“Leland paid fair prices for those homes,” Slick said.

“Then this year,” Patricia continued, “Carlton Borey up in Awendaw. Eleven years old. Mrs. Greene knows his aunt. She says they found him dead in the woods of exposure. Who freezes to death in the middle of April? She said he’d been sick for months, the same as the other children.”

“None of this adds up,” Slick said. “You’re being silly.”

“It’s a child a year, for three years,” Patricia said. “I know they’re not our children, but they’re children. Are we not supposed to care about them because they’re poor and black? That’s how we acted before and now he wants Blue. When will he stop? Maybe he’ll want Tiger next, or Merit, or one of Maryellen’s?”

“This is how witch hunts happen,” Slick said. “People get all worked up over nothing and before you know it someone gets hurt.”

“Are you a hypocrite?” Patricia asked. “You’re using your Reformation Party to protect your children from Halloween, but are you lifting a finger to protect them from this monster? Either you believe in the Devil or you don’t.”

She hated the bullying tone in her voice, but the more she talked the more she convinced herself that she needed to ask these questions. The more Slick denied what was right in front of her eyes, the more she reminded Patricia of how she’d acted all those years ago.

“Monster is a very strong word for someone who’s been so good to our families,” Slick said.

Patricia turned Miss Mary’s photograph over.

“How is he not aging, Slick?” she said. “Explain that to me and I’ll stop asking questions.”

Slick chewed her lip.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“The men are all out of town this weekend,” Patricia said. “The cleaning company Mrs. Greene works for cleans his house on Saturday and Mrs. Greene is going to be there and she’s going to let me in, and while she cleans, I’m going to see if I can find some answers.”

“You can’t break into someone’s house,” Slick said, horrified.

“If we don’t find anything,” Patricia said, “then I’ll stop and it’s all over. Help me finish this. We’ll either find something or we won’t, but either way it’ll be over.”

Slick pressed her fingertips to her mouth and studied her bookshelves for a long time, then picked up the photograph and considered it again. Finally, she put it back down.

“Let me pray on this,” she said. “I won’t tell Leland, but let me keep the photograph and the folder and pray on them.”

“Thank you,” Patricia said.

It never occurred to her not to trust Slick.

CHAPTER 29

Slick called on Thursday at 10:25 in the morning.

“I’ll come,” she said. “But I’ll only look. I won’t open anything that’s closed.”

“Thank you,” Patricia said.

“I don’t feel right about this,” Slick said.

“I don’t either,” Patricia said, and then she hung up and called Mrs. Greene to tell her the good news.

“This is a big mistake,” Mrs. Greene said.

“It’ll go faster with three of us,” Patricia said.

“Maybe,” Mrs. Greene said. “But all I’m telling you is that it’s a mistake.”

She kissed Carter good-bye on Friday morning at 7:30, and he left for Tampa on Delta flight 1237 from the Charleston airport, with a layover in Atlanta. On Saturday morning at 9:30 she drove Blue to Saturday school. She told Korey they could work on her list of colleges together, but by noon, when she had to go pick up Blue from Saturday school, Korey had barely glimpsed at the catalogs.

When she pulled up in front of Albemarle at 12:05, the only other car there was Slick’s white Saab. She got out and tapped on the driver’s-side window.

“Hi, Mrs. Campbell,” Greer said, rolling down the window.

“Is your mother all right?” Patricia asked.

“She had to take something over to the church,” Greer said. “She said she might be seeing you later?”

“I’m helping her plan her Reformation Party,” Patricia said.

“Sounds fun,” Greer said.

She and Blue got home at 12:40. Korey had left a note on the counter saying she was going downtown to step aerobics and then to a movie with Laurie Gibson. At 2:15, Patricia knocked on Blue’s bedroom door.

“I’m going out for a little while,” she called.

He didn’t answer. She assumed he’d heard.

She didn’t want anyone to see her car, and it was a warm afternoon anyway, so she walked up Middle Street. She saw Mrs. Greene’s car parked in James Harris’s driveway, next to a green-and-white Greener Cleaners truck. James Harris’s Corsica was gone.

