Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris Page A

lightning strike was always classified as a pre-existing condition. That meant I couldn’t claim coverage for anything that the insurance people could classify as resulting from the lightning strike. We had to pay an outrageous amount for the most basic policy. It made me angry every time I thought about it. I did everything I could to keep healthy.
    â€œOkay, we won’t wreck the car or break a bone or get sued,” I said. We did a lot of doctoring on each other for the everyday sprains and cuts, and we’d spent a week in a motel in Montana when Tolliver had had the flu. But the only persistent health issues facing us were my continuing problems from the lightning strike.
    You’d think after you’d recovered from the initial effects, that would be it. Most doctors believe that, too. But that’s not the truth. I talk to other strike survivors on the Internet. Memory loss, severe headaches, depression, burning sensations in the feet, ringing in the ears, loss of mobility, and a host of other effects can manifest in the years afterward. Whether these are a result of the neuroses of the victims—which is what most doctors say—or a result of the mysterious reaction of the body to an almost unimaginable jolt of electricity…well, opinions vary.
    I have my own set of problems, and luckily for me they’re pretty consistent.
    As far as I know, there is no other strike survivor who has become able to find dead people.
    I’d had plenty of time to shower and dress and wonder what we were going to do with our day, when that problem was solved for us. The police came by again, to ask more questions.
    Detective Lacey had a chaperone this time, another detective named Brittany Young. Detective Young was in her thirties, and she was a narrow-faced woman with short tousled brown hair and glasses. She had a huge handbag and comfortable shoes, clothes that were no higher-end than Sears, and a gold band on her left hand. She looked around the hotel room curiously, and then she examined me with even more curiosity.
    â€œDo you always travel in this kind of style?” she asked, while Detective Lacey was talking to Tolliver. I sensed they had a plan. Why, gee, what could it be?
    â€œNot hardly,” I said. “We’re more Holiday Inn or Motel 6 people. But we had to have the security.”
    She nodded, as if she really understood that and didn’t think we were pretentious. Detective Brittany Young was establishing a rapport with me. She grinned at me. I grinned back. I’d done this dance before with other partners.
    â€œWe really need all the information you can give us,” she said earnestly, still with the smile. “It’s very important to our investigation to figure out how the body got here and how you came to find it.”
    No shit. I tried not to look like I thought she was an idiot. I said, “Well, I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know.But I believe I covered it all yesterday.” I added more sincerely, “I’m really sorry for the Morgensterns.”
    â€œWould you consider, say, that you and your brother are religious?”
    Now she had actually surprised me. “That’s a very personal question, and one I can’t answer for my brother,” I said.
    â€œBut you would describe yourself as Christians?”
    â€œWe were raised Christian.” Cameron and I had been, at least; I didn’t know what kind of faith education had taken place in the Lang household. Certainly by the time Tolliver’s dad had married my mother, religious training for their children had not been a high priority. In fact, toward the end of our life as a family, my mother hardly knew when it was Sunday. While we’d thought of taking Gracie and Mariella to Sunday school—though they were very young—the thought of what the sharp-eyed church ladies might be able to tell about our home life had stopped us.
    We tried so hard to