Grave Sight Page 0,23

to someone like you in the first place."

Sometimes you just can't win. Sheriff Branscom would never join my fan club. It's lucky I'm used to meeting people like that, or I might slip and get my feelings hurt.

"Where's Tolliver?" I asked, my tolerance all used up.

"He'll be in here directly," the sheriff said. "I guess Hollis ain't finished up his questions yet."

I fidgeted. "I really need to go to the motel and lie down," I said. "I really need Tolliver to take me there."

"You've got some car keys," the sheriff observed. "Hollis'll bring him over when they're done."

"No," I said. "I need my brother."

"Don't you raise your voice to me, young woman. He'll be through in a minute." But there was the faintest look of alarm on the round soft face.

"Now," I said. "I need him now." I let my eyes go wide so the white showed all around the irises. My hands wrung together, over and over.

"I'll check," said the sheriff, and he could hardly get up from behind his desk fast enough.

Most places, I would've gotten thrown in the cage or taken to the hospital, but I had gauged this man correctly. Within four minutes, Tolliver came in, moving quickly. Because Hollis was watching, he knelt at my feet and took both my hands. "I'm here, honey," he said. "Don't be scared."

I let tears flow down my cheeks. "I need to go, Tolliver," I said softly. "Please take me to the motel." I threw my arms around his neck. I loved hugging Tolliver, who was bony and hard and warm. I loved to listen to the air going in and out of his lungs, the swoosh of his heart.

He raised me up out of the chair and walked me to the front door, one arm wrapped around my shoulders. The few people in the outer office eyed us curiously as we made our way to the door.

When we were safely back in the car and on our way, Tolliver said, "Thanks."

"Was it going bad for you?" I asked, taking my hands from my face and straightening in my seat. "The sheriff thinks I made up everything I said, but the motel receipt was pretty conclusive."

"Hollis Boxleitner has a thing for you," Tolliver said. "He can't decide if he wants to go to bed with you or slap you around, and he's full of anger like a volcano's full of lava."

"Because of his wife getting killed."

"Yep. He believes in you, but that makes him mad, too."

"He's gonna burn himself up," I said.

"Yes," Tolliver agreed.

"Did he tell you anything about Helen Hopkins' murder?"

"He said he found her. He said she'd been hit on the head."

"With something there, something already in the house?"

"Candlestick."

I remembered the glass candlesticks flanking the Bible on the coffee table.

"Was she standing when she was hit?"

"No," he said, "I think she was sitting on the couch."

"So the killer was standing in front of her."

Tolliver thought about it. "That makes sense," he said. "But the deputy didn't say one way or another."

"Being suspected of a murder isn't going to help business," I said.

"No, we need to get out of here as soon as possible." He parked in front of the motel and went in to get our rooms.

I really did want to lie down by the time we were in our rooms, and I was glad when Tolliver came through the connecting door and turned on my television. I propped up on the pillows while he slouched in the chair, and we watched the Game Show Network. He beat me at Jeopardy! I beat him at Wheel of Fortune. Of course, I would rather have won at Jeopardy!, but Tolliver had always been better at remembering facts than I was.

Our parents were brilliant people, once upon a time; before they became alcoholic, drug-addicted disbarred attorneys. And before they'd decided their clients' criminal lifestyles were more appealing and adventuresome than their own. My mother and Tolliver's dad found each other on their way down the drain, having shed their original spouses. My sister Cameron and I had gone from living in a four-bedroom suburban home in east Memphis to a rental house with a hole in the bathroom floor in Texarkana, Arkansas. This hadn't happened all at once; we'd experienced many degrees of degradation. Tolliver had fallen from a lower height, but he and his brother had descended with his father, too. He'd been our companion in that hole in Texarkana. That's where we'd been when the lightning struck.

My