profound grief. "Oh, my girl." Large tears began to roll from her beautiful dark eyes.
Her husband put his arm around her and together they left to return to their new home. Felicia trailed after them, her face heavy with unhappiness.
I looked at the closed door a few minutes after they'd passed through it. I wondered if the baby's room was ready yet. I wondered what they'd done with all Tabitha's things.
With their departure, the tension eased out of the room. Art, Tolliver, and I looked at each other with some relief.
"That's great news, about the reward. Last I heard, it was up to twenty-five thousand dollars. Before taxes, of course." Art was reviewing the afternoon mentally, I could tell from the way he was drumming his fingers on the occasional table. "I'm glad I went second, after all," Art said next. "I've heard of Blythe Benson. She said a few things I took issue with."
"Yeah, we noticed." Tolliver got a crossword puzzle book out of his laptop bag and began rummaging around in the bottom of the pocket for his pencil.
Art looked irritated. "You think I could have handled it differently, Tolliver, you say so."
Tolliver looked up, apparently surprised. "No, Art, no problem. You, Harper?"
"I noticed you didn't say Tolliver was your client, too, Art," I said.
Art did his best to seem surprised; though I thought his only real surprise was that we'd noticed the omission. "Tolliver 's name hadn't been brought into the mix at that point, I was just trying to keep it that way," he said. "You want me to call all the reporters and correct myself?"
"No, Art, that's fine," I said. "Just, for future reference, be more thorough and include that little detail."
"Message received," Art said brightly. "It's been a long day for an old man, kids. I'm going to my room, call the office, catch up on my work."
"Sure, Art," Tolliver said, his attention on the puzzle open before him. "If you're not flying back to Atlanta until tomorrow, you'll have to join us for dinner."
"Thanks, we'll see how much work I have to do tonight. I may just get room service. But give me a call when you're ready to head out."
"See you later," I said.
When he was safely gone, I said, "What do you think he's heard?"
"I was trying to figure it out. Maybe the police think I had Tabithas body all this time and moved it into the cemetery to prove you were a genuine sensitive."
I gaped at him and then laughed. It was just too ridiculous.
Tolliver put down his pencil and focused on me. "Yeah, right. I don't know where I'm supposed to have stowed the poor girl's body for eighteen months, or whatever."
"The trunk," I said, deadpan, and after a second he smiled at me. It was a real smile, something he didn't give me that often, and I enjoyed seeing it. Tolliver hadn't been struck by lightning, and his mom hadn't tried to sell him to one of her drug buddies for sexual use, it's true, but Tolliver has his own scars, and he's not any more fond of talking about them than I am.
"Tabitha was somewhere for eighteen months," Tolliver pointed out. "That is, her body was either in that grave, or in some other hiding place."
"Was she there all the time?" I asked, but I was just thinking out loud. "I don't think so. The earth was disturbed. The rest of the ground in the cemetery was smooth, but this ground had an uneven feeling, and there wasn't any grass on the grave."
"Well, we know she was buried somewhere during the last eighteen months," Tolliver pointed out reasonably.
"No, she could have been alive for part of that time. Or she could have been dead in a freezer, or a meat locker, or a morgue. Or buried somewhere else, as you say." I thought about the possibilities I'd raised. "But I don't think so. I still believe she's been dead since she was abducted, or very nearly the whole time. But she wasn't lying in St. Margaret's all that time. I just don't understand why she was put there, and how it happened that I was the one to find her. It's so strange."
"In fact, it's almost... unbelievable," Tolliver said, his voice quiet and thoughtful.
Chapter five
THE morning didn't start on any more of a positive note. I turned on CNN while I drank my morning coffee, the complimentary newspaper folded open to the page that featured an