explain this if he did find out, she had no idea.
Maybe she wouldn't have to. Rod never came into the kitchen if he could help it. A few hours with some plaster would take care of the holes in the walls and ceiling, and he probably wouldn't notice the dents in the fridge even if he did come in.
She set to work, frantically pulling bits of metal out of the walls, scrubbing red sauce-like blood-off the walls, the ceiling, the floor-trying to remember if she had told Rod what supper would be-
She had. Hell. Well, he would just have to put up with a different kind of sauce. She could say it was an experiment. She snatched tomato sauce and spices out of the cabinet, threw them at random into a pot. If it came out tasting funny, she could bury it in cheese.
But the Indian-she had to be going crazy. No amount of scrubbing would wipe him out of her mind. Standing there, between the table and the fridge, long hair trailing down his back, staring at her. Hating her. Telling her so, with his eyes.
And then vanishing, just like a soap bubble.
She was going crazy. She had to be.
She stopped dead at that thought, hands frozen on her scrubbing pads, hair trailing into her face.
If she was crazy, could Rod be right? Could she be doing these things herself! Could she have put the scorpion in the sandbox, stripped the insulation from the wires in the dryer, turned the heat up under the pressure cooker?
Was she trying to kill her own children?
She started crying at that, silently so as not to alert the children. Mechanically, she went back to scrubbing, tears falling to mingle with the soapy water. If she was doing all this…
She didn't remember doing anything!
But-people with multiple personalities didn't remember what then- other 'selves' did, either. Sybil, Trudi Chase, Eve . . . they had no idea what their other selves did. And they never noticed missing time, either, the places in their lives where the other personalities took over.
But then a single ray of hope came to her. The woman who had almost hit Ryan-she had seen the Indian too! What was more, even if this 'Indian' was a personality of her own, she couldn't possibly have gotten into a costume, down the street, pushed Ryan in front of the car, then sprinted back to her kitchen and shed the costume before Ryan and the stranger arrived there.
She sniffed, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She had to keep cleaning. No matter what, she had to keep cleaning. Cleaning up this mess, that was real reality. She could cope with this, even if the rest of her life was falling apart.
Even if it was the only thing left in her life that she could cope with.
_CHAPTER FOURTEEN
jennie wrapped her long hair into a French braid, and examined herself carefully in the mirror. Hmm. A little too harsh, I think. She added a touch of eye shadow. Better.
Somehow, she felt as if she were donning-well, not warpaint, but possibly bluff-paint, the colors the Osage put on when they were not taking the path of war but wanted their enemies to think that Wah-K'on-Tah had directed them to do just that. On the other hand, that was indirectly what she was doing. She was about to try to pull off a bluff.
She was still not certain of all the points in the connection between Calligan and the looted gravesite, but the little medicine-pouch proved he was involved. The presence of the mi-ah-luschka at the site only confirmed that. She and Mooncrow had done everything they could; she needed some kind of real-world proof that he had at least looted the gravesite. Based on that, and on the bomb she and David had taken, she might be able to convince the police and the insurance company that Calligan was running some kind of looted artifact scam, that he routinely booby-trapped his caches, and that his men had accidentally set off one of his bombs. It was thin, but it was better than watching him get off scot-free.
Something protected Calligan, Mooncrow said, so the Little People were going after everything 'near' him. It stood to reason that they just might be attacking his family at this point. If that was the case, Calligan's wife might be willing to talk. She might know something.
So Jennie was going on the offensive. Time to talk to Antonia Calligan. There were any number of explanations for the artifacts and the Little People, including the possibility that it could be the wife who had looted the site and cached the artifacts. This was remote, and certainly did not fit the little Jenny knew about the woman, but still a possibility that should not be dismissed without checking.
Hence the suit and the makeup. She wanted to look like someone that Antonia would find familiar enough to talk to, possibly even confide in.
Meanwhile, Mooncrow and David had jobs of their own. Mooncrow was searching the spirit-worlds for signs of the evil spirit's work. It seemed far too coincidental for that spirit to have suddenly been freed at about the same time that Calligan looted the sacred ground, but whether Calligan was under the direct influence of the evil one was still in question. David was searching the papers for the same thing, going back for six months, which is about when Mooncrow thought the flood had uncovered the spirit-bundle that was missing. If they were very lucky, it was in the hands of someone who was resistant to it. If not, well, they would play that as it came.
She gave her hair another pat, and headed out.
'Would you like another cup of coffee?' Antonia-('Oh, call me Toni, please') Calligan asked. Her dark eyes pleaded with Jennie to accept, so of course, she did.
Toni's kitchen was a warm and homey place, eggshell-white and tan, but was curiously marred. The immaculate white walls showed slightly discolored patches of very fresh plaster and paint; there were odd dents in the metal cabinets and the appliances. Strange. Nothing else in the house showed that kind of abuse.
But it was fairly obvious that the kitchen was the only place where Toni felt comfortable. Jennie wasn't too surprised; you could eat off the floors in the living and dining areas, but the rooms looked like pictures in a magazine, not places where children played and people ate. Clearly the kitchen was Toni's personal domain; the only place in the house that was permitted to be less than perfect.
Rod Calligan's wife wore her dark hair in a pert Hamill-cut; despite three children, she was slender under that perky pink sweatsuit. But 'pert' and 'perky' were the very last adjectives that Jennie would ever apply to her, despite a petite figure and a sweet, square face.
'Hagridden,' maybe. The faint circles under her eyes came from anxiety, and Jennie would have bet a year's income that the reason that the hollows under her cheekbones were there had less to do with Weight Watchers and far more to do with worry. She looked afraid, but afraid of what? She didn't exactly babble, but she spoke nervously, running on at length whenever a silence threatened, playing with her rings or combing her fingers through her hair.
What was more, Jennie had never met anyone so starved for company in her life. No, that wasn't right; not 'company,' but a friend. Toni Calligan acted as if she didn't have a single friend of her own, female or male, anywhere in Tulsa.
Maybe she didn't. Maybe Rod Calligan didn't permit her to have friends. After all, friends would take time away from cleaning and housekeeping. Friends might give her something to think about besides her husband.
'I just don't know that much about Rod's company, Jennie,' Toni said, somewhat wistfully, as she passed over the newly filled cup. When 'Antonia' became 'Toni,' Jennifer had, of course, become 'Jennie.' 'I wish I did, I really don't feel as if I'm being much help to you.'
Jennie had the uncanny feeling of being a mind reader, even though her Medicine talents did not lie at all in that direction; she knew exactly what had put that wistful tone in Toni Calligan's voice. It was simple; Toni wanted her company, wanted her to stay around. The less Toni knew, the sooner Jennie would leave, because Jennie obviously wouldn't stay just to keep Toni company.
'Actually, I'm not so much looking for hard information as you might think, Toni,' Jennie assured her, feeling obscurely sorry for the woman. 'Your husband told the company I'm working for that there were people making threats before and after the bombing. You've probably heard who those people were supposed to be-mostly Native American groups. What I'm looking for is a feeling of something a little off-if you remember noticing things being strange around that time period. For instance, one thing I'd like to know is if you remember any odd phone calls
