Hank stood there, hands still in his pockets, like he was waiting for her to say something.
She said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You need anything?”
“Like what, Hank?”
He pressed together his thin lips, scratching his arms like they itched. The needle tracks scarring his skin were still prominent even after all these years, and she hated the sight of them, hated the way he didn’t seem to care that they reminded her of everything that was wrong between them.
He said, “I’ll fix you a plate.”
“Thanks,” she managed, letting her legs hang over the bed. She pressed her feet firmly to the floor, trying to remind herself that she was here in this room. This last week, she had found herself traveling around in her mind, going to places that felt better, safer. Sibyl was still alive. Ethan Green hadn’t come into her life yet. Things were easier.
A long, hot bath would have been nice, but Lena wasn’t allowed to sit in a tub for at least another week. She wasn’t allowed to have sex for twice as long as that, and every time she tried to come up with a lie, some explanation to give Ethan for not being available, all she could think was that it would be easier just to let him do it. Whatever harm came to her would be her own fault. There had to be a day of reckoning for what she had done. There had to be some sort of punishment for the lie that was her life.
She took a quick shower to wake herself up, making sure not to get her hair wet because the thought of holding a hair dryer for however many minutes it took was too tiring to even think about. She was turning lazy through all this, sitting around and staring out the window as if the dirt-packed backyard with its lonesome tire swing and 1959 Cadillac that had been on blocks since before Lena and Sibyl had been born was the beginning and end of her world. It could be. Hank had said more than a few times that she could move back in with him, and the easiness of the offer had swayed her back and forth like the ocean’s undertow. If she did not leave soon, she would find herself adrift with no hope of land. She would never feel her feet firmly on the ground again.
Hank had been against taking her to the clinic in Atlanta, but to his credit, he had let her decision stand. Through the years, Hank had done a lot of things for Lena that maybe he didn’t believe in— be it for religious reasons or his own damn fool stubbornness— and she was just now realizing what a gift that was. Not that she would ever be able to acknowledge this to his face. As much as Hank Norton had been one of the few constants in her life, Lena was keenly aware that for him, she was the only thing he had left to hold on to. If she were a less selfish person, she’d feel sorry for the old man.
The kitchen was right off the bathroom, and she wrapped herself in her robe before she opened the door. Hank was standing over the sink, tearing the skin off a piece of fried chicken. KFC boxes were scattered on the counter beside a paper plate piled with mashed potatoes, coleslaw and a couple of biscuits.
He said, “I didn’t know what piece you wanted.”
Lena could see the brown gravy congealing on top of the potatoes and the mayonnaise smell from the coleslaw made her stomach clench. Just the thought of food made her want to vomit. Seeing it, smelling it, was enough to push her over the edge.
Hank dropped the chicken leg on the counter, putting his hands out like she might fall, saying, “Sit down.”
For once, she did as she was told, taking a wobbly chair from under the kitchen table. There were tons of pamphlets scattered on the top— AA and NA meetings being Hank’s most abiding addiction— but he had cleared a small space for her to eat. She put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hand, not feeling dizzy so much as out of place.
He rubbed her back, his callused fingers catching on the material of her robe. She gritted her teeth, wishing he wouldn’t touch her but not wanting to deal with the hurt look on his face if she pulled away.
He cleared his throat. “You want me to call the doctor?”
“I’m okay.”
He pointed out the obvious: “You never had a strong stomach.”
“I’m okay,” she repeated, feeling like he was trying to remind her of their history, of the fact that he had seen her through just about everything in her life.
He pulled out another chair and sat across from her. Lena could sense him waiting for her to look up, and she took her time obliging. As a kid, she had thought Hank was old, but now that she was thirty-four, the age Hank had been when he took in his dead sister’s twin daughters to raise, he looked ancient. The life he’d lived had cut hard lines into his face just as the needles he’d pushed into his veins had left their marks. Ice blue eyes stared back at her, and she could see anger under his concern. Anger had always been a constant companion to Hank, and sometimes when she looked at him, Lena could see her future written out in his cragged features.
The drive to Atlanta, to the clinic, had been a quiet one. Normally, they didn’t have much to say to each other, but the heaviness of the silence had been like a weight on Lena’s chest. She had told Hank she wanted to go into the clinic alone, but once she got into the building— its bright fluorescent lights almost pulsing with the knowledge of what she was about to do— Lena had longed for his presence.
There was one other woman in the waiting room, an almost pathetically thin mousy blonde who kept fidgeting with her hands, avoiding Lena’s gaze almost as keenly as Lena avoided hers. She was a few years younger than Lena, but kept her hair swept up on top of her head in a tight bun like she was an old lady. Lena found herself wondering what had brought the girl there—was she a college student whose carefully planned life had hit a snag? A careless flirt who had gone too far at a party? The victim of some drunken uncle’s affection?
Lena didn’t ask her— didn’t have the nerve and did not want to open herself up to the same question. So they sat for nearly an hour, two prisoners awaiting a death sentence, both consumed by the guilt of their crimes. Lena had almost been relieved when they took her back to the procedure room, doubly relieved to see Hank when they finally wheeled her outside to the parking lot. He must have paced beside his car, chain-smoking the entire time. The pavement was littered with brown butts that he had smoked down to the filters.
