“I wondered if it was my father,” Tolliver said, and I froze in the middle of another yawn.

“You’re not kidding,” I said. “You mean it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Victoria was around a lot after Cameron disappeared, you know. But when I figured it out, the timing was wrong. I think he was already in jail by the time the baby was conceived. I never could figure out why women thought he was so attractive.”

“I sure don’t,” I said, with absolute sincerity.

“Well, good thing. You like men taller and thinner, right?”

“Oh, you bet, bay-bee. I love those string beans!”

Our hands clasped, and I snuggled closer to Tolliver on the bed. There was a little silence while we watched the rain hit the window of the room. The skies had decided to let go in earnest. I felt sorry for everyone who might still be out at the crime scene, and I decided they should be grateful to me for finding Victoria earlier, in time to get her body out of the culvert. I thought about the Joyce family, the kids who had grown up to be typical rich adults, as far as I could tell. They did some things that were quite good, but it was the bad things I was interested in. I thought it was significant that none of them had managed to sustain a happy marriage—though they were all in the prime age range, and one of them might make it yet. I was just about to shake my head over the truism that being rich didn’t mean being happy, when I had the unpleasant realization that Mark, Tolliver, Cameron, and I had hardly turned out to be fulfilled citizens, either. Cameron was in some unknown place, Mark had never had a serious girlfriend that I knew of, and Tolliver and I . . .

“Do you really want to get married?” I asked him.

“Yes, I really do,” he said without a second’s hesitation. “I’d do it tomorrow, if we could. There’s no doubt, is there? Do you have any worries about us being right for each other?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t. You’re sure far from the commitment-phobic guys in the magazines, Tolliver.”

“You’re not anything like the women in the men’s magazines, either. And that’s a compliment.”

“We sure know each other,” I said. “We’ve probably seen the worst of each other. I can’t imagine trying to get through life without you. Does that sound too clingy? I can try to be more independent.”

“You are independent. You make a lot of decisions, every day,” he said. “It’s just easier for me to make the practical arrangements. Then you do your specialty. Then we leave, and it’s my turn again.”

Somehow that didn’t sound completely even.

“Where’s Manfred?” he asked, suddenly, as if someone had poked him with a needle.