Skin Privilege

by Karin Slaughter

  Clint seemed uneasy, but he stood there quietly until Harley raised his head. Still, he waited a few more seconds before leading Harley back toward the gate.

  As soon as they were gone, Lena slid out from under the truck. She ran so fast out of the backyard that her heart felt like it was going to explode. She found the Mercedes and rolled down all four windows, listening for the motorcycle's pipes as she drove, having to backtrack a few times before she was able to find Harley stopped at a red light outside the library. A white sedan was in front of the bike, and she assumed that Clint was behind the wheel.

  The light turned green and the sedan went to the left. Harley went straight, and she followed the bike. The Mercedes' headlights were off, and Lena slowed, hanging back so Harley wouldn't see her. Ideally, two cars were used in a tail, but Lena was hardly in a position to have such luxury. She just kept back as far as she could and hoped Harley wasn't the kind of driver who was constantly checking his rearview mirror. She sure as hell was checking hers. Clint could all too easily have looped around to see if Harley was being followed.

  He hadn't, though, at least as far as Lena could see. The road behind her remained clear. When she saw the bike turn into what looked like an abandoned warehouse, she kept on going, steering the car up the hill and finding a spot where she could view what was going on below without being spotted.

  She had spent two nights watching the warehouse, grabbing some sleep at the school before making the long journey back to the motel in Florida to regroup during the day. The second night back, she'd brought the camera. Through the lens, she'd been able to better see who was going in and out of the building – the usual suspects, plus a few surprises. It was the surprises that made her start to see her way out of this for the first time since she'd arrived in Reece. Lena just needed to get Jeffrey and Sara out of harm's way, then she would make her move.

  Between the motel, the digital camera, and gas for the car, Lena had blown eleven hundred dollars of Hank's emergency cash. She figured she could find a twenty-four-hour Kinko's somewhere and make copies of the camera's flashcard. Photocopies were cheap, and her log of the comings and goings at the abandoned warehouse were meticulous.

  Hank had obviously found out something about these guys and their operation. Harley had said as much that first time she had seen him at the house. He'd spoke about Hank's downward spiral in terms of vengeance, and you did not seek revenge on somebody unless they struck at you first. Hank must have tried to play the mother of all poker hands and got caught in a bluff – either that, or they had attacked him at his weakest point, his addiction. He must have fought them at first, but once he got hooked back on the dope again, the struggle was over.

  Lena didn't share her uncle's weaknesses, at least not where drugs were concerned. All she wanted out of this was freedom – not justice, not money, not vengeance, though God knew Charlotte and Deacon deserved retribution. Lena couldn't think about either of them now because it was the living she had to protect. Charlotte still had a family. There was still Hank, Sara, and Jeffrey to think about. Lena couldn't afford to bluff. Whether Ethan was behind this or someone else, it didn't matter. First thing in the morning, she was going to lay all her cards on the table.

  With the right hand, she might be able to win back some lives. If she lost her own in the process, so be it.

  FRIDAY

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jeffrey had forgotten what it felt like to wake up feeling like a human being. While he was under no illusion that the Holiday Inn of Beaulah, Georgia, was a pantheon of hygienic bliss, all he cared about was that the place looked clean. The sheets were crisp white, the pillows fluffed and inviting. The carpet showed tracks from the rigorous vacuuming and didn't stick to the bottom of his feet when he walked across the floor. Room service came hot and fresh. The staff seemed happy to be there – at least none of the maids had cursed at him. Best of all, the bathroom was as close to heaven as he'd been in a while: the shower had been strong enough to take the hide off an ox and the toilet flushed without an ominous gurgle.

  Sara must have felt the same way. She slept so soundly he had actually woken her up to make sure she was okay. And then, since she was awake, he'd persuaded her to stay that way a little longer. Then a little longer still. By the time the sun peeked in between the gap in the curtains, she lay spent, her leg thrown over his, her head resting on his chest. Jeffrey stroked her arm, his mind unable to stay distracted without Sara's help. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something had changed about her lately. Sex had turned much more intense, and at one point this morning he'd felt like she was holding on to him out of fear rather than passion.

