I WAITED NEARLY HALF AN HOUR, BUT THEY NEVER came back.
Finally, I stumbled down the bowed steps from the verandah and dropped into the front seat of the Jaguar. I felt as if someone had literally beaten me with a baseball bat. Again I paused, scanning the yard and the surrounding outbuildings for some sign of the two women. I rested my head on the steering wheel and forced myself to set aside all that had just happened. I needed to confront Patience Brawley, discover what new lead she might have on Joline Eastman’s missing relatives, and find them. I made myself picture Kimmie as I’d last seen her, her mocha skin in sharp contrast to the hospital linen. Her stepfather had taken her home to die. If I had a chance of saving her, nothing else mattered.
I turned the key in the ignition and crept down the rutted lane, my eyes alert for any sign of Elizabeth Shelly or the wild woman whose cry had penetrated to the very core of me. I forced my mind away from the speculation that ran in a continuous loop inside my head . . . was she the one? Had I just spent an hour with my father’s mistress? Had all that talk about her “friend” been just a cover, a way to tell her story without giving herself away?
I stopped at the end of the drive and turned right onto the blacktop. Elizabeth would be about the right age, somewhere in her seventies, I guessed, although her body was slim and strong. But how had she recognized me? When had she met my mother, and under what circumstances? What stroke of luck or fate or serendipity had put us together last Saturday afternoon on a dead-end road outside Jacksonboro, South Carolina?
I bit my lip to make myself stop a moment before I registered the small, compact car in the driveway. Patience was home from school. I shook myself, pulled in behind it, and cut the engine. I marched up the Brawleys’ front walk while I mentally shoved Elizabeth Shelly and her fantastic story out of my mind.
To my surprise, Ellis opened the door at my knock.
“Mrs. Tanner? What are you doing here?”
“May I come in?” I asked, brushing by him before he had a chance to stop me. “I need to talk to your mother.”
“She’s not—”
“Her car’s in the driveway. I’m sorry, Ellis, but this is important.”
He followed me into the living room. It seemed as if it had been weeks since Red and I had sat there with Joline.
“She’s really not here. I had her car. She and my dad went to Savannah. To the hospital.” He swallowed hard. “You heard about—?”
“Yes. Joline left me a message right before . . . the accident. She said your mother might have a lead on finding her sisters, and she asked me to come here.” I scanned the silent rooms. “Damn it! Does Patience have a cell phone?”
I was fumbling for the prepaid, which had sunk to the bottom of my bag, the sense of urgency making my breath come in short bursts.
“My dad does. I’ll try it.” Ellis turned toward the doorway into the kitchen.
“If you reach him, I need to talk to Patience.” I paused. “Unless you know what Joline was talking about?”
I couldn’t read his face in the brief moment he glanced over his shoulder at me.
“No, ma’am,” he said quickly. Maybe too quickly?
I followed him. “Did you know that Kimmie’s stepfather has taken her home to die?”
His whole body jerked, and I instantly regretted trying to guilt him into cooperating. “I’m sorry,” I said more softly. “That was cruel.”
He lifted the receiver from its place on the wall-mounted phone. “I’d help you if I could,” he said.
“I know. I’m just afraid that we’ll be too late. And now with the accident . . .”
“Mom stayed with Joline after you and your partner left last night. She told me and Dad to go back to bed. I don’t know what they talked about, but it was late when Joline left. It must have happened right after . . .”
“Probably. See if you can get your parents on the phone. I’ll wait here.”
I couldn’t bring myself to sit down, so I wandered around the living room, staring at a jumble of framed photographs, some of them quite old, that decorated the mantel and the tops of several small tables. No one looked familiar, although I thought one was probably Ellis and his sister as children at some amusement park. Both held bright pink mounds of cotton candy stuck to white paper cones. Their grins were infectious, and I found myself smiling back at the simple joy of a childhood outing that shone brightly on their sticky faces.
“I left a voice mail.” Ellis’s words broke the silence. “Dad checks it pretty often, so they should call back soon.” He joined me in the living room. “Can I get you a Coke or anything?”
“Thanks,” I said, more to give him something to do than from any real desire for a drink. “That would be great.”
