A Faint Cold Fear

by Karin Slaughter

  Sara noticed the row of plates and glasses sitting in the strainer by the sink where Jeffrey had washed them, and for some silly reason tears came into her eyes. No amount of flowers or pretty compliments could ever measure up to a man who did housework.

  “Oh, me,” Sara laughed at herself, wiping her eyes, thinking that sleep deprivation and stress were turning her into a basket case.

  She was considering taking a long shower and washing off the day’s filth when a sharp knock came at the front door. Sara groaned as she stood, assuming that a well-meaning neighbor was dropping by to get the latest news on Tessa. For a split second she thought about pretending she was not home, but the slim chance of the neighbor’s having brought a nice casserole or at least some cake compelled her to answer the door.

  “Devon,” she said, surprised to see Tessa’s boyfriend standing on her front porch.

  “Hey,” he returned, tucking his hands into his pockets. There was a duffel bag at his feet. “What’s the cop for?”

  Sara waved at Brad, who’d been parked across the street since she got home. “Long story,” she told him, not wanting to bring up Jeffrey’s fears.

  Devon rested his foot on the duffel bag. “Sara, I—”

  “What?” she asked, her heart jumping in her chest as she realized that something must have happened to Tessa. “Is she . . . ?”

  “No,” Devon assured her, holding out his hands like he might need to catch her if she fainted. “No, I’m sorry. I should have said. She’s fine. I just came back to—”

  Sara put her hand to her heart. “My God, you scared me to death.” She waved him in. “Do you want something to eat? I’ve only got—” She stopped because he did not follow.

  “Sara,” Devon began, and then he looked down at the bag. “I got Tessa’s things for you. Some things she said she wanted.”

  Sara leaned up against the open door, a tingling sensation tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. She knew why he was here, what the bag was for. He was leaving Tessa.

  She said, “You can’t do this to her, Devon. Not now.”

  “She told me to go,” he said.

  Sara did not doubt that Tessa had done this, just as she did not doubt that Tessa meant the exact opposite.

  “It’s the only thing she’s said to me in two days.” Tears slid down his cheeks. “ ‘Leave,’ just like that. ‘Leave.’ ”

  “Devon—”

  “I can’t stay up there, Sara. I can’t see her like this.”

  “Wait a couple of weeks at least,” she said, aware she was begging. No matter what Tessa had told him, Devon’s leaving at this point would be devastating.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said, picking up the bag and tossing it into the foyer.

  “Wait,” Sara said, trying to reason with him. “She only told you to go to make sure you wanted to stay.”

  “I’m just so tired.” He looked over her shoulder, staring blankly down the hall. “I should have my baby right now. I should be taking pictures and passing out cigars.”

  “Everyone’s tired,” she told him, thinking she did not have the strength to do this. “Give it some time, Devon.”

  “You know, you guys are so together. You’re up there rallying around and being there for her, and that’s great, but—” He stopped, shaking his head. “I don’t belong up there. It’s like y’all’re a wall around her. This thick, impenetrable wall that’s protecting her, making her stronger.” He stopped again, looking straight at Sara. “I’m not a part of that. I’m never gonna be a part of that.”

  “You are,” she insisted.

  “You really think that?”

  “Of course I do,” Sara told him. “Devon, you’ve been at every Sunday dinner for the last two years. Tessa adores you. Mama and Daddy treat you like you’re their son.”

  Devon asked, “Did she tell you about the abortion?”

  Sara did not know what to say. Tessa had considered having an abortion when she found out she was pregnant, but it had been her choice to keep the child and start a family with Devon.

  “Yeah,” he said, reading her expression. “I thought so.”

  “She was confused.”

  “And you were just moving back from Atlanta,” he said. “And she had already broken up with the guy.”

  Sara had no idea what he was talking about.

  “God punishes people,” Devon said. “He punishes people when they don’t do right by Him.”

  She said, “Devon, don’t say that,” but her mind was reeling. Tessa had never told Sara anything about an abortion. Sara reached for his hand, saying, “Come inside. You’re not making sense.”

  “She could’ve dropped out of college,” he said, staying on the porch. “Hell, Sara, you don’t need a bachelor’s degree to be a plumber. She could have moved back here and raised the kid on her own. It’s not like your folks would have disowned her.”

  “Devon . . . please.”

  “Don’t make excuses for her,” he said. “We all live with the consequences of our actions.” He gave her a rueful look. “And sometimes other people have to live with them, too.”

  Devon turned around as Jeffrey’s car pulled into the driveway. Sara could see that Devon had parked his van in the street, as though he wanted to make a fast getaway.

  “I’ll see you around,” Devon said, tossing her a wave, like this meant nothing to him.

  “Devon,” Sara called, walking after him. She followed him into the yard but stopped when he started to jog toward his van. She would not chase him. Sara owed that much to Tessa.

  Jeffrey walked up to her, watching Devon leave. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, but she did. Why had Tessa never told her about the abortion? Had she been feeling guilty all these years, or had Sara just been too involved in her own life at the time to notice what her sister was going through?

  Jeffrey led her back to the house, asking, “Did you eat dinner yet?”

