A Faint Cold Fear

4

Grady Hospital was one of the most respected level-one trauma centers in the country, but its reputation among Atlantans was notoriously bad. Operated by the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, Grady was one of the few remaining public hospitals in the area, and despite the fact that it housed one of the nation’s largest burn units, had the most comprehensive HIV/AIDS program in the nation, and served as a regional treatment center for high-risk mothers and infants. If you came in with an upset stomach or a bad earache, you were more than likely looking at a two-hour wait to see a doctor—if you were lucky.

Grady was a teaching hospital, and Emory University, Sara’s alma mater, as well as Morehouse College supplied a steady stream of interns. The emergency-room slot was highly sought by students, as Grady was said to be the best place in the country to learn emergency medicine. Fifteen years ago Sara had fought tooth and nail to win a position on the pediatric team, and she’d learned more in one year than most doctors learned in a lifetime. When she left Atlanta to move back to Grant County, Sara had never thought she would see Grady again, especially under these circumstances.

“Somebody’s coming,” the man beside Sara said, and everyone in the waiting room—thirty people at least—looked up at the nurse expectantly.

“Ms. Linton?”

Sara’s heart lifted, and for a split second she thought her mother had finally arrived. Sara stood, putting down a magazine to save her chair, though she had been taking turns saving places with the old man beside her for the last two hours.

“Is she out of surgery?” Sara asked, unable to keep the tremble from her voice. The surgeon had estimated four hours at least, a conservative guess to Sara’s thinking.

“No,” the nurse told her, leading Sara to the nurses’ station. “You have a phone call.”

“Is it my parents?” Sara asked, raising her voice to be heard. The hallway was crowded with people; doctors and nurses whizzing by with purpose in their step as they tried to keep a handle on their ever-increasing patient load.

“He said he’s a police officer.” The nurse handed the phone to Sara, saying, “Keep it brief. We’re really not supposed to allow private calls on this line.”

“Thanks.” Sara took the phone, leaning her back against the nurses’ station, trying to stay out of the way.

“Jeffrey?” she asked.

“Hey,” he said, sounding as stressed as she felt. “Is she out of surgery?”

“No,” she told him, glancing up the hallway toward the surgical suites. Several times she had thought about walking through the doors, trying to find out what was happening, but there was a guard posted who seemed very intent on doing his job.

“Sara?”

“I’m here.”

Jeffrey asked, “What about the baby?”

Sara felt her throat tighten at the question. She could not talk about Tessa with him. Not like this. She asked, “Did you find out anything?”

“I talked to Jill Rosen, the suicide’s mom. She couldn’t tell me much. We found a chain, some kind of necklace with a Star of David, that belonged to the kid in the woods.”

When Sara did not respond, Jeffrey told her, “Andy, the suicide, was either in the woods or someone who took the chain from him went into the woods.”

Sara made herself respond. “Which do you think is likely?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Brad saw Tessa pick up a white plastic bag on the way up the hill.”

“She had something in her hand,” Sara remembered.

“Is there any reason she would be picking up trash?”

Sara tried to think. “Why?”

“Brad said that looked like what she was doing on the hill. She found a bag and started putting trash in it.”

“She might,” Sara said, confused. “She was complaining about people littering earlier. I don’t know.”

“Maybe she found something on the hill and put it in the bag? We found the Star of David that belonged to the victim, but that was deeper in the forest.”

“If Tessa did pick up something, that would mean someone was watching us while we were with the body. What’s his name again—Andy?”

“Andy Rosen,” he confirmed. “Do you still think something’s suspicious?”

Sara did not know how to answer. Examining Rosen seemed like a lifetime away. She could barely recall what the boy had looked like.

“Sara?”

She told him the truth. “I don’t know anymore.”

“You were right that he tried it before,” he said. “His mom confirmed it. Slit his arm open.”

“A previous attempt and a note,” Sara said, thinking that, barring something that might jump out in the autopsy, those two factors would generally be conclusive enough to rule the death a suicide. She said, “We could run a tox screen. He wouldn’t have gone over that bridge without a struggle.”

“His back was scraped.”

“Not in a violent way.”

“I can get Brock to check that out,” he offered. Dan Brock, a local mortician, had been the county coroner before Sara had taken the job. “I haven’t let it out that there’s anything suspicious. Brock can keep a secret.”

She said, “He can pull blood samples, but I want to do the autopsy.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to?”

