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a hell of a lot happier somewhere else, you’re dumber than you look.”
    “I’m sorry. It’s just that—”
    “Let’s you and me not blab any more than we have to, because this isn’t no social occasion. You just stay your skinny ass in here and be quiet as you can and don’t yell at me to come back like I was your maid. You need to pee, or whatever, there’s a bucket there by the bed. I’ll bring you food and water when I get around to it. In the meantime, keep your yippy-yap shut or I’ll dope you up like Buck did. We straight?”
    “I’m sorry,” Lucy said, contritely. When the woman turned, Lucy caught sight of Eli in a playpen just beyond the open kitchen. He looked to be playing with some toys. This creature wasn’t going to tell her why she and Eli were there.
    “You don’t spank him, do you?” the big woman demanded.
    “Sorry?” Lucy said. Despite the dentures, Lucy realized, the woman was probably close to her own age.
    “Your diaper slayer, little Lord Fart-not. Elijah.”
    “No, we don’t believe in corporal punishment.”
    “You people,” the woman said sourly. “It’s no wonder the whole world’s gone to hell. I had a cousin named Elijah.”
    “It’s a nice name,” Lucy said, hoping to endear her son to the woman so she would do him no harm.
    “Cousin Elijah was a bratty little creep. His daddy ran him over while he was backing out their driveway. We was all playing in their yard. His head looked like a dang pizza. We all—”
    “Please, could I—?”
    The woman flew into the room and, before Lucy could raise her arm to shield her face, the woman slapped her so hard her ears rang and she fell back onto the mattress.
    “Could you what!? Could you what!?” the woman snarled. “I was talking about something important! But only what you say is important!”
    Lucy saw that her captor’s T-shirt read, HELL IS HOT FOREVER.
    The woman stormed out and slammed the door shut with a resounding bang, plunging the room back into a musty darkness.
    Lucy’s face went from being numbed by the blow to stinging dully as she lay there stunned by the sudden burst of unprovoked violence. The woman was obviously mentally unstable and probably dangerous. She mustn’t do anything else to provoke her. There was no telling what she and the others were capable of doing if they got mad.
    Surely her father had called the police.
    The police would surely come.
    They just had to come.
    Lucy wished Walter was there.
    Walter would know what to do.
    All she could do was wait and see.
    Lucy squeezed her eyes shut and lay still. She couldn’t afford to make these people angry.

6
     

    After the picnic ended, the group made their way back down to the house. Faith Ann and Rush led the horses to the barn to put the animals away.
    While Sean put Olivia down for her nap, Winter and Alexa took cups of the coffee and went into the small den they called the office because there was a desk in it when they bought the place.
    “Fallen Angel Farm is an interesting name,” Alexa said, raising a brow. “Some sort of a statement?”
    Winter shook his head. “There’s an old graveyard that dates from 1806 just on the other side of that hill where we had lunch. Family members and workers who died here were buried there—slaves in a nearby plot. Most of the headstones are still there. There was a hand-carved stone angel there. During the Civil War the wrought-iron fence around it was melted down for ammo. Late in the war a company of Union cavalry used the angel for target practice. After they got bored with chipping hunks off her, they knocked her over on her back. She’s still lying where she fell, looking up at the sky.”
    “Sometimes I wish all I had to do was to be lying out in the grass, looking up and watching the clouds drift by,” Alexa said. “I guess I was always too ambitious to relax. Or remember how to, if I ever knew.” She sipped coffee. “I was thinking the other day about prom