She nodded again.

Finishing his beer, Ethan rose from his chair and stretched. "Time to leave."

It wasn't clear whether he was referring to only himself or her as well, but Daisy didn't care. She had not an ounce of energy left for further reflection or conversation. Mind-numbing exhaustion pounded down on her like a crushing wave of boulders. With a prodigious yawn, she pushed herself up from the tilting table and took a couple of lurching steps in no specific direction.

"Whoa there." Ethan put a hand on her shoulder to stop and steady her. "You better let me drive you."

"Why? I haven't had a sip to drink."

"No, but you're as bad as drunk. Ten seconds on that dark road and you'll be snoring like a duck with your head flopped down on the wheel. I'd prefer not to have to inform your friends and family that you careened off into a ditch."

"Like a duck a what?" Another giant yawn cut short her protestations.

"We'll come back for her car tomorrow," Ethan told Zeke as he steered Daisy toward the exit.

"Don't much matter when, just that she be gettin' home safe."

"She will."

Zeke followed them with his keys to lock up afterward.

Just as he was about to guide Daisy through the door, Ethan paused and looked over at Zeke. "You don't happen to have any idea where those big-city folks were headed after they left here?"

"Well," he rubbed one sunken eye, "I didn't catch no name, but I did hear 'em say somethin' 'bout wantin' a burger."

"A burger?" Ethan squinted at him. "Like a hamburger?"

"I reckon so." Zeke shrugged. "Ain't no other kinds of burgers unless ya talkin' cheese."

The squint turned to Daisy. "Didn't you tell me Mr. Dickerson wanted a hamburger when he stumbled into H & P's on the morning he died?"

She was listening, but her brain was only half-processing. "Huh?"

Ethan simplified the question. "Did Fred ask for a burger at the diner?"

"He did."

"So Mr. Dickerson wanted a burger and these big-city folks wanted a burger. Don't you find that to be a somewhat strange coincidence?"

This time Daisy squinted back at him. "Not unless the big-city folks were poisoned too."

CHAPTER.

21.

Daisy didn't think at all about burgers, poison, or any other potentially strange coincidences on the drive back to the inn. She slept. Before Ethan had even pulled his car out of the General's parking lot, her head was already slumped against the seat like a pooped puppy that couldn't possibly manage one more step and simply flopped down where it stood. She was so far gone, he could have deposited her on the side of the road fifty miles south across the border in North Carolina without her taking the slightest notice of it.

She regained consciousness briefly when they arrived at the behemoth Victorian. It was enough for her to register in a dazed sort of way that Ethan was carrying her across the aged porch, up the flight of stairs, and into her room. Daisy felt his thumb rub against her cheek as he laid her down on the bed. And then there were his lips.

The kiss entered her dreams. It was deep and strong and seemed to last for a very long time. She liked it. It felt good, so good she didn't want it to stop. That she was sure of. She tried to pull him closer, except she wasn't sure who was leaning over her. At first he had Ethan's wavy brown hair and the small scar on the left side of his face, but then the hair became shorter and blond like Matt's, and when Daisy opened her eyes to look at him, she found Rick's dark, penetrating gaze staring back at her.

The instant she blinked, it was gone. They were all gone. Ethan, Matt, Rick, and the warm lips. Daisy was alone in her bed and room at the Tosh Inn. It was still dark out, but she could tell that dawn was approaching. A mourning dove cooed plaintively in the redbud outside her window. Drowsy and befuddled, she blinked some more, not entirely certain what had been real. She wondered whether the dream would return if she fell back asleep, and she was just on the verge of dozing off when there was suddenly a muffled bang. A second bang came in swift succession.

Firecrackers? That's what it sounded like. But it was too early for firecrackers. Maybe she had dreamt it. Footsteps thudded clumsily down the stairs. A door on the lower level of the inn slammed. More footsteps down the stairs, fleeter ones this time. The door slammed again. Then there was a boom. It was a thunderous boom that made the whole house shake. Daisy's eyes popped open. She wasn't dreaming, and it definitely wasn't firecrackers. She could identify that noise without any question. It was Aunt Emily's Remington.

Another boom followed, and the house shook even harder. There was yelling. Aunt Emily's yelling. Daisy burrowed her head under the pillow. Stupid deer. Stupid perennials. Stupid shotgun.

A door opened. It was a door upstairs, down the hall. There were no audible footsteps, but the floorboards creaked. Somebody was up. They were probably going to check on Aunt Emily. Daisy closed her eyes. Maybe it wasn't too late for an extra little snooze. Maybe those warm lips would still make a repeat performance. It didn't really matter who they belonged to. It was only a dream. An awfully nice dream even if it had ended with Rick Balsam. That part she could just ignore.