  The explosion at Hank's bar had scared her. Hell, it had scared him. Jeffrey kept thinking about what Jake Valentine had told him, that his wife refused to have a child until she was certain her husband would be around to help raise it. When he was Valentine's age, Jeffrey would have laughed if someone had told him he'd be adopting a kid one day. He had always assumed that he would end up with Sara, but never that they would have a family together. Somehow, it made him feel even closer to her, like there was something greater in their lives now than just going to work during the week and staying in bed all weekend. Was that how Hank Norton had felt when he'd taken in Lena and Sibyl? Had blood made him feel an even deeper connection?

  Jeffrey's cell phone was on the bedside table. He checked it again to make sure all the bars showed the strongest signal and that the battery was fully charged. It had rained all night, a hard, heavy rain that had tapped on their window like a witch trying to get in. Through the heavy curtains, he could see the sun shining. He hoped that the new day would bring some clarity. He had a decision to make: whether to go forward trying to help Lena or to take his wife and go home.

  Sara had told him the details of Lena 's call as they'd driven to the hotel last night. She had tried to downplay it, but the fact that Lena had cut her close to the bone was obvious. Jeffrey hadn't known about Lena 's abortion. That Lena would rub it in Sara's face was enough for him to turn his back on her forever. Oddly, it was Sara who told him to see past the other woman's words. She was used to dealing with children, and she thought that

  Lena 's hurtful words were an obvious ploy to get them to leave town. One of the last things she'd said on the subject was that maybe it would be wise to listen to Lena for a change.

  Neither one of them could get over the possibility that Hank Norton might be Lena 's real father. Growing up in central Alabama, Jeffrey knew several jokes that called for the phrase, 'uncle-daddy,' but there was nothing to laugh about now. What would Lena do if she found out? Or, did she already know? Is that why she had been mute when Valentine found her on the football field? Did the death of Charlotte Warren somehow tie into Lena 's questionable parentage?

  Larry Gibson had provided some background information on his wife's connection to Lena. Charlotte had been friends with Sibyl, Lena 's sister, when all three girls were in high school. Like most school-time attachments, they had lost touch over the years, but they had obviously reestablished contact, otherwise there was no reason for Lena to be on that football field.

  Jeffrey stared up at the shadows on the ceiling, listening to Sara breathe. His arm was going to sleep, so he slid out from under her and got out of bed. The clock read seven-sixteen, but Jeffrey felt as if he'd slept ten hours. They had asked for the highest floor in the hotel, both of them thinking but not saying it'd be nice to know that a body couldn't be thrown up to the tenth-story window. The only thing available was a small suite – a luxury, to be sure, but one that Jeffrey was willing to splurge on.

  The suite wasn't the sort of lavish affair you saw on television. It was really just two hotel rooms with a connecting door. Instead of a bed in the adjacent room, there was a couch with two chairs and a television. Jeffrey turned on the TV and muted the sound. ESPN showed two talking heads who'd been on a football field for maybe ten minutes before running for the sports desk and packing
on sixty pounds. He flipped the channel, watching the ticker scroll on CNN for a few minutes, then switching to MSNBC and watching the ticker there. They were both pretty much the same, so he flipped again, scrolling through all the stations until he stopped on the Discovery Channel, where a man had his arm stuck shoulder deep up a cow's ass.

  Jeffrey didn't want to tie up his cell phone so he picked up the receiver by the couch and used his calling card to check their messages at home. No one had called, so he hung up and dialed the station. He entered the code and accessed his work voice mail. There were six calls, three from the mayor, who wanted to know why Jeffrey hadn't cracked down on the teenage hooligans who were kicking over trashcans up and down his street. The next two were from the county lawyer, asking details on various cases that were about to come to trial. The last call was from Frank Wallace, telling Jeffrey he'd already listened to all the messages and taken care of everything, including arresting a group of boys for kicking over trashcans up and down the mayor's street. Frank wanted his boss to know that the lead hooligan had been none other than the mayor's teenage son. Jeffrey smiled as he returned the phone to the cradle.

