Charlaine Harris - Grave Secret

Iona stopped stirring and turned from the stove to face me. I was drying the dishes and putting them on the counter for Iona to put away in their designated spots. “I appreciate you saying that,” she said. “Though I was glad to have them, and taking them into our home was the right thing to do. We prayed about it. That’s the answer we come up with. We love these girls like they were our own. I can’t believe we’re going to have another baby! At my age! Sometimes I feel like Abraham’s wife, seventy years old and with child.”

Until the meal was ready we talked about Iona’s startling pregnancy. We talked about her ob/gyn doctor, special tests she might need as an older first-time mother, and all kinds of pregnancy-related topics. Iona was happier than I’d ever seen her, and anything about her interesting condition was fun for her to talk about. I tried to concentrate on looking happy and asking the right questions, but underneath our conversation, I was worried about Matthew’s appearance at the house, about his taking pictures of the girls. He didn’t want photos of them for his own pleasure or because he was proud of having two such healthy daughters. Matthew never did anything that simple and straightforward.

Tolliver came to the table first, so he could get into position with his paraphernalia, and then Hank. The girls washed their hands and took their places, and Iona and I carried the food to the table. Iona had made chili and cornbread, and I’d grated cheese to sprinkle on the steaming bowls. We said grace before we ate, and then we enjoyed eating. Iona had none of the characteristics I associate with good cooks-she wasn’t passionate; she didn’t love fresh ingredients like all the chefs on TV; she’d never traveled much and she was suspicious of foreign cuisine. But her chili was wonderful, her cornbread mouth-watering.

Tolliver and I both had more than one bowlful, and Iona looked gratified at our praise. Mariella and Gracie were full of conversation about school and their friends, and I was glad to hear that both of them seemed to get along well with the other children. Gracie was wearing a green top that matched her eyes, so she looked like a little fairy, though her bold little nose hinted that she might not be a benevolent one. She was a funny little thing. She was really “on” tonight, telling little jokes she’d heard in class, asking Iona if they could have chili dogs the next night if any of the chili was left over. Mariella mentioned Matthew’s visit a couple of times, dragging it into the conversation as if it worried her. Each time, Iona or Hank would respond calmly, and I could see Mariella’s anxiety abating.

Tolliver and I left soon after we’d eaten, in deference to the girls’ evening routine. Our sisters were so excited by a discussion about what to name the baby that the topic of Tolliver and me getting married seemed to have slipped to the backs of their minds, to my relief.

I drove back to the hotel, and Tolliver sat in silence. Now that it was dark, I had to concentrate more on navigating, and we made one false turn before we got back. It was easily corrected, and soon I was helping Tolliver out of the car. I could tell he was tired, but he was moving better.

We were crossing the lobby when he said, “Hank said Dad took pictures of the girls.”

“That’s what Iona told me. I think they were smart to let the girls see Matthew with them both around, so they could kind of put him in perspective.”

“Yeah, that was a smart move,” Tolliver said, but not as though he was giving it any thought. “But why would he really want pictures of them?”

“I don’t think your dad is the kind of guy who puts pictures of his kids on Facebook, do you? So I can’t imagine.”

“Oh, I doubt he’d do that,” Tolliver said matter-of-factly. “Listen, you took care of the girls when they were little.”

“You know I did. Cameron and me. Especially Gracie, she was so frail.” The automatic doors swooshed open and we went into the lobby. The desk clerk was eating a cookie. She glanced up at us, then went back to her book.

“Do you remember when Gracie went to the hospital?” Tolliver said.

“Sure I do. I was scared to death. She was maybe three months old, still real little. Her birth weight was low, remember? She was so sick, and she had been running a temperature for four days. We’d been hassling your dad to take her to the clinic or to the emergency room. Mom was so out of it that she couldn’t go. No doctor would have let her leave with a baby in her arms. Your dad was really mad at us, but he got a phone call from some friend of his, and I guess the guy was repaying a loan or paying for some dope or something, because all of a sudden Matthew decided he would take Gracie. We barely had time to change her diaper and remind him how to buckle her in the car seat before he drove off. He took her to Wadley.”

“How do you know that?”

I unlocked the room door and pushed it open. “What do you mean, how do I know that? He took her to the hospital. He brought her back after a couple of weeks. They’d had her in ICU, so we couldn’t see her. He stayed with her. How could it not have been true? When he brought her back Gracie looked so much better, I could hardly believe it was…” I froze.

“You couldn’t believe it was Gracie, could you?” Tolliver said after a long silence.

I put my hand over my mouth. Tolliver carefully sat down on the edge of the couch.

When I could move, I sat down on the chair and our eyes met. “No,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it was Gracie. Her eyes were a hazy blue, but a few weeks after her stay in the hospital, they turned out to be green. So I figured she was older than most babies when their eyes change to their real color. And Matthew said that the doctors told him to put her back on just the bottle, even though she’d started to eat some baby food…”

“You took care of Gracie more than Cameron did.”

“Yeah, I did. Cameron was so busy that year, it was her senior year, and I was home more because of the lightning strike.”

“Were you still having trouble with the aftereffects?”

“Oh, yeah, you remember, I had trouble for months. Before I learned to cope. I had terrible headaches, and a lot of pain. But I did my best for Gracie and Mariella,” I said, knowing I sounded defensive.

“Of course you did. You kept all of us going. But my point is, there might have been things you didn’t notice because you were having so many physical problems and you were so distracted by sensing the dead people.”

That had certainly been a terrible time in my life. Teenagers are ill equipped to cope with a huge gaping difference between themselves and other teens. “Your point is that I might not have noticed some changes in the baby? You think Matthew left with one baby and came back with another. You’re saying the real Gracie is dead.”

He nodded. “It was Chip who came to the trailer some,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I remember him. Maybe Drex, too, but Chip for sure. He had some drug deals with my dad.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “I thought they looked a bit familiar. And if one of them took Dr. Bowden out to the ranch that night, and they wanted to get rid of a baby without killing it…”

“They might have called Matthew, who had a real sick baby that wasn’t going to make it.”

“How could they? How could they imagine that Matthew would switch babies? Why would they want to, anyway?”

“If the baby was the biological child of Rich Joyce and Mariah Parish, then she would be literally worth millions.”

I couldn’t speak for a minute. “But why not just kill her, and then the millions would stay where they were? With the three Joyce grandchildren?”