Speaking in Tongues

she is. Maybe she’s in trouble, maybe she isn’t. Hey, let’s take an example: You see some tough big kids talking to a little kid. Maybe they’re just buddies, fooling around. Or maybe they’re trying to sell him some pot or steal his lunch money. You’d go and find out, right?”
    “I would. Sure.”
    “That’s all I’m doing with my daughter. Trying to find out if she’s okay. And going through that book would sure be a big help.”
    The guard nodded.
    “Well?” Tate asked expectantly.
    “Rules is rules. Can’t be done. Have a state trooper or a county officer stop by. I’ll be happy to help.”
    Tate sighed. He glanced at Bett, who said icily,“Let’s go, Tate. Nothing more to be accomplished here.”
    As they walked toward the car, the guard called, “Sir?”
    Tate turned.
    “That was a good try, though. Kids and safety and everything. I almost bought it.” He picked up a magazine on customized pickup trucks and sat down.
    Tate and Bett continued to the car then climbed in and drove out of the lot.
    Neither of them could contain the laughter for long. They both roared. Finally Bett gasped and said, “That was the biggest load of hogwash I ever heard. ‘It’s the reason they hired a big, strong guy like you.’ You sounded like you were trying to pick him up.”
    Wiping tears from his eyes, Tate controlled his laughing. “That was some pretty good double-teaming.”
    Bett reached under her blouse and pulled out the twenty or thirty sheets of notebook paper she’d ripped from the Bust-er Book while Tate had distracted the guard with his absurd argument. “I figured I better leave the notebook itself.” She muttered, “The Bust-er Book? The Bust-er Book? Do people really take that stuff seriously?”
    Tate drove about three blocks and pulled over to the curb.
    “Okay,” she said, “Tuesday . . . Tuesday.” Flipping through the pages. “If the storm trooper back there’s the one who keeps the book he’s got handwriting like a sissy. Okay, Tuesday . . .” She nodded then read: “ ‘Two students reported a gray car, no school parking permit, parked on Sideburn Road. Single driver. Drove off without picking up student.’ ”
    “A gray car. Not much to go on. Anything else?”
    “Not then. But Amy said Megan’d been thinking she’d been followed for a while.” Bett flipped back through the pages. Her perfect eyebrow rose in a delicate arc. “Listen. A week ago. ‘M. McCall (Green Team)’—that’s her class section at school—‘reported gray car appeared to be following her. Security guard Gibson took report. Did not personally witness incident. Checked but no car seen. Subject did not know tag or make of vehicle.’ ” Bett looked at her ex-husband. “Why didn’t she tell me about it, Tate? Why?”
    Tate shrugged. He asked, “Any description of the driver?”
    “None, no.”
    “What kind of car did her boyfriend drive?”
    “White . . . I think a Toyota.”
    “He could’ve borrowed one to follow her,” Tate mused.
    “Could have, sure.”
    More questions than answers.
    Tate stared at the turbulent clouds overhead. The sun tried to break through but a line of thick gray rolled over the sky heading eastward. “We’ll come back and talk to Eckhard later,” he said. “Let’s go to Leesburg.”

Chapter Ten
    Joshua LeFevre glanced down at the odometer. He’d driven another twenty miles along I-66 in his battered old Toyota since the last time he’d checked. Which put him about seventy miles from Fairfax.
    Mr. Tibbs, the unflappable police detective within him, had finally figured out where Megan and her therapist lover were going: to the doctor’s mountain place. It was now chic for professionals to have vacation homes in the Blue Ridge or in West Virginia, where you could buy a whole mountaintop for a song.
    The rain had stopped and he cranked the sunroof open, listening to the wind hissing through the Yakima bike rack on the roof.
    It was early afternoon when he broke through the Shenandoahs and saw the hazy Blue Ridge in front of him. The rolling hills were not evocative gunmetal today, the literature major in him thought, but were tinted with the green frost of spring growth. Recalling that he and Megan had talked about a bike tour along Skyline Drive, which crested the ridge, later in the spring.
    Without the rain LeFevre could see more clearly now and he realized that only the doctor was visiblein the car. Where was Megan? Taking a nap?