A knock came at the door and Macon opened it, said something to someone on the other side and closed the door, dropping a paper into his open briefcase. He sat on the table edge, hands clasped in his lap. “Sure you are. Always were, even when you stole the boys’ clothes that summer at the pond and made Wallace and his friends walk home naked.” Without segue, he added, “Feebs got a warrant. Probably because you called her an ass.”

  I put the two subjects together just as he had and answered them as one. “They deserved to have to walk home naked when they ran the girls off and wouldn’t let us swim. What does the warrant say?”

  “An agent on the scene very kindly faxed me a copy.” Macon handed me the paper he had received at the door. It was an old-fashioned fax, the kind that used special thin paper and heat to mark it. “They are looking for basically everything. You ever finish selling Jack’s guns?”

  “Most of them. The only weapons left in the house are a double-barrel shotgun, one hunting rifle to use if I ever have to put down an injured horse myself, my pearl-handled 9 mm, which Jack gave me when we were first married, and another small caliber handgun, a pretty little steel-blue, short-barreled .38. Both the shotgun and the .38 are loaded, in my bedroom closet. The hunting rifle is in the fireproof vault room in Jack’s old office, and my 9 mm is locked in my SUV. Jas keeps the little .32 Jack gave her in her closet, I think. You’ll have to ask her where it is for sure.”

  “Cops may think that’s a lot of guns for two women.”

  I could tell that Macon thought it was a lot of guns, and maybe it was for a city dweller, but not for someone who lived in the country. “Jack collected weapons. We sold off most after he died, but kept a few of his favorites.”

  “They’ll likely confiscate all of them.”

  “For what reason?” I ticked off my irritation on my fingers. “They all are properly registered. Jas and I took courses in handgun safety. The girls weren’t killed by guns, that much I understood.” I dropped my fingers. “There’s still no COD. That’s cause of death, right? So why take my guns? That leaves a single mother at the mercy of any crime that might come her way. I want my protection back.”

  “Right. But you dissed the special agent in charge of the Columbia Field Office, a VIP with something like thirty agents under her.” Macon showed his teeth happily, a vulpine grin that got wider when I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ll see what I can do, maybe pull your ‘the little woman alone’ routine.”

  “You don’t like her either, do you? Emma Simmons.”

  “No one likes Emma Simmons. Look up ‘wicked witch of the west’ and you’ll see her photo in the encyclopedia.”

  “Is she listening in now?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her, though I requested privacy to confer with my client.”

  “Good.” I clasped my hands in my lap, crossed my ankles and in my best Mother-Teresa-cum-finishing-school voice said, “I wouldn’t want Ms. Bow-tie to hear that she dresses like a 1970’s schoolteacher, or that her hair is twenty years out of date, or that chewing one’s nails is often a sign of poor white trash or uncontrolled obsessive-compulsive disorder. It might also hurt her feelings to learn that she needs serious attention from a good aesthetician and a style expert. If she apologizes, I might direct her to a really good day spa, and I know this woman at Harbison Mall who can do wonders with clothes, even for someone as frumpy and styleless as Emma.”

  Macon laughed, throwing back his head, the voice that captivated juries and judges alike ringing like a bass-toned bell. “God, I love being a member of this family. And I don’t think it likely that Emma will offer up any apologies. Don’t think she has the balls.”

  I shook my head at him and sighed theatrically, knowing we were digging ourselves deeper if Simmons was listening, but I didn’t care. “I agree, cuz. And if she gives us too hard a time, please feel free to ask Nana to call in the big guns.”

  “You mean political favors?” His eyes were glinting with evil humor, enjoying our exchange.

  “I happen to know one or two of her pals personally. You know as well as I do that Nana has a judge and politician or two in her pocket. See if she’ll dust off the pocket lint and get me out of here. I’m hungry, tired and have been locked in this room and treated like a suspect, while not being informed of my rights. I’m on call starting at 6:00 p.m. and I need to be free. I’d tell you how long that gives me, but they confiscated my watch.”