I forced myself to sit down on the sofa with its soft, worn slipcover. A brightly patterned quilt lay across the back, and I wondered if Patience had done the needlework. In a moment, Ellis returned with two glasses. I thanked him, and he sat across from me, his concentration bent on his drink, his eyes deliberately avoiding mine.
“Have you had any news about how Joline is doing?” I asked, searching for a coaster on which to set my glass. I found one and glanced across at Ellis.
“Mom called the hospital this morning, after we heard it on the news.” His smile was forced. “She told them she was Joline’s mother.”
I spared a moment to wonder at Patience Brawley’s abrupt about-face. What could have transpired between them in the short time after Red and I left to have sent her running to Savannah to offer support to a woman she claimed to despise?
“And what’s the verdict?” I asked. “What did the hospital say?”
“It’s pretty bad. Mom said they operated, but it’s her head they’re worried about. She’s in like a coma, and they don’t know if she’ll come out of it.”
The phone jerked us both nearly out of our seats. Ellis sprinted to the kitchen. I could hear him responding, but I couldn’t make out the words. I had just risen to join him and wrestle the receiver out of his hand if I had to, when he called my name.
In two seconds I stood in the doorway. “Yes?”
“My mom wants to talk to you.”
I crossed the room and took the phone from his hand. “Patience? This is Bay Tanner. How’s Joline?”
“The same. They have her all fixed up inside, but she’s not coming around. They’re going to run some more tests.” I could hear an unfamiliar quaver in her voice.
“What changed your mind about her?”
For a long moment she didn’t reply. Her words, when they came, were softer than any I’d heard from her in our short acquaintance. “I prayed about it. Last night. After I left you alone with Joline. ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’ ”
I waited, but she obviously felt the scripture verse had said it all. “I’m glad. For both of you.” I paused. “Has Dr. Eastman been there?”
She took her time answering. “I believe he was. We didn’t meet.”
I didn’t quite know how to interpret her terse remark, but I had no time to waste on analyzing it. “He’s taken Kimmie home from the hospital,” I said. “To die. If you know anything at all about Maeline and Tessa, you have to tell me now.” I held my breath in the silence. My eyes strayed to the round plastic clock mounted above the sink. The slim second hand swept smoothly around nearly twice before Patience answered.
“Put my son on the phone,” she said softly.
The book was old and dusty. It had obviously been unearthed from some box or trunk in the attic or basement. Ellis returned from his parents’ bedroom and held it out to me.
“Mom said you could read this, but you can’t take it with you. She said you should check out the cards, too. They might help.”
For the first time I looked closely at the slender volume and realized it was stuffed with loose papers. Ellis placed it in my hand, and I read the pretentious, scrolled legend on the front: GUESTS. I glanced at the young man who had visibly relaxed now that he’d fulfilled his mother’s instructions.
“It’s Joline’s mother’s funeral book,” he said. “You know, where people signed. And some sympathy cards and those ones they put with the flowers. That’s what Mom said I should look for.”
“How did Patience come to have it?” Before he could reply, I answered my own question. “She took care of the funerals when Joline’s mother and grandmother were killed. You told me that last night.”
Ellis shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but after Joline left I heard Mom rummaging around in the attic until real late.”
I opened the book. The signatures had been made with a wide-nibbed fountain pen in blue ink. “Can I use your table?” I didn’t wait for his permission but turned back toward the kitchen.
“Sure, I guess.” He followed and watched me pull out a chair. “You want some more Coke?”
I took my reading glasses from my bag. “Thanks. Can you turn on the overhead light?”
Ellis complied and a moment later set a fresh glass of ice and a can in front of me. “Anything else I can do? I’d like to help.”
“I appreciate that, Ellis, really, but I think I just need to go through everything in here. Your mother didn’t give you any hint what I’m looking for?”
“No, ma’am. She just said this was all she had. And that she hoped it would help the little girl.”
His voice had already faded into the background as I removed the bulging pile of envelopes and set them aside. The ink had faded a little in the years since Louise Mitchell had died, but most of the names were still legible. I looked at each one individually, forcing myself not to scan for Tessa or Maeline. I didn’t expect to find them there. Patience had already told me neither one had come to their mother’s and grandmother’s services. I thought perhaps bitterness might have colored her memories, but neither name appeared. I retrieved my notebook and listed out the names I recognized from the genealogy along with any other Mitchells I encountered. I would have loved to have a copy of these pages, but—
“You have a scanner, right?”
