I shook my head, dazed. “So, if this is true, what do you think Matthew did with the real Gracie, his real daughter? Do you think he deliberately left with her that evening and exposed her or something?”

“I have no idea, and I’m not sure I really want to know . . . though I think we have to try to find out,” Tolliver said, and he sounded like an old man. “But I wonder if he ever really intended to take her to the hospital.”

“The pictures?”

“He wants pictures of Gracie. He just took some of Mariella to give his story some weight,” Tolliver said.

“How did you figure this out?”

“He might have showed up at the skating rink thinking he could take pictures of the girls without us knowing, but we spotted him before he could do it, and the girls were scared of him. He’d already started trying to open communication with Iona and Hank by writing them a letter. When he didn’t hear back, he probably thought he could sneak around them. After that didn’t work out, he decided to try an open approach, and it worked. Iona and Hank wanted to demystify him so the girls wouldn’t be so freaked, so they acted like his visit was normal. They were doing the right thing, but they couldn’t imagine what his motives were.”

“What will we do?” I had my elbows resting on my knees, and now I buried my face in my hands. “I can’t wrap my head around all this. How did Cameron fit into all this? Was it just a coincidence that she went missing then?”

“Maybe we made the whole conspiracy up,” Tolliver said. “Maybe we’re as bad as those people who think JFK was shot by Martians.”

“I wish,” I said. “I wish.”

“I wonder if Mark knows anything,” Tolliver said.

“We could call him.”

“Yeah, but Dad’s staying there now.”

“Maybe he could meet us somewhere.”

“We’ll call him tomorrow. After we go to Texarkana.”

“You sure you’re up to that? You’re not nearly finished with the antibiotics.”

“I think I’m enough better.”

“Sure, Dr. Lang.”

“Hey, there are other things we need besides being super careful about my shoulder.”

“We’ll see what the doctor says in the morning,” I told him, and he called me bossy. It felt nice, taking care of him. As upset as I was about the suspicion and the uncertainty surrounding Tolliver’s dad, I felt a little proud that I had managed so far. We went to bed after some more rounds of fruitless discussion, and I don’t think either of us slept very well that night. When Tolliver did fall asleep, he talked out loud; he only does that when he’s really upset.

“Save her,” he said.

Nineteen

Nineteen