"And don't forget he was flirting with you," Adele said.

"Which was totally a bad sign because only killers and liars like you," Faye added.

"Right," I said, pointing at them. "Exactly. So, mysterious Boone was a major suspect. But there were others. Klee could have been irritated looking at the same suit every day, for example."

"Hey!" Klee complained.

"She has a point," Silas said. "I make a unique fashion statement."

"And young Jack," I continued. "He could have wanted Silas out of the way so he could quit school and take Silas's place on the paper."

"Is that possible? Can I quit school?" Jack asked.

"No!" Amos and Boone yelled at Jack in unison.

"At that point, we didn't know yet that Silas had been the real target," I said. "That all changed when we found out about the cigar. Silas was called by a secret source who asked to meet him on the roof of Goodnight UFOs." Wendy shifted in place, and I tried not to look at her in order to preserve her anonymity. "Later that source said that the call had been faked. It was actually the killer who had contacted Silas to lure him to his death."

"That was a good plan, if I do say so myself," Silas said. "I didn't see it coming."

"The second attempt on Silas's life produced a bunch more suspects," I said. "First there was the source, who could have lied later and had really waited for Silas and pushed him off the roof. Second, of course was Wade, who had threatened Silas every chance he could because of the article."

"I wouldn't have pushed him off a building," Wade spat. "That's a pussy way to kill a man."

"I'll get to that in a minute. Don't skip ahead," I said. "I found a few clues on the roof after Silas was pushed off."

"You did?" Amos asked.

I blushed and continued talking. "First there were the marks where the flying saucer was cut free."

"The killer used the wrong tool," Faye announced.

"Exactly. Why would he do that? There were also different kinds of cuts, as if the killer had made several trips. That told me that either the person wasn't very strong..."

"Or that there was more than one killer," Nora finished for me. "This is so good. I wish I had popcorn."

"You can have my rice pudding, if you want," Silas told her. "It gives me gas."

Nora took the rice pudding and scooped a spoonful into her mouth.

"The other clue was a piece of paper left at the scene." I pulled it out of my pocket. "It came from a flier for the giraffe parade. I only recognized it when I went to the parade and saw my picture and longed for the original poster."

I scrunched up the scrap of paper and threw it on the ground. "It turned out that it wasn't a clue. The last clue was the biggest clue, but I didn't know that it was at the time. I smelled an odor that I couldn't place on the roof."

"That's right," Faye said, excitedly. "I forgot all about that."

"Then, there was the location, itself. Goodnight UFOs. All roads seemed to lead to it, and that was suspect," I said.

"Are you saying that Norton...?" Faye asked.

"There was the old t-shirt," I continued.

"The old t-shirt you wanted to see?" Norton asked.

"It was suspicious. I'll tell you about it another day," I said, not wanting to go into the story of the vanishing girl. I didn't think that would help my credibility. But Boone seemed to know where I was going with it, and he smirked at me. I tried to ignore him.

"Anywho," I continued. "The main suspects continued to be Wade and Steve, especially after I allegedly broke into New Sun Petroleum, and Wade shot at me in the forest after, hitting my dog."

"I categorically deny that," Wade said.

"Talk to the hand," I said back to him. "Mabel and Rocco were dragged into that suspicion after I saw each of them talking to Wade, and Mabel took something from him and put it in her purse."

"What? You were spying on me?" Mabel asked, upset. "Wade gave me a check for a fish pedicure. That's all. Totally innocent."

"My damned toenails fell off!" Wade yelled at her.

"Coincidence," she countered.

"It doesn't matter," I said. "I don't care what Mabel and Rocco were doing with Wade. It has nothing to do with Jimmy's death. But I didn't know that at the time because I was fixated on New Sun Petroleum as the number one suspect.

 "Then, later at Jimmy's wake, I was told something about his family that threw the suspicion from New Sun in a totally different direction. That moment solidified my belief that Wendy had lied to me about Jimmy's case." Amos and Wendy exchanged a quick glance. "My turn to a different direction in the investigation continued when my friends reminded me that whoever the killer was, he had used different methods to try and kill Silas. I was also told that Wade was a shooter and that he wouldn't want to get his hands dirty, preferring to use a gun."

"What is this? Gang up on Wade day?" Wade demanded.

"Silas gave me the second to last clue," I said, ignoring Wade.

"You don't think that Silas faked all this, do you?" Klee asked.

"No. But that would have been interesting. When Silas was almost killed a third time-- this time almost smothered to death with a pillow-- he told me that he had woken up on the floor with the pillow on his face. He said that it had been heavy."

"That's right," Silas said.

"At the time, I thought it was a strange word," I said. "Heavy. Why didn't he say that the person was too strong? He didn't. He said heavy. That made me think. There were a couple other things that I'll get to in a minute, but it was Boone who gave me the clue that brought it all together for me."

"I did?" Boone asked.

"He did?" Amos asked.

