Free An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris Page A

healthy for the baby, when she remembered. And that church group brought by the turkey.”
    â€œWe followed the directions. It turned out okay.”
    There’d been a cookbook in the house, and Cameron had figured we could read directions as well as anyone. After all, our parents had been lawyers before they fell in love with the lifestyle and vices of the people they defended. We had smart genes in our makeup. Luckily, the cookbook was a thorough one that assumed you were totally ignorant, and the turkey had really been good. The dressing was strictly Stove Top Stuffing, and the cranberry sauce came out of a can. We’d bought a frozen pumpkin pie and opened a can of green beans.
    â€œIt turned out better than okay,” he said.
    And he was right. It had been wonderful.
    Cameron had been so determined that day. My older sister was pretty and smart. We didn’t look anything alike. From time to time, I wondered if we really were full sisters, given the way our mom’s character had crumbled. You don’t suddenly lose all your morals, right? It happens over time. I caught myself wondering if my mother’s had started to erode a few years before she and my dad parted. But maybe I’m wrong about that. I sure hope so. When Cameron went missing, it felt like my own life had been cut in half. There was before Cameron, when things were very bad but tolerable, and after Cameron, when everything disintegrated: I went to foster care, my stepfather and my mother went to jail, and Tolliver went to live with Mark. Mariella and Gracie went to Aunt Iona and her husband.
    Cameron’s backpack, left by the side of the road the day she’d vanished on her way home from school, was still in our trunk. The police had returned it to us after a few years. We took it with us everywhere.
    I took a sip of water from my green hospital cup. There wasn’t any point in thinking about my sister. I’d resigned myself long since to the fact that she was dead and gone. Someday I’d find her.
    Every now and then, I’d glimpse some short girl with long blond hair, some girl with a graceful walk and a straight little nose, and I’d almost call out to her. Of course, if Cameron were alive, she wouldn’t be a girl any longer. She’d been gone now—let’s see, she’d been taken in the spring of her senior year in high school, when she was eighteen—God, she’d be almost twenty-six. Eight years gone. It seemed impossible to believe.
    â€œI called Mark,” Tolliver said.
    â€œGood. How was he?” Tolliver didn’t call Mark as often as he ought to; I didn’t know if it was a guy thing, or if there’d been some disagreement.
    â€œHe said to tell you to get well soon,” Tolliver said. That didn’t really answer my question.
    â€œHow’s his job going?”
    Mark had gotten promoted at work several times. He’d been a busboy, a waiter, a cook, and a manager at a family-style chain restaurant in Dallas. Now he’d been there at least five years. For someone who’d only managed three or four college semesters, he was doing well. He worked long hours.
    â€œHe’s nearly thirty,” Tolliver said. “He ought to be settling down.”
    I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t say anything. Tolliver was only a couple of years younger, plus a few months.
    â€œIs he dating someone special?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
    â€œIf he is, he hasn’t said anything.” After a pause, Tolliver said, “Speaking of dating, I ran into Manfred at the motel.”
    I almost asked why that reminded him of dating, but I thought the better of it. “Yeah, he came by,” I said. “He told me Xylda had had a vision or something and decided she better come here, too. He told me that Xylda is dying, and I guess he’s indulging her as much as he can. He’s sure a good grandson.”
    Tolliver