“Her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter, no doubt.” Dorsey rang the bell.

A moment later, a plump, unpleasant-looking woman in her thirties answered. She was dressed in a white blouse with stains under the armpits and a straight denim skirt. Her hair was secured into a tight bun in the back, and rhinestone trimmed glasses dangled from a beaded chain worn around her neck.

“Yes?” She gave each agent the once-over.

“We’re here to see Mrs. Randall,” Dorsey told her.

“She expecting you?” the woman asked.

“By now?” Andrew glanced at his watch. “Probably.” He held out his I.D.

“I’m going to have to check with her.” The woman closed the door in their faces.

“Did we expect otherwise?” Andrew asked.

“All things considered, no.” Dorsey grinned.

“For the record, annoying the housekeeper, or whatever she is, does not count as pissing off a family member.”

Before Dorsey could respond, the woman returned and pushed open the door.

“Miz Randall will see you.” She held the door for them and sighed deeply as they passed into the narrow foyer, as if their unexpected presence was a personal intrusion into her life. “She’s in the back room, right on through here.”

She directed them down a hall leading into the kitchen, and from there, to a screened porch overlooking a surprisingly pretty backyard. The room was filled with white wicker furniture. An elderly woman, white hair pulled back in a bun, sat in a rocking chair near the window.

“Mrs. Randall, thank you for seeing us like this,” Andrew said as they entered the room.

“If ‘like this’ means not calling first to see if this might be a convenient time, you needn’t worry. My daughter-in-law took it upon herself to announce your intentions.” The woman rocked gently, assessing them with cool blue eyes.

“Kind of her.”

“I’m sure.” Mrs. Randall pointed at the sofa positioned against the one long wall. “Please sit. I’m going to be getting a crinked neck from looking up at her.” She gestured at Dorsey. “You’re certainly a tall one, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, ma’am, I am.” Dorsey sat where she’d been instructed.

“Those high heels make you even taller,” she observed with more than a trace of the South in her speech. “Your mamma a tall lady?”

“Yes, ma’am, she was.” Dorsey nodded.

“Was?” The old woman leaned forward slightly. “Meaning she has passed on?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Recently?”

“When I was nine,” Dorsey told her.

“Who raised you, then?”

“My aunt and my father.”

“They did a fine job.” Mrs. Randall nodded approvingly. “You’re a well-mannered, polite young woman. You tell your daddy I said so.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you, Mrs. Randall.” Dorsey smiled.

“Now, what is it that you two expect to learn from me that you haven’t learned from my daughter-in-law or my granddaughter?” Before either could answer, Mrs. Randall called out, “Dorothea? You bring some lemonade on out here for our guests. And turn on that ceiling fan.”

She turned back to Andrew. “You were about to say?”

“My name is Andrew Shields. I’m a special agent with-”

Martha Randall waved her hand impatiently. “I know who you are and where you’re from. You wanted to ask me questions about our Shannon?”

He nodded. “I’m sure it was a terrible shock to find out she’d been alive all these years.”

“Oh, my land, yes. You simply cannot imagine what we’ve all been going through these past few days.” She placed a hand over her heart. “It’s been most unexpected, to be sure. Not just that she’s been alive, but where she’s been. What she’s been. And to find she’s been murdered, after all.”

Her small hands continued to flutter about the middle of her chest.

“Doesn’t this just beat all? Who’d have thought that girl could have been alive all these years. And to never let us know. Well, like I told Judith and Franklin, it must have been amnesia.”

“Amnesia?” Dorsey asked.

“That kept her from coming home.” Mrs. Randall stopped rocking in her chair. “She obviously didn’t know who she was or where she was from. Otherwise, she’d have come home long ago.”

“Actually, Mrs. Randall, the police were able to identify her and locate her family here in Hatton because she’d told her roommate her name, and where she was from,” Andrew told her.

“How is that possible?” The old woman frowned. “How could she have known who she was, and not tell us she was alive?” She looked at Andrew, wide-eyed, as if the mere suggestion was ludicrous. “And for her to have been doing what she was doing down there in Georgia…” She visibly shivered. “No, no, Agent Shields. No granddaughter of mine would have lived a life of sin the way that poor girl had been doing. If she’d known who she was, she’d have come on home, and gone to college, just like she’d planned.”

She looked at Dorsey and added, “She was going to be a nursery school teacher, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” Dorsey said softly. “Shannon gave her name-Shannon Randall, of Hatton, South Carolina -to her roommate. How could Edith Chiong have known, if Shannon hadn’t told her?”

“Edith Chiong?”

“Her roommate for the past several years,” Dorsey explained.

Shannon ’s grandmother thought this through, then said, “She must have had something with her that had her name on it when she developed amnesia. Perhaps that boy hit her over the head with something and she lost her memory. Then when she looked at the…driver’s license, perhaps-”

“ Shannon wasn’t old enough to drive when she disappeared, Mrs. Randall,” Andrew reminded her. “She didn’t have a driver’s license.”

“Her school identification card, then. She saw her name on something,” the woman said triumphantly. “I’m sure that was it. She knew her name, but not who she was. That would explain it.”

“But wouldn’t she have tried to come back to Hatton?” Andrew asked.

“Well, not if she couldn’t remember it. If she couldn’t remember being from here, why would she want to come here?” Mrs. Randall said as if it were a given. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, Agent Shields. If my granddaughter had known who she was, she would have come home, not gone to who knows where, doing who knows what.” She shook her head adamantly. “Our Shannon was a good, God-fearing girl. She was baptized in the church by my husband, and she was raised in his church. She would never have chosen a life of sin. Never. If she was up to…to what they’re saying she was up to, it has to have been because someone forced her.”

Mrs. Randall folded her arms across her chest in a manner that clearly indicated the matter was closed.

“About the night she disappeared, Mrs. Randall,” Andrew ventured.

“You wanted to know what I recall of that.”

“I understand you saw Shannon at the church shortly before she disappeared,” he said.

“I did indeed.” Motion from the doorway distracted her. “Dorothea, don’t stand there like you don’t know where to put that tray. Right there on that table, just like always. Thank you. You may go back to what-all you were doing.”

When the woman left the room, Mrs. Randall muttered, “Listening at the doorway, no doubt.”

To Dorsey she said, “Would you mind, dear?”

“Would I mind?” Dorsey asked.

“Pouring the lemonade. Made it fresh this morning. I’m sure you and Agent Shields could use a cold drink on a day as warm as this one. And you know the weather people are saying it’s just going to get warmer.”

Dorsey did as she was told, and passed glasses to Mrs. Randall and to Andrew, then poured one for herself. She took a sip and told her hostess, “Delicious.”

“An old recipe of my mother’s. The trick is to boil the lemon juice with the water and add just a bit of lemon zest.”

“I’ll remember that.” Dorsey smiled to hide her indifference. The last thing on her mind was the fine art of making lemonade.