“Did she ever talk to you about these men?” Apparently that was the only thing Smith knew how to say.

“I recognize the name Tague. Not the other one,” Zhorzha said. “And she talked about a few of the volunteers. This woman named Molly. LaReigne stayed at her house a few times, when she had a headache and didn’t want to drive home at night. So you’re telling me you don’t know anything yet? Two prisoners can escape, and there’s no surveillance footage or anything?”

“Actually,” Mansur said. “We have surveillance footage. It shows your sister driving away with the escapees and the other volunteer.”

“So you at least know the make and model of the car they’re in?” I said.

“Ma’am, it was her own car. That’s one of the reasons we’d like to know if she ever talked about Barnwell or Ligett.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zhorzha said. “Yes, she knew the one guy. Yes, she talked about him. That doesn’t mean she helped him escape.”

“Miss Trego, you understand, we have to follow all possible leads. There are—”

“That’s fucking bullshit. Why aren’t you out looking for my sister?”

“Zhorzha, there’s no need for that kind of language,” I said. “Don’t be such a hothead.” Just as she was about to open her mouth and spill out another heap of curses, the door to the garage opened, and Gentry came stomping into the room.

“My lady,” he said. “These knaves outragen thee?”

“I’m fine. I just lost my temper,” she said.

I’d thought it was charming at first, but it was really too much that he talked that way in front of the marshals. There was a time for that sort of thing, and this was not it. Still, he stood in between her and the marshals, looking uneasy but defensive. Zhorzha was overdue for a man who wanted to protect her.

“And who is this?” Mansur said.

“A friend of mine, who also doesn’t know anything,” she said.

The four of them stood in the middle of the living room, Zhorzha towering over the three men. She may have gotten her height from her father, but I don’t know where she got her red hair or her temper.

“Mrs. Trego,” Mansur said. “Like you, our goal is to get LaReigne back safely, and recapture two dangerous men. If you or your daughter think of anything that might be useful, and, obviously, if you hear from LaReigne, definitely give us a call. Here’s my card.” Instead of handing it to me, he tossed it onto the side table.

“We can show ourselves out,” Smith said, but Gentry followed them to the door, and I heard him bolt it after them.

Once they were gone, Zhorzha went out to the garage and brought Marcus back inside.

“I think we’re going to go now,” she said. “Give Grandma a hug, buddy.”

“Who are all those people outside, Grandma?” he said, as he climbed up on my lap.

“Oh, some people who want to talk to me, but I don’t feel like talking to them right now.”

“Why not? When’s Mommy coming home?”

“Soon, sweetie,” I said, but it broke my heart to tell him that same old lie.

CHAPTER 7

Zee

   All I cared about was getting past the reporters, and getting Marcus out of there. Gentry piggybacked him out the front door and down the street to where his truck was parked behind my car. Before I realized what he intended, he’d opened the truck’s passenger door and lifted Marcus in. The reporters were already coming, dragging their equipment with them, so I got in after Marcus, while Gentry went around to the driver’s side. With the doors closed and locked, I tried to think clearly, and I thought about Gentry’s horrible family.

“I think I’ll get a motel room for me and Marcus,” I said.

“I would that ye comen with me. That I might keep you safe.”

“I don’t think I can take your family right now.”

“Nay, my lady. ’Tis well,” he said. “I spake with my father. Ye two aren welcome.”

Before I could answer, he started the truck and backed it down the block, leaving the reporters behind us. Gentry drove, not to Miranda’s house, which was down off Harry, but to one of those twisty neighborhoods northeast of Rock and Kellogg.

I wondered if maybe Miranda had won the lottery, right up until we went inside, and a woman who definitely wasn’t Miranda came to meet us.

“My mother, Lady Charlene,” Gentry said. “Mother, this be Lady Zhorzha. And her nephew, Master Marcus.”

“It’s so lovely to finally meet you, Lady Zhorzha! We’ve heard so much about you.” The woman put out her hand and I took it, but I was too confused to say anything.

First of all, she was the only person to ever pronounce my name right the first time.

Second of all, Gentry had apparently traded in his old family for a new one. Because Miranda was a scrawny white woman with bleached hair. This version of his mother was a black woman in reading glasses with white hair pulled up on top of her head with three big curls the size of Coke cans.

While I was trying to figure all that out, the realization kicked in that Gentry’s new mother said my name right, because they’d heard so much about me.

“You’re his mother?” I said. I didn’t know what kind of look I had on my face, but Charlene started laughing and squeezed my hand tighter.

“Oh, I forgot you must have met Miranda. You didn’t tell her, Gentry?”

“Nay, my lady,” he said with his chin tucked down almost to his chest.

Of course, he hadn’t told me anything, because he hadn’t spoken to me in two years, except to order food. Did Charlene not know that? She couldn’t know that, could she?

“Miranda’s his biological mother. A few years ago, he decided he wanted to try having a relationship with her and his half siblings. That would have been close to the same time he met you.”

“Oh. I did not know that,” I said. It was the only polite thing I could think of. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Aunt Zee.” Marcus pulled on my arm. “I gotta go.”

“Could we use your bathroom?”

“Lord, yes. Here I am keeping you standing in the foyer. Come all the way in. Bathroom is down the hall, second door on the right,” Charlene said.

The house was one of those long 1950s ranches. Left off the foyer was a great room with a vaulted ceiling, a fireplace, and sliding glass doors onto a patio. On the right was the hallway to the bedrooms. We went down the hall, wrestling Marcus out of his backpack along the way. I got him through the door and found the light switch, but when I went to step outside and close the door, he was standing there with a sad look on his face. The front of his blue jeans was a lot darker than the rest.