“If this is connected,” she began. “If whoever did this to Tess . . .” Sara couldn’t finish, but she had never in her life felt such a need for vengeance. Finally she said, “Yes. I’ll be able to do it.”

Jeffrey seemed doubtful, but he told her, “We’re checking Andy’s apartment. They found a pipe in his room. The mom says he had a drug problem a while back, but the dad says he kicked it.”

“Right,” Sara said, feeling her anger flare at the thought of her sister’s being caught in the crossfire of something as stupid and pointless as a drug transaction gone wrong. Tessa’s stabbing was the sort of violence that people who said drugs were harmless fun tended to ignore.

“We’re dusting his room, trying to get prints to run through the computer. I’m going to talk to his parents tomorrow. The mother gave me a couple of names, but they’ve already transferred out of school or graduated.” Jeffrey paused, and she could tell he was feeling frustrated.

The surgical doors burst open, but the patient was not Tessa. Sara pressed her heels into the baseboard of the nurses’ station so the team could pass by. An older woman with dark blond hair was on the gurney, her eyelids still taped closed from surgery.

“How did his parents take the news?” Sara asked, thinking of her own parents.

“Okay, considering.” Jeffrey paused. “She really broke down in the car. There was something going on with her and Lena. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Like what?” Sara asked, though Lena Adams was the last person in the world she cared about right now.

“I don’t know,” he said, unsurprisingly. She could hear him drumming his fingers on something. “Rosen lost it in the car. Just lost it.” The drumming stopped. “Her husband called me when he found out. They routed him through from the station.” He paused for a moment. “They’re both pretty torn up. This kind of thing can be hard on people. They tend to—”

“Jeffrey,” Sara interrupted, “I need you . . .” She felt her throat closing again, as if the words were choking her. “I need you here.”

“I know,” he told her, resignation in his voice. “I don’t think I can.”

Sara wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. One of the passing doctors looked up at her, then quickly back down at the chart he held in his hands. Feeling foolish and exposed, Sara tried to steel herself against the emotions that wanted to come. She said, “Sure, okay. I understand.”

“No, Sara—”

“I’d better get off this phone. It’s the one at the nurses’ station. Some guy’s been on the phone in the waiting room for an hour.” She laughed, just to get some release. “He’s speaking in Russian, but I think he’s been making drug deals.”

“Sara,” Jeffrey stopped her, “it’s your dad. He asked me—he told me not to come.”

“What?” Sara said the word so loudly that several people looked up from their work.

“He was upset. I don’t know. He told me not to come to the hospital, that it was a family matter.”

Sara lowered her voice. “He doesn’t get to decide—”

“Sara, listen to me,” Jeffrey said, his voice calmer than she felt. “It’s your dad. I’ve got to respect that.” He paused. “And it’s not just your dad. Cathy said the same thing.”

She felt foolish repeating herself, but all she could say was, “What?”

“They’re right,” he said. “Tessa shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have let her—”

“I’m the one who brought her to the scene,” Sara reminded him, the guilt she’d been feeling for the last few hours suddenly raging back up inside her.

“They’re just upset right now. Understandably upset.” He stopped, like he was trying to think how to phrase his words. “They need some time.”

“Time to see what happens?” she asked. “So if Tessa makes it, then you’re welcome back to Sunday dinner, but if she doesn’t . . .” Sara could not complete the sentence.

“They’re angry. That’s how people get when something like this happens. They feel helpless, and they get angry at whoever’s around.”

“I was around, too,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, well . . .”

For a moment Sara felt too shocked to speak. Finally she asked, “Are they mad at me?” but she knew that her parents had every reason to be. Sara was in charge of Tessa. She always had been.

Jeffrey said, “They just want time, Sara. I have to give them that. I won’t upset them any more.”

She nodded, though he couldn’t see her.

“I want to see you. I want to be there for you and for Tessa.” She could hear the grief in his voice and knew how hard this was for him. Still, she could not help feeling betrayed by his absence. Jeffrey had a history of not being around when she needed him most. He was doing the right thing, the respectful thing, now, but Sara was in no mood for noble gestures.

“Sara?”

“All right,” she said. “You’re right.”

“I’ll go by and feed the dogs, okay? Take care of the house.” He paused again. “Cathy said they’d go by your house on the way to bring you some clothes.”

“I don’t need clothes,” Sara told him, feeling her emotions rise up again. She could only whisper, “I need you.”

