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and Seth photos of him taken after the tape across his mouth had been removed. He’d had a high forehead and small eyes, between which was a long nose with a bump on the bridge, like it had been broken a long time ago. In the photo, his thin lips were gray and waxy. It was too early to be definitive, but the initial cause of death was thought to be suffocation, and the time of death was estimated as sometime late Tuesday night or in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
    “Honey,” I said to Greg, “you need to see this.”
    “The food’s getting cold,” Greg complained as he rolled into our living room. In his hand was Mom’s coffee.
    “I’ll take that,” Mom said to him, holding out her hand. Greg handed her the coffee mug. Mom wrapped her hands around it and brought it close to her thin chest like it was a teddy bear.
    “We can nuke the food if we need to,” I told Greg. “This is important.” I handed him the tablet. “Read that.”
    Greg pulled his reading glasses from a pouch on the side of his wheelchair where he kept things he needed quick access to and slipped them on. I watched as he scanned the page, then moved to the next, then back to the first one. Behind his glasses, his eyes swelled in surprise like inflated party balloons. “Do you think this is our guy?”
    “The article says that Zach Finch was from Illinois, and the age in the article would come close,” I pointed out. “The cops told me the guy in my trunk was from Illinois, but that’s all they said besides his name.” I looked at Greg while my mind wrapped around the information in an effort to contain it. “The cops had to know about this, right?”
    “If he’s the same guy in this article, I’m betting they did.” He tapped the screen of the tablet. “Kidnapping is a federal crime. No wonder Special Agent Shipman was there. It’s also why they didn’t say much to you. They’ll be playing it close to the chest until they get more information. At least I would if I were them.” He looked up at me. “Are you hearing me, Odelia?” he said, changing to his lecture voice. “The feds .” He said the word as if invoking the power of God himself. “If Shipman’s presence wasn’t enough to put you on alert, this sure should be.”
    “Are you saying to forget about it?” I asked.
    He hesitated. “I’m saying we need to be very, very careful with this or we’re going to get our asses in a sling and possibly a few of our friends’ asses too.” I knew immediately that he was talking about Willie. Although Elaine had done me a solid in the past, I didn’t think Greg cared about protecting a killer.
    He put the iPad down on the coffee table. “Nice work, Grace.” Next to me my mother beamed and took a sip of her coffee. Greg started back to the kitchen. “Zach is dead, and I’m not. Let’s discuss this further over dinner.” He stopped and spun his chair around. Looking straight at my mother, he said, again using his lecturing voice, “Grace, you cannot put this up on your blog or anywhere else. Do you understand?”
    “Clark already said the same thing,” Mom snapped back, “and so did Seth Washington. But none of you are the boss of me. Got that, hot wheels?”
    “Grace,” Greg said, rolling back closer to her. “You’re my mother-in-law and I love and respect you, but don’t think for a minute I won’t lock you in our guest room if that’s what it would take to keep you safe.”
    Holy crap. I watched the scene play out, wisely keeping my nose out of it. My mother could be a cantankerous and willful battle-ax at times, but my husband took his duty as head of the household and its protector very seriously; in that respect he was very old- fashioned. I didn’t doubt for a minute that he would find a way to take Mom out of commission if he had to. Being in a wheelchair wouldn’t slow him down for a second. It seldom did.
    Mom twitched her nose, a habit we shared, and took a drink from her mug. For the time