“Sorry about the wait,” she said. I bit my tongue against saying she didn’t sound sorry at all. “Things have been moving quickly around here since you killed Dr. Christopher.” I flinched. “We found where Christopher was keeping the girls,” she said, and paused to watch me.

  “Ohhhh,” I breathed. I couldn’t help it. I closed my eyes in thanksgiving, feeling all the animosity accumulated by several hours in a cell drain away. If they had found the girls, it was all worthwhile. All of it. Even death.

  “We found two partially mummified adult female bodies, but not the missing girl.” My eyes snapped open. Her eyes were hard and fierce.

  “The women were stretched out on tables in his basement, lying on their backs, their heads positioned so they were facing the door. They were wearing togas and were tied in grief knots from their toes to their mouths. Pending forensic identification and postmortems, we’re positing that it’s his wife and her sister, both missing for two years.

  “Next door to the room where we found them was another room decorated for a young girl. Pink. Dolls, toys and a one-way window so he could watch them without them seeing him.” Emma watched me, watched the tears gather in my eyes, and kept talking.

  “Someone had done some damage to the room recently, took the bed apart and used the metal frame to bust through the wall and the window. Jenny’s mother says her daughter liked tools and building things, almost as much as taking them apart. We think it’s possible that he held her there until she was close to breaking out.

  “Right now, my forensic team is dismantling the house and the basement. We think, with trace evidence, we can prove that he held all the girls in that one room, one after another. And there’s some evidence that he kept at least one of them in a closet for a while.”

  “Why are you telling my client this, Special Agent Simmons?” Macon asked, leaning forward, his hands between his knees, fingertips spread and touching. “It isn’t customary for the Bureau to tell civilians anything. It’s usually more like pulling teeth without painkillers.”

  Emma’s mouth turned down as if she were sucking on a bitter pill. “Some unnamed source released this information to the media. We know it wasn’t your client, but we think it might be a family member or friend on the local Dawkins County police force.”

  She looked at me. I hoped Nana hadn’t started a vendetta against the agent, pulling out all the stops. Nana on a rampage was a force of nature, a forest fire, an avalanche of snow and ice, a volcano erupting. Hard to stop, impossible to control.

  Voice sour, Emma said, “We want you to put a stop to the release of unauthorized information.”

  “My client has no authority over her extended family, Special Agent Simmons,” Macon said.

  “Ask my nana,” I said. Emma’s eyes flicked to me. “Call her on the phone and ask her, politely, to work with you. Not for you or against you, but with you.”

  Emma looked at Julie. “Do it.”

  “Not her,” I said. “You. Big dog to big dog. If you’d asked for her help in the first place, she would have given it.”

  “It isn’t the policy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ask for help in cases like this.”

  “Big mistake in small-town, rural America. Nana could open doors for you.”

  Emma put her hand to her bow-tied blouse, fingers fluttering the loops and strands. She cocked her head at me. “We can’t find any family tie between Christopher and the Chadwicks. Would she help with that?”

  “Yes.”

  Emma nodded, once.

  In short order, I was freed and hustled out of the FBI building through an underground entrance. Macon drove me home in his sporty truck. I no longer had a vehicle to call my own and I wasn’t certain that I wanted my old one back—even if it could be repaired—once the police released it from the impound lot.

  Rain tapped slowly against the windshield, the wipers a soft shush of sound. The lights of oncoming cars on I-77 came at random intervals. Not much traffic tonight. Macon was of a mind to let me rest, which was nice. But I wished I were driving myself. I missed the autonomy, the feeling that I was in control of my life. This was twice that I had been driven home, twice that my freedom had been taken away from me.

  We were nearly home when Macon said, almost offhand, “Nana talked with Simmons. She had amassed quite a bit of info that the feebs wanted, and Nana gave it to her the minute Emma asked. Just like that. And Simmons thanked Nana for the help.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Nana thinks that Christopher’s wife could be one of the lost cousins. A Chadwick who disappeared after a divorce or death, and wasn’t seen again. She’s offered the full family genealogy to the FBI, including the parts not yet uploaded to the Web site.” He glanced at me. “Even some stuff that she had withheld on general principle, though I’d never tell that to anyone but family. I can’t decide if Nana is devious, just plain old mean or the salt of the earth.”

