Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris [60]
He nodded. “I get it.”
We drove back to the hospital, and Manfred dropped me off at a side entrance, the closest to providing concealment that the hospital offered. I scooted inside and made my way to the bank of elevators off the lobby. I didn’t think anyone was paying any particular attention to me, and no one seemed to be loitering. Everyone I looked at seemed to have a purpose, and no one spoke to me.
When I got back to Tolliver’s room, I found him sitting up in the chair. I felt a wide smile spread across my face.
“Oh, you got adventurous,” I said, beaming at him.
“Hey, I’m no slacker,” he said, but he smiled back. “Hearing I might get out made me feel better than any of the drugs. How was your trip across the city with the amazing Manfred?”
I told Tolliver about our visit to Detective Powers. “Once they all understood I wasn’t sleeping with him, they were all relieved,” I said.
“When he gets better, you can tell him his fellow officers thought he was a real dog.”
“I don’t think he’s going to get better,” I said. “I think he’s going to die.”
Tolliver took my hand. “Harper, that’s not up to us. All we can do is hope he pulls through.”
That was such a sweet thing to say; maybe not the words so much as the way Tolliver said it. I could tell he loved me. I cried a little, and he let me without saying anything patronizing, and then I helped him back into bed because he was tired. We should have been talking about who shot him, but at the moment we were simply too flattened.
Mark and Matthew came in together an hour later.
We were watching an old movie, and we were actually enjoying it, but I switched it off to be polite. As they stood together at the foot of the bed, I noticed that Mark and Matthew were much more alike in looks than Tolliver and his dad were. The shorter, thicker build, the square faces . . . All three men had the same coloring, but other than that, Tolliver definitely looked more like his mom. I’d only seen pictures of the first Mrs. Lang, but she’d had Tolliver’s much narrower face and thinner build.
I wondered if they wanted me to leave.
Tolliver didn’t give me any signal one way or the other, and though I half expected Matthew to tell me he wanted to talk to his sons alone, he didn’t say a word about it, so I stayed.
After the usual inquiries into Tolliver’s recovery and when he’d get out of the hospital, Mark said, “I wondered if you’d like to come back to stay with me, at my house, I mean. While you get better.”
“Your house,” Tolliver said, as if he’d never heard of such a thing. We’d been to Mark’s house exactly once. He’d had us over to dinner, and he’d ordered out. It was an absolutely standard three-bedroom ranch with a fenced-in backyard.
“Yeah, why not? Since you and Harper are . . .” Here he made a kind of indeterminate gesture, meant to indicate that we were sleeping together. “That means you can share a bed, so there’ll be room.”
“So, Dad’s staying in the other room now?” Tolliver didn’t look at his father as he spoke to Mark. He’d sure picked up on that little indicator.
“Yes, he is,” Mark said. “It just made sense, since his job doesn’t pay a lot, and the bedroom was empty.”
“I already got us a suite at a hotel,” I said. I made sure my voice was both quiet and neutral. I didn’t want to make this a confrontation.
But it looked as though I wasn’t going to get my wish.
“Listen,” Mark said, flushing up as he did when he was angry, “you butt out, Harper. This is my brother, and I get to ask him to stay with me. It’s his call. We’re family.”
Not only was I angry now, too, I was hurt. I didn’t care if I ever got called a member of Matthew’s family, but Mark and I had shared a lot of woe together. I thought we kids had been our own family. I could feel my own face reddening.
“Mark,” Tolliver said sharply, “Harper is my family. She’s been my family for years now. Yours, too. I know you remember how we had to stick together.”
Mark looked down at the floor, conflict making his face really distressing to watch.
“It’s okay, Mark,” Matthew