"Boone," I repeated. "He was talking to his brother, and he said, 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' Well, that told me everything I needed to know."

"So, who's the murderer?" Jack asked.

I looked over at the killer. All eyes followed me to stare directly at Sheriff Amos Goodnight.

"The sheriff?" Wade asked "No way."

"I always thought there was something fishy about him," Rocco said.

"No," I said. "Not Amos." I continued to stare in his direction, but not at Amos, at the person standing in front of him.

"No," Silas said, catching on. "It can't be."

"That's impossible," Mabel said.

"It's possible," I said. "Gloria Corbella killed Jimmy and tried to kill Silas three times."

I waited for the audible gasp in the room, and I was rewarded. Gloria stepped back until she bumped into Amos. I sat down next to Silas on his bed, exhausted by my monologue.

"Gloria had access to the Gazette office and Silas's cigars," I explained. "She was there every day. The kind, invisible tamale lady. She could have done whatever she wanted without anyone taking any notice. After Jimmy died, I started nosing around, and I assume that got Gloria worried. So, she put a rattlesnake in my car."

"That was the Andromedans," Norton said.

"I was beginning to think so, too," I told Norton. "You were very convincing. But it was Gloria. She told me right in this room that she wasn't scared of rattlesnakes and had grown up with them around her house. When I saw her after almost getting killed by the snake, I got the impression that she was surprised to see me. At the time, I didn't take any notice, but now it makes more sense."

"What kind of world do we live in when the tamale lady puts rattlesnakes in people's cars?" Nora asked out loud.

I figured it was a rhetorical question and continued. "Now looking back, the smell on the roof was homemade tamales. I guess when you make hundreds of them every day, the smell stays with you. It only lasted a second, but it was enough to get my attention."

Faye snapped her fingers. "Tamales! That's what it was. You're so good at this, Matilda."

I smiled big, pleased as punch at the compliment. "It would make sense, too, that Gloria wouldn't have access to the correct tool to use to cut the flying saucer loose, and a woman would have to come back repeatedly to get the job done," I continued. "Her voice on the phone could be mistaken for Wendy's, so that fit, too. And then there was the heavy pillow. Thinking of Gloria trying to smother Silas, the word heavy now makes sense. She wouldn't have had the strength to smother him with her hands. She had to sit on him."

"Sonofabitch," Boone said, like he was truly impressed. I blushed, and Amos scowled at my reaction.

"But why?" Silas asked. "What was the motive?"

I sighed. "Men are so clueless. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' She did it for love."

"Love?" Amos asked.

"There's only the slightest sliver of space between love and hate," I said.

Gloria stepped forward. "Every day for sixteen years, I've fed you tamales and burritos," she spat at Silas. "Sixteen years, I've slaved to make sure you have a good meal."

"I know. Thank you," Silas said. "But isn't that your job?"

"No! I'm a dental technician. Sixteen years ago, my cousin Lupita was sick, so I replaced her. That's when I met you. I've been making you lunch every day since then."

"In order to be close to you, Silas," I explained because he still looked confused.

"Why did I fall in love with a fat, ugly, dirty man with one suit? I don't know," Gloria said.

"I'm not dirty. I take a bath every evening," Silas said.

I nodded my head. "That's true. I've seen proof."

"Day after day, year after year, I waited for you to notice me, to ask me out, to fall in love with me," Gloria continued. Faye sniffed, and Nora gave her a Kleenex. "But I got nothing from you. Nothing! Then, finally, one day I worked up the courage to ask you, and what did you do?"

She ran at the bed with her arms over her head, like she planned to pulverize Silas. Amos pulled her back easily.

Gloria took a deep breath and lowered her arms. "It was that moment, I knew that I had wasted sixteen years of my life and had thrown away my dream of helping to fix people's teeth. Instead, I was clogging their arteries! So, I worked up the courage to kill you, Silas. It didn't take as much time as it did to ask you out. But you wouldn't die. I even pushed you off a building and dropped a flying saucer on you, and you would not die! Each time, it was like you were rejecting me again. Each time you survived, it fed my rage against you!"

"You killed my boy?" Jimmy's mother asked, and began to cry. She wailed and cried deep, heaving sobs. Her husband held her tight, and I began to cry, too. There was no greater loss than the death of a child, and witnessing her anguish was too much to bear.

Amos put handcuffs on Gloria. Wendy walked Wade and Steve out of the room. As Amos passed with Gloria, he said, "Nice work, Trouble," and gave me a peck on the cheek.

Boone didn't say a word. He walked out before I noticed him leave.

Silas held up a recording device. "Come and get it, Jack," he said. "Write this baby up. You can take as much space as you want."

"I'll be the judge of that," Klee grumbled.

"Hey, why can't I write it?" I asked. "I'm the one who figured it all out."

"Patience, boss," Silas said. "You'll get there."

# Epilogue

Sunday came and went, and there was no sign of Boone. Monday morning, I was back at the Gazette and so was Silas. He had signed himself out of the hospital and was now in a wheelchair, typing with one hand until he totally recovered.