  I smiled. “Nana ticked off is like a runaway bulldozer. In a generous mood, she’s like a genie in a bottle. Make a wish and watch it come true.”

  Macon laughed. “On my ninth birthday, she asked me what I wanted. I told her I wanted a pony. But Mama and I were living in Columbia at the time, smack in the middle of the city. Nana bought me a pony, then arranged for Mama to get a job offer in Dawkins at better pay, found her a house and moved us back, lock, stock and barrel.” He glanced at me, his face greenish in the dash lights. “All so she could grant my wish.”

  “That’s Nana. Take over and take charge. And even God better not get in her way.”

  Macon’s cell rang. He answered, sounding all business, but his voice changed to a low murmur, calculated to keep me out and his tone gave everything away. Julie Schwartz. No doubt about it.

  When the quiet conversation was over, he flipped the cell phone shut and glanced at me again. “I forgot to tell you. Nana is sending one of Mama Moses’s young’ uns over to apologize.” I raised my brows and he said, “One particularly devious twelve-year-old spent the night in your safe room. The name Thomas Spires mean anything to you?”

  I thought a moment. “He buried a dead possum for me. I was supposed to tip him but I haven’t seen him.”

  “He decided to take a tip for himself. Snuck in and got stuck there overnight. His mama found some papers with Jack’s old business name on them, and she and Nana figured out what had happened. He got his butt beat.” Macon seemed pleased by that.

  Without segue he said, “According to records, Christopher had a daughter. There was an accident a few years ago, and the girl is in a chronic vegetative state in a private hospital. Want to visit her tomorrow?”

  “Will the cops let me?”

  He laughed softly, something odd in his tone. “Let you? The private hospital where the girl lives is making a stink about letting the cops in without a warrant. A judge refused to grant one, told the cops they could go through her guardian first and if she refused to let them in, he’d reevaluate.” Macon shot me a calculated look. “They have to ask your permission to see her. Christopher made you her legal guardian in the event that something happened to him.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “You’re also his legal heir. A will and the necessary papers were signed yesterday.” Macon’s voice hardened. “Looks like he intended to marry you. Whether you wanted to or not.”

  27

  B y 7:00 a.m., I stood in the doorway of the small room with the administrator of Sunnyvale Acres, a full care facility for the disabled. The cops stood a few feet behind me and the feebs were across the hall at my request, to give me space and a moment with my charge.

  The private room was painted a pale pink, with pink linens and drapes, and a soft pink-and-peach plaid chair in the corner. The colors should have jarred but they didn’t, instead making the room warm and inviting and girlish. A soft light burned beside the bed, and sunlight, weak and dull this early, came through the window, revealing flowers planted just beyond.

  Dolls, books and stuffed animals were on shelves against the walls. I instantly noticed the preponderance of dancing dolls of all kinds, from large porcelain dolls swathed in silk, some standing en pointe, to small dancing dolls dressed as if to perform Swan Lake. Grief knots held back the drapery.

  All over the walls hung framed photographs and cards. When I looked closer though, I saw the cards were actually single sheets of handmade paper, covered with calligraphy. Poems. I was pretty sure they were the same poems on the Internet site Dr. Christopher had dedicated to his daughter.

  “Ms. Davenport?” Emma said from behind me, impatient.

  “In a minute,” I said. I walked into the room and stood over the young girl who slumbered in a permanent vegetative state. The hospital bed had a bulky box at the foot and the thick mattress pulsed steadily, the rhythm signaling that air moved up and down the length of the bed to prevent bedsores.

  The girl was curled beneath a single sheet and a thin blanket, slack-faced, her arms and legs drawn up, feet pointed in a permanent ballet position, as if she tried to dance while curled like a fetus in the womb. Her blond hair was brushed back and secured in a ponytail. She smelled sweet, like talcum powder, and showed every evidence of being well-cared for. Blue eyes rocked back and forth beneath curled lashes. Her name was Aloise. She was sixteen.

