Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris [108]
“And your own baby was about to die because you hadn’t taken her to a doctor,” I said. “Or was she already dead when Chip called?”
“That’s where you got the different baby!” Mark said. I’d never seen so much emotion on his face. “Dad, why didn’t you tell me?”
Now it was Matthew’s turn to look confused. “You knew it wasn’t really Gracie?” he said to his son. “I never worried about you! You were hardly ever around. How’d you know?”
And all of a sudden, everything clicked into place.
“I know how,” I said. “Cameron told him. She didn’t know right away, any more than the rest of us did. It took her a while to figure it out. But when she did her senior biology project, she did it on eye color and genetics. You and my mom couldn’t have had a green-eyed child.”
Mark collapsed onto the couch. His legs simply gave out from under him. “Dad, she was going to call the police,” he said. “She was going to tell them you’d kidnapped a kid to take Gracie’s place, because Gracie had died.”
“It was you, Mark,” I said, feeling that my voice was coming from somewhere very far away. “It was you. You picked her up when she was on her way back from school. You told her—what did you tell her?”
“I told her that you’d had an accident,” he said. “I was on my motorbike that day, so I told her to leave the backpack by the road. She didn’t ask any questions. She got on. I went toward the hospital, but I pulled off at an empty gas station because I told her something was wrong with my bike. I told her to go around back to see if there was an air pump. I went after her.”
“How did you do it?” I said, very quietly.
He looked up at me with an expression I hope I never see again. He was ashamed, he was horrified, and he was pleased. “I choked her to death,” he said. “I have big hands, and she was so small. It didn’t take long. I had to leave her there, because I couldn’t get her back on the bike. I went later, with Dad’s truck. I wanted to leave her there, but I was afraid you’d find her, you freak.”
My head swam and I sat abruptly on the armchair. Tolliver hit Mark with everything he had, and Mark collapsed sideways, bleeding from the mouth. Matthew was standing exactly where he’d been, his mouth literally hanging open.
“I did it for you, Dad,” Mark mumbled. He spat out blood and a tooth. “Dad, I did it for you.”
“And then they arrested me anyway,” Matthew said, as if that was the important part of the story.
“Where is she, Mark?”
“You and your family,” he said. “You’ve been nothing but trouble. First the baby, then Cameron going to call the police on Dad, and now you getting Tolliver to marry you.”
“Where is my sister, Mark?” I wanted to bury her, finally. I wanted to know where her bones were. I wanted to recognize her one last time. Somewhere over in Texarkana, she waited for me. I just wanted a location so I could get in the car and start driving. I could call Pete Gresham and ask him to meet me there.
“I’m not going to tell you,” he said. “You can’t have me arrested unless you find her, and I’m not going to tell you. My dad won’t say a word, and my brother won’t, either. Our word against yours.”
“Where is my sister?”
Matthew was still staring at Mark as if he’d never seen him before.
“Of course I’ll tell the police,” Tolliver said. “Why wouldn’t I, Mark?”
“We’re family, Tol. If you tell them about Cameron, then we’ll have to tell them about Gracie, and she won’t belong to anybody but Chip. Iona and Hank would have to give her up. You can imagine what Chip will do with her.”
“Chip’s dead, Mark. He killed himself yesterday.”
Mark looked blank for a minute. Then he said, “So then she’ll go to foster care, like Harper had to.”
“You’re trying to blackmail me into keeping quiet about my sister’s death by threatening my other sister? Mark, you are lower than a snake’s belly,” I said. “I can’t imagine you being related to Tolliver.”
“That