The floorboards continued creaking. Then came the click. The patent metallic click of a slide being drawn back on a semiautomatic. Daisy sprang out of bed as fast as if she had found a cottonmouth coiled up in the sheets next to her. It was Ethan's semiautomatic, and Ethan wasn't fully familiar with Aunt Emily's hatred toward the nibblers of her pretty phlox. Hearing her shots, he would naturally assume that something much more serious was going on. Daisy had to get to him before he spooked her, because Aunt Emily had the tendency to blast away even more willy-nilly than usual when she got spooked.

Grabbing her robe from the hook by the armoire and wrapping it hastily around herself, Daisy flung open her door and scurried into the hall. As expected, she found Ethan standing there. He was pressed close to one wall, both hands in front of him gripping his black Glock. He was wearing jeans but no shirt. Daisy had never seen Ethan in a pair of jeans or without a shirt on, and she made a mental note that the new view wasn't at all bad. Although his chest may have looked inviting, his face was grave and concerned, so she got straight to the point.

"It's nothing to worry about," she told him. "It's only Aunt Emily. She and the local deer are in a permanent state of war in regard to her garden. Sometimes she can get a bit overwrought and too enthusiastic with her Remington."

Ethan shook his head. "I don't thinka""

He was interrupted by more shouts from Aunt Emily. Daisy couldn't make out her words, but they were loud and angry. The shouts were closely succeeded by another pair of thunderous, rattling booms. Daisy growled with irritation. At the rate she was going, Aunt Emily would wake half the county before the sun rose.

"I'll go talk to her." Grumbling, she headed toward the stairs.

"Wait!" Ethan called after her.

Daisy glanced back.

"I don't think it's deer," he said.

"It could be rabbits too, I reckon." She started down the hall again.

"Daisy, stop!"

She stopped in front of her momma's door, but it wasn't because Ethan told her to. It was because the door was ajar. Daisy frowned at it. Her momma didn't normally get up so early.

"Momma?" She tapped on the door.

There was no answer.

"Momma?"

Still no answer. Daisy pushed open the door and looked into the room. The bed was empty and rumpled. The top two drawers from the dresser had been pulled completely out and were turned upside down with their contents strewn around. The chubby lamp from the nightstand lay on the floor. So did her momma.

The walls spun, the furniture went blurry, and Daisy's knees lost all strength. She swayed like a birch in a tornado. Ethan caught her just as she toppled over sideways. He lowered her gently to the ground.

"Daisy? Daisy, are you okay?"

He didn't have to ask her twice. She snapped out of her haze in an instant and darted across the throw rug to her momma, who was flat on her stomach in an apricot-colored lace nightgown.

"Momma!"

Lucy Hale didn't respond. Nor did she move when her daughter grabbed her arm. But Daisy let out an immeasurable sigh of relief a moment later when she saw a little puff of air blow some wisps of hair away from her momma's pale cheek. The puff repeated itself. She was breathing.

"Will you help me get her up, Ethan?"

Not waiting for his assistance, Daisy rolled her momma onto her side. She gasped when she saw her face. A welt the size of a golf ball protruded from her left temple. It was turning an ugly shade of puce.

"She must have hit her head on the bedpost," Ethan said.

Daisy nodded in agreement. "The rug probably slipped out from under her, and she fell. But why are those drawersa""

Just then Beulah appeared in the doorway, yawning raucously. "I'm telling you, Daisy, we've got to take that damn gun away from Aunt Emily beforea"" Her sentence ended abruptly as she saw Daisy's momma lying on the floor. "Oh my God!"

Stirring slightly, Lucy murmured a few incomprehensible syllables.

"Momma?" Daisy cried. "It's me, Momma! I'm here!"

"Is she all right?" Pushing past Ethan, Beulah dropped down on her knees next to Daisy. "What can I do?"

Needing no time for deliberation, Daisy gave instructions at rapid-fire speed. "Call Sue Lowell. Tell her my momma's hit her head, and she's unconscious. Or semiconscious. I don't know if it makes a difference, but she'll understand either way. Try her at the Glade Hill Fire & Rescue Squad first. She's usually there in the mornings."

Beulah jumped up and raced out of the room in the direction of the nearest phone. Her robe flapped behind her like a pair of angel wings. Daisy was too busy cradling her momma's bruised face in her lap to ask Ethan why he was examining the door frame.

"Daisya""

"Huh?" She didn't raise her gaze.

"Does your mom have any other injuries?"

