An Ice cold Grave Page 0,20

my hand in both his own. "How are you feeling?" he asked, as if there were no one else in the room. He was looking right into my eyes, and I got the message.

"Not too well," I said weakly. Unfortunately, I was almost as weak as I sounded. "I guess Tolliver told you about the concussion? And the broken arm?"

"And these gentlemen are here to talk to you when you're so ill?"

"They don't believe anything I say," I told him pitifully.

Manfred turned to them and raised his pierced eyebrow.

Stuart and Klavin were regarding my new visitor with a dash of astonishment and a large dollop of distaste. Klavin pushed his glasses up on his nose as if that would make Manfred look better, and Stuart's lips pursed like he'd just bitten a lemon.

"And you would be...?" Stuart said.

"I would be Manfred Bernardo, Harper's dear friend," he said, and I held my expression with an effort. Resisting the impulse to yank my hand from Manfred's, I squeezed his bottom hand as hard as I could.

"Where are you from, Mr. Bernardo?" Klavin asked.

"I'm from Tennessee," he said. "I came as soon as I could." Manfred bent to drop a kiss on my cheek. When he straightened, he said, "I'm sure Harper is feeling too poorly to be questioned by you gentlemen." He looked from one of them to the other with an absolutely straight face.

"She seems all right to me," Stuart said. But he and Klavin glanced at each other.

"I think not," Manfred said. He was over twenty years younger than Klavin, and smaller than Stuart - Manfred was maybe five foot nine, and slender - but somewhere under all that tattooed and pierced skin was an air of authority and a rigid backbone.

I closed my eyes. I really was exhausted, and I was also not too awfully far from laughing out loud.

"We'll leave you two to catch up," Klavin said, not sounding happy at all. "But we're coming back to talk to Ms. Connelly again."

"We'll see you then," Manfred said courteously.

Feet shuffling...the door opening to admit hospital hall noises...then the muffling of those noises as the SBI agents carefully pulled the door shut behind them.

I opened my eyes. Manfred was regarding me from maybe five inches away. He was thinking about kissing me. His eyes were bright and blue and hot.

"Nuh-uh, buddy, not so fast," I said. He withdrew to a safer distance. "How'd you come to be here? Is your grandmother okay?"

Xylda Bernardo was an old fraud of a psychic who nonetheless had a streak of actual talent. The last time I'd seen her had been in Memphis; she'd been frail enough then, mentally and physically, to necessitate Manfred driving her to Memphis and keeping tabs on her while she talked to us.

"She's at the motel," Manfred said. "She insisted on coming with me. We drove in last night. I think we got the last motel room left in Doraville, and maybe the last one in a fifteen-mile radius. One reporter checked out because he got a more comfortable room at a bed and breakfast, and Grandmother had told me to drive to that motel fast and go into the office in a hurry. Every now and then, she comes through in a helpful way." His face grew somber. "She doesn't have long."

"I'm sorry," I said. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but that was a stupid question. Did it really make a difference? I knew death quite well, and I'd seen it stamped on Xylda's face.

"She doesn't want to be in a hospital," Manfred said. "She doesn't want to spend the money, and she hates the ambience."

I nodded. I could understand that. I wasn't happy about being in one, myself, and I had every prospect of walking out of this one in one piece.

"She's napping now," Manfred said. "So I thought I'd drive over to check out how you were doing, and I found the Dynamic Duo asking you questions. I thought they'd listen to me if I said I was your boyfriend. Gives me a little more authority."

I decided to let that issue ride for the moment. "What are you-all doing here in the first place?"

"Grandmother said you needed us." Manfred shrugged, but he believed in her, all right.

"Wouldn't she be more comfortable at home?" It made me feel very guilty to think about the aging and ill Xylda Bernardo dragging herself and her grandson to this little town in the mountains because she thought I needed