Ellis jumped at the sound of my voice. I didn’t realize he’d sat down across from me at the table.
“Ma’am?”
“You scanned the information from your mother’s Bible and sent it to us. Can you do that to these? Only print them out?”
“Sure,” he said eagerly. “It’ll only take a couple of minutes.”
I handed him the book. “Thanks.”
By the time he had turned for the doorway I was drawing the stack of cards and notes over in front of me. Most of the formal sympathy cards had been left in their envelopes, probably so the return addresses would be readily available for sending thank-you notes. I separated those out into their own pile and did the same for the florist enclosures. None of the envelopes carried the names I was looking for. The bubble of optimism in which I’d sat down, certain this treasure trove of family names and addresses would finally lead me to the answer, slowly dissolved as I tossed aside the expressions of sadness and condolence. From another part of the house, I heard the whirring of the scanner, but that seemed another dead end. Why had Joline been so certain Patience held the key to finding her sisters?
I took a sip of Coke and pulled a paper napkin from a holder on the table to wipe some of the dust from my hands. Then I opened the first of the florists’ cards. Many of the names matched those in the guest book while others were new. About halfway down, I extracted the enclosure from a tiny, square envelope with a legend on the front:
Royalty Florists
Regal Arrangements for Every Occasion
Serving Pickens County Since 1996
The card inside had been penned in large, looping script. The message was simple. The words I’m sorry were followed by a single letter C.
It was crazy. It was the slimmest of possibilities, but somehow I knew I’d struck gold. I snatched up the card and almost trotted down the hallway.
“I need your computer.”
Ellis looked up from the scanner, which sat on a low table next to a desk in what was obviously his own room. The décor was understated and masculine, with lots of dark wood and almost nothing on the beige walls.
I didn’t wait for his reply. The laptop lay open, and I pulled out the swivel chair in front of the desk.
“Sure,” he said, and confusion was thick in his voice. He probably thought I’d lost my mind. I wasn’t certain he was wrong. “I’m almost done here. Just one more page to print.”
I clicked on the Internet Explorer icon and was immediately into Google. I typed in the name of the florist and Pickens County and hit Enter. The first result was a map showing the location of the business along with directions for finding it. I opened it and found a phone number as well, but no owner. I scrolled farther down and landed on an article from a local newspaper that appeared to be about some festival. It was long and contained a lot of names, so I backed out and selected the Cached option. I glanced up to find Ellis leaning over my shoulder.
“Did you find something?”
“Maybe.” A thought struck. “Can you get my bag for me? It’s in the kitchen.”
“Okay.”
As he moved down the hallway, I called after him. “And your mother’s Bible. Can you bring that, too?”
I scanned the highlighted words in the newspaper article and zeroed in on Royalty Florists almost immediately. I began reading, and the name jumped right out: Proprietor Ann Girard has been a staunch supporter of a number of worthy causes in the area. Her beautiful floral arrangements have graced the tables of both formal and casual affairs from the United Way Kickoff Dinner to the annual Firemen’s Rib Burnoff.
It had to be.
“Ellis!” I yelled a moment before he appeared in the doorway.
I snatched my bag out of his hand and spread out the Eastman file along with the pages from the legal pad I’d been scribbling on that morning.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered. A few seconds later I had it. “Yes!” I stabbed my finger at one of the names. “Tessa was married to a man named Roland Girard, and they lived in Greenville. That’s right next to Pickens County. But he died. Maybe he left her well off, and she opened her own store.”
I looked up to find Ellis staring at me, the well-worn Bible clutched to his chest. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I found Joline’s sister. Look at the page where the family’s listed. Do they have middle names?”
I rarely do much praying, but watching Ellis thumb through the Holy Book seemed like a good time to take a stab at it. It was an eternity until he spoke.
“Yes, ma’am. It says here, ‘Maeline Louise’ and ‘Contessa Annalee.’ ”
“Gotcha!” I hollered and reached for my cell phone.