"Boss, I need three hundred words on the pool closing," Klee told me.

"Closing? It just re-opened," I said.

"Some of those glow in the dark pedicure fish got into the pool, and now the whole thing is a biohazard. It's going to take months to clean it up."

It wasn't the Watergate story, but I was happy to take it. I was enjoying the reporting thing. In fact, I was enjoying my home, my dogs, my new friends, and the town of Goodnight. I was thankful for my inheritance and planned on relishing it for a long time to come. I was also thankful that I still had my toenails.

I left the house to get Abbott and Costello a couple of bones and find my purse before I went out to cover the pool story. Faye was under my kitchen sink, working on the pipes.

"I found this," she said, holding up an envelope. "It must have fallen off the table."

I opened it. I recognized the handwriting at once. It was the same perfect, deliberate handwriting in the note that was left to me when Amos returned my car and purse after the rattlesnake incident.

But it wasn't Amos who had left the note. Reading it, I knew that now. It was Boone. I read the note:

Sorry I didn't have a chance to say goodbye. I'll be away for a couple weeks. You know...doing super-secret, dusty stuff that I can't talk about. Don't make any decisions while I'm away. I enjoyed your performance at the hospital. You have a very impressive mind.

And the rest of your parts aren't bad, either.

\--Yours,

Boone Goodnight (the older and better brother)

I read the note three times, searching for more messages in the words. Happy, I tucked it into my purse and after saying goodbye to Faye, went out through the courtyard to the front gate.

I was surprised to see Amos waiting for me in his SUV. He stuck his head out the open window. "I think we found her," he said.

"Who?" But I knew who he meant. Her. The girl. I ran around to the other side of the car and climbed into the passenger seat. "Is she all right? Where did you find her?"

Amos turned the car around and drove away. "There's some bad news. We found her on the bank of the Snake River. In a shallow grave."

"What?" I was honestly shocked. "Are you sure it's her?"

"Fits your description. Blond, young, thin, wearing men's pajama pants and an old, small Goodnight UFOs t-shirt."

"I didn't help her," I said, my voice barely audible. "I promised to help her."

"You can't help everyone. You helped Silas. That's more than I could do."

We drove to the makeshift morgue at the Sheriff's Department. I followed Amos inside and downstairs. "Are you ready to ID her?" he asked me, gently.

"No. I mean, yes. I mean, I guess so."

He opened a door, and I walked inside to a bright room with a dead body lying on a table in the middle of it. It was definitely her. The girl with no name. The girl who asked me to help her and to watch out for myself. The girl who told me that there are others out there like her.

Like her, dead on a table?

I shuddered, and Amos came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Is it her?"

"Yes," I said. "But she looks so dead. Like she's been dead for a long time."

"The coroner puts the time of death as Monday morning."

I turned around and looked up into his eyes. "No. That's impossible. That can't be. I spoke with her Monday night. And then again on Wednesday."

"The coroner said she's been dead for as long as ten days, but his best guess is Monday."

I tried to make sense out of it, but I couldn't. "How did she die?" I asked, finally.

"Murder. Strangulation."

"We have to find the killer," I said. "And the others."

Be sure to watch for the next installment of the Goodnight Mysteries: A Doom with a View. Sign up for my newsletter to be the first to know when it's released.

http://elisesax.com/mailing-list.php

Would you like to see how it all began? Read An Affair to Dismember, the first book in the Matchmaker Mysteries.

# Also by Elise Sax

Matchmaker Mysteries Series

Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda

Road to Matchmaker

An Affair to Dismember

Citizen Pain

The Wizards of Saws

Field of Screams

From Fear to Eternity

West Side Gory

Scareplane

It Happened One Fright

The Big Kill

It's a Wonderful Knife

Ship of Ghouls

Goodnight Mysteries Series

Die Noon

Doom With A View

Five Wishes Series

Going Down

Man Candy

Hot Wired

Just Sacked

Wicked Ride

Five Wishes Series

Three More Wishes Series

Blown Away

Inn & Out

Quick Bang

Three More Wishes Series

Forever Series

Forever Now

Bounty

Switched

Moving Violations

# About the Author

Elise Sax writes hilarious happy endings. She worked as a journalist, mostly in Paris, France for many years but always wanted to write fiction. Finally, she decided to go for her dream and write a novel. She was thrilled when An Affair to Dismember, the first in the Matchmaker Mysteries series, was sold at auction.

Elise is an overwhelmed single mother of two boys in Southern California. She's an avid traveler, a swing dancer, an occasional piano player, and an online shopping junkie.

Friend her on Facebook: facebook.com/ei.sax.9

Send her an email: elisesax@gmail.com

You can also visit her website: elisesax.com

And sign up for her newsletter to know about new releases and sales: elisesax.com/mailing-list.php

Or tweet at her: @theelisesax

