The waitress came by to ask if we needed refills on our drinks, managing to smile a little more brightly at Tolliver than at me.
"Where are you all going?" she asked brightly.
"Asheville area," Tolliver said, glancing up from the game.
"Oh, it's beautiful there," she said, doing her bit for the tourist board. He gave her an absent smile and bent back over the pegboard. She gave his downturned head a philosophical shrug and hustled off.
"You're staring a hole in me," Tolliver said, without looking up.
"You're just in my line of sight," I said. I leaned on my elbows. Where the hell was the food? I folded the paper band that had been around the napkin-rolled tableware.
"Your leg hurting?" he asked. I had a weak right leg.
"Yeah, a little."
"Want me to massage it tonight?"
"No!"
He looked up then. He raised his eyebrows.
Of course I wanted him to massage my leg. I just didn't know if that would work out. I might do something wrong—wrong for us.
"I think maybe I'll just put some heat on it tonight," I said. I excused myself and went to the ladies' room, which was filled with a mother and her three daughters, or maybe her daughter had some friends along. They were very young and very loud, and the minute I could get into a stall, I closed the door and pushed the bolt. I stood there for a moment, leaning my head against the wall. Shame and fear, in equal amounts, clogged my throat, and for a second I couldn't breathe. Then I gasped in a long, shuddering breath.
"Mama, I think that lady's crying," said a child's penetrating voice.
"Shhhh," said the mother. "Then we'll just leave her alone."
And then there was blessed silence.
I actually did have to use the bathroom, and my leg actually was hurting. I eased down my jeans, rubbing the right leg after I'd sat down. There was a faint red spiderweb pattern above my right knee, extending to my upper thigh. I'd had my right side to the window when the lightning came in.
When I rejoined Tolliver, the food had come, and I was able to keep busy eating it. When we went out to the car, Tolliver slid into the driver's seat. It was his turn. I suggested a book on tape; at the last secondhand bookstore we'd visited, I'd gotten three. Unabridged, of course. I popped in a Dana Stabenow novel, leaned back, and walled my brother off. No, I wasn't walling him off; I was walling myself in.
Tolliver had booked one room in the motel in Doraville. At the desk, I could see that he was waiting for me to tell him to ask for another one, since I'd been acting so standoffish.
We'd often shared a room in the past few years of traveling together. At first, we hadn't had enough money for two rooms. Later, sometimes we wanted our privacy, and sometimes we didn't care. It had never been an issue. I wouldn't let it be an issue now, I decided recklessly. I didn't know how long we could trudge on down this dreary road without Tolliver blowing up and demanding an explanation I couldn't give him. So we'd room together, and I'd just have to be uncomfortable in silence. I was getting used to that.
We took in our bags. I always took the bed closest to the bathroom; he got the one by the window. It was a variation on the same room we'd seen over and over again: slick polyester bedspreads, mass-produced chairs and table, television, beige bathroom. Tolliver got busy on his cell phone, while I stretched out on the bed and turned on CNN.
"She wants us to come by at eight tomorrow morning," he said, getting a pencil out of his bag and folding the morning's newspaper open to the crossword puzzle. Sooner or later, he'd break down and learn how to work sudoku, but he was sticking with his crossword pretty faithfully.
"Then I'd better run now," I said, and I noticed he didn't move for a few seconds, his pencil poised over the puzzle. We often ran together, though Tolliver usually took off toward the end of our exercise so he could go full-out. "It'll be too cold in the morning, even if I get up at five."
"You okay running alone?"
"Yeah, no problem." I got out my running gear and took off my jeans and sweater. I kept my back to him, but that was normal. While not having any modesty fetish, we tried to keep a boundary there. After all, we were brother and sister.
No, you're not, said my bad self. He's really not related to you at all.
I stuck a room key in my pocket and went outside into the cold wet air to run off my unhappiness.
Two
"I'M the sheriff of Knott County," the lean woman said. She was leaning over the counter that divided the front of the station from the back, and she'd been chatting with the dispatcher when we entered. I've never understood how law enforcement people can stand to carry so much equipment around their hips, and this woman was bearing the full complement, too. I never like to stare long enough to identify all the items. I'd had a brief relationship with a deputy, and I should have taken a moment then to examine his cop equipment. I'd been more involved with his other equipment, I guess.
When the sheriff straightened, I saw she was a tall woman. She was in her fifties, with graying brown hair and a comfortable set of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She didn't look like any true believer I'd ever encountered, yet she was the one who'd emailed us.
"I'm Harper Connelly," I said. "This is my brother, Tolliver Lang."
We weren't what she'd expected, either. She gave me a scan up and down.
"You don't look like a dingbat," she said.
"You don't look like a prejudiced stereotype," I said.
The dispatcher sucked in her breath. Uh-oh.
Tolliver was right behind me, slightly to my left, and I felt nothing but a calm waiting coming from him. He always had my back.
"Come into my office. We'll talk," said the tall woman. "My name is Sandra Rockwell, and I've been sheriff for one year." Sheriffs are elected in North Carolina. I didn't know how long her term was, but if she'd only been a sheriff a year, she must have plenty to go. Politics might not be as urgent a consideration for Sheriff Rockwell as they would be during election year.
We were in her office by then. It wasn't very big, and it was decorated with pictures of the governor, a state flag, a U.S. flag, and some framed certificates. The only personal thing on Sheriff Rockwell's desk was one of those clear cubes you can fill with pictures. Her cube was full of shots of the same two boys. They were both brown-haired like their mother. One of them, grown, had a wife and child of his own. Nice. The other one had a hunting dog.
"You-all want some coffee?" she asked as she slid into the swivel chair behind the ugly metal desk.
I looked at Tolliver, and we both shook our heads.
"Well, then." She put her hands flat on the desk. "I heard about you from a detective in Memphis. Young, her name is."
I smiled.
"You remember her, then. She's partnered with a guy named Lacey?"
I nodded.
"She seemed like a sensible person. She was no flake. And her clearance rate and reputation are impressive. That's the only reason I'm talking to you, you understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
She looked a little embarrassed. "Well, I know I'm sounding rude, and that's not my intention. But you have to understand, this is not something I'd consider doing if you didn't have a track record. I'm not one of these people who listens to that John Edward—not the politician with an s, but the medium—and I'm not one of these who likes to have my palm read, or go to séances, or even read a horoscope."
"I fully understand," I said. Maybe my voice was even dryer.
Tolliver smiled. "We get that you have reservations," he said.