round young woman with a cheerful smile, not the slight, mild woman Matt had described. She wasn't fat, but she wasn't my size either. And if she'd graduated in '82, that would make her...over forty now?
I felt my face lose its expression, and I turned to look at the wall of the house as if I could pull Ivy out here with my thoughts. Over forty with one kid and wanting five more? Spacing them five years apart?
She had to be an Inderlander. Witches lived a hundred and sixty years and could have kids the entire span, apart from twenty years on either side. Maybe that was the source of strife? Mr. Tilson found out his wife was a witch? But it didn't smell like a witch lived here. Or a vampire. Or a Were.
I exhaled, setting the book aside and shuffling until I found one with JOSHUA TILSON printed on the front cover. His school had splurged for real fake-leather bindings. Nice.
Joshua had graduated from Kentucky State the same year as Clair. I thumbed through the pages, looking for him. My lips parted, and a chill tightened my muscles. Slowly I brought the page closer to my nose, wishing the light were brighter out here. Joshua didn't look anything like the photo Edden had shown me.
My eyes went to the surrounding stuff, then remembered Edden's comments about Mr. Tilson retiring. Then Matt's complaint that the same man ought to be able to mow his own lawn, the rage Mr. Tilson had fallen into, how young his family was, and how they were going to have lots more kids. Stuff in the garage they didn't want in the house but couldn't risk throwing away.
I didn't think Mr. and Mrs. Tilson were the people who lived here. They were someone else and couldn't risk being found out by calling the ambulance, so they had fled.
I shivered, the motion reaching all the way to my fingertips. "I-i-i-i-ivy-y-y-y-y!" I shouted. "Ivy! Come see this!"
I listened to the silence for a moment. She wasn't coming. Annoyed, I got up, book in hand. My knees were stiff from the cold, and I almost fell, jerking myself straight when Ivy poked her head out.
"Find something?" she said, amusement in her dark eyes.
Not "Are you still here?" or "I thought you left," but "Find something?" And her amusement wasn't at my expense, but Edden's, who was now behind her.
I smiled, telling her I had indeed found something. "Glenn wasn't beaten up by Mr. Tilson," I said smugly.
"Rachel...," Edden started, and I triumphantly held up the yearbook and came forward.
"Have you gotten your fingerprints back yet?" I asked.
"No. It's going to be almost a week-"
"Be sure to check them against known Inderland criminal offenders," I said, shoving the book at him, but Ivy took it. "You won't find them matching up to Mr. Tilson's record, and that's assuming he has one. I think the Tilsons are dead, and whoever is living here took their names along with their lives."
Chapter Five
Thanks, Alex!" I shouted, waving to the FIB officer as he drove down the shadowy, snow-quiet street to leave me standing on the sidewalk outside our church. Ivy was already halfway up the walk, anxious to be on her own turf where she had her ironclad ways of coping. She'd been quiet all the way home, and I didn't think it was from us needing a ride because I was too chicken to open my car door and see if I exploded.
Alex's taillights flashed as he rolled through a stop sign at the end of the road, and I turned away. The church that Ivy, Jenks, and I lived in was lit up and serene, the colors bleeding out of the stained-glass windows and onto the untouched snow in a fabulous swirl. I studied the roofline to try to spot Bis, our resident gargoyle, but there was nothing between the white puffs of my breath. The church was pretty with its Christmas and solstice decorations of live garlands and cheerful bows, and I smiled, glad to live in such a unique place.
This last fall, Jenks had finally fixed the spotlights angling onto the steeple, and it added to the beauty. The building hadn't been used as a church for years, but it was sanctified-again. Ivy had originally chosen the church to operate our runner firm from to tick off her undead mother, and we'd never moved to more professional digs when the opportunity had arisen. I felt safe here.