  'Hey.' Sara stood in the doorway. She had thrown on his shirt but hadn't buttoned it, and he could see just about every favorite part of her where the material fell to the side.

  He made a halfhearted effort to stop the appreciative sound in his throat from coming out.

  She smiled and pulled the shirt closed as she walked toward him. 'You should be sleeping.'

  'So should you.'

  She sat beside him, tucking the shirt underneath her, wrinkling her nose at the television. 'What is this, some kind of animal pornography?'

  He turned off the set. 'Wanna go back to bed?'

  'I want to go back home.'

  'I want you to go back home, too.'

  Slowly, she turned to face him. She let her back rest against the arm of the couch. 'Let me be the one to do it,' she suggested. 'He'll talk to me before he talks to you.'

  Ethan. She could read his mind so well sometimes it scared him. 'I'm not letting my wife go to a prison.'

  ' "Your wife,"' she echoed, eyebrow raised. 'Am I your property?'

  She didn't want him to answer that. Yes, she was his property. Every part of her belonged to him.

  Jeffrey put her feet in his lap and started to rub them. 'You don't know what prisons are like, Sara – the filth, the level of violence.'

  'You think I'll set off a riot?' She laughed at the idea, but Jeffrey knew better.

  He told her, 'You take your life into your own hands every time you go inside. The guards only run the place because the inmates let them. That can turn on a dime, especially when there's something they want. Anything can happen, especially with a thug like Ethan who has nothing to lose.'

  'He's got plenty to lose,' she countered. 'He only has nine more years on his sentence. He's up for parole every two years. There's always the possibility he could con someone on the board and get out early. He's not going to ruin his chance in front of the parole board just to get to me.'

  'It's not you he wants to get to,' Jeffrey reminded her.

  They both knew he might as well have painted a target on his back that day he took Ethan to prison. She pressed her lips together, then said quietly, 'Please don't go.'

  'I won't go if you promise me you'll go back to Grant County today.'

  She raised her eyebrow again. 'And when I call tonight and you tell me that you lied to me and that you've been to the prison – what then?'

  He traced his fingers down the arch of her foot.

  She kept her tone calm, reasonable. 'I told you that I would support you, but this is crazy. You don't even know that Ethan is linked to anything that's happening to Lena. She gave a very plausible reason for her visit.'

  'There are too many coincidences,' he told her, wondering why she wasn't yelling at him. He knew how to ignore Sara's temper, but he'd never been able to tune her out when she was being logical. 'I have to find out for myself.'

  'I understand,' she said. 'But, do you really think Ethan Green is going to sit down and spill his heart out to you? If he knows why Lena is in trouble, do you think he's going to tell you anything?' Now, she sounded as if she was pleading with him. 'He hates your guts, Jeffrey. He'd just as soon kill you as look at you, and you told me not two minutes ago how violent prisons are. The guards don't control the inmates. What happens if one of them decides to look the other way while you're walking down a corridor? What happens if Ethan has a weapon on him and decides to do it himself?',

  'Baby, I hate to say this as a defense, but if Ethan Green wanted me dead, I would already be in the ground.' Tears welled into her eyes. He continued, ' Lena isn't talking. I've got to get answers from somewhere.'

  'And you think Ethan Green's just going to offer up answers on a silver platter? Now who's being naive?' Sara sat up and took his hand. 'Please don't go-'

  Jeffrey looked at his hand in hers. Though Sara hadn't been in the operating room in years, she still had the hands of a surgeon. Her fingers were long and delicate, but there was something strong about them, too. If anyone came into their hotel room right then and asked Jeffrey to describe all the important things about Sara, he would've started with her hands.

  He said, I won't take you with me to the prison.'

  'So, you're just going to leave me here?'

  'I'll drop you by the hospital,' he told her. 'I know you want to check on Hank. I can swing back by after I see Ethan and pick you up. Okay?'

  Sara refused to look at him.

  His cell phone started to vibrate, jumping across the coffee table. Jeffrey jumped, too, snatching up the phone, checking the number.

  He answered, saying, 'Tolliver.'