  “You’ll get it back.” Macon stood when a second knock sounded. Special Agent Julie Schwartz entered, glanced at him and set a large envelope on the table. Her face held a peculiar expression and she gestured at the door. “You’re free to go, Mrs. Davenport. We thank you for being so helpful, and apologize for keeping you so long.”

  “The FBI doesn’t apologize for anything,” Macon said, his voice harder. Lawyer tone.

  Julie quickly searched the length of the hallway, swiveling long legs and arching her back and neck to see down both ways. Macon followed her with his eyes, interest in his gaze. “They do when a member of congress calls to ask why his personal friend is being held without charges. They do when someone leaked to the press that the woman who discovered one of the bodies and who provided two of the most important clues in the case—four if you count finding the shoe in the first place, the toe in the field, the grief knot and the hoof—is held and questioned.”

  Julie pushed a strand of dark hair back behind her ear and smiled. “You have friends in high places, Ashlee Davenport. And one or two here. I managed to keep the last bit of repartee between you and your lawyer off the tape that was accidentally left running in the next room.” She grinned, her eyes seeking Macon’s again.

  “That’s a shame,” Macon said. “That a tape was accidentally left running while an attorney was conferring privately with his client. I bet it gets destroyed, too.”

  Julie glanced at him and back at me. “Bet it does.”

  “I thought you wanted to question my client.”

  “Mrs. Davenport, did you kidnap and/or kill and/or bury the girls Lorianne Porter and/or Jillian LaRue?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “No.”

  “Are you withholding any evidence or information from me or any law-enforcement officer or officer of the court that might speed us to the discovery and identification of the perpetrator of these crimes, or are you in any way impeding the resolution of these crimes?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any reason to think that you might know who perpetrated theses crimes, either acquaintance, friend, member of your family or stranger, for that matter?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Do you intend to discuss with friends, family or the media anything regarding the ongoing case?”

  That one was a surprise but I figured cops had the same confidentiality issues as hospitals. I could treat this as I would patient information. Keep it to myself. Totally. “No.”

  “Good.” Julie looked at Macon for an instant. He was watching her with a little half smile on his face. She looked back to me. “Ashlee, we’re asking you to stay on as part of the task force, in a limited capacity. Though we’re calling in a specialist, one or two of the agents want you to look over all the physical-evidence photographs for other signs that the perpetrator has rural roots. We’re now looking for indications that he is a longtime Carolinian with interests in history and literary poetry, and perhaps in gardening.”

  “I don’t want my guns confiscated. I want them all left at the house.” When Julie hesitated, I pushed it. “I’m a woman alone in a remote part of the county. I need protection both from rabid animals and interlopers.”

  Julie chuckled at my choice of words. “Interlopers?”

  “Trespassers.” I’d been shot once by a man who wasn’t welcome in my home and had been forced to defend myself. I had survived. The man hadn’t.

  Macon lifted his brows and watched us, seeming content to let me handle this one small thing on my own.

  Julie sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.” Her eyes darted back to Macon, though she kept speaking to me. “You won’t be needed on the task force full-time—in fact, you aren’t wanted full-time, and your participation will be scaled back to zero if a link is found to your family. We won’t divulge any evidence to you that might implicate or exonerate any member of your family, and will likely not share much with you at all. But my boss’s feelings notwithstanding, most of us think you might be a help. We hope you’ll tell us something else we didn’t know, like you did today with the grief knot and the hoof.”

  “Grief knot?” Macon asked.

  I hadn’t mentioned the name of the knot in my rendition to Macon. “I’ll show you later,” I said. “Aunt Mosetta uses them to tie up her climbing roses. Has for years. So do lots of farmers and flower gardeners across the South.” I looked at Agent Schwartz, who was looking at Macon, who was looking at her. “That doesn’t mean my aunt Moses killed the girls or knows anything about them.” Macon smiled faintly at Julie while I watched them. “I assume that it’s still necessary to interview the rest of my family.”

