This was a momentous decision and one that shouldn’t be hastily made. On the other hand, if there was any delay, Angie would be released from the hospital into the care and keeping of Child Protective Services. Lani knew that once children were caught up in the bureaucratic nightmare of “the system,” they seldom emerged unscathed.

In a contest between what Lani had to offer Angie Enos and what the child welfare system could offer, there was really no question. On that score, Lani was the hands-down winner. As things stood now, she and she alone had a chance to save Angie Enos from that fate, but was that what she was supposed to do?

Looking for an answer and almost without thinking, Lani stood up and walked into her bedroom, where she opened the top drawer of her dresser and removed her medicine basket, the one she had woven during her sixteen-day exile on Ioligam. In the tightly woven basket she kept the treasures Understanding Woman had given her granddaughter, Rita Antone, as well as the ones Rita and Fat Crack had passed along to Lani. From the bottom of the basket Lani retrieved two leather pouches. The soft one held Fat Crack’s crystals. The other one, cracked and ancient, had once belonged to Fat Crack’s blind mentor Looks at Nothing. Now, as then, it held a properly gathered supply of wiw, Indian tobacco.

Taking both pouches with her, Lani returned to the living room. She set the tobacco pouch aside for the moment and opened the other one, letting the four sacred crystals fall into the palm of her hand. She had learned over the years that the crystals, when properly used, could be a tool of discernment.

Fat Crack had taught her that it was always best to look at an image of the object in question rather than at the object itself. In this case the object in question was Angelina Enos. Lani had no photo of the child, nothing that she could use. But since the question had to do with whether Lani should take Angie into her life, maybe a photo of Lani would do.

The lanyard with Lani’s hospital ID, complete with a photograph, was right there on the coffee table. She picked it up. One crystal at a time, she viewed the photo through the intervening lens. The distortion from one crystal made it look as though she was laughing while another made her look sad even though the photo itself remained unchanged.

But the very process of focusing on the image with absolute concentration worked its particular magic. Suddenly she could see what Delia had been trying to tell her. Yes, she and Angie were blood kin, but their real connection was far greater than that.

What had happened long ago to the Ant-Bit Child was happening again to this Ghost Child. Rather than being accepted by their blood relations, they were both being shunned by them. And it turned out, they were the same blood relations-the Escalante clan from Nolic. It was almost as though I’itoi himself had laid out the pattern. It was as though the two of them were two sides of the same coin.

“Yes,” Lani said aloud to herself. “I can see why Angie and I were meant to be together.”

She was still holding the crystals in her hand. She had been awake for the better part of twenty-four hours. When she stopped concentrating all her focus and energy on the photo, it wasn’t surprising that she fell asleep, dozing off for a time while still sitting upright on her worn secondhand couch.

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 7:00 a.m.

72º Fahrenheit

Always an early riser, Brandon Walker was up by five. By seven he was totally engrossed in his Sunday-morning culinary tradition. The blueberry muffins were just coming out of one oven and his spinach frittata was on its way into the other when Diana came down the hall. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. An Arizona Cardinals baseball cap was perched on her head.

“Smells good,” she said, sniffing the air and pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“Brandon Walker’s Sunday-morning surprise,” he answered with a grin, although that was hardly a surprise since those were the same dishes he made pretty much every Sunday morning. “If we’re going to go out and tackle the desert, we’ll have to keep up our strength. And if we’re taking the Invicta, we need to head out before it gets too hot.”

Brandon was the cook in the family. Cooking wasn’t something that really interested Diana Ladd. If she had to, she could cook well enough to survive, but that was about it. For a long time, Nana Dahd had done the cooking for the family. Once she was gone, Brandon had stepped into the breach.

“I see you’re dressed for travel,” he said as he set glasses and silverware on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

“Yup, sunscreen and all,” she replied.

For a long time now, for weeks, Diana had seemed lost in a kind of despair that Brandon hadn’t been able to penetrate. She had always been reserved and quiet, preferring to observe those around her rather than being the life of the party. But this had seemed more serious than that, especially in light of what was going on with her publisher.

Brandon had gone so far as to suggest that perhaps they should see a doctor and look into the possibility of having Diana take antidepressants. That suggestion had met with firm disapproval. This morning, however, the fog seemed to have lifted. Diana’s answering smile gave him cause to hope. Maybe he had been pushing panic buttons for no reason.

“I sent June Holmes an e-mail and told her we’d be there around nine-thirty or so. If we go any later than that, we’ll roast. Or else we’ll have to ride with the top up, which,” he added, nodding toward the baseball cap, “probably isn’t what you had in mind.”

“Yes,” she said. “Definitely top down.”

“And what about Damsel?” Brandon asked.

Diana shrugged. “She’s welcome to come along, as long as she doesn’t mind riding in the backseat. When you go in to interview the lady, the two of us will stay with the car or in the car, depending on if you park in the shade.”

Diana’s good mood held all through breakfast and during the initial part of the drive to Sonoita. Speeding down the freeway with the sun broiling down on them and with the wind roaring in their ears, there wasn’t much chance to talk. From time to time, Brandon glanced in the rearview mirror at Damsel, who sat with her nose thrust outside the car and with her long ears flapping in the breeze. Soon after they exited I-10 onto Highway 83, Diana suddenly went somber again. The change in her mood was so abrupt it was as though a bank of clouds had suddenly passed in front of the sun or someone had flipped a switch.

Damn, Brandon thought. I was hoping it would last all day.

Highway 83, South of Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 8:30 a.m.

75º Fahrenheit

D iana saw Max Cooper sitting there in the backseat out of the corner of her eye.

Her father-or rather the man she had always thought to be her father-was dressed the way she remembered him dressing back when she was a child and still believed he was her father.

He wore a pair of rough work pants held up by heavy-duty suspenders. Even though it was the dead of summer, he still wore a set of flesh-colored long johns, the kind he had always worn for working in the woods and for overseeing the garbage dump in Joseph, Oregon. His chin was covered with rough stubble, and the anger that had always burned in his eyes when he looked at her was still there, as malevolent as ever.

He’s dead, Diana reminded herself. He isn’t here, not really. My mind is playing tricks on me.

Max Cooper had succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver at least a decade earlier. Diana had no idea what had become of Francine, his second wife, and she didn’t care. But here he was with his arms folded belligerently across his chest, glowering at her from the backseat of her Invicta while Damsel, unaware of his threatening presence, continued to stare at the passing scenery.