Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

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,” hetold 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.
    â€œBlaming 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.”
    â€œOh, 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.
    â€œWe’ll stop by Edwards’s office and get the check on our way out of town.”
    â€œWe better cash it quick,” I said, speaking from bitter experience.
    The motel phone rang again. We looked at each other. I picked it up.
    â€œMiss Connelly,” said a woman. “Harper Connelly?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThis 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.
    IT 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 theoriginal 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.
    Tolliver said, “I’ll wait in the car.”
    I’d assumed the lawyer would have left the check in an envelope at the reception desk, but Edwards himself came out when I told his secretary my name. He shook my hand while the parched and dyed blonde watched his every move with fascination. I could see why. Paul Edwards was a man with charm.
    He ushered me back into his