"She was all… using pills, you know? She got really strung out. Felicia was having to drive over to Nashville from Memphis all the time to make sure the house was running okay."
"That must have been really hard," I said, trying to sound both gentle and encouraging.
"It was," he said simply. "My grades went way down, and I was missing my sister, and it was really bad. My dad tried to keep going to work, and my mom would get up and try to clean the house or cook, or just have lunch with friends, but she was crying all the time."
"The loss of a family member causes all kinds of changes," I said, which was just about meaningless. It couldn't begin to cover the "changes" the sudden absence of a sister could cause, as I had good reason to realize. I had no idea where Victor was headed with this, but I found myself increasingly curious, curious enough to provide conversational lube to keep the talk going.
"Yeah," he said simply. "We sure had a bunch." He seemed to gather himself. "You know, that morning? The morning she was—gone."
"Um-hm," I said.
"My dad was in the neighborhood," he said in a rush. "I spotted his car a couple of blocks from the house."
I didn't sit upright and shriek, "Oh my God!" but it was definitely an effort to stay in my relaxed position. "He was?" I said, quite calmly.
"Yeah, because… I mean, I did go to tennis practice," Victor said. "But after that, my friend I had in Nashville; I mean, it wasn't anything like Barney, but I did, um, have a friend, and he and I hooked up, and then I needed a shower, so I thought I'd run home, but when I went past the house I saw Dads car at the stoplight two blocks away, and I thought he might notice something. I mean, what was there to notice? But parents, you know." Victor shrugged. "So I just went back to the park and hit some balls, met some other friends who'd come to play. The courts were only ten minutes away from home and I even parked in the same spot when I went back, so it was pretty easy for me to say I'd never left."
We were both shaken by this little account.
"Of course, I couldn't say anything," Victor said.
"I can see that it would be hard to get into that," Tolliver said.
"Yeah, you know, one thing would lead to another, and then I'd have to tell them. About me."
And the world revolved around Victor, of course. "So they don't know yet," I said.
"Oh, God, no!" He and Barney rolled their eyes at each other. "Dad and Mom would freaking flip out."
"My mom is cool about it, which is awesome," Barney said. I was glad to confirm he had vocal abilities.
I'd meant that Victor's parents didn't yet know he'd seen the car, but of course Victor had interpreted my question his own way.
"You're sure it was your dad's car?" Tolliver asked. "Absolutely sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," Victor said, as if he had his back against the wall and an army against him. "Of course, dude. I know my own dad's car."
I'd never heard anyone call Tolliver "dude" before, and even under the circumstances, I was kind of enjoying it. "What's he drive?" I asked Victor.
"He's got a Lexus hybrid," Victor said. "A bamboo pearl—colored Lexus with the ivory leather interior. We looked at the website for like a week before we ordered the car."
Okay, that was distinctive. It couldn't be confused with many other cars, for sure. I was conscious of a bitter disappointment, as if a show dog I'd become fond of had turned and bit me.
"And you never asked him about that," I said, and I couldn't keep the disbelief out of my voice. "You're saying your dad could have snatched your sister, and you've known that all along, and yet you've never said anything to anybody about it."
Victor turned a deep red. Barney looked at me with outright hostility.
"Because," I went on when they didn't speak, "you know you're telling us that your father lied about where he was, and you're saying he almost certainly grabbed your half sister, his daughter, and killed her."
He raised his head, and almost spoke; his mouth moved; and he was so young, so disturbed, it almost hurt to badger him like this, but I had to.
"Leave him alone," Barney said. His big hands, so smooth and unscarred, had fisted. "Vic's been through hell over this. He knows his dad couldn't do anything like that. But he saw the car, and he can't forget that. You don't know what it's like."
Actually, I did, pretty much.
"So, Victor, you gifted us with this information—why? So we could be disturbed, along with you?"
Victor's face couldn't have gotten any redder, and he obviously had to dredge for a reason he'd unburdened himself on us after more than a year of silence. "I thought," he said painfully, "I thought you'd know who killed her. I thought you'd be able to see it. I couldn't tell. I already said, then I'd have to say I was home when I said I wasn't, too… I was scared."
"How have you been able to live in the house with him for all these months?" I asked, out of sheer curiosity.
"I didn't see him." Victor struggled with what he wanted to say. "I saw the car. I didn't see his face, I didn't talk to him, I just saw the car. There are other Lexuses in the world, like my grandfather's. There are plenty in that neighborhood. We lived in pretty nice suburb."
"But you seem convinced that it was your father."
"Just because it was where it was. So close to our house. And at the time, I thought, 'There's Dad.' Because of course, Granddad was in Memphis, and we were in Nashville."
Tolliver sat back in his chair and gave me a quizzical look. What were we supposed to do with this? Something, some small thing, at the time had convinced this wretched boy that he was seeing his father in his father's car. He hadn't doubted it. Now, he was saying he hadn't actually seen the driver. There were other pearl-colored Lexuses—Lexi?—around, of course, as Victor had also pointed out. I almost hated the boy for giving us the burden of useless knowledge.
Victor, however, seemed to be feeling better now that he'd told us the story. I could see by the little gathering motions of his body that Victor was preparing to sweep out with his boyfriend in tow. I felt angry about that, but I struggled against it. After all, I didn't have any right to beat the boy to a pulp because he'd finally revealed a secret he should have told right off.
A sharp knock at the door made me jump. The two boys looked pretty anxious, and I knew for sure that no one in his family knew where Victor was. I was beginning to think that our suite was the home away from home for anyone remotely connected to the disappearance of Tabitha Morgenstern.
Tolliver looked out the peephole, not a normal precaution of his.
"David," he said briefly. Victor and Barney moved apart as if their inner attraction had suddenly been set on "repel." Instead of being a couple, they were transformed into a couple of guilty teenage buddies, caught somewhere they had no reason to be, by an adult who would surely scold them. "Should I let him in?"
"Why not?" I said, throwing my hands out.
David stepped into the room, his eyes flashing around to all the corners suspiciously. Vindication was written large on his face when he saw his nephew. "Victor, what the hell are you doing here?" he asked, righteous indignation practically dripping from his voice.
"Hello, David, good to see you again," I said, and David Morgenstern finally looked at me and turned red.
"You thieving bitch," he said, and Tolliver hit him.
sixteen
THE blow was not premeditated in any way. Tolliver simply drew back his arm and hit David Morgenstern in the stomach as hard as he could. As David collapsed to the carpet, choking and clutching his stomach, Tolliver closed the door so no one in the hall could observe the recovery of our guest. Barney looked scared, and Victor looked about a thousand different things—astonished, envious, and angry being the most identifiable.