  'It's Jake,' Valentine said. ' Lena 's here. She just turned herself in.'

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Sara spent most of the drive back to Reece on the phone, trying to locate Hank Norton. As promised, first thing that morning, the Elawah County hospital had arranged for Hank's transfer to a larger facility. The only problem was, no one knew which facility. Sara had tried every hospital she could think of in the area. Finally, she'd managed to get an actual person on the line at St. Ignatius, a regional hospital about an hour's drive away, almost in the exact opposite direction of Coastal State Prison. An ICU nurse was giving Sara the lowdown on Hank's condition when Jeffrey pulled up in front of the jail.

  'Thank you,' Sara told the nurse. She disconnected the line, holding the phone to her chest. 'He's stabilizing.'

  Jeffrey parked the car. 'That's good, right?'

  Sara nodded, though she wasn't so sure. As a doctor, she understood that a patient's recovery wasn't just down to good medicine. Family support could often energize a patient, even give them a reason to live. Hank Norton was at a crucial point right now. If he thought he was alone, if Lena didn't do her part to take care of her uncle, then he might very well give up the fight.

  Jeffrey got out of the car and walked around to open Sara's door. She gave him a tight smile as she stood, but didn't let go of his hand as they walked toward the basement, where the jail was housed.

  The entire trip down, she could tell that he wanted to talk to her, just as she could tell this desire came from guilt rather than a need for her to understand. For Sara's part, she didn't want to hear the excuses. Jeffrey had made up his mind that he was going to Coastal State Prison the minute he'd seen the telephone number charged to Lena 's motel room. Anything he said now was just a back-pedaling attempt to put a better face on the decision. Sara felt she had to support his choice, but she sure as hell wasn't going to act happy about it.

  She told him, 'The hospital is an hour out of your way.'

  Jeffrey opened the glass entrance door for her. 'I know.'

  Don Cook was at the front desk, but unlike the first time Jeffrey had seen him, he wasn't playing the part of the relaxed old man. The deputy was sitting straight up in his chair, arms crossed, obviously furious.


  Jeffrey gave him a cheery smile. 'We're here to see Lena Adams.'

  'I know what you're here for,' Cook barked.

  There were footsteps on the stairs. Jake Valentine rounded the landing, stopping when he saw Jeffrey and Sara. He was dressed in his uniform again, his gun belt tight around his waist, his hat planted squarely on his head. Sara had expected the sheriff to look pleased with himself to have his prisoner back in custody, but he looked pissed as hell.

  'Ma'am.' He tipped his hat to Sara, then told Jeffrey, 'She's being processed out.'

  Sara and Jeffrey both exclaimed, 'What?'

  Valentine narrowed his eyes, as if he didn't quite buy their reaction. 'Her fancy lawyer got the judge to let her out. She's free to go until her court date on the escape charge.' He instructed his deputy, 'Don, you mind going to fetch her?'

  Cook took his time standing, making sure everyone in the room knew he was not happy with the latest developments before he left by the steel door leading to the cells.

  As soon as the man was gone, Jeffrey asked, 'What happened, Jake?'

  'She wasn't locked down ten minutes before the judge gives me a call, asks me to go over the warrant with him. Again.' Valentine paused as if he needed to check his temper. 'He dismissed all the original charges and chewed my ass out in the process. I had to beg him to bench-warrant the escape. If I hadn't spent so much money looking for her, he would've probably let that one drop, too.' He rested his hand on the butt of his gun. 'You wanna tell me what's going on?'

  Jeffrey answered, 'I'm as clueless as you are.'

  Valentine walked over to the front door and looked out into the parking lot. A light mist had started to fall. He glanced back at Jeffrey and Sara, then returned his attention to the BMW. 'That fancy car must've set you back a pretty penny.'

  Sara felt herself bristle. Jeffrey told the man, 'Doctors make a lot of money.'

  'That they do,' Valentine agreed. He kept his back to them, and Sara was reminded of the sudden punch the sheriff had thrown at Jeffrey that first night outside the hospital. Jeffrey must have been thinking about this, too, because he stood in front of Sara.