Afterward, he had taken her to a hotel on Tenth Street, knowing they should stay in Atlanta in case she had a reaction or needed help. Reese, the town where Hank had raised Lena and Sibyl and where he still lived, was a small town and people didn’t have anything better to do than talk about their neighbors. Barring that, neither one of them trusted the local doctor to know what to do if Lena needed help. The man refused to write prescriptions for birth control and was often quoted in the local paper saying that the problem with the town’s rowdy youth was that their mothers had jobs instead of staying home to raise their kids like God intended.
The hotel room was nicer than anything Lena had ever stayed in, a sort of mini-suite with a sitting area. Hank had stayed on the couch watching TV with the sound turned down low, ordering room service when he had to, not even going out to smoke. At night, he folded his lanky body onto the couch, his light snores keeping Lena up, but comforting her at the same time.
She had told Ethan she was going to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s training lab for a course on crime scene processing that Jeffrey wanted her to attend. She had told Nan, her roommate, that she was going to stay with Hank to go through some of Sibyl’s things. In retrospect, she knew she should have told them the same lie to make it easier, but for some reason lying to Nan had flustered Lena. Her sister and Nan had been lovers, made a life together. After Sibyl died, Nan had tried to take Lena under her wing, a poor substitute for Sibyl, but at least she had tried. Lena still did not know why she could not bring herself to tell the other woman the real reason for the trip.
Nan was a lesbian, and judging by the mail she got, she was probably some kind of feminist. She would have been an easier person to take to the clinic than Hank, vocalizing her support instead of seething in
quiet disdain. Nan would have probably raised her fist at the protesters outside who were yelling “Baby killer!” and “Murderer!” as the nurse took Lena to the car in a squeaky old wheelchair. Nan probably would have comforted Lena, maybe brought her tea and made her eat something instead of letting her hold on to her hunger like a punishment, relishing the dizziness and the burning pain in her stomach. She certainly wouldn’t have let Lena lie around in bed all day staring out the window.
Which was as good a reason as any to keep all of this from her. Nan knew too many bad things about Lena already. There was no need to add another failure to the list.
Hank said, “You need to talk to somebody.”
Lena rested her cheek against her palm, staring over his shoulder. She was so tired her eyelids fluttered when she blinked. Five minutes. She would give him five minutes, then go back to bed.
“What you did . . .” He let his voice trail off. “I understand why you did it. I really do.”
“Thanks,” she said, glib.
“I wish I had it in me,” he began, clenching his hands. “I’d tear that boy apart and bury him where nobody’d ever think to look.”
They’d had this conversation before. Mostly, Hank talked and Lena just stared, waiting for him to realize she was not going to participate. He had gone to too many meetings, seen too many drunks and addicts pouring out their hearts to a bunch of strangers just for a little plastic chip to carry around in their pockets.
“I woulda raised it,” he said, not the first time he had offered. “Just like I raised you and your sister.”
“Yeah,” she said, pulling her robe tighter around her. “You did such a great job.”
“You never let me in.”
“Into what?” she asked. Sibyl had always been his favorite. As a child she had been more pliable, more eager to please. Lena had been the uncontrollable one, the one who wanted to push the limits.
She realized that she was rubbing her belly and made herself stop. Ethan had punched her square in the stomach when she had told him that no, she really wasn’t pregnant, it was a false alarm. He had warned her that if she ever killed a child of theirs, he would kill her, too. He warned her about a lot of things she didn’t listen to.
“You’re such a strong person,” Hank said. “I don’t understand why you let that boy control you.”
She would have explained it if she knew how. Men didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that it didn’t matter how strong you were, mentally or physically. What mattered was that need you felt in your gut, and how they made the ache go away. Lena used to have such disgust for women who let men knock them around. What was wrong with them? What made them so weak that they didn’t care about themselves? They were pathetic, getting exactly what they asked for. Sometimes she had wanted to slap them around herself, tell them to straighten up, stop being a doormat.
From the inside, she saw it differently. As easy as it was to hate Ethan when he wasn’t around, when he was there and being sweet, she never wanted him to leave. As bad as her life was, he could make it better or worse, depending on his mood. Giving him that control, that responsibility, was almost a relief, one more thing she didn’t have to deal with. And, to be honest, sometimes she hit him back. Sometimes she hit him first.
Every woman who’d ever been slapped around said she had asked for it, set off her boyfriend or husband by making him mad or burning dinner or whatever it was they used to justify having the shit beaten out of them, but Lena knew for a fact that she brought out Ethan’s bad side. He had wanted to change. When she first met him, he was trying very hard to be a different person, a good person. If Hank knew this particular fact, he would be shocked if not sickened. It wasn’t Ethan who caused the bruises, it was Lena. She was the one who kept pulling him back in. She was the one who kept baiting him and slapping him until he got angry enough to explode, and when he was on top of her, beating her, fucking her, she felt alive. She felt reborn.
