Grave Secret Page 0,24

time. Don't make it any worse."

"I want to see my children," he said again.

"You're looking at 'em. You've seen them. Now go."

"I'm only leaving because of the little ones," he said, nodding toward Mariella and Gracie, who were confused and miserable. "I'll see you again soon, Tolliver." And he turned on his heel and left the rink.

"He followed us," I said stupidly.

"I guess he was waiting somewhere around Iona 's house," Tolliver said. We stared at each other, silently postponing more discussion. Simultaneously, we took deep breaths. It would have been funny if we hadn't been so jangled.

"Well," I said to my sisters, trying to sound brisk and upbeat, "I'm glad that's over. We'll talk to your mom about this, okay, tell her all about it? It won't happen again. We had a good time until this happened, right?" I sounded like an idiot, but at least the girls began stirring, removing their skates. They stopped looking quite so much like deer in headlights.

Our sisters were subdued on the ride back to their house-no big surprise there-and they scrambled out of our car and into the door under the carport as if they were afraid of snipers. Tolliver and I followed more slowly, not eager to relate what had happened to Iona and Hank-though it was no fault of ours.

We weren't too surprised to find our aunt and uncle standing in the kitchen waiting for us.

"What happened?" Iona asked. To my astonishment, she didn't seem angry, only worried.

"My dad showed up at the rink," Tolliver said, plunging right in. "I don't know how long he was watching before we knew he was there." He shrugged. "He wasn't high; he wasn't hostile. But the girls were shaken up."

"We were having a good time until we saw him," I said, realizing that sounded weak. But it was a point I felt obliged to make.

"We got a letter from him last week," Hank said. "We didn't answer him. I never thought he'd do this."

So they were shouldering their own share of guilt, for not warning us they knew Matthew was out of jail.

Though I was reluctant to lose the advantage, I said, "He's been out of jail for a while. When we had dinner with Mark, he told us that much. But he didn't say any more than that Matthew had a job and was straight."

"Oh, Mark's in contact with his dad?" Iona frowned and sat heavily in one of the kitchen chairs. Cautiously, we sat down, too. We were surprised that the Gorhams weren't throwing us out and blaming us for the whole incident. "That Mark, he's too tender-hearted where his dad's concerned," Iona said.

I secretly agreed. Or maybe not so secretly-Tolliver gave me a look. He could read me almost too easily.

"Could you tell what he wanted?" Iona asked me suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"With your whatever sense?" Iona waved a hand in front of her like she was waving off a gnat.

"I'm not psychic, Iona, or I'd be glad to uncover what Matthew wants. I wish I knew myself. All I can do is find corpses." Too late, I saw Mariella over Iona 's shoulder. She'd come in from the hall to the bedrooms. Her eyes were open wide. But this couldn't be too big a shock to her, right? What on earth had Iona and Hank been telling her? She spun and ran out of the kitchen.

Well, that just made the day perfect.

"Well, what is that sense telling you?" Iona was nothing if not persistent.

"Nothing helpful, right at the moment," I said. "There's not a dead person around here, if that's what you're asking. The nearest corpse is so old it probably predates statehood, and it's way under the soil of your neighbor's front yard. Indian, probably. I'd have to get closer to be sure."

I had finally shut them up. My aunt and uncle simply gaped at me. This was not moving us forward in our discussion. "But that doesn't have anything to do with Matthew showing up at the rink today," I reminded them. "Should you get a court order against him? I mean, he doesn't have any legal rights over the girls anymore, am I right?"

"That's correct," Hank said, recovering much more quickly than his wife. "We've adopted them. He gave up his rights."

"And I don't want to call the police," Iona said. "We've talked to the police enough to last us the rest of our lives."

"So you want him to show back up again? Scare the girls