He said, “Hello again, Miss Connelly.”

“Hi. I forgot to tell you what a good job you did at the memorial service. I hope you all took up a good bit of money toward the funerals.”

“Praise God, I think we got about twelve thousand dollars together now,” he said.

“That’s great!” I was genuinely impressed. That was a huge amount of money in a poor community like Doraville. Divided among the six local boys, that wasn’t much, especially when you considered the cost of an average funeral these days. But it would help.

As if he could read my mind, Doak said, “Three of the boys had burial insurance, so they won’t need funds. And we’re hoping to bring in at least three thousand more with a raffle. Twyla has very generously offered to match whatever we make for the raffle.”

“That is generous.”

“She’s a great woman. Can I ask you a question just out of sheer curiosity, Miss Connelly?”

“Ah…okay.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been in that old barn behind the Almand house. Where was the poor young man?”

“He was in a kind of—oh, wait, I’m not supposed to talk about it. Sorry, the cops made me promise.”

“Well, you hear all kinds of things, you know,” he said. “I just wanted to get the facts straight. Where’s your companion?”

“He’s coming right back out in just a second,” I said. Suddenly I felt very alone, though I was parked in a driveway on a suburban street. I jumped, pretending I’d felt my phone vibrate. “Hello?” I said, holding it to my ear. “Oh, hi, Sheriff. Yeah, I’m here at Twyla’s, talking to Pastor Garland. He’s standing right here, do you need him? No? Okay.” I made an apologetic face at the minister, and he smiled and waved, and started into the house. I kept up the false conversation until he’d gone in the back door.

Half of me felt like a very big idiot, and the other half was simply relieved that he was gone. Where the hell was Tolliver? What was taking him so long?

I turned in my seat and began to undo my seat belt. I’d go in to find out what he was doing. I was really anxious. I had the uneasy feeling I’d overlooked something big.

Something about the ninth boy, the one who’d lived.

I stopped what I was doing and considered. He’d been identified. He was safe in the hospital in Asheville. He might never speak about what had happened to him, but I thought it was probable he would, when he got used to being safer and felt better physically. When he did begin to talk, he would identify the other killer, if in fact there was another one.