He raised his head, and almost spoke; his mouth moved; and he was so young, so disturbed, it almost hurt to badger him like this, but I had to.

"Leave him alone," Barney said. His big hands, so smooth and unscarred, had fisted. "Vic's been through hell over this. He knows his dad couldn't do anything like that. But he saw the car, and he can't forget that. You don't know what it's like."

Actually, I did, pretty much.

"So, Victor, you gifted us with this information—why? So we could be disturbed, along with you?"

Victor's face couldn't have gotten any redder, and he obviously had to dredge for a reason he'd unburdened himself on us after more than a year of silence. "I thought," he said painfully, "I thought you'd know who killed her. I thought you'd be able to see it. I couldn't tell. I already said, then I'd have to say I was home when I said I wasn't, too… I was scared."

"How have you been able to live in the house with him for all these months?" I asked, out of sheer curiosity.

"I didn't see him." Victor struggled with what he wanted to say. "I saw the car. I didn't see his face, I didn't talk to him, I just saw the car. There are other Lexuses in the world, like my grandfather's. There are plenty in that neighborhood. We lived in pretty nice suburb."

"But you seem convinced that it was your father."

"Just because it was where it was. So close to our house. And at the time, I thought, 'There's Dad.' Because of course, Granddad was in Memphis, and we were in Nashville."

Tolliver sat back in his chair and gave me a quizzical look. What were we supposed to do with this? Something, some small thing, at the time had convinced this wretched boy that he was seeing his father in his father's car. He hadn't doubted it. Now, he was saying he hadn't actually seen the driver. There were other pearl-colored Lexuses—Lexi?—around, of course, as Victor had also pointed out. I almost hated the boy for giving us the burden of useless knowledge.

Victor, however, seemed to be feeling better now that he'd told us the story. I could see by the little gathering motions of his body that Victor was preparing to sweep out with his boyfriend in tow. I felt angry about that, but I struggled against it. After all, I didn't have any right to beat the boy to a pulp because he'd finally revealed a secret he should have told right off.

A sharp knock at the door made me jump. The two boys looked pretty anxious, and I knew for sure that no one in his family knew where Victor was. I was beginning to think that our suite was the home away from home for anyone remotely connected to the disappearance of Tabitha Morgenstern.