Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris [37]
“Okay.” Victoria looked down at Tolliver for a few seconds. “Then either you’ve got a stalker or it’s something to do with the Joyces.” She paused for a moment. “There hasn’t been anything new about your sister for a long time. I am assuming the trail’s too cold for Cameron’s abduction to have any relation to what’s happening to you now.”
I nodded. “I agree. I think the Joyce case is the most likely. If they okay me talking to you, I’ll be glad to tell you all about it. There’s really not much to tell.”
Victoria whipped out her cell phone and made a call, which I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to do in a hospital. She started talking. A few seconds later, she handed the phone to me.
“Hello,” I said.
“This is Lizzie Joyce.”
“Hi. Did you want me to talk to Victoria?”
“That’s real ethical of you. You have my permission.” Did she sound amused? I didn’t think my morality was funny at all. “I’m sorry about your manager,” Lizzie continued. “I understand it happened at that same motel where we visited you. My God! What do you think happened? Was it just a random shooting?”
A memory surfaced. “One of the cops did tell me there was another shooting a couple of blocks away. So it’s possible. But that’s pretty hard to believe.”
“Well, I’m real sorry. If there’s anything I can do, you just let me know.”
I wondered how sincere the offer was. For one wild minute, I considered saying, “This hospital stay is going to be really expensive, because our insurance is shitty. Can you take care of the bill? Oh, and pick up the tab for his rehab, too, while you’re at it?” But I simply thanked her and handed the phone back to Victoria.
I’d been too preoccupied to think about the financial crunch we were going to face until that moment. I thought unhappy thoughts, while Victoria Flores wound up her conversation with Lizzie Joyce. For the first time, I saw the full scope of the problem in front of me. I realized Tolliver’s injury meant the end of our dream of buying a house, at least in the foreseeable future.
It was possible for me to be more depressed, which I would not have believed ten minutes earlier.
I told Victoria about the visit to Pioneer Rest Cemetery. She asked me a lot of questions I couldn’t answer, but finally she seemed satisfied that she’d wrung every last bit of knowledge and conjecture out of me.
“I hope I can perform like they want me to,” she said, having her own down moment. “I can’t believe they came to me instead of some big agency, but now that I know the details, I can see why they called someone like me.”
“It’s been hard, the move to this area?” I asked.
“Yeah, there’s a lot more business, but a lot more competition,” Victoria said. “It’s good to be close to my mother; she helps with my daughter. And the school MariCarmen’s in here is better than the one in Texarkana. Plus, the driving distance isn’t bad, and I still have business and a lot of contacts back there. It just takes me two and a half, three hours, depending on traffic and weather.”
“We’re never going to find Cameron, are we?” I said.
Victoria’s mouth opened, as if she was going to tell me something. Then she closed it. “I wouldn’t say that. You never know when a lead will pop up. I wouldn’t string you along. You know that’s true.”
I nodded.
“It’s always in the back of my mind,” Victoria said. “All those years ago, when I came by your trailer and talked to Tolliver . . . I was just a rookie cop. I thought I could find her quick, and make a name for myself. That didn’t happen. But now that I’m out on my own, I still look for her, everywhere I go.”
I closed my eyes. I did, too.
Seven
AFTER Victoria left, I sat down on the chair next to the hospital bed. My right leg felt wobbly. It’s the leg the lightning traveled down that afternoon in the trailer when the thunder was rumbling outside. I’d been getting ready for a date; it was a Saturday, or a Friday. I discovered I no longer