“I don’t—”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Fuck,” Lena cursed. She scrambled to stand and bolted toward the door, her heart lurching in her chest. At the ambulance, she threw open the back doors, looking for anything that resembled a case.
“Officer?” a man called. She knew it was one of the cops by the cruisers but she did not have time. “Officer?”
“It’s okay!” she yelled, panic filling her voice. “It’s okay!” There was a long plastic case strapped into the side of the ambulance. She had been on accident scenes enough to know this was the first thing the EMTs brought with them. Her fingers fumbled with the buckle and she said, “Fuck-fuck-fuck,” trying to remember how long she had been out of the building.
The man kept pushing. “Do you need help?”
“Shut up!” she screamed, throwing open the case. There were all kinds of drugs and boxes. She hoped it had everything they would need. At the last minute, she grabbed another bag and the defibrillator.
She ran through the front door, startling the second shooter. He reared up but did not pull the trigger on her. Lena rushed to the back, where Smith still had the gun pressed to the little girl’s head. He was looking at his watch, smiling, and she felt such seething hatred for him that she dropped the gear and reached for the little girl, snatching her away.
The muzzle of Smith’s gun caught Lena in the forehead, stunning her for a moment. She dropped to her knees and he kicked her in the chest. She fell back just as Brad tried to come to her aid. Smith trained the Sig on Brad and pressed his foot into Lena’s sternum.
He said, “I knew you would try to be a hero.”
“No,” Lena said, the pressure from his boot pushing the life out of her.
Smith pressed harder. “You want to be a hero?”
“No,” she said. “Please.” She tried to pry up his boot but that just made him press harder. “Please,” she repeated, thinking about the child inside her, wondering what this was doing.
Smith exhaled sharply, like he was disappointed. “All right,” he said, removing his foot. “Let that be a lesson.”
Brad helped Lena stand. She found that her knees were weak and she felt sick all over. Had the pressure done something? Had Smith broken her inside?
Smith used his foot to push the plastic case toward Sara. “This should be enough to do it,” he said. “Field surgery, just like on TV.”
Sara shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. There’s no way—”
“Sure there’s a way.”
“He should be in an operating room.”
“This’ll have to do.”
“He could die.”
Smith indicated his gun. “He might die anyway.”
“What do you have against…” Sara stopped, obviously trying to control her emotions. They seemed to get the better of her, though, and she demanded, “What do you have against us? What did we do to you?”
“It’s not you,” Smith told her. He picked up the phone, shouting, “What the fuck do you want?”
“Then Jeffrey,” Sara said, her voice catching again. Smith would not look at her, so she addressed her words to the second gunman. “What did Jeffrey ever do to you?”
The second shooter turned toward Sara, his rifle still aimed at the door.
“Shut the fuck up,” Smith barked into the phone. “We’re just gonna perform a little field surgery here. That’s why you sent the medics, right?”
Sara would not let go. “What?” she demanded. “What’s the point? Why are you doing this?” she begged, sounding desperate. “Why?”
The second shooter kept staring at her, and Smith put the phone to his chest, waiting to see if his partner would answer. The young man had a quiet voice, but it carried when he answered, “Because Jeffrey’s his father.”
Sara looked as if she had seen a ghost. Her lips trembled when she asked, “Jared?”
Chapter Seventeen
Monday
Sara counted off the rings on the phone, waiting for her parents’ answering machine to pick up. Eddie hated answering machines, but he had gotten one when Sara came back from Atlanta just to help her feel safer. After the sixth ring, the machine whirred on, her father’s voice gruff as he asked the caller to leave a message.
Sara waited for the beep, then said, “Mama, it’s me—”
“Sara?” Cathy said. “Hold on.” Sara waited while her mother went to turn off the machine, which was upstairs in her parents’ bedroom. There were only two telephones in the house: the one in the kitchen that had a fifty-foot cord and the one in the master bedroom that had become off-limits to Sara and Tessa as soon as they had reached dating age.
Sara let her gaze fall to the skeleton on the table where just this morning Luke Swan had lain. Hoss had brought three cardboard boxes to transport the bones, and though Sara had been shocked by his lackadaisical attitude, she was not in a position to question the man’s methods. She had painstakingly put the skeleton together, trying to find clues that would help identify her. The whole process had taken hours, but she was finally certain about one thing: the girl had, in fact, been murdered.
Cathy came back on the line. “You okay?” she asked. “Is something wrong? Where are you?”
“I’m fine, Mama.”
“I was out buying sprinkles for cupcakes.”
Sara felt a tinge of guilt. Her mother only made cupcakes when she was trying to cheer Sara up.
Cathy continued, “Your daddy got called away to the Chorskes’ again. Little Jack flushed a handful of crayons down the toilet.”
“Again?”
“Again,” she echoed. “You wanna come on over and help me with the frosting?”
“I’m sorry,” Sara told her. “I’m still in Sylacauga.”
“Oh.” The word managed to convey disappointment as well as disapproval.
