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leads to the pot of gold that only you can find because you are special and have a lucky streak in your hair. Now be very quiet and shut your eyes tightly and imagine a rainbow of purple and blue and yellow and pink. Can you see it?"
       Lizzy's nose as well as her eyes puckered up. "I can see it in my head," she whispered.
       "Okay, now what do you hear?"
       She grinned. "Baby kittens?"

    "Where is Lizzy?" Griffin Luckadeau asked Tim and Richie.
       "She ran away because…"
       "Where did she go?"
       Griffin was beginning to get that prickly feeling on the back of his neck. Something was very, very wrong.
       "I asked you boys to tell me where she went."
       "She and the maid went sneaking off. We went to find her in the house because that's where she went the first time she ran off and then we saw her and the maid running away. The maid was playing a game with her and they were hiding," Richie said.
       "Yeah, and the maid told us a lie. She said that Lizzy's hair was a lucky streak and she could find a pot of gold with it but she can't. She's just a…" Keely stopped in the middle of a breath.
       "A what?" Griffin asked.
       "They said she was a skunk, but we didn't say it," Tim said.
       Keely pointed a finger at them. "Yes, you did. You said it first."
       "Where did the maid take her?" Griffin asked.
       "To find the gold but she's just a crazy old maid 'cause there ain't no gold," Keely said.
       Griffin hopped up on a picnic table and yelled. "Everyone, Lizzy has gone missing. The kids say she was with the maid. Anyone seen her?"
       "I think they went to the barn," Slade said. "Come on, I'll go with you."
       "But Slade, darlin'," Kristy said.
       "I'll be right back," he said.
       "I hope she doesn't hurt the child. Who knows what she was before she came here? She was probably a child molester or a kidnapper. Maybe that's why she wanted a job here, so she could kidnap one of our kids for the ransom," Kristy said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
       "And you are full of shit," Ellen said. "That girl wouldn't hurt a fire ant."
       Kristy glared at her.
       The two men started off in a trot toward the barn.
       "Lizzy!" Griffin called out from the door.
       "Shhhh," he heard her over behind a stack of square hay bales.
       He and Slade practically tripped over each other's feet getting around the corner of the bales only to find Jane and Lizzy facing each other with a litter of yellow and white kittens between them.
       "I found the gold, Daddy," Lizzy whispered.
       "What?"
       "Jane is my friend. She is playing with me because I have a lucky streak and no one else wants to play with me. Kayla and Keely said I was a skunk and that I stink, so Jane and me went hunting the rainbow where the gold is and we found it. Jane says that gold isn't always money. This time it was yellow kittens. Ain't they cute, Daddy? Look at this one. It's all furry."
       Griffin sat down beside his daughter, heaved a sigh of relief, and began to pet the kittens in her lap. "I'm glad to make your acquaintance, Jane. Any friend of Lizzy's is a friend of mine. Thank you for helping her find the gold."
       Slade wanted to slap his cousin or strangle Jane. Everyone thought she was the sweetest woman in the world—even his cousin, who had no time for women since his wife ran off and left him with a baby to raise. But he knew different. She was playing a game for some reason, and by damn he'd find out what it was, or else.
       "I'm sorry those kids were rude to you. I'm going to tell Tim and Richie's mom and I bet they won't act like that again," Griffin said.
       "Neither will Kayla or Keely," Slade said.
       "Yes, they will. Their momma said they'd have to wash dishes for a month and all kinds of other things if they made you mad, but they said they would call me a skunk forever because they don't like me. It's all right, Uncle Slade. They