Charlaine Harris - Grave Sight

And there was a storm coming on.

I picked up my novel and tried to read. The darkness was thickening outside, and within ten minutes I had to turn on a lamp. From not too far off, there was a deep rumble. Thunder.

I made myself read a couple of sentences. I really, really wanted to lose awareness of the here and now. The best way for me to do that was bury myself in a book.

We keep a box of secondhand paperbacks in the backseat of the car. When each book has been read, we leave it where someone else can pick it up. If the book's in very good shape we keep it to trade. We stop at every secondhand bookstore we see to restock. I've read a lot of things I hadn't planned on reading, due to the selection at these stores. And I've read a lot of books years after they were bestsellers, which doesn't bother me a bit.

Tolliver's not quite as omnivorous as I am. He draws the line at romances (he thinks they're too predictable) and spy novels (he finds them ludicrous), but he'll read just about anything else. Westerns, mysteries, science fiction, even some non-fiction—almost any book is grist for our mill. Right now I was reading a tattered copy of Richard Preston's The Hot Zone . It was one of the most frightening things I'd ever read—but I'd rather be afraid of Preston's account of the origin and spread of the Ebola virus than think about the rumble of the thunder.

Before I tried to re-immerse myself in Preston's exploration of a cave in Africa, I glanced at the clock. I estimated that the waitress would leave the room next door in about an hour. Maybe by the time the storm got here, Tolliver would be alone.

With the book weighted open in front of me on the cheap table, I turned on my cordless curler and used it. Then I brushed my hair. From time to time I glanced up at the mirror. I looked okay, I thought. Not too bad. Frail and pale, though.

My brother and I didn't look anything alike, aside from the similarity in our coloring—black hair, brown eyes. Tolliver looked tough, secretive, a little forbidding. His scarred cheeks and wide, bony shoulders made him seem very male.

But it was me who frightened people.

Thunder rumbled again, much closer. Not even the Ebola virus could hold my attention now. I tried to distract myself. The sheriff would have gotten Teenie Hopkins' body out of the woods by now, and it would be on its way to Little Rock. I bet he was glad he'd gotten her out before the rain. It couldn't have taken long, since there wouldn't exactly be a crime scene to secure. Of course, even the most lax police officer would search the area. I wondered if Hollis had been part of the search. I wondered if they'd found anything. I should have asked Hollis questions while I was in his truck. Maybe he was out in the woods, right at this moment.

But what difference did it make, really? I would be gone before anyone was brought to justice. I tapped my fingernails against the table in an anxious rhythm, my feet patting along to an inaudible beat. I switched off the lamp and the light in the bathroom.

I was going to conquer this. This time, it would not get the best of me.

A boom of thunder was followed by a brilliant bolt of lightning. I jumped about a foot. Though the curler was cordless, I turned it off. I unplugged the television and went to sit on the foot of my bed, on the shiny, green, slick motel bedspread. More thunder, and another crack of lightning outside the window. I shivered, my arms crossed over my abdomen. The rain pounded down outside the motel room, drumming on the roof of our car, splashing violently against the pavement. Another lightning bolt. I made a little noise, involuntarily.

The door between the rooms opened and Tolliver came in, a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair still wet from the shower. I saw a flicker of movement in his room; the waitress, pulling on her clothes, her face angry.

He sat on the end of the bed by me, his arm around my shoulders. He didn't say a word. Neither did I. I shivered and shook until the lightning was past.

SARNE seemed like a complicated little town. I would be glad when we left it. We were supposed to show up in Ashdown within the next couple of days, and I wanted to keep the appointment. I try to be as professional as my odd calling will permit.

There were times we sat in our apartment in St. Louis for two weeks at a stretch. Then the phone would ring steadily, one call right after another. With my work schedule so unpredictable, we had to be ready to get on the road at any time. The dead could wait forever, but the living were always urgent.

The sheriff called me the next morning right before seven. Normally, I would've been out for a run, but the day after I both find a body and get through a storm is going to be a slow day. I peered at the clock before I lifted the receiver. "The body's Teenie, the lab in Little Rock said," he told me. He sounded tired, though it was early and he should just have risen from a night's sleep. "Go pick up your check at Paul Edwards's office." He hung up. He didn't say, "And never come here again," but the words were hanging in the air.

Tolliver had just come in, dressed and ready for breakfast, his favorite meal. He looked at my face as I hung up the room phone.

"Blaming the messenger," he said. "I guess it was a positive ID?"

I nodded. "I never understand that. You know, they ask me here to find the body. I find the body. Then they're pissed at me, and they give me the check like I should have done the whole thing for free."

He shrugged. "I guess we would do it for free if we could get a government grant or something."

"Oh, sure, the government just loves me." Paying taxes was excruciating—not because I minded giving the devil his due, but because accounting for my income was very difficult. I called myself a consultant. So far, I'd flown under the radar, but that would change sooner or later.

Tolliver grinned while I pulled on a T-shirt and a sweater. Since I'd planned today as a traveling day, I was wearing jeans. I don't care much about clothes, except my blue jeans. I'm particular about them. This was my favorite pair, and they were worn thin in spots.

"We'll stop by Edwards's office and get the check on our way out of town."

"We better cash it quick," I said, speaking from bitter experience.

The motel phone rang again. We looked at each other. I picked it up.

"Miss Connelly," said a woman. "Harper Connelly?"

"Yes?"

"This is Helen Hopkins. I'm Sally and Teenie's momma. Can you come talk to me?" Hollis's mother-in-law: Had he told her what I'd found at the cemetery?

I closed my eyes. I so didn't want to do this. But this woman was the mother of two murdered women. "Yes ma'am, I guess so."

She gave me her address and asked if I could come in a half hour. I told her it'd be an hour, but we'd be there.

I T actually took us a bit over an hour, because after we'd checked out of the motel and loaded our bags and gone into the restaurant, Janine, the waitress Tolliver had entertained the afternoon before, dragged her feet serving us. She'd glare at me, try to touch him—a performance both obvious and painful. Did she think I was forcing my brother to stay with me, dragging Tolliver all around the United States in my wake? Did she imagine that if I relaxed my grip on him, he'd stay here in Sarne and get a job at the grocery store, make her an honest woman?

Sometimes I teased him about his conquests, but this wasn't one of those times. His cheeks were flushed when we left, and he didn't say a word as we drove to Paul Edwards's downtown office. It was housed in an old home right off the town square, a home which had been painted in lime green and light blue, a whimsical combination I'm sure the original builders would have deplored. Paul Edwards was fitting into the image Sarne was trying to sell the tourists, that of a fun-house antique town with something interesting around every corner.