  Her mother had been confirmed in the genealogy. She was a Chadwick, as was this young woman. Four bronze statues were lined along the head of the bed, miniature females with their arms lifted, fingertips touching over their heads. They were dressed in Grecian robes, hair long and flowing, faces turned to the sky.

  Muses? I looked closer to see a lyre in one’s hand, a bow in another’s. I shivered. I didn’t look closely at the other statues.

  Instead, I touched the girl’s head gently with my fingertips. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so very sorry.” I tucked my hand in my jacket pocket and turned slowly, surveying the room, wondering if Christopher had left funds to cover this level of care indefinitely. I’d know soon enough. I had an appointment with his lawyer this afternoon. I needed to see the document that turned his estate over to me. Had to see what financial provisions had been made. Had to sign papers. And according to South Carolina law, I had to plan his funeral. The funeral of the man I’d killed. That was an irony I could have lived without.

  I walked back into the hall and looked up at Emma. “Okay. I’ll sign for you to have access to her. But she’s not to be touched beyond what we discussed.” Looking at the administrator, I said, “I’ll sign the permission form, if you have it ready.”

  The middle-aged woman extended a clipboard. It was a pretty straightforward form but I passed it to Macon for approval. Once he agreed that it was acceptable, I took the pen in my bandaged hand and signed the forms, in triplicate, knowing that, for now, it was time to walk away. Macon was going to stay and make sure the feebs followed the permission I had given them to dust for prints in her room and copy her medical records.

  My part was done, but I looked back into the room once. It was now swarming with busy people carrying arcane bits of equipment; in the center of the human storm was a bed with an unmoving form on it, breathing so shallowly that the covers didn’t move. She might have been a mannequin. Or dead.

  I turned to move down the hall when I spotted a photograph just inside the door of Aloise’s room. It was of a young girl standing beside a table, holding a pottery horse. I stepped back into the room, to the photograph. “Emma?” I said. When she glowered at me, it occurred to me that she might resent me calling her by her first name, instead of Supervisory Special Agent Simmons. I smiled at her frown and said, “This looks like something you might want to see.”

  She stepped up behind me. “This doesn’t look like Aloise,” I said of the girl in the photo. “It looks like someone else. One of the other girls. And the horse looks like it might be a good source for the hoof in Lorianne Porter’s pocket.”

  “We’ll be taking all the photos and the poems,” she said. “We’ll ID everyone in the photos.”

  “Yes. I know.” I looked at the girl curled on the bed. As her guardian, I could hang new things on her walls. I’d get the Chadwicks to help.

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  I looked up into Jim Ramsey’s face, almost gaunt at the end of this investigation. Some of the tension eased from me. “Thank you.” We turned and walked away, leaving behind the official-sounding voices, the hiss of spray cans and the click of plastic and wood. “I was afraid you were off the case because of me,” I said.

  “I was for a while. Now I’m supposed to hang around you and Nana and see what I can pick up.”

  The cynicism in his tone told me a lot about his feelings. I didn’t look his way when I said, “Babysitting duty for an experienced field agent? Is that going to make trouble between us?”

  “Nope. It isn’t.” He stretched out his arms, laced his fingers together and popped his knuckles. “Standard procedure is that I’d be reassigned to Kalamazoo for the duration. But your nana pulled a few strings, so I’m staying.”

  I thought about that as we exited the building into the brightening dawn. The temperature had started out in the sixties but was warming. Birds were singing and a few puffy clouds rested supine in the sky, as if still sleeping. It was a beautiful day. “Nana’s sticking her nose into your career? Should I tell her to back off?”

  He shrugged and lay an arm around my shoulders. “Not yet. I’ll have a talk with her and we’ll see what happens.”

  “You’re going to talk to Nana?”

  “Mano a mano, as it were. Think I’ll survive?”