She hated his house. Two years ago, he’d torn down Mrs. Savage’s cottage, split the lot in half, and sold the piece of it closest to the Hendersons to a dentist from up north someplace, then built himself a McMansion that stretched from property line to property line. A massive Southern lump with concrete pineapples at the end of the drive, it stood on stilts with an enclosed ground floor for parking. It was a white monstrosity painted white with all its various tin roofs painted rust red, encircled by a huge porch.

She’d been inside once for his housewarming party last summer, and it was all sisal runners and enormous, heavy, machine-milled furniture, nothing with any personality, everything anonymous and done in beige, and cream, and off-white, and slate. It felt like the embalmed and swollen corpse of a ramshackle Southern beach house, tarted up with cosmetics and central air.

Patricia turned onto McCants then turned again and looped back until she stood on Pitt Street directly behind James Harris’s house. She could see its red roofs looming over the trees at the end of a little drainage ditch that ran between two property lines from this side of the block to the other. When it rained, the ditch carried the overflow water off Pitt down to the harbor. But it hadn’t rained in weeks and now it was a swampy trickle, with a worn path the children used as a shortcut between blocks running alongside it.

She stepped off the root-cracked sidewalk and walked to his house along the path, as fast as possible, feeling like eyes were watching her the entire way. James Harris’s backyard lay in the heavy shadow of his house, and it was as chilly as the water at the bottom of a lake. His grass didn’t get enough light and the yellowed blades crunched beneath her feet.

She walked up the stairs to his back porch and paused, looking back to see if she could spot Slick, but she hadn’t gotten there yet. She kept moving, wanting to get out of sight as soon as possible. She knocked on the back door.

Inside, she heard a vacuum cleaner whirl down and a minute later the weather seal cracked and the door opened to reveal Mrs. Greene in a green polo shirt.

“Hello, Mrs. Greene,” Patricia said, loudly. “I came to see if I could find my keys. That I left here.”

“Mr. Harris isn’t home,” Mrs. Greene responded loudly, which let Patricia know that the other woman working with her was nearby. “Maybe you should come back later.”

“I really need my keys,” Patricia said.

“I’m sure he won’t mind if you look for them,” Mrs. Greene said.

She stepped out of the way, and Patricia came inside. The kitchen had a large island in the middle, half of it covered by some kind of stainless-steel grill. Dark brown cabinets lined the walls, and the refrigerator, dishwasher, and sink were all stainless steel. The room felt cold. Patricia wished she’d brought a sweater.

“Is Slick here yet?” Patricia asked quietly.

“Not yet,” Mrs. Greene said. “But we can’t wait.”

A woman in the same green polo shirt as Mrs. Greene came in from the hall. She wore yellow rubber dishwashing gloves and a shiny leather fanny pack.

“Lora,” Mrs. Greene said. “This is Mrs. Campbell from down the street. She thinks she left her keys here and is going to look for them.”

Patricia gave what she hoped looked like a friendly smile.

“Hi, Lora,” she said. “Pleased to meet you. Don’t let me get in your way.”

Lora turned her large brown eyes from Patricia to Mrs. Greene, then back to Patricia. She reached down to her belt and unclipped a mobile phone.

“There’s no need,” Mrs. Greene said. “I know Mrs. Campbell. I used to clean for her.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” Patricia said, pretending to scan the granite countertops. “I know those keys are somewhere.”

Her huge brown eyes still on Mrs. Greene, Lora flipped the phone open and pressed a button.

“Lora, no!” Patricia said, too loudly.

Lora turned and looked at Patricia. She blinked once, holding the open phone in her yellow rubber hand.

“Lora,” Patricia said. “I really do need to find my keys. They could be anywhere and it might take me a while. But you won’t get in any trouble for what I’m doing. I promise. And I’ll pay you for the inconvenience.”

She had left her purse at home, but Mrs. Greene had told her to bring money, just in case. She reached into her pocket and pulled out four of the five ten-dollar bills she’d brought and placed them on the kitchen island closest to Lora, then stepped away.