"Crap. It's Dr. Nunley," I said. "He's still wearing the clothes he had on when he grabbed me at the hotel." I pressed the button on my watch, and the dial illuminated. It looked as though I had a fairy perched on my wrist. "It's been three hours since that happened. Just three hours. The lobby staff had to talk to Dr. Nunley to get him to leave, and they'll remember it. This couldn't be worse."

"Not for him, anyway," my brother said, his voice dry. But he had a slight smile on his face. I could just see the edge of his mouth in the cast-back light. I felt like punching him in the arm, but I wasn't sure I had enough muscle control to manage it. "And it's not so good for us, you're right," Tolliver admitted.

"Have we left footprints? Has it rained since we got here yesterday?"

"No, but the dirt here around the grave has been turned over, and I'm sure we've left traces somewhere. On the other hand, so many people have come through the cemetery since you found Tabitha… and we're both wearing the same shoes we wore out here yesterday."

"But there wasn't this loose dirt then. I don't know how we would explain coming out here tonight. Oh, I'm so sorry I got you into this."

"Bullshit," he said briskly. "We were doing what we do. You wanted to see if you could get some other bit of information from the grave. Well, we found out more than we wanted to know, huh? But it's not your fault." He hesitated. "Do you want to try to talk to him, the—the ghost? And what about getting a reading from the body?"

Tolliver's suggestion was as bracing as that brisk slap detectives give hysterical women in old movies. "Yes," I said. "Sure." Of course, I should have thought of that. I had to calm myself first, and center myself. Not too easy, since I was already buzzing like crazy just from being so close to a fresh body.

The closest I could get to Clyde Nunley's corpse without climbing down into the grave—which might have destroyed or damaged evidence—was to hang over the edge with my hand extended to him. I lay down on the ground and wriggled forward. Tolliver held on to my legs. The hole wasn't so deep, and I managed to touch the shirt on Dr. Nunley's back.

His death was so recent it was like a continuous droning in my head, almost drowning my reason, and I had to wait for that to subside before I got a sense of his passing. "Hit on the head," I mumbled, caught up in the sheer astonishment he'd felt. "On the back of the head. So surprised." The shock of it was still lingering around him. He absolutely had not expected the attack.

"Here?"