feel happy.”
“And the other one?”
He scrolled down. “Sharp as mashed potatoes. Way of saying someone’s not too bright. Hey, you okay?”
Casey sank onto one of the kitchen chairs. “I didn’t really think we’d find anything. Especially not from some loser like that cook.”
Eric watched her like he was afraid she was going to do something rash. When she stayed put he said, “So now what? Do we tell the police?”
“Tell them what? That this woman who isn’t named Alicia McManus was maybe from the gigantic state of Texas at some point in her life?”
“I guess.”
“But we don’t even know that for sure, do we? Just because Ricky had these weird things hidden away. We don’t even know they had anything to do with Alicia at all.”
“You mean Elizabeth.”
Casey looked at him.
“It’s her name, right? We should probably use it.”
“Not around here. We start calling her that, people will wonder how we know.”
He looked at his iPad, then back at her. “And how exactly do we know her real name?”
“I thought you were going to wait until I was ready to tell you.”
“Aren’t you ready?” Casey jumped as Death’s whisper froze her ear.
“What’s wrong?” Eric’s eyes went wide.
Death swooped to the other side of the table and swirled around Eric’s head, stopping in front of his face. Eric shivered.
“Stop it,” Casey said.
“What?” Eric said. “Shivering? It’s cold in here.”
“All of a sudden.”
“Well, yeah. How come?”
Death reformed beside Eric and sat blinking at Casey, mimicking Eric’s posture even though Death didn’t have a chair. Didn’t need one, apparently. “Are you going to tell him? Or are you still ashamed of me?”
Casey rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“It’s okay,” Eric said. “You’ve been under a lot of stress the past few weeks. Or, well, years.”
Casey looked into his eyes and saw nothing but kindness and honesty.
“Oh, sure,” Death said. “He wins you over because he’s so nice.”
“I’ll tell you soon,” she said to Eric.
He held her gaze for a few moments. “Okay. When you’re ready, I’m here.”
Death made a gagging motion and was instantly on the counter, holding the Droid. “Hello, suicide hotline? I’m about to slit my wrists. The reason? Excessive sappiness.”
“So the cops,” Eric said. “Are we telling them?”
Casey pushed herself from the chair and looked out the back window toward the mountains. “We should, I guess, but I don’t know what I’d say. Telling them Ricky had a few Texas-themed items hidden away isn’t exactly a smoking gun. I wish we knew what he was doing with those things.”
Death laughed. “I guess the second Texas saying is supposed to apply to you. The one about being sharp as mashed potatoes. Or how about this one?” Death pointed at the Droid, which now displayed a site on the Internet. “‘If dumb was dirt, she’d cover about an acre.”
Casey shook her head, confused.
Death huffed. “Come on. Ricky’s not the dead one, remember? He may be in jail, but you can still ask him about the stash.”
Casey closed her eyes and pushed on her temples.
“What?” Eric said.
“I’ve been an idiot. We need to go back to jail.”
“Can we try something else first?” Eric poked at the iPad. “I want to see if Alicia shows up anywhere. Whoa. This says there have been hundreds of Elizabeth Mann’s in Texas. Although this one died in 1828. And this one five years ago.”
“Can we look at it on the way? Will the Internet work?”
“It’s 4G. I can get Internet anywhere.”
Death jumped down from the counter. “That is so awesome. Remember the old days when they used telegraphs? Or smoke signals? It took so long to forecast the weather that by the time they were done with the message a whole new front had gone through. Now—”
“—they’re never right anyway.”
Eric looked up. “One of them might be. But fine, let’s go. You want to drive, or check these over?”
Casey chose to study the names, and was both amazed and frustrated by the wealth of information available. “There’s no way to know which of these people is the right one. Except for the ones who are already dead, we know they’re not her.”
“Um, this Elizabeth Mann is dead,” Death reminded her.
“A baby,” Casey continued, “obviously not the right one. Old, dead, married to a Puerto Rican—although I guess we don’t know she wasn’t…nope, found a wedding photo. Definitely not her, unless her race has changed.”
By the time they arrived at the jail she’d made a shortlist of seven Elizabeth Manns who