  She nodded, leaning into him, wishing he could make the last three days go away. She was exhausted, and her heart ached for Tessa, knowing that the abortion was one more time when Sara had not been there for her sister.

  “I’m so . . .” She searched for a word, but nothing came to mind that could describe how she felt. Every last bit of life had been drained out of her.

  He guided her up the front steps, saying, “You need some sleep.”

  “No.” She stopped him. “I need to go to the morgue.”

  “Not tonight,” he told her, kicking the duffel bag out of the way.

  “I have to—”

  “You have to sleep,” he told her. “You can’t even see straight.”

  She knew he was right, and Sara relented. “I need to take a bath first,” she said, thinking of everything she had done at the morgue. “I feel so . . .”

  “It’s all right,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  Jeffrey led her to the bathroom, and Sara stood motionless as he undressed her, then himself. She watched silently as he turned on the water, checking the temperature before helping her into the shower. When he touched her, she felt a familiar reaction, but sex seemed to be the last thing on his mind as he held a washcloth under the stream of warm water.

  She stood motionless in the shower, letting him do all the work, relishing the fact that someone else was in charge. Part of Sara felt like she was waking up from a horrible dream, and there was something so restorative about his touch that she started to cry.

  Jeffrey noticed the change. “You okay?”

  Sara felt overwhelmed with such need that she could not respond to his question. Instead she leaned back, pressing into him, willing Jeffrey to understand how much she needed him. He hesitated, so she moved his hand slowly up her body, cupping her breast, feeling the muscles in his hand flex as his fingers teased out all the right sensations. His other hand cupped her below, and Sara gasped at how good it felt to have part of him inside her. She felt greedy, wanting all of him,
but Jeffrey kept the pace slow and sensual, taking his time, touching every part of her with deliberate intention. When Jeffrey finally pressed her back into the cold tiles of the shower, Sara felt alive again, as if she had been in the desert for days and just now found her oasis.

  11

  You got it?” Chuck asked for the hundredth time.

  ”I’ve got it,” Lena snapped, twisting her pocketknife in her right hand while she held the grate for the air vent with her left. A flash of lightning came through the windows, and Lena’s shoulders hunched at the sound of thunder that followed. The whole lab lit up like someone had flashed a picture.

  “I can get a screwdriver,” Chuck said just as the grate came loose.

  Lena pulled her Mag-Lite out of her pocket and directed the beam into the air vent.

  Some asshole had picked today to leave one of the cages open in the lab. Four mice had escaped, each of them worth more to the school than Lena made in a year, and every available body had been called in to help find them. That had been around noon, and it was after six now, and only two of the beady-eyed fuckers had been found.

  Lena had changed her clothes after leaving the station, but the day’s search had made her sweaty again. She could feel her shirt clinging to her back, and she was still shaky from the night before. Her head was about to split open, and she had the worst cotton mouth she had ever experienced in her life. A drink would have fixed most of this or at least taken the edge off, but Lena had made a promise to herself sitting in the interrogation room this morning. She was not ever going to touch a drop of alcohol again.

  She could see now the mistakes she had made, and most of them were connected to the whiskey. The rest could be directly traced back to Ethan, and for that, she had made another promise: He was out of her life. This had held up for all of two hours. Then Chuck had made Lena answer the phone at the security office. Ethan had been panicked on the other end of the line, his voice squeaking like a girl’s, when he told her about finding Scooter. The idiot had even wiped down the room, as if there were not a good explanation for his fingerprints to be in there. As if Lena did not know how to cover her own ass, too.

  Outside Scooter’s dorm Lena had told Ethan to fuck off, and still he would not leave her alone. He had even volunteered to help look for the missing mice, and for the last six hours he had done everything he could to get her attention. As far as Lena was concerned, she had said everything this morning that she planned on ever saying to Ethan Green or White or whatever the fuck his name was. She was finished with him. If Jeffrey ever let her back on the force, her first priority would be making sure the little asshole was locked up in the nearest jail. Lena would personally throw away the key.

  “Stick your head in so you can get a better look,” Chuck said, hovering over her like an overbearing mother. As with every other shit job he had Lena do for him, Chuck had plenty of advice on how it should be done and no intention of helping her.

  Lena tucked her knife into her pocket and did as she was told, sticking her head into the dusty metal box. She realized too late that her ass was in the air, and she got the unpleasant sensation that Chuck was enjoying the show.

  She was about to call him on it when a very angry voice yelled, “What the hell are we doing about all this? I have important work to do.”

  Lena banged her head on the vent as she backed out. Brian Keller was standing about two inches from Chuck, his face red with rage.

  Chuck said, “We’re doing everything we can, Dr. Keller.”

  Keller did a double take when Lena stood. A lot of the professors who had worked with Sibyl did this, and Lena was used to it.

  Lena tossed a wave, making an attempt to be pleasant. Keller had the unfortunate distinction of being in the adjacent lab. The constant noise and interruptions had gotten to him around one o’clock, and he had called off the rest of his classes with a few well-chosen expletives aimed at Chuck. He was the kind of guy Lena could learn to like. Unlike Richard Carter, who chose this moment to pop his head into the classroom.