  Julie turned to me. Her face was flushed and her eyes just a bit wide. Macon was a good-looking man, one of the rare ones who knew just how to look at a woman; he often caused them to lose composure, forget what they were saying, become a little lost for a second or two. But Julie seemed to be having the same effect on Macon. Interestinger and interestinger, as my daughter had said when she was a child.

  “Yes,” Julie said, sounding more composed than she looked. She flicked her eyes back at him. “In fact, Macon is on my list. I’ll be interviewing you today, if you have time.” She sounded a bit breathless, as if she were asking him over for drinks instead of an interrogation. “Then I need to track down other members of your family. Maybe you’d be willing to help me with that?”

  “After you clear me as a suspect, and after we have dinner, I’d be happy to.” Macon gave her the look. The one that melted women’s hearts.

  Julie rocked back fractionally under its weight, her blue eyes glued to his. “Dinner? I’m not sure that would be appropriate.”

  “You can pay your way if that would help resolve any ethical dilemma. Special agents and attorneys do have to eat. And my condition for offering to assist in contacting my family and aiding the FBI in whatever way possible is dinner with you.” He smiled and Denzel Washington didn’t have a thing on my cousin. Macon’s smile was pure, hundred-proof, liquid sex. “After I answer your questions, of course.”

  “Of course.” Julie looked a little shell-shocked. “Would you like to step into my office? We could start now.” Her blush deepened, as if the activity she was starting in her mind was something different from and more heated than a simple interview.

  I had the feeling that Special Agent Julie Schwartz didn’t want to let my charming cousin out of her sight. Both of them seemed to have forgotten I was in the room.

  “When do you want to let my client see the photographed evidence?” Macon asked, his voice a low purr, like a very large cat.

  “Now would be fine. If she has the time.” That breathless tone was present in Agent Julie’s voice again. Shame on Macon.

  Breaking the spell, Macon glanced at his watch. “It’s quarter to five. You have over an hour before you start forensic call, Ashlee. Is now okay with you?”

  “Now is fine. I’d like my belongings back. I left my tote bag of forensic supplies in the conference room. This is just my jewelry,” I said, opening the large shipping envelope and removing my watch, amber necklace and gold hoops. I guess the cops had been afraid I’d hang myself with the necklace or slit my throat with the earrings. I stuck the earring hooks back through my pierced holes.

  Power plays by the cops. Silly Emma Simmons. But maybe something was going on with the woman that I wasn’t privy to.

  Special Agent Julie looked at me, her eyes wide, pupils slightly dilated. “I’ll assign someone to go with you to look over the photos of the physical evidence in the folders. Yours are still in the conference room. So is your bag. Everything should be there.”

  “Meaning everything has been gone through with a fine-toothed comb,” I said.

  “Never,” Macon and Julie said at the same time. They both laughed—together. Sort of in harmony. It was so cute, Jas would have gagged as a matter of principle.

  I spent the better part of the next hour going over photos of physical evidence and crime scenes. I drank another Diet Coke provided by a twelve-year-old boy masquerading as an FBI agent. I suspected he didn’t even shave yet, but he stayed by me, watching me like a hawk. I was pretty certain he had been put up to the constant scrutiny by Emma Simmons. It was almost amusing. Only almost.

  When I closed the final folder, I sat for a time rubbing my eyes. I hadn’t cried. Hadn’t given away by the slightest expression that I was horrified by what I looked at, that fighting tears was a constant battle. But when I closed the folder for the last time, tears sprang to the back of my lids and I sat, holding them in place until I found control.

  I turned and stared at the wall of photos behind me, memorizing each face, each name. Wanting to know them as little girls, not as victims, even if only for this moment.

  Little girls. Two of them dead, the photos of their graves scorched into my memory. I had nothing to offer to help solve the crimes. Not a thing. Except a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind that I knew something but didn’t know what I knew. Big help that was.

  “Anything?”

