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might’ve killed Megan. Even for a grieving mother, that seemed like a stretch. Simone was a wonderful kid, with no motive at all for harming Megan—at least not any motive that Charlie could dream up.
    “Hawkins laughed at me. He told me to go home and to stop watching those TV crime shows. And that’s exactly what I did. I went home, and I convinced myself that it happened just like he said. I told myself Megan weren’t scared of no intruders. She bought that revolver at the gun show because she didn’t want to live anymore.”
    Mrs. O’Neal’s shoulders pumped up and down like she was holding back a hard sob. “I accepted the explanation that the law provided. Megan’s death was a suicide. And I kept the money because I needed it, and because I figured he owed it to me .”
    Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. He turned and put his hands on her shoulders, both to comfort her and to help her stay focused. “What money? Who gave it to you?”
    “Did I forget to mention the money?” She tapped her nose with her index finger. “Five hundred dollars. Came like clockwork every two weeks, until ten months ago that is. Then it just stopped. Well, I figured if he didn’t owe me nothing no more, I didn’t owe him nothing no more. So I went to that reporter, and I told her I thought he’d been sending me money all those years just because he didn’t want his good name bandied about in the same sentence with my poor girl.
    It was all Charlie could do not to shake her. He tried to keep his voice low and easy. “Who didn’t want his name bandied about?”
    Mrs. O’Neal catapulted to her feet, and Charlie went with her. She pushed his hands off her shoulders and somehow managed to stay upright. “I won’t tell you. I told Catherine Timmons and look what happened to her.”
    “Catherine Timmons?” An ominous chill swept down his back. Catherine Timmons was the reporter who, according to the news, shot herself in the head yesterday.
    Mrs. O’Neal nodded, and her reddened face drained of color.
    “You think Catherine Timmons, the Channel Eight reporter, is dead because of something you said to her ten months ago?”
    Her chin came up, and she stood perfectly straight. She seemed to have jolted herself into some sort of temporary sobriety. “I honest to God don’t know. That’s the worst part. I don’t know for sure who sent me money the last six years or why. I don’t know a damn thing about what happened to Megan in that farmhouse. I don’t know if it was suicide, like I made myself believe all these years, or if it weren’t.”
    She buried her face in her hands, and when she looked back up, her eyes flooded with tears. “I don’t know if that reporter copied Megan and shot her own self in the head, or if someone else had a hand in it. But I do know this, the sheriff—Hawkins is the sheriff now you see—the sheriff don’t give a rat’s ass, and I can’t take no more chances. I’m getting out of this town, and I ain’t never coming back.”
    She beat her fists against her chest. “I’ve owed you an apology, Drex, a long time. Now you have it.”
    “No. It’s me who should apologize. I should’ve come here six years ago and told you how sorry I am for what happened. Instead I ran away. I did nothing to comfort you. I didn’t even stay in town long enough to go to Megan’s funeral.” He reached out and offered her his hands, palms up. “Why would you ever owe me, of all people, an apology?”
    “Because you do give a rat’s ass. You run off to war and all but got yourself killed on account of you felt responsible for what happened to my Megan.” She took his hands. “And here this whole entire time I knew that while you were away working the oil rigs, Megan took up with someone else. I knew she got herself pregnant by that someone else, and then she lost his baby, and then she shot herself. And I never said another damn word about him after that because of five hundred lousy dollars every two