  He said, “How’s it going?”

  Chuck sniped, “No girls allowed,” and Richard batted his eyes, giving him a coquettish look. Chuck was about to say more, but Richard’s attention was squarely on Brian Keller.

  “Hey, Brian,” he said, smiling like a newborn with gas. “I could take over your classes if you want to leave. I’m finished for the day. It’s really no trouble.”

  “Classes were over two hours ago, you idiot,” Keller growled.

  Richard deflated like a balloon. “I just . . .” he began, an edge of petulance to his tone.

  Keller turned on his heel, showing Richard his back as he jabbed his finger at Chuck. “I need to talk to you right now. I cannot have these disruptions to my work.”

  Chuck gave a curt nod, and passed on the ass-chewing to Lena before leaving with Keller. “Don’t leave until you’ve searched that vent thoroughly, Adams.”

  Lena mumbled, “Jerk,” as they both left the room. She expected Richard to voice his agreement, but the man looked stricken.

  She asked, “What?” but Richard was already talking over her.

  “I am a colleague in this department,” he hissed, his jaw clenched so tight she was surprised he could speak. He pointed his finger at the empty doorway. “He has no right to talk to me that way in front of other people. I deserve—I have earned—at least a modicum of respect from that man.”

  “Okay,” she said, wondering why he was so ticked. From what she had gathered, Brian Keller talked to everybody the same way.

  “He has a class tonight,” Richard said. “I was offering to take his night class.”

  “Uh,” Lena began. “I think he canceled it.”

  Richard stared at the doorway like a pit bull waiting for an intruder. Lena had never seen him mad before. His eyes bulged and his whole face was red except for his thin, white lips, which were pressed together in a straight line. She did not know whether to back away or laugh.

  She said, “Lookit, fuck him,” and wondered if that was what the real problem was. While it did not say much about Richard’s taste in potential sexual partners, it would explain a lot about his current behavior.

  He jabbed his hands into his hips. “I don’t have to take that kind of treatment. Not from him. We are equals in this department and I will not tolerate that sort of—”

  She tried again. “Come on, the guy just lost his son.”

  Richard dismissed this with a brusque wave of his hand. “All I ask is to be treated like an adult. Like a human being.”

  Lena didn’t have time for this, but she knew Richard would never leave if she did not find some sympathy for him. “You’re right. He’s a prick.”

  Richard finally looked at her, then did a double take. His question surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. “Who hit you?”

  “What?” she asked, but she knew he meant the cut under her eye. “No. I fell. I hit it on the door. I was just being stupid.” The urge to offer more excuses overwhelmed her, but Lena made herself stop. She knew from being a cop that liars had a hard time shutting up. Still, she could not help but add, “It’s nothing.”

  He gave her a sly wink, letting her know he wasn’t buying it. His whole attitude from before with Keller was changed when he said, “You know, I’ve always felt close to you, Lena. Sibyl talked about you all the time. She saw all the good in you.”

  Lena cleared her throat but said nothing.

  “All she ever wanted to do was help you. To make you happy. That’s all that mattered in the world to her.”

  Lena felt an uncomfortable tingling in the soles of her feet. “Yeah,” she said, hoping he would move on.

  “What happened to your eye?” he pressed, but his tone was gentle. “It looks like someone hit you.”

  “No one hit me,” she countered, aware she was talking more loudly than was necessary: another common mistake with liars. Inwardly, she cursed herself. She used to be good at this.

&
nbsp; “If you ever wanted help . . .” He let his words trail off, probably realizing how stupid his offer sounded to someone like Lena. He changed tactics. “If you ever want to talk about anything. Believe it or not, I know how you feel.”

  “Yeah,” she said, but the pope would be scrambling eggs in hell before Lena ever confided in Richard Carter.

  He slid up onto one of the lab tables, his feet dangling over the side. From the concerned look he gave her, she expected him to renew his offer, but he asked instead, “Did y’all find out who opened the cages?”

  “No,” Lena said. “Why?”

  “I heard that a couple of sophomores were late on some class projects, so they created a . . . diversion.”

  Lena gave a disgusted laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Hey, I’m supposed to have dinner with Nan tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you come along? It’ll be fun.”

  “I’ve got work to do,” Lena told him. Then, to emphasize this, she opened her knife.

  “Lord A’mighty.” Richard slid off the table to get a better look. “What do you need that for?”

  She was about to say it was a good way of getting rid of annoying people who wouldn’t mind their own business when his cell phone started to ring. Richard fumbled in the pockets of his lab coat before finding it. He looked at the screen, a huge smile breaking out on his face.

  He told Lena, “I’ll catch up with you later. We can talk more about this.” He touched the skin under his eye, letting her know what he meant.

  She wanted to tell him not to bother, but settled on, “See you around.” It was a waste of her breath anyway. Richard scooted out of the classroom before she had time to finish the sentence.

  Lena went back to the vent, using the knife to twist the screws back in. Chuck was right, this would have gone a lot faster with a screwdriver, but she did not want to have to ask for one. She was the only person in the room, and this was the first time all day she’d had any time alone. What she really needed to think about was how she was going to get back into Jeffrey’s good graces.