  I heard a soft scuffing sound and looked up at Jim, who was leaning one shoulder on the doorjamb. One hand was in his pants pocket, as if he had been there awhile, watching me, his face solemn and drawn. He looked as tired as I felt, dark five o’clock beard showing over an expression that said he really wanted to be at home or at the golf course, the shooting range, grocery store, getting his yearly bend-and-cough physical, or anywhere but here.

  “Something. But I’m too tired to know what,” I said. “Maybe it’ll come to me after some rest. I’m sorry about the ‘Emma the ass’ line. Hope it didn’t get you in trouble.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle. I understand that a certain tape was damaged when it was left running in an unoccupied observation room.”

  “Oops.”

  He gave me a tired smile. “Got time for supper? I have an hour.”

  And my forensic call beeper went off. Lucky me.

  10

  H e watched the girls playing, the soccer ball arcing off an elbow. The movement was effortless, clean, the goalie rejecting the attempted point with ease. His daughter caught the ball and pivoted, sending it back to the other end of the field with a single kick, the team instantly repositioning for attack. She was grace and beauty, her dark hair flying. Of course, the hair was a problem. He’d have to dye it back blond. The dark hair was her mother’s fault. Had to be. He would never have allowed her to darken her hair.

  As he waited for the end of the game, he sketched words and phrases on a legal pad propped on a small portable writing desk, finding a meter and rhythm as lyrical as the girl flying on the sporting field. It was coming quickly this time, the words flowing faster. Perhaps this was the one. Yes. This one. When inspiration waned, he stopped and watched his daughter. Another thought drew him back to the pad.

  A referee’s whistle sliced the air. He turned up the CD player, Vivaldi rising above the raucous sounds of the game, over the traffic. Words drifted onto the paper, linked to one another and to history and to art in a seamless flow.

  “Lovely music,” a voice said. He jerked, losing his place in the meter of verse.

  The lyrical words that had been so brilliant dimmed and ebbed, slid away from him in a relentless rush. The poem…He took a single breath, the air bitter in his lungs.

  “What is it?”

  He looked up, bemused, and blinked back to the day, with its lengthening spring shadows and dull yellow sun. A soccer mom, bored, rich, a diamond bracelet glittering on her wrist. He struggled against rage climbing his throat. No one ever interrupted the muse.

  Fury swallowed back like acid and he said, “Vivaldi.”

  “Oh. I like it.”

  When he offered nothing else, she pulled away from his car door and walked off, looking back at him once. Smiling. Smiling!

  She should have been afraid. She had interrupted the muse. No one interrupted the muse. It is not allowed. Breath gusted from his lips in a little pant. No one. Not ever.

  She waved at him. A little trill of her fingers.

  A thin sweat broke out on his brow, under his arms. It is not allowed.

  On the field the team started to play. The woman moved out of sight. His daughter crouched, her knees bent, her hands at the ready. She darted left, right, her body quick and lithe, her movements economical and graceful. She dove hard, straight to the side, and seemed to hang suspended, as if she could fly, arms outstretched, toes pointed.

  The words that had fled returned as his daughter blocked a fast shot. He laughed happily. She had the gift. And she shared it with him, as always. The verse poured onto the page.

  Near the end of the game, he pulled a single sheet of heavy paper from a folder and uncapped a fine black calligraphy pen. He opened the small vessel of ink and transposed the poem from the ugly yellow legal pad to the fine handmade paper they had created together. He finished the poem just as the CD finished the last strains. The sun would set soon; already it was tossing shadows over the field. In minutes, the game would be over and practice session would start, and soon after that it would be fully dark. Perfect.

  Shutting off the CD player, he placed the poem in the small writing desk, away from prying eyes, and opened the car door. Locking the vehicle, he sauntered to the playing field to congratulate his daughter on a game well played. Over his arm he carried a black velvet throw.

  She was jumping up and down in a small group of girls, their squeals slicing the afternoon air. Their excitement heated his blood. The pulse pounded in his head, roared in his ears. One girl hammered her back, resounding victory blows. He winced, but she only laughed and beat the other girl in return.