Spilled Blood by Brian Freeman

I was scared. I don’t know why.”
    His lips tightened into a thin line. “Tell me about it.”
    “It’s ovarian cancer,” she said.
    “I’m so sorry.”
    She held up a hand, stopping him. “No pity. Please.”
    He searched for something to say. “What’s the treatment? What do the doctors say?”
    “I’m undergoing something called neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The idea is to reduce the size of the tumor before they operate. When that’s done, they’ll do the surgery.”
    “When?”
    “Next month.”
    He ran his hand across his face. He was sweating. “What’s the prognosis?”
    “That depends on whether you believe me or the oncologist. I say my daughter still needs me. So do a lot of other women around here.” She changed the subject, as if there were nothing more to discuss. “How is Olivia, really?”
    “She’s like you,” he said. “Strong and stubborn.”
    That elicited a smile. “What did she tell you?”
    “She says she didn’t do it. She didn’t shoot Ashlynn.”
    “Do you believe her?”
    That was a good question. Did he believe her? Michael Altman was right that clients lied to lawyers and daughters lied to fathers. It was easier to do that than to admit you got drunk and threw away your whole life by putting a bullet in a girl’s brain. He had been away from Olivia for a long time, and he didn’t know how to decide if she was being honest. Even so, as a lawyer, as a father, he could only trust his gut, and his gut believed her.
    “I do.” He added, “Do you?”
    Hannah caressed the top of the coffee mug with one finger. “I want to.”
    “But?”
    She rubbed her moist eyes. He saw more clearly now how tired she was, all the way into her bones. “It hasn’t been easy here. The two of us. Her and me.”
    He said nothing.
    “She keeps secrets from me. She slips out at night. We’re distant. I know it’s been tough on her these past three years. The divorce, the move, me busy with work at the center. Now the cancer. When we got here, Glenn’s daughter, Kimberly, became her soul mate, and Olivia was inconsolable when we lost her. She did what the other teenagers did. She let all that grief and frustration become hatred.”
    “Did you know she had a gun?” he asked.
    “Of course not. I would never have allowed it. She’s still just a kid, Chris. She’s got all these emotions, but she doesn’t have the maturity to deal with them. That’s what scares me. If she was alone with Ashlynn that night, and she had a gun with her, I worry about what she might have done.”
    “Hannah, I really don’t think she killed her.”
    “I hope you’re right. I feel like this is all my fault.”
    “Your fault? Why?”
    “I was so caught up with Mondamin. It’s like a chamber of horrors what they’re doing there. They’re cowboys. They don’t have a clue about the real risks, and they don’t care. I begged Rollie Swenson to file the lawsuit. I worked with the parents around here who lost kids. It wasn’t about money. It was about throwing the light of day on that company, exposing what is really going on in there. The trouble is, when the litigation failed, the kids around here refused to accept it. Bad things started happening. Vandalism. Mischief.”
    “Was Olivia involved?”
    “I don’t think so, not directly, but she’s a lightning rod. Like me. Kids in St. Croix listened to her talking about Mondamin and how people in Barron were profiting from the company’s poison. Some of them took their anger too far. It was petty stuff, but then kids in Barron retaliated. The violence escalated. One boy in particular, a thug named Kirk Watson, became a kind of ringleader in Barron. He turned the feud into a war. We all knew it was only a matter of time before someone got killed.”
    “It sounds like street gangs.”
    “That’s exactly what it is.”
    “In farm country?” he asked.
    Hannah frowned. “This isn’t Mayberry, Chris. The problems are the same as in the city, and