“There was a problem,” Sara began, wondering whether or not to tell her mother what had happened. This morning, she had told Cathy about Robert and the shooting, but left out her suspicions about who had pulled the trigger. Now Sara realized as she talked that she could not hold back, and told her mother everything, from the sear mark to Reggie’s warning to her worries about whatever Jeffrey had put in his pocket.
“Was it a bracelet or something?” Cathy asked.
“I don’t know,” Sara said. “It looked like a gold chain.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Good question,” Sara said. “I’ve been looking at the bones all day.”
“And?”
“Her cranial sutures haven’t fully closed.” Sara leaned against the table, looking at the girl, wondering what had brought her short life to such a tragic end. “The knobbed ends of her long bones haven’t completely fused, either.”
“Which means?”
“She was probably in her late teens or early twenties.”
Cathy was silent, then, “Her poor mother.”
“I put in a call to the sheriff to ask if there are any open missing persons.”
“And?”
“I haven’t heard back from him. I haven’t heard from anyone all day, as a matter of fact.” Even Deacon White had barely spoken to her when she had returned with the skeleton. Sara added, “In a town this small, I don’t imagine there’s a long list of missing people.”
“Do you think it’s recent?”
“Recent as in ten, maybe fifteen years,” Sara guessed. “I’ve been working on putting the skeleton together for the last five hours. I think I know what happened to her.”
“Did she suffer?”
“No,” Sara lied, hoping she sounded convincing. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m not sure we’ll be able to come home tomorrow.”
“You’re going to stay with Jeffrey, then?”
Sara bit her bottom lip. She had gotten this far and decided that she might as well continue. “It seems like the more people say bad things about him, the more I want to…”
“Take care of him?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Defend him?”
“Mama…” Sara began, her voice trailing off. “I don’t know,” she said, and that was the truth. “It bothers me that you’re so set against us.” She paused, thinking of her father. “It bothers me that Daddy hates him so much.”
“I remember,” Cathy said, “back when you were four or five.”
Sara pressed her lips together, waiting for the lecture.
“We were all down at the Gulf, and your father took you fishing just to get away, the two of you. Do you remember?”
“No,” Sara said, though she had seen the pictures often enough to think she did.
“You were fishing with rubber worms, but the crabs kept coming along and clamping onto them, thinking it was food.” She laughed. “I heard your daddy screaming and cussing up a storm, yelling at the crabs to let go, that they were just holding on to worthless nothing.” She waited a beat, probably to make sure Sara understood. “He tried everything to get them to let go. He even beat them with a hammer, but their claws just kept clamped down on the line no matter what he did. He finally ended up cutting bait and letting them go.”
Sara let out a slow breath. “Am I the stubborn crab or the worthless bait?”
“You’re our little girl,” Cathy said. “And your father will come around. Eventually, he’ll cut bait and let you go.”
“What about you?”
She laughed. “I’m the hammer.”
Sara knew this all too well. She told her mother, “I just know what my gut tells me.”
“What’s it saying?”
“That I…” She was about to say that she loved Jeffrey, but Sara could not bring herself to do it.
Cathy picked up on it anyway. “So much for your fucking around.”
She could not put into words exactly what had happened in the cave, but she tried, “I don’t know why, but even with all that’s happened, I trust him. I feel safe with him.”
“That’s no small thing.”
“Yes,” Sara agreed. “I suppose you know me better than I think.”
“I do,” Cathy said, giving a resigned sigh. “But I should trust you more.”
Sara said nothing.
“I can’t protect you from everything in the world.”
“I don’t need you to,” Sara told her. “I may want you to, but I don’t need you to.” To soften her words, she added, “But I love you for being there.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
Sara let out her own sigh, feeling everything catch up with her. Usually, when things got bad she wanted nothing more than to sit in her mother’s kitchen and listen to her talk. Cathy had been her touch-stone for as long as Sara could remember. Now all she wanted to do was to fall asleep with her head on Jeffrey’s shoulder. The transition was startling. She had never felt this way about a man in her life. Even with Steve Mann, back when she was a teenager and everything was so emotional and desperate, Sara had not felt this same burning need to be with him. Jeffrey was like some drug that she could not get enough of. Sara was caught, and there was nothing she could do but wait it out and see what happened next.
Sara said, “I need to go, Mama. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Take care,” Cathy said. “I’ll save some cupcakes for you.”
Sara waited until her mother had hung up the phone. She went to do the same, but there was a noise on the line—someone breathing—then a second click.
Someone had been listening in on the conversation.
Sara went to the door and looked out the window into the hallway. The lights had been turned off hours ago when Deacon White had gone home. She knew there was an intern named Harold who lived in an apartment over the garage, but she was told that after hours he pretty much kept to himself unless he was called to transport a body.
She picked up the phone again and pressed the button marked “Apt.”
There were six rings before the man picked up with a bleary-sounding “Hello?”
“Harold?”
“Uhn,” he grunted, and she heard him moving around. Obviously she had awakened him. He repeated, “Hello?”
