Grave Secret Page 0,25

again?"

"No! But we had enough to do with the police when your sister was taken! We don't want them coming around here again."

I understood what it felt like to want to glide below the police radar, though most of the law-enforcement people I'd met had simply been human beings trying to do a tough job with less money than they needed. But I also understood that, aside from Iona and Hank's revulsion at the prospect of having police cars parked in front of the house again, my sisters were seriously upset. Maybe seeing the police arrive would make the girls fear they were in more danger than Matthew actually represented. After all, he had no reason to harm Mariella and Gracie. Maybe Iona and Hank were right, though for the wrong reason.

"Then there's nothing else we can do," Tolliver said, having reached the same conclusion I had. "We'll be on our way."

"How long are you going to be in town?" Iona said, sounding a little desperate. "Do you have another job to go to?"

She'd never been anxious for us to stick around before. In fact, she couldn't get us to leave fast enough, every other time we'd visited.

"We could be here a few more days," I said, after a glance at Tolliver. As a matter of fact, we didn't have anything on our schedule now, though that could change tomorrow.

"Okay," she said, nodding as if we had a bargain. "So we'll call you if he shows up again."

What were we supposed to do? I opened my mouth to protest, but Tolliver said, "All right. We'll talk to you again tomorrow, anyway."

"I'm going to talk to the school principal," Iona said. "I hate for them to talk about us, but at least the girls' teachers need to know that Matthew's around."

That was a relief. I noticed that my aunt was sitting as though she were exhausted, and that Hank was looking worried. I remembered she was pregnant. Hank caught my eye and jerked his head toward the door. I tried not to be exasperated that he thought we didn't have enough intelligence to leave when we needed to.

Tolliver said, "Talk to you tomorrow, then. 'Bye, girls!" he called down the hall. After a second, I saw the girls peeking out of Mariella's room, and I waved at them. They waved back, a little hesitantly. They were not smiling.

We got into our car in silence. I didn't know what to say.

"We've got to stay a little while, to make sure he's not bothering them," Tolliver said after we'd gone a block.

"So what's to stop him from waiting a couple of days after we leave and then showing up again?"

Tolliver shook his head as if a bee was buzzing around it. "Nothing will keep him away if he wants to follow them around. I don't know what to do."

"He can outwait us, and he will. Besides, what are we, a private army? Why are we suddenly so much protection?"

"I guess they see us as-worldly and much tougher than they are," Tolliver said, after some thought.

"Well, they're right about that. But that's not saying a whole hell of a lot, huh?"

"He's my dad. I feel like I have to do something."

"I can see that you feel that way," I said, which was as tactfully as I could put it. "And I can see you want to stay a couple more days, and that's fine with me. But we can't stay here forever, camping outside their house, waiting for your dad to approach the girls again. Unless he gets arrested again-and let's face it, he probably will be, because he'll start using again-there's nothing to do about him trying to see them, unless Iona and Hank will go to the police. Even then, the police can't watch the girls all the time."

"I know."

Tolliver's tone was abrupt. I snapped my mouth shut on any more words I might have uttered. Neither of us said anything else, all the way back to our motel.

If there's anything that makes me nervous and scattered, it's dissension with my brother. I reminded myself again to stop thinking of Tolliver as my brother, because that was just creepy, but it was a hard habit to break.

When we were in the room, I couldn't settle on an occupation. I didn't want to read, and television is a wasteland on Sunday evening unless you like sports. I couldn't focus on my crossword puzzle. I gathered up our laundry bags. "I'm going to find