There was no way she could have brought a baby into this world. She would not wish her fucked-up life on anyone.
Hank leaned his elbows on his knees. “I just want to understand.”
With his history, Hank of all people should understand. Ethan was bad for her. He turned her into the kind of person she loathed, and yet she kept going back for more. He was the worst kind of addiction because no one but Lena could understand the draw.
Musical trilling came from the bedroom, and it took Lena a second to realize the noise was her cell phone.
Hank saw her start to stand and said, “I’ll get it,” going into the bedroom before she could stop him. She heard him answer the phone, say, “Wait a minute.”
He came back into the kitchen with his jaw set. “It’s your boss,” he said, handing her the phone.
Jeffrey’s voice was as dire as Hank’s mood. “Lena,” he began. “I know you’ve got one more day on your vacation, but I need you to come in.”
She looked at the clock on the wall, tried to think how long it would take to pack and get back to Grant County. For the first time that week, she could feel her heart beating again, adrenaline flooding into her bloodstream and making her feel like she was waking up from a long sleep.
She avoided Hank’s gaze, offering, “I can be there in three hours.”
“Good,” Jeffrey said. “Meet me at the morgue.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sara winced as she wrapped a Band-Aid around a broken fingernail. Her hands felt bruised from digging and small scratches gouged into the tips of her fingers like tiny pinpricks. She would have to be extra careful at the clinic this week, making sure the wounds were covered at all times. As she bandaged her thumb, her mind flashed to the piece of fingernail she had found stuck in the strip of wood, and she felt guilty for worrying about her petty problems. Sara could not imagine what the girl’s last moments had been like, but she knew that before the day was over, she would have to do just that.
Working in the morgue, Sara had seen the terrible ways that people can die— stabbings, shootings, beatings, strangulations. She tried to look at each case with a clinical eye, but sometimes, a victim would become a living, breathing thing, beseeching Sara to help. Lying dead in that box out in the woods, the girl had called to Sara. The look of fear etched into every line of her face, the hand grasping for some hold on to life— all beseeched someone, anyone, to help. The girl’s last moments must have been horrific. Sara could think of nothing more terrifying than being buried alive.
The telephone rang in her office, and Sara jogged across the room to answer before the machine picked up. She was a second too late, and the speaker echoed a screech of feedback as she picked up the phone.
“Sara?” Jeffrey asked.
“Yeah,” she told him, switching off the machine. “Sorry.”
“We haven’t found anything,” he said, and she could hear the frustration in his voice.
“No missing persons?”
“There was a girl a few weeks back,” he told her. “But she turned up at her grandmother’s yesterday. Hold on.” She heard him mumble something, then come back on the line. “I’ll call you right back.”
The phone clicked before Sara could respond. She sat back in her chair, looking down at her desk, noticing the neat stacks of papers and memos. All of her pens were in a cup and the phone was perfectly aligned with the edge of the metal desk. Carlos, her assistant, worked full-time at the morgue but he had whole days when there was nothing for him to do but twiddle his thumbs and wait for someone to die. He had obviously kept himself busy straightening her office. Sara traced a scratch along the top of the Formica, thinking she had never noticed the faux wood laminate in all the years she had worked here.
She thought about the wood used to build the box that held the girl. The lumber looked new, and the screen mesh covering the pipe had obviously been wrapped around the top in order to keep debris from blocking the air supply. Someone was keeping the girl there, holding her there, for his own sick purposes.
Was her abductor somewhere right now thinking about her trapped in the box, getting some sort of sexual thrill from the power he thought he held over her? Had he already gotten his satisfaction, simply by leaving her there to die?
Sara startled as the phone rang. She picked it up, asking, “Jeffrey?”
“Just a minute.” He covered the phone as he spoke to someone, and Sara waited until he asked her, “How old do you think she is?”
Sara did not like guessing, but she said, “Anywhere from sixteen to nineteen. It’s hard to tell at this stage.”
He relayed this information to someone in the field, then asked Sara, “You think somebody made her put on those clothes?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, wondering where he was going with this.
“The bottom of her socks are clean.”
“He could have taken away her shoes after she got in the box,” Sara suggested. Then, realizing his true concern, she added, “I’ll have to get her on the table before I can tell if she was sexually assaulted.”
“Maybe he was waiting for that,” Jeffrey hypothesized, and they were both quiet for a moment as they considered this. “It’s pouring down rain here,” he said. “We’re trying to dig out the box, see if we can find anything on it.”
“The lumber looked new.”
“There’s mold growing on the side,” he told her. “Maybe buried like that, it wouldn’t weather as quickly.”
“It’s pressure treated?”
“Yeah,” he said. “The joints are all mitered. Whoever built this didn’t just throw it together. It took some skill.” He paused a moment, but she didn’t hear him talking to anyone. Finally, he said, “She looks like a kid, Sara.”
“I know.”
“Somebody’s missing her,” he said. “She didn’t just run away.”
Sara was silent. She had seen too many secrets revealed during an autopsy to make a snap judgment about the girl. There could be any number of circumstances that had brought her to that dark place in the woods.
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