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"Dr Nunley And in Detective Lacey’s defense, he did ask me that at the station"

"Did Nunley say who’d asked hiet the impression it was just his idea?" I went back out into the living rooet a drink Tolliver trailed after ht someone had drawn you to his attention, because he asked a lot of questions If he’d been the one who’d originated the invitation, he would have known more about you That’s my opinion"

"Okay So we need to talk to him" I sympathized when Tolliver ht" Tolliver pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked a number on a folded piece of paper Tolliver always has bits of paper in his pockets, and if he didn’t do his own laundry I’d have to be searching his pants all the tiht number and punched it in Fro to the phone ringing on the other end Finally, a recorded e cae "Dr Nunley, this is Tolliver Lang," he said briskly "Harper and I need to talk to you There are sos left unresolved after yesterday’s unexpected discoveries You have my cell number"

"Now he’ll think ant our money"

Tolliver considered this "Yes, and he’ll call back about that," he said finally "Coet anything for this I can’t help but be glad we’re getting the Morgenstern reward money"

"I don’t really want to have earned it, you know?" He patted me on the shoulder; he knew exactly what I meant Of course, he also knew that ould take it We sure deserved it "I can’t help feeling that we’ve been yanked into this I just hope we haven’t been shoved right under a ladder or so someone else’s fall for this"

"Not if I can help it," Tolliver said "I know I’ve slipped up, but you can be sure I’ll do everything in my power froensterns’ mess And it’s a simple fact that we didn’t take Tabitha, a provable fact In fact, what date was she taken?" We looked it up on the Internet Tolliver checked our previous year’s schedule God bless computers "We were in Schenectady then," he said, relief in his voice, and I laughed

"That’s plenty far enough," I said "I’ot receipts to back that up?"

"Yes, on file at the apartment," he said

"Not just another pretty face," I said, and cupped his chin in ave him a kiss on the cheek But er than a few seconds "Tolliver, who could have done this? Killed the girl, and put her there? Can it possibly be true that it’s a massive coincidence?"

He shook his head "I don’t think that’s even remotely likely"

"You and I both know that massive coincidences usually aren’t But I just can’t iine a conspiracy so elaborate"

"I can’t either," he said

Oddly enough, the next person we heard from was Xylda Bernardo

We’d just finished lunch It was an uneasy meal Art had shared it with us, and since he ate a completely different kind of ht lunch), and he liked to talk business while he ate, I can’t say we enjoyed it a whole lot Art was about to catch a flight back to Atlanta, since he couldn’t think of anything else to do in Mee us with anything that he could discover; and he’d made many, many phone calls to everyone he knew in the justice system in Memphis to try to find out We’d basically paid a whole hell of a lot for Art to fly over here first class to stay at a great hotel, make a lot of phone calls, and hold one press conference; but we’d known it had been a gae salad, garlic bread, and veal ravioli, while Tolliver and I were having soup and salad on a s Art chew hunks of bread and trying to re e should expect

"You’ll probably need to produce a record of your travels during the tilanced at Tolliver and he nodded We were covered on all that During the years we’d been traveling, Tolliver and I had learned to keep every single receipt, every single credit card slip, every single piece of paper that crossed our paths This past year, we’d been especially diligent We had a cheap accordion file that was always on hand in the back seat of the car, and the laptop; we kept good records We sent off regular packets to our accountant, Sandy Dierdoff, as based in St Louis She was a broadly curvy blonde in her forties "Crap," I said She’d only raised her eyebrows and given a bark of laughter e’d explained e did for a living She’d seeiven us s with her than Art had ever even thought of sharing Sandy had already e our annual appoint about Sandy, and by extension our apartoodbye to Art We saw hi of relief Art was kind of proud of having us as clients, as if ere show business people; but at the same time, he wasn’t at his easiest or most relaxed when he was alone with us

After he left, and the staff had reht we could go out for a walk I still hadn’t forgiven Tolliver his huge error in judg to put it on the back burner until I’d calht restore our sense of co his head before the sentence even got out of ym," he reminded me "I know you don’t want to be cooped up in this hotel, but if we go anywhere, someone’ll spot us and want a statement"

I called down to the front desk to ask if there were still reporters waiting outside the hotel The deskman replied that he couldn’t be sure, but that he suspected so in the coffee shop across the street were lasses and a hat and we’ll go to the movies," he said He found the co and looked upat e of the Metro section I’d only looked at the front section thisdeep-set eyes and an erect posture, arht the picture made me look quite a bit more than twenty-four and that ht beside me in the photo, was taller, darker, and more solid

We both looked desperately troubled We looked like refugees froees who’d fled so behind all they held of value