"That boy has no business working," she said under her breath.

"Oh, I expect he'd like some pocket money," Toby said easily.

"He looks like he could use a hot meal more." She started to call out, prepared to fix the child a late lunch herself. "What's his name?"

"He's Cy, Miz Waverly. Cy Hatinger."

Her blood froze. "Hatinger?"

Toby's eyes flicked away from the appalled look in hers. "He ain't nothing like his daddy, Miz Waverly." In an old habit, Toby ran a fingertip down the scar on his cheek. "He's a good boy. Hope you don't think I'm overstepping, but I'm partial to him. He's a good friend to Jim."

Caroline struggled with her conscience. He was a child, after all. She had no business having this urge to shout him off her land only because he carried the Hatinger name. And Hatinger blood.

The bike's bell jingled as Cy and Jim took turns ringing it.

The sins of the fathers. That had been Austin's quote. And his threat. She didn't believe it, not when she looked out at the thin-faced boy who smiled like a dreamy angel.

"Cy."

His head came up, not like an angel's but like a wolfs-fast and wary. "Ma'am?"

"I was about to fix myself some lunch. Would you like some?"

"No, ma'am, thank you, ma'am. I had me some breakfast down to Sweetwater. Mr. Tucker, he fixed me up ham and eggs himself."

"He… I see." But she didn't see at all. Beside her, Toby let out a bellow of laughter.

"Tuck cooked, you ate, and you're still standing? Boy, you must have a cast-iron stomach."

"He cooked it good. He has this microwave. He put biscuits in and quick as you blink they came out again steaming." Revving up, Cy went on about how he was going to get lunch fixed for him every day by Miss Delia, and about the loan of the bike, and how Mr. Tucker had given him two dollars in advance already.

"And he said I should spend it as I pleased-as was a man's privilege with his first pay-long as it wasn't on whiskey and women." He flushed a little and shot a look at Caroline. "He was only kidding."

Caroline smiled. "I'm sure you're right."

Cy thought she was the prettiest female he'd ever seen. He was afraid if he kept looking at her, his old tool of Satan would start to twitch. So he looked at the ground. "I'm awful sorry about how my daddy shot out your windows."

Caroline hated to see his thin shoulders go tense that way. "They're all fixed now, Cy."

"Yes'm." He was going to say something, maybe offer her the two dollars for the damage, but he heard the car. Seconds before any of the others heard the sound of the engine slowing, the whisper of gravel under tires, he turned. "It's that FBI man," Cy said, his voice expressionless.

They all watched in silence as Matthew Burns drove up and stopped at the end of the lane.

He wasn't terribly pleased to come across the crowd. He'd hoped to find her alone so that they could have a leisurely chat. But he fixed a pleasant enough smile on his face as he stepped from the car.

"Good afternoon, Caroline."

"Hello, Matthew. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing official. I had an hour free, and thought I'd drop by to see how you were."

"I'm fine." But she knew that wouldn't be enough. "Would you like some iced tea?"

"That would be wonderful." He stopped by the bike where Cy had his eyes planted firmly on the ground. "You're the young Hatinger boy, correct?"

"Yessir." Cy remembered Burns coming out to the house, trying to get some sense out of Ma while she wept into her apron. "I'd best be getting home."

"Come on, Jim. Let's get back to work."

"I wish you'd take a longer break, Toby. It's so hot."

"Toby?" Matthew's gaze sharpened on the broad-shouldered black man. "Toby March?"

Muscles tensed, Toby nodded. "That's right."

"Coincidentally, your name's on my list to be interviewed. That scar on your face. Hatinger gave that to you?"

"Matthew," Caroline said, appalled, her gaze locking on Cy's face.

"I gotta go," Cy said again, quickly. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow, Jim." He hopped on the bike and pedaled furiously.

"Matthew, did you have to do that with the child here?"

Burns spread his hands. "In a town like this, I'm sure the boy knows already. Now, Mr. March, if you have a moment."

"Jim, you go on around and scrape that window trim."

"But, Daddy-"

"Do as I say."

Head down, shoulders slumped, Jim obeyed.

"You wanted to ask me a question, Mr. Burns."

"Agent Burns. Yes. About your scar."

"I've had it going on twenty years, from when Austin Hatinger come down on me for being a thief." Toby bent to lift an unopened bucket of paint and turned it back and forth in his broad hands.

"He accused you of stealing."

"He said I took some rope from his place. But I never took nothing wasn't mine in my life."

"And there've been hard feelings between you since."

Toby continued to shift the can. Caroline could hear the paint slop gently inside. "We ain't been what you'd call neighborly."

Burns took a pad out of his pocket. "Sheriff Truesdale has a report of a cross-burning on your lawn some six months ago. According to your statement, you believed Austin Hatinger and his son, Vernon, were responsible."

Something cold and hard flashed into Toby's eyes. "I couldn't prove it. I couldn't prove it when I came out of Larsson's one evening and found the tires on my truck slashed, either. And Vernon Hatinger was standing across the street paring his fingernails with his pocket knife and grinning. Even when Vernon says to me I should be glad it was my tires this time and not my face, I couldn't prove anything. So I just said what I thought. Hatinger didn't like his boy being seen with mine."

"There was an altercation between you and Austin Hatinger a few weeks later, in the hardware store, where he threatened to harm your son if you didn't keep him away from Cy. Is that true?"

"He come in while I was buying some three-penny nails. He said some things."

"Do you recall what things?"

Toby's jaw set. "He said, 'Nigger, keep your little black bastard away from what's mine or I'll peel the skin off him.' I said if he touched my boy, I'd kill him."

The quiet, dispassionate way Toby said it sent a chill racing up Caroline's spine.

"He said some more things, quoting scripture and talking trash about how us 'coons' forgot where was our place. Then he picked up a hammer. We got to fighting there in the store, and somebody took off for the sheriff, I guess, cause he come hauling ass and broke it up."

"And did you say to Hatinger something along the lines of…" He consulted his pad again. " 'You'd be better off worrying about how often that girl of yours is spreading her legs than about Cy fishing with my Jim'?"

"I mighta."

"And the girl you were referring to was the now-deceased Edda Lou Hatinger?"

Slowly, Toby set down the paint can. "He was saying things about my family. Shouting filth about my Jim and my little Lucy and my wife. Not a week before that Vernon stopped my wife on the street and told her she'd best keep a closer eye on her boy before he got himself a broken arm or leg. A man don't have to take that from nobody."

"And so you brought up Miss Hatinger's sexual habits."

Toby's skin heated with anger. "I was mad. Maybe I shouldn't've brought in his kin since it was him that riled me."

"But I'm curious how you happen to be acquainted with the deceased's sexual habits."

"Everybody knows it didn't take much to get her on her back." He looked at Caroline with mute apology.

"And do you have personal knowledge of that?"

Now the fury flashed, bright as a sword in his eyes. Frightened by it, Caroline stepped forward to lay a warning hand on his arm.

"I took vows to a woman fifteen years ago," Toby said, clenching his fists. "I've been faithful to her."