  “If not, I’ll be there to comfort you as you lick your wounds.”

  “Sure you don’t want to lick those wounds yourself? It might make the suffering worthwhile.”

  At his teasing tone, I blushed, feeling as if I were twelve years old. I tilted my head forward, hiding behind my hair. “Maybe. In Charleston. We’ll see.”

  Jim leaned down and tightened his arm, making a noose around my neck, pulling me closer. He kissed the top of my head. With no more words between us, he walked me to my rental car and saw me inside. When I was belted in, he said, “We’ve begun interviewing friends and acquaintances of Dr. Christopher and his former wife. A co-worker of Christopher’s wife told us that they were on the verge of a divorce two years ago, because he was having an affair with her sister. The wife and sister disappeared. They didn’t have any other family, and the sister’s co-workers thought the two had made up and taken off together. Which explains the presence of both bodies in his basement.”

  Sordid and tawdry, I thought. But I said, “So sad. All of it.”

  “Christopher had no friends, so far as we can determine. But we think he was living with someone.”

  I looked up at that one. “Dr. Christopher had a girlfriend?” I couldn’t imagine the man having a normal life. “With a basement full of dead people and kidnapped girls? No way. He couldn’t keep all that a secret.”

  “We don’t think it was a secret. We think the live-in was a guy, his partner. Two toothbrushes, one bed, two colors of hair on the pillows. Some medium-sized, men’s flannel shirts and T-shirts in the closet. No girlie stuff in the bathroom.”

  “Partner?” I said, trying to make it all fit.

  “Yeah. Current theory is they were working together, but the partner cleared out before we got to the house. Left a few things behind, but got away.” Jim stroked my hair, in a gesture that was both tender and somehow very intimate. “So I’ll be sticking close until we catch him. Hope you can live with me.”

  With that cryptic statement, Jim closed my door and walked to his Crown Vic. When I recovered, I inserted the key and turned the ignition. Close behind, Jim followed me the thirty miles back home.

  Around my kitchen table, Nana, Aunt Mosetta, Jim and I studied the genealogy charts and family photograph albums over a late breakfast of pancakes, syrup and several pots of hot coffee and chai tea. My waist-line and thunder thighs would surely suffer for all the carbs, fats and sweets I had been eating lately, but I was too tired and too much in need of comfort foods to care. Twice, Jim’s phone rang, and I understood that someone was keeping him apprised of developments in the case. The investigation was taking place at breakneck speed now, because there were leads aplenty, two sites for forensic workup and evidence pouring in like water over a falls. If the missing girl was still alive, she had perhaps been alone, without food, water and her insulin, for days now. They had to find her.

  Jas had uncovered a lot of useless information about Erasmus, information the local cops were checking out, just in case. My daughter had been stricken with the investigative bug. Now she wanted to be a P.I. and raise horses on the side. I sent her on to school with orders to pass this semester and we’d see. I figured a summer spent working the farm and part-time with a security firm, like the one conveniently owned by Wicked Owens, would either cure her or convince her. Sometimes—other than Christmas, birthdays and other gift-buying times—it was really nice to have a large family.

  As we ate, Nana traced the exact lineage of the girl who was now my ward. Aloise Christopher was related to me through my father’s half brother.

  I was cleaning away the dirty dishes when Jim said, “Ash. Look at this.”

  I set down the plates, washed syrup off my fingertips and crossed to the kitchen table. He was looking at an old daguerreotype of my great-grandfather, one of those stiffly posed, stern-faced, sepia-toned pictures. He was sitting in a wingback chair. Behind him was a statue of a horse, the same horse I was sure I had seen in the photo hanging on Aloise’s wall.

  “Did they find the horse statue? Was it the source of the broken hoof in Lorianne Porter’s pocket?” I asked.

  “No,” Jim said, studying the old photograph.

  “Nana, who got this statue when Great-grandpa died?” I asked “Do you remember?”

  Aunt Mosetta answered for her. “Wasn’t it that wife of his? Almetha Chadwick. Went on to marry again and moved her kids with her.”