“You can do that?” Maddy asked.

“I can try,” I said with a shrug.

“Thank you,” Vera said.

I nodded and took my prize.

“I did too know what I was doing,” Maddy said as I walked off. “I just chose to be the bigger person.”

Tilda snorted and the arguments began again. I almost felt sorry for their sister Esther. She had a lot of baggage waiting for her when she passed.

I decided to drop off the polygraph machine at home before checking in at the office. If Agent Carson and I were still friends, I would give it to her with explicit instructions to get it to the right people. Surely there was an FBI museum somewhere, and it could earn me brownie points. I was a firm believer in brownie points. They were like Cheez-Its. And Oreos. And mocha lattes. One could never have too many.

As I was driving home, however, an elderly woman appeared out of nowhere in the street ahead of me. Reflexes being what they were, I swerved to the right, narrowly missing a herd of parked bikes and sideswiping Misery against a streetlamp.

I screeched to a halt, hitting my forehead on the steering wheel

The woman had been in a paper-thin nightgown, both the gown and her hair a soft baby blue. Though I’d only seen her a second, it was enough to register the fear on her face, in her fragile shoulders. She looked nothing like Aunt Lil, but I couldn’t help but compare the two. If Lil was scared and lost, I would search the world over for her. That was the impression I’d gotten from this woman.

Thankfully, the area I was in at the moment wasn’t super busy. No one noticed my little mishap. I glanced over to check on Mr. Andrulis. He was still staring straight ahead, nary a care in the world, so I scanned the area for the woman. She was gone.

Left with no other choice, I pulled back onto the street and started for home again, only to have the woman appear again. In the middle of the road.

It took every ounce of strength I had to curb my knee-jerk reaction and slam on the brakes. Swerve to the side. Hit something. I bit down and braked slowly as we drove through the woman. After checking traffic, I pulled into an empty parking lot and got out. She was gone again.

No way was I playing this game all day. I’d kill someone at the rate I was going. So I crossed my arms, crossed my ankles, and leaned against Misery in wait. After another minute or two, the woman appeared again. She materialized right in front of Misery, looked around as though trying to gain her bearings, then disappeared again. I rounded the front of my Jeep and waited. This time when she appeared, I gently took hold of her arm.

She blinked, then furrowed her brows, squinted her eyes, presumably against my brightness, and looked up at me.

“Hi,” I said softly about a microsecond before she hauled her foot back and kicked me in the shin so hard, it brought tears to my eyes. I let go of her, took hold of my shin, and hopped around, cursing under my breath. After gathering myself, I turned and glared at her. “That had to hurt your toes.” She was barefoot, after all. “Please tell me that hurt your toes.”

“Where are you taking him?” she demanded, her wrinkled face, like cracked porcelain, puckering in anger. She raised a fist at me, reminding me very much of Vera from the yard sale.

“Your name isn’t Esther, is it?” I asked. She could have been the sister they were waiting for.

“My name is none of your concern, hussy. You give him back this minute.”

Hussy? “Hashtag color-me-confused,” I said her. “And this week’s insanity award goes to the crazy lady with the blue hair.”

“I ain’t crazy, and you give him back. I heard about women like you.”

She eyed me up and down like I repulsed her. I was horridly offended.

“No. I’m not giving him back.” I leaned in and said through my teeth still gritting in pain, “You can’t have him.” Then I frowned in thought. “Who?”

“Like you don’t know.”

I had a thousand comebacks, but none of them made sense. One can only say things like Your mama and Stick a sock in it in certain situations. So I gave up on the smart-ass route.

“Look, little crazy lady, I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She focused on something over my shoulder, and I looked back at Mr. Andrulis.

“Wait, Mr. A? He’s yours?” I asked, suddenly hopeful.

Her anger evaporated the minute she looked at my na**d dead man. “We were married over fifty years ago. And I catch him in a car with a hussy. After all this time!” She broke down and sobbed into her fists. In the span of sixty seconds, she went from angry to nostalgic to grief-stricken.

“You didn’t happen to be on medication when you died, did you? Perhaps something in an antipsychotic?”

Her gaze slid up over her fists. And back to anger.

“Look,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He’s only here because he’s been waiting for you.” That was an educated guess. He’d never told me why he was there. Wait, maybe it was to get away from his spouse. Maybe he’d come to me seeking refuge. That would suck since I just handed him over to her.

I walked her around to the passenger door, suddenly realizing to my utter mortification we had an audience. Correction, since the onlookers could hardly see the little crazy lady, I and I alone had an audience. Wonderful. I opened Mr. Andrulis’s door and put a hand on his arm to hopefully draw him to me. With his wife close by, it could work this time.

And it did. He slowly turned toward me, then glanced over at his wife.