The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,62

be lost. “You and Holly?”

“BFFs as they would say today. But that was in junior high school, of course, because . . . well, you know she didn’t get to go on. Didn’t get the chance. It was sad, so sad, all of it.” She was still walking it seemed, bits of conversation playing in the background, a crying baby audible. “But then Holly hadn’t been happy in a long time. No one in the family was. Still, this is bad. I mean, murder? Really? Scary stuff.”

“No one was happy?” Nikki asked.

“I don’t think so. Not according to Holly. She always thought her parents were on the verge of divorce, you know.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess it was always tense there. She said her mom and dad were never all that happy and things just got worse.”

But the parents had stuck together for a while, after their daughters had disappeared.

“I thought that Harvey and Margaret split because of the pain of the girls going missing.”

“Well, that didn’t help, I’m sure, but according to Holly there had been trouble all along, well, at least in the last few years. Her mom and dad were always fighting.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know . . . Maybe it was money . . . or her job.”

“Hers? Margaret’s?”

“Yeah, I think. She was a private nurse or something after she got fired from the hospital or . . . Oh, wait . . . Crap . . . this isn’t the right gate! Oh . . . never mind. Next one over. But . . . damn . . . I think they’re calling my flight.” She hesitated and for a few seconds Nikki heard the noise of the airport crackling over the line. Then Andrea was back. “Look, I’ve got to run.”

Nikki didn’t want to lose her. “So you think Holly’s parents weren’t getting along?”

“I don’t know. Not really, but I’ve thought about it, of course. Holly had just complained about it, mentioned that things had gotten tense at the house around the time her mom switched jobs and there were all sorts of other things. Owen, he was getting into trouble—teenage boy stuff like a minor in possession, y’know, getting caught drinking by the cops. Maybe even getting high. I don’t really know. And then there were financial issues, always. I know because Holly couldn’t afford new clothes or CDs or jewelry, whatever we were into at the time. I think—and I don’t know this—but I think she was shoplifting. Wouldn’t buy like a pair of earrings when we went shopping, then ended up with the same pair a week later and swore it was a ‘gift’ from some aunt I’d never heard of. But don’t quote me on that, cuz I’m not sure. I wouldn’t want to disparage the dead, or whatever it’s called.”

She was talking fast and on the move again, it seemed. “I really can’t remember all the details, even if I knew them. But, come on, they had four kids. That’s gotta be rough. And expensive—oops! Look, I gotta go. Really. We’re boarding and I have to use my phone to get on the plane and I don’t really know anything else anyway.” She clicked off, leaving Nikki to stare out the windshield to the workbench beyond the hood of her car and think about the Duval family. So there was some trouble at home. So finances were tight. Those were normal problems, not unique to the Duvals. But what about Margaret’s job? And why had she been fired from the hospital?

What could tension between mother and father have to do with their children being somehow kidnapped, and ultimately murdered, their bodies hidden in the crumbling basement of the Beaumont mansion?

She thought about it all.

Three girls missing; two bodies found. What had happened to Rose, the youngest? She listened as the car engine ticked, cooling.

Her phone buzzed in her hand.

A text from Reed: Working late. Don’t wait dinner on me.

“Great.” She tossed her phone into her purse and felt a well of disappointment. She wanted to call him. Talk things out. Bring out into the open the rift that seemed to be widening between them. Things had been tense for the last couple of days, really tense, and it was getting to her. She was a big believer in working through problems, acknowledging them and getting everything out in the open—well, for the most part. If she were being honest, she sometimes held back a little and was working on becoming