“I’ll give you a few minutes to look the menu over,” she said as we slid into the corner booth. “But how about something to drink first?”

We both ordered iced tea—sweet, of course, this is the South after all—and Rhonda bustled away.

I gave the room a quick scan—habit, you know, and when I looked back across the table Patricia was looking directly at me. We held the gaze a second before she said, “I was hoping to see you, Kennesaw. In fact, I was thinking I might stop by that bar at your dock and try to catch you at happy hour.”

“Yeah, I’m glad we ran into each other. And I’ll just tell you this—I want to see more of you, Patricia—it’s as simple as that. And I’d like to call with no other reason than to talk with you and hear your voice,” I said as I slid a hand across the table and placed my fingertips over hers.

She looked down at our hands, and when she looked up again it was with a warm smile on her face.

“I’d like that, too,” she breathed as we held the look a bit longer.

Then she withdrew her hand and picked up the menu and gave it a cursory look. “And since you’re buying, I think I’ll have a Low Country Boil. Eddie—the chef here—makes one that’s the talk of the town. And when the weather is as dreary as it has been, it’s a dish that’ll put a little cheer back in your soul,” she announced as Rhonda set the tea glasses on the table.

“Make that two of them,” I said to the waitress as she looked from Patricia to me.

“Two Low Country Boils it is,” she replied.

We waited until the girl was gone and then Patricia spoke, “So what’s your interest in the girl?”

I took a sip of tea and began my tale. Patricia sat quietly and listened without interruption as I told her of my initial meeting with Joree Causey, and her concern that Tonya had been killed by “them sons a bitches.”

When I finished that portion of the story Patricia nodded and said, “I tried to find the callers who reported a jumper.”

“Tried?” I asked with surprise.

“Yeah—tried. It was from a prepaid phone that was a throwaway.”

“But there has to be a record of the purchaser,” I hastened to respond.

“Paid for with cash—no record of who bought it,” she answered with a flat voice.

I thought a second. “Both nine-one-one calls were from a prepaid phone? That’s mighty odd.”

“What’s even more odd—the calls were from the same phone. The voice of one caller was a woman’s, and the next call that came in was from a man, but the call was from the same phone.”