"No, Ia"" Daisy paused and did a quick survey of her momma's body. Her neck was straight, and her shoulders appeared even. Her arms and legs weren't twisted funny. Nothing seemed broken, at least not from the outside. Maybe there was a sprain somewhere, but hopefully that wouldn't be too serious. "I don't see anything."

"There's no blood?"

"There's no blood."

"You're sure? Becausea""

Too agitated to listen, Daisy glanced over at the two drawers lying nearby. "Why are those on the floor? Do you think maybe she tried to grab the dresser as she was falling?"

"I think it's more likely that's where she kept her Colt," Ethan replied.

Daisy's head snapped up. "Her what!"

"Her Colt," he repeated placidly, gesturing toward the base of the nightstand.

Her eyes followed his finger. Less than a foot away at the crinkled edge of the throw rug, there was a pistol. A small bluish-gray Colt. Daisy recognized it immediately.

"The three-eighty," she whispered.

"You know it?" Ethan asked.

He sounded surprised, but not half as surprised as she was to see the gun in her momma's bedroom.

"My daddy gave it to her," Daisy answered, reminiscing more to herself than to Ethan. "The Christmas before he passed. For years he told her she should have one, just in case. But she always laughed him off. Said that's what she kept him around for. My momma never really liked guns much. Her hands are so tiny she has trouble holding most of them. That's why my daddy got her the three-eighty. He said it was light and little and manageable."

"So manageable"a"Ethan gave a grim smilea""she was able to get off two rounds even after she fell."

"Two rounds!"

"See that?" He pointed at a marred spot about waist-high on the door frame. "One's lodged there. And the other"a"he waved a few inches lowera""based on that blood spatter across the wood, I'd bet is hurting somebody pretty bad right about now."

"You think she hit someone?"

"Absolutely. Best guess, in the thigh. Or his ass if he was already running."

Stunned, Daisy blinked at the Colt lying on the floor. "I didn't know she still had it. I assumed she sold it aftera"after we moved to the inn."

"Well, it's a good thing she didn't," Ethan replied, "because I doubt your mom would have pulled apart her dresser and started firing in here unless she seriously needed to."

Daisy's stunned blinking continued. The firecrackers. There had been two bangs. That must have been her momma with the .380. Then the clumsy footsteps thudding down the stairs and the door slamming. It was the person she had injured. Fleeing. And the other footsteps? The door slamming again?

As though he could read the progression of her thoughts, Ethan said, "That's the reason I didn't want you going after Emily. I had a feeling it wasn't deera"or rabbitsa"she was shooting at."

"But why? Why would anyonea"" Daisy cut herself off as a chilling possibility occurred to her. "Could it be them? Those big-city folks Zeke was talking about last night? He told me to watch out. He said they were going to come looking at us next. But I didn't really believe him. I never imagined they'd actually go after my momma!"

Before Ethan could respond, Aunt Emily appeared in the hall outside the room. Unlike the rest of them, she was fully dressed for the day. Her hair was smooth. Her jewelry was coordinated. Only her raspberry lipstick looked a tad smudged, most likely from all of her yelling earlier.

"That'll teach those lurkers!" she chortled with glee.

"Where is he?" Ethan asked hurriedly. "Is there any chance he'll come back into the house?"

"No chance. No chance in the world. Not when he knows what's waiting for him if he does." Aunt Emily patted the double-barreled 20-gauge she had perched on her shoulder.

"But is he still on the property? Does he need to be restrained?"

"Naw. He's gone. Went hobbling into the trees like a lame horse. If there'd been a smidge more light out, I could have put him down permanently. But as it was"a"Aunt Emily clucked her tonguea""Lucy got him good. Hit 'em close to where it downright counts, if you catch my meaning. He'll be limping for a long time to come. Other things might not be working quite right neither." She chortled again, even more gleefully this time.

"How did you know he was here?" Ethan questioned her. "Was it the gunshots? Or did you actually see him?"

"I was about to go to the kitchen to ready the biscuits for breakfast when I heard Lucy start talking. She was mad. I knew in a snap something was wrong, because Lucy's almost never mad. Usually she has more patience than a monk being stung by a thousand yellow jackets in the keester. Isn't that true, Ducky?"

She gave a slight nod. She was still wondering about the big-city folks.

"Just as I came out of my room to check on her," Aunt Emily went on, "Lucy let 'er rip. Twice, I think she fired. And he stumbled into the hallway with a sweet little bullet up in his right thigh. Fast as I could, I ran back to grab my Remington. He went down the stairs and out the back door. But it was easy enough for me to follow him. He left a nice trail of blood behind. I'm glad about it too."