Another text had come in from him. Where are you? Don’t make me file a missing person report. I’m not feeling very good toward the police right now.

With a sigh, she let herself respond. Sorry. It’s been crazy. I’ll explain when I get home. Just wanted to let you know I’m okay.

Can’t you call me? came his immediate response.

In a minute, she wrote back and pulled Ray Kouretas’s card from her purse.

Twenty-Four

Kouretas couldn’t imagine he’d have to hang around Silver Springs much longer. He was so confident he was close to getting what he wanted that he was at the gas station, filling his tank so he could head home. His wife was expecting him. She’d had another blowout with their teenage son, who’d taken off with his loser friends even though she’d said he couldn’t go anywhere.

“Who cares about Seth’s mother?” he said to Lois Ivey, who’d called him just as he’d pulled up to the pump.

“I care,” she said. “Everyone in town respects Aiyana. And you should’ve heard her. She was angrier than a hornet. She stood on my front porch, shouting questions at me like a lawyer—questions I had trouble answering and certainly couldn’t handle in court.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I told you this thing isn’t going to last that long. It’s a misdemeanor, anyway. It’s not going to court.”

“She said Seth will fight the charges, and I believe he will.”

“We’re going to drop the charges, remember? Just as soon as I can get a good picture of Tia. She has to let someone take one sooner or later. It might as well be me. Then she can save her new boyfriend at the same time. Believe me, this will be over before he can even hire an attorney.”

“But you said you haven’t heard from Tia.”

He grabbed his phone since it was starting to slip, and he didn’t want it to fall and crack on the cement. “I haven’t. Not yet. But I will.”

“Surely, she knows Seth is in legal trouble by now. Maybe we were wrong, and she doesn’t care. Maybe there really is nothing going on between them.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” he said. “The way he defended her? You should’ve seen it. I know what that kind of protective behavior means.”

“Seth is still in love with our daughter.”

“Which is why you should be pissed that he’s fooling around with someone else.” He hated having to hold Lois Ivey’s hand like this. She was what he termed a Nervous Nellie, all uptight and atwitter and constantly fearful and whining. But if he didn’t talk her down she might go to the police and admit she’d lied, and he couldn’t allow that. Not yet.