"I'm sure they don't take security for granted anymore," I said, very quietly, and a shadow crossed Felicia's narrow, elegant face.

"No, not anymore. I'm afraid they'll always be looking over their shoulders, with this baby that's coming. Victor is old enough to take care of himself, at least to some extent. Vic is a typical teenager." She shook her head, smiling. Typical teenagers, evidently, were stupid. "They think they're immortal."

"Victor, of all teenagers, should know that's not true."

Felicia looked abashed. But she plowed ahead with the conversation. "It's strange; Victor's physically healthy as a horse, like I am. His mom—my sister, Whitney—she was the sickly one in our family. Whitney had all these allergies when we were kids. My parents would have to sit up with her all night, she'd be wheezing and coughing." Felicia's face looked grim. I wondered what kind of nurturing Felicia had gotten while Whitney's heath crises were front and center in the Hart household. "She got pneumonia when we were in junior high, and mono, and tonsillitis, and when she was in college she had a ruptured appendix, after she'd started dating Joel. I've never been in a hospital." She looked over at her former brother-in-law. "You should have seen the care Joel took of her. He'd hardly let anyone else in the room during the final stages of her last illness. He wanted her all to himself. Second in hovering was my dad." She looked across the room at Fred Hart, who'd suddenly decided to talk to Joel. I didn't know what the conversation covered, but Joel was looking politely bored.

"I guess Victor was too young to visit the hospital much."

"Yeah, we didn't want him to remember Whitney like she looked toward the end. I stayed at their house and took care of Victor. He was so little, so cute."

"He's a handsome young man," I said politely.

"I still keep an eye on him for my sister's sake. It's been great, having them here in Memphis. Victor stays with me sometimes if things get too tense at home."

She was dying for me to ask her why things would be tense at home. Surely, the abduction and disappearance of a little girl was reason enough? "He's lucky to have such a conscientious aunt," I said, selecting the least weighted of responses. "I saw your brother a couple of times," Felicia said suddenly, as though tossing a pebble into a pool to see what happened.

"That's what he told me," I told her in a completely neutral voice.

She seemed stymied when I didn't continue. After a pause, Felicia said, "I think he took it a bit hard when the distances between us made me think we'd be better off apart."

I had no response to that, but I was angry, you can bet on it. This was totally not the story Tolliver had told me. So, of course, she was lying.