Page 64 of Night Hawk
“I’m real sorry to hear that.” He planted his hands on the arms of the chair.
It was then she noticed that he had long, narrow fingers like hers, though his knuckles were gnarled.
She wanted to take her time and absorb her grandparents’ essence. To sit and look at them both and find other similarities between them, but she had a purpose in coming here, and she wouldn’t forget the girls who were depending on her. “Would you tell us what happened when Lisa went missing?”
Her grandmother stiffened. “Is the FBI agent wanting to know, or is my granddaughter asking?”
“Both,” Toni admitted. “I can’t separate the two, but I’ve been an agent longer than I’ve known you were alive, so probably more agent than anything.”
“They told you we were dead?” her grandfather asked. “Your parents, I mean.”
She nodded.
He sucked in a sharp breath and gripped the arms of his chair.
Toni didn’t like seeing him upset. It wasn’t in a close or personal way, but more like an agent observing suffering people. Would she ever feel anything for this man? He seemed okay, but then she didn’t know anything about him and needed to stay on track so she could learn something. She focused on his face, the wrinkles telling of his years of living, so many of them with the sorrow of losing a granddaughter and being estranged from a daughter.
“Can you tell me why my parents didn’t want me to know about you?” She hated that the suspicion in her tone tightened her grandfather’s expression, but her parents were good people and had to have had a good reason to lie to her. At least she’d thought they were good. Now she didn’t know.
“Answer’s as simple as can be.” Her grandmother captured Toni’s attention as she crossed her arms. “They blamed us for Lisa’s disappearance.”
“Were you responsible?” Clay asked.
Toni gasped and looked up at him, but his gaze was razoring between her grandparents like a bullet seeking a target.
“In as much as she was in our care at the time, yes.” Her grandfather crossed his long arms and glared at Clay. “But in every other way, no.”
“She just vanished!” her grandmother cried out as she sat forward. “We said good-night, and she was gone in the morning.”
“What was she wearing when she disappeared?” Toni asked.
Both of her grandparents shook their heads. “She was wearing Rainbow Brite pajamas, but those pjs were on the bed. So she must’ve changed at some point, but I didn’t know what she’d brought with her. And even your mother couldn’t come up with what was missing from Lisa’s suitcase.”
Clay shook his head. “Do you think she left voluntarily?”
“She wouldn’t do that,” her grandmother said forcefully. “She’d only been here three days. She didn’t know anyone, and no one knew her.”
“No one,” her grandfather echoed.
“Just me, Walt, and Andrew.”
“And you don’t think Andrew had anything to do with her disappearance?” Clay asked.
“Of course not. Why would we think that?”
“Because of his near conviction for sex with a minor.”
Her grandmother waved a hand. “He was innocent and cleared. He volunteered for a church youth group, and a girl got it in her mind that he’d assaulted her at camp. But they never proved he did it.”
“They didn’t prove he didn’t, either,” Clay said. “He was released on a technicality, not because he didn’t do it.”
Her grandmother glared at Clay. “I know my brother. He wouldn’t have done such a thing.”
Ah, now Toni was seeing the hesitancy and unease that had Ziegler questioning if there was more to the story than they were letting on.
“What about Andrew’s friends?” Clay asked. “He grew up here. Did he see anyone while he was home?”
“He was kind of a loner,” her grandfather said, not really answering the question.