“Were you just on the phone?”
“What?”
Sara tried again. “This is Sara Linton. I’m in the building.”
“Oh…right…” he managed. “Mr. White said you were staying late.” He paused and she guessed from the sound he was yawning. “I’m sorry,” he said, then under his breath, “Jeesh.”
Sara stretched the phone cord so she could see through the window again. A car turned into the parking lot and a pair of headlights lit up the hallway. She shielded her eyes, trying to see who it was. The car had pulled into the handicap space next to her BMW, lights on high beams.
Harold sounded irritated. “Hello?”
“I’m sorry,” Sara apologized. “I wanted to leave and—”
“Oh, right,” he said. “I’ll come lock you out.”
“No, I—” she tried, but he had already hung up.
Sara looked into the hallway again, narrowing her eyes past the bright headlights, trying to see if anyone came to the door. A few minutes passed before a figure cut the glare. Harold stood in the middle of the hall, shielding his eyes as Sara had done. He was dressed in his pajamas and had his mouth open in a wide yawn when Sara joined him.
“Who the heck is that?” Harold asked, walking to the front door.
“I was—” She stopped. The car was a truck, and she could see Jeffrey climbing out of the driver’s seat. He had the radio blaring with some country music station, and she suppressed a curse, telling the intern, “Thank you for letting me out.”
“Yeah,” he said, giving another yawn that was so wide Sara could see his back molars. He twisted the lock and opened the door.
Sara started to leave, but could not help but ask the intern, “Is there anyone else in the building?”
Harold looked over his shoulder. “Nobody breathing.” He yawned again, one yawn too many, and Sara wondered if he had really been sleeping when she called.
She opened her mouth to question him, but he tossed her a wave as he locked the glass door, giving another yawn for her benefit.
Sara could smell Jeffrey from ten feet away; it was like walking past a brewery. Even without the overwhelming stench of beer, he was weaving as he walked toward her. Sara was slightly taken aback. She had not considered Jeffrey a teetotaler, but neither had she ever seen him drink more than a glass of wine or an occasional beer. Knowing what she did about his mother, this made sense, and the fact that he had chosen tonight to get drunk sent up warning signals Sara did not quite know how to read.
She gave a cautious “Hey.”
He had a silly grin on his face, and he held his finger in the air for silence as Elvis Presley’s “Wise Men Say” came on the radio.
“Jeffrey…”
He put his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him, making sloppy work of leading her in a dance.
She looked at the truck, which was probably older than she was. A long bench seat like the kind she had seen in the cave stretched from door to door, a single gearshift sticking up from the floorboard.
She asked, “Did you drive here?”
“Shh,” he said, the smell of beer on his breath so overpowering that she turned her head away.
“How much have you had to drink?”
He hummed with the song, picking up the line “Falling in love…with…you…”
“Jeff.”
“I love you, Sara.”
“That’s nice,” she said, gently pushing him away. “Let’s get you home, all right?”
“I can’t go to Possum’s.”
She put her hands on his shoulders, aware that she was literally keeping him upright. “Yes, you can.”
“They arrested Robert.”
Sara absorbed this information, but did not offer an opinion. “We’ll talk about it when you’re
sober.”
“I’m sober now.”
“Sure you are,” she said, glancing back to see if Harold was watching.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Jeffrey said, trying to climb into the truck headfirst.
“Hold on,” Sara said, catching him when he fell back. She braced her hands against his butt and pushed him in.
He slurred his words, saying, “Shh-ure been a long day.”
“I can’t believe you drove like this.”
“Who’s gonna arrest me?” he asked. “Hoss wouldn’t’ve arrested Robert if it wasn’t for me.” He put his hands on the wheel. “Jesus, I’m bad luck. Whole town goes to hell when I show up.”
“Scoot over,” she said, giving him a nudge.
“Men don’t let women drive.”
Sara laughed, giving him more of a push than a nudge. “Come on, big boy. You’ll still be a man in the morning.”
Beer bottles clanged onto the floor as he slid onto the passenger’s side. He leaned down, rummaging through the bottles. “Shit,” he said. “We need more beer.”
“We’ll get some,” she told him, climbing into the truck and closing the door. The metallic clang echoed in the cab. She reached down to crank the engine, but the keys were gone.
“He’ll probably get the needle,” Jeffrey said, and she could hear the pain in his voice. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, putting his hand to his eyes.
Sara stared at the front entrance of the funeral home, not knowing what to say. Thanks to her stint at Grady Hospital’s emergency room, she had dealt with more than her share of drunks. There was no use trying to reason with them when logic was the last thing on their mind.
She asked, “Where are the keys?”
Jeffrey leaned his head back against the window and closed his eyes. “In my pocket.”
Sara stared at him, feeling torn between wanting to slap him and wanting to tell him everything was going to be okay. She settled on saying, “Scooch down on the seat a little.” When he did, she put her hand into his front pocket.
He smiled, and moved her hand a little closer to center. Considering his lack of sobriety, she was surprised to find his libido none diminished.
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