“So if he didn’t kill himself,” she said, talking faster and faster, “then he didn’t kill Teenie, and if he didn’t kill Teenie, then he didn’t . . .” She stopped with an almost comic expression of panic, her eyes popping wide and her mouth clamped together to block the crucial word in, whatever it might have been.

A pounding at the door startled Tolliver and me; we’d been staring at Nell Teague as if we could pry the end of the sentence out of her with our eyes.

“Wonderful,” I said after I looked through the peephole. “It’s Sybil Teague, Tolliver.”

“Ohmigod,” said our visitor, who suddenly looked even younger than her age.

I cursed very thoroughly but silently, wishing that Sybil had arrived five minutes earlier. I had a fleeting idea that we could sneak Nell out through Tolliver’s room, but as sure as we tried that, we’d be caught. After all, we hadn’t done anything wrong. I opened the door, and Sybil came in like a well-groomed goddess of wrath.

“Is my child here?” she demanded, though we were making no move to conceal Nell, who was sitting in plain view. It was like she’d preplanned the moment.

“Right here,” Tolliver said gently, with an edge of sarcasm to his voice. Sybil flushed, her natural color warring with the carefully applied tints of rose and cream.

Sybil took in the sight of Nell sitting in the chair, unmolested and with a Diet Coke clutched in her hand, and she seemed to deflate. “Where have you been, young lady?” she asked, rallying almost instantly. “I expected you home two hours ago.”

Fortunately for us, Nell decided to come clean. “I followed them. They went to Flo and Jo’s for supper,” the teenager told her mother. “They took their time. I followed them here, and then I asked them if I could come in.”

“You drove back in the rain from that place, with the roads slick, in the dark?” Sybil Teague’s face went even paler. “I’m glad I didn’t know about it.”

“Mom, I’ve driven in rain plenty of times.”

“Oh, yes, in the two years you’ve been driving. You have nowhere near enough experience . . .” Sybil took a deep breath and made herself relax. “All right, Nell, I know you wanted to talk about what happened to your brother. God knows, I’ve wanted to find out, too. And I thought this woman would give me answers. I just have more questions than I started out with, now.”

“This woman” felt like throwing up her hands in exasperation. “This woman” did not like being spoken of as though she weren’t there.