Southern Ghost

traveling outside the United States. They always worried about the water, the political situ­ation, and the food. But they were never able to say no to Courtney. They never understood her, but they loved her. And when Courtney has an enthusiasm, it's like a spring tide, there's no holding her back. She lives every day as if it were the most glorious, the most exciting, the most wonderful day in the history of the world.'

The light in his eyes died away. 'I'd never seen Courtney subdued until last week. I thought the child was sick when she first came in. She didn't give me a hug, the way she always had. She just walked to that chair'—he pointed toward An­nie's chair—'and sat down and looked at me, as if she'd never seen me before, as if everything here was strange to her. She had smudges under her eyes, as if she hadn't been sleeping well for some time. She looked straight at me and, without any preliminaries, said, 'I want to know the truth about my parents. My real parents.' '

He pushed back his chair and strode to the fireplace. For a long moment, he gripped the mantel; then his hands fell away and he turned toward them, anguish in his face. 'I couldn't tell her! God, I couldn't tell her—and she was so sure I would know, so certain that all she had to do was ask me—and I had nothing to give her. I should have made Carleton tell me.'

Annie understood his regret, but that wasn't what mat­tered now. 'How did Courtney know Delia and Carleton weren't her parents?'

'She was clearing out Delia's papers.' He stroked his beard. 'I have to wonder, you know, if Delia intended for Courtney to know. Courtney was going through her mother's things, packing a lot of them away, boxing up clothes to give to the Salvation Army. She found a blue silk letter case in

Delia's bedside drawer. And in it, Courtney found a letter—a letter that made it clear that her father was Ross Tarrant.' 'And her mother?' Annie asked.

'No hint. At all.'

That was all he knew.

The lawyer gave them a copy of that letter and Max added it to the file. But, when they stood to go, Max had one more question.

'Just for the record,' he said quietly, 'where were you, sir, from approximately four yesterday afternoon to, say, ten o'clock last night?'

Smithson stiffened. Bright patches of color stained his pale cheeks above his beard. Then, abruptly, he nodded. 'Fair enough, Darling. I was in conference with a client from shortly after four until almost six. I had a quick dinner at the cafeteria across the street because I'm on the city council and I had to be there for a meeting at seven. The meeting didn't end until eleven-thirty.' A dry smile. 'Zoning generates enor­mous excitement.' He reached for a pad from his desk, scrib­bled names and numbers on it. 'You can check these.' The angry patches faded away. He reached out, gripped Max's hand. 'I'm very fond of Courtney. You'll find her, won't you?'

Max pushed open the gate to the St. George Inn, holding it for Annie. In the street behind them, a car door slammed. Run­ning footsteps thudded on the sidewalk.

'You! Hey, you!'

They paused and turned.

Annie felt a swift thrill of fear, because this was a man out of control. He was young—probably her own age— the kind of person who normally would be immediately accepted, well dressed in a pale-green, crisp summer cotton suit, well groomed with short auburn hair, unobtrusively attractive with open, frank features. But his necktie was bunched at his throat, his suit jacket swung unbuttoned, a red gash on his chin from a shaving cut still dimpled with blood, his brown

eyes flared wide and wild, and his chest heaved as he struggled for breath.

'You—you're Max Darling?' He was at the gate now, and no one existed in the world for him at that moment but himself and Max.

Max nodded and his accoster grabbed his jacket with a shaking hand. 'Goddammit, where's Courtney? I'll kill you if you've hurt her, I swear to God I will!'

His eyes full of pity, Max stood unresisting in the young man's grasp. 'I'm looking for Courtney, too. My wife and I both are.'

Annie chimed in and that got his attention. 'Listen, my husband had nothing to do with Courtney's disappearance. She hired him to find out about her family, and we're doing everything we can to find her. Don't waste our time. And don't waste your time! Do you know who's trying to hang her disappearance on my husband? The police chief! He wants to keep everything quiet for the Tarrants. Courtney hired Max to find out what actually happened the day her real father died. We're still trying. If you want to find Courtney, the best thing you can do is make sure the Chastain police do their work.'

Finally, he calmed down enough to listen. They took him to their suite and, while Max made coffee, they heard his story. His name was Harris Walker, and he was a young lawyer in Beaufort (Ogilvy, Walker & Crane).

He paced up and down in their suite. 'I've known Court­ney all my life. She lived next door.' The shadow of a smile. 'Irritating little kid, always hanging around the big guys, wanting to do whatever we did. I always called her Skinny. Drove her crazy.' He looked at Annie with eyes that held a thousand memories, and Annie winced at his pain.

'Bullheaded when she was a little kid. Bullheaded now.' His chin quivered. 'I told her that. I told her to burn that goddam letter. What difference did it make who her dad was? It was a long time ago. It was other people's lives. It didn't have anything to do with us. But she was set on coming over here. So she hired you.' He looked at Max. 'Now she's gone,nobody knows where. What the hell are you doing about it?' He was combative again.

When Max finished an account of the past twenty-four hours, Harris scowled. 'Jesus, you haven't accomplished any­thing, have you?'

He didn't wait for an answer. He took a gulp of coffee and banged his cup down on its saucer. 'Listen, I'm going back down to the river. And I'm going to round people up. Start a real search. Goddammit, it doesn't do any good to talk to people. We have to look.'

After Walker slammed out of their suite, Max reached for the phone. 'Going to call Barb,' he said briefly to Annie.