The Final Victim(93)

"Huh?"

"I mean, I know your freak cousin is in jail-Devin filled me in before she left."

"Where did she go?" 'To visit her dad for the weekend. And by the way, she couldn't get ahold of you, either. God, Lianna, I have been totally thinking the worst ever since I heard what happened to your stepdad. I swear, I've been trying to call you all weekend."

"On my cell?"

"Yes! Didn't you get my messages?"

"No, my cell is-the, um, battery died and I can't find the charger."

"Well, I tried you on your regular phone, too, and the recording kept saying your number was out of service."

"I guess that storm yesterday knocked it out," Lianna says, before remembering that she had used it several times, to call Kevin. The last time she talked to him, Friday afternoon, he asked her to try to sneak out Sunday afternoon to meet him. She told him she'd think about it.

Which is all she's done since… not that she's made any decision yet, even though Sunday is here.

"Maybe the storm did something to the line so it just can't get incoming calls," she muses aloud.

"Yeah, it says the number's not in service. You better tell your mother."

"I will. Right now, actually," Lianna says hurriedly, thinking her father or Kevin might be trying to get in touch with her today.

She tells her friend she'll call her right back, and goes downstairs to hunt down her mom. She finds her, conveniently located right in the first-floor stair hall, standing on a tall stool in front of the open door to the coat closet beneath the stairs.

"Mom, there's something wrong with the phone. Casey's been trying to call for days and she keeps getting some recording."

"Oh." Mom's voice is muffled as she stretches to reach inside the closet, moving things around on the top shelf. 'That's because I changed the number."

"You what?"

"Changed it. Because of all those nosy reporters who kept calling."

"Are you serious? And you didn't even tell me?"

Mom's head pops out of the closet and she flashes Lianna an apologetic look. "I'm sorry… I honestly forgot to. I've had a lot on my mind."

Okay, that's totally true. She has. But still…

"Have you seen Phyllida lately?" Mom asks.

"No-oo," Lianna says, "but I doubt you're going to find her up there."

Mom doesn't even crack a smile. "What about your Great-Grandaddy's radio? Have you seen that, by any chance?"

"What radio?" 'The one that was on the mantel in the parlor?"

"Which parlor?"

"Never mind," her mother says, climbing down to move the stool forward a few inches. "I didn't think so. Come on, help me look for it."

"In the closet?"

"In the house. I thought maybe Nydia moved it because it stopped working, and stashed it someplace."

"So why don't you ask Nydia?"

"She has Sunday afternoons off. Listen, go into the utility drawer in the kitchen and grab the flashlight, will you? I can't see in the back."

Grumbling under her breath that she thought the days of slavery ended in the Deep South almost a hundred and fifty years ago, Lianna follows her mother's instructions. Or rather, she tries to.

"There's no flashlight in here," she calls, slamming the drawer shut.

There is. You're just not looking in the right place," comes the maddening reply.

She opens the drawer again and gives the contents a cursory glance. "Nope. Not here."

Hungry, she turns to the refrigerator and has about as much luck there as she did with the drawer. Nothing to eat. Nothing she wants, anyway.

She's about to pour herself a glass of sweet tea from the full cut glass pitcher when she hears a sound in the doorway and looks up to see her mother.

"What's up with Nydia, Mom? She's totally slacking off on the grocery shopping. Can you send her to the store?"

"She's off today. I meant to go myself this morning, but I got sidetracked." Her mother jerks open the utility drawer.

Lianna pours the tea, replaces the pitcher, and finds an apple. Not the reddish-orange Fuji ones she likes, but this green one will have to do.

She watches in smug satisfaction, polishing the Granny Smith on her T-shirt as her mother conducts her own fruidess search for the missing flashlight.

"See? I told you it wasn't in there."

"Well, it must be around here someplace," Mom snaps, opening the next drawer down and rifling through stacks of dish towels. Next, she rummages through the cooking utensils, clattering metal against metal in growing frustration before finally giving up.

She turns on Lianna. "Have you borrowed it lately?"

"No! Why do you always think I have something to do with whatever you can't find?"

"Because," Mom says, opening the silverware drawer, "things don't just vanish into thin air."

"Are you sure about that?" Lianna asks, biting into the crisp-tart apple.

"Actually"-her mother slams the drawer so hard that the glass rattles in the overhead cupboards-"I'm not sure about that at all today. Maybe things do vanish into thin air. For all I know, people do, too."