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bsp; “Yes! How did you know?”
“You told Ravinia to watch the news and she did, and she put two and two together.”
“So, you believe, a little, that I do have this ability?”
“I believe that sometimes the unexplainable occurs. Most of the time, however, there’s a helluva lot more logical reason than ESP, or whatever you’re talking about. And I don’t believe you can wish someone dead. Killing someone takes action. Forethought. Execution of the plan. If you could really wish someone dead, there wouldn’t be anyone left on the planet.”
“Four people that I wished harm are dead. Four.” She then told him about Mazie, Officer Daniels, Court, and Channing Renfro. “I had interactions with all of them and one time or another they really pissed me off. Then boom. They were gone.”
“Okay, then, try this. Have you wished anyone harm who’s still living?”
“Well, I’m sure I probably have . . .”
“Recently. These deaths were recent, so have you wished someone dead recently.”
Barb. “My sister-in-law really got under my skin when she was here after Court died.”
“She still alive?”
“Yeah, as far as I know. She lives in Buffalo.”
“Call her. See if she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she is,” Elizabeth said, but she dutifully placed the call.
Barb answered on the fourth ring, sounding harried. When Elizabeth said she was just calling to see how she was, Barb snorted. “I’m fine. Just busy.”
“I won’t keep you,” Elizabeth said and hurriedly hung up.
“So, she’s okay,” Rex pointed out.
Elizabeth made a face. “Barb’s never really okay.”
“A joke. Oho! So, you can lighten up a little.”
She blushed a little, liking this side of him. It took all her energy not to stare at his mouth and wonder what it would feel like pressed to her lips.
“Couldn’t it be coincidence, sheer unluckiness, that you’re linked to their deaths?”
She shook her head, then said slowly, “I’d like to think so, but I don’t believe it. Something is there.”
“Then what is it?” He was pushing her to think more rationally, but it wasn’t rational.
“Maybe . . . I’m being set up,” she said, voicing a theory that had crystalized just recently in her mind, one she’d rejected at first pass. But with Rex’s probing questions, she considered it again. “Maybe someone knows that I’ve had a problem with these people and he’s killing them and framing me.”
“Why would anyone go to all that trouble?” Rex asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How could he know who to target? The murders, and I use the term loosely as a couple were accidents, occurred not long after you had nasty thoughts about the victims. Right?”
“Yes . . .”
“Well, who could know all of that?”
She shook her head again.
“Any one person you confided in? Told how you felt about every one of the victims?”