His voice was soft. “I know, baby.”

Sara felt tears threatening to come again. She had not let herself cry yet. There had not been time when Tessa was in the helicopter, and then the emergency room and the waiting room—even the bathroom, where Sara had changed into a pair of scrubs one of the nurses had found for her—had been too crowded for her to take a private moment to let herself give in to the grief she felt.

The nurse chose this moment to interrupt. “Ms. Linton?” she said. “We really need the phone.”

“I’m sorry,” Sara told her. Then, to Jeffrey, “I have to get off this line.”

“Can you call me from somewhere else?”

“I can’t leave this area,” Sara said, watching an older couple walking up the hallway. The man was slightly stooped, the woman holding him up by the arm as they shuffled along, reading the signs on the doors.

Jeffrey said, “There’s a McDonald’s across the street, right? Near the university parking decks?”

“I don’t know,” Sara answered, because she had not been into this part of Atlanta in years. “Is there?”

“I think there is,” he told her. “I’ll meet you there at six tomorrow morning, okay?”

“No,” she said, watching the older couple come closer. “Take care of the dogs.”

“Are you sure?”

Sara continued watching the man and his wife. With a start, Sara realized that she had not recognized her own parents.

Jeffrey said, “Sara?”

“I’ll call you later,” she said. “They’re here. I’ve got to go.”

Sara leaned over the counter to hang up the phone, feeling disoriented and afraid. She walked down the hall, hugging her arms to her stomach, waiting for her parents to start looking like her parents again. With a startling clarity, she realized how old they were. Like most grown children, Sara had always pictured her mother and father as somehow not going past a certain age, yet here they were, elderly and so frail-looking she wondered how they managed to walk.

“Mama?” Sara said.

Cathy did not reach for her, as Sara had thought she would, had wanted her to do. One arm stayed around Eddie’s waist, as if she needed to hold him up. The other she held at her side. “Where is she?”

“She’s still in surgery,” Sara told her, wanting to go to her, knowing from Cathy’s hard expression that she should not. “Mama—”

“What happened?”

Sara felt a lump in her throat, thinking that Cathy did not even sound like her mother. There was an impenetrable edge to her voice, and her mouth was set in a straight, cold line. Sara took them to the side of the busy hallway so they could talk. Everything felt so formal, as if they had just met.

Sara began, “She wanted to come along with me—”

“And you let her,” Eddie said, and the accusation behind his words cut deep. “Why in God’s name did you let her?”

Sara bit her lip to keep from trying. “I didn’t think—”

He cut her off. “No, you didn’t.”

“Eddie,” Cathy said, not to reprimand him but to tell him that now was not the time.

Sara was quiet for a moment, willing herself not to get more upset than she already felt. “They’ve got her in surgery now. She should be in for another couple of hours.” They all looked up as the doors opened again, but it was just a nurse, probably taking a break from surgery.

Sara continued, “She was stabbed in the belly and the chest. There was a grazing head wound.” Sara put her hand to her own head, showing them where Tessa’s head had hit the rock. She paused there, thinking about the wound, feeling the same panic well up. She wondered not for the first time if it had all been a terrible dream. As if to snap her out of it, the surgical doors popped open again, and an orderly pushing an empty wheelchair passed through.

Cathy said, “And?”

“I tried to control the bleeding,” Sara continued, seeing the scene playing out in her mind. In the waiting room, she had been going over and over what had happened, trying to figure out what she could have done differently, only to realize how hopeless the situation had been.

“And?” Cathy tersely repeated.

Sara cleared her throat, trying to distance herself from her feelings. She spoke to them as if they were just the parents of a patient. “She had a grand mal seizure about a minute before the helicopter came. I did what I could to help her.” Sara stopped, remembering how Tessa’s spasms had felt under her hands. She stared at her father, realizing he had not looked at her once since they’d arrived.

Sara said, “She had two more seizures during the flight. Her left lung collapsed. They put a tube in her chest to help her breathe.”

Cathy asked, “What are they doing now?”

“Controlling the bleeding. A neurologic consult was called, but I don’t know what they found. Their primary focus is to stop the bleeding. They’ll do a C-section to remove—” Sara stopped, holding her breath.

“The baby,” Cathy finished, and Eddie slumped against her.

Sara slowly let the breath go.

“What else?” Cathy asked. “What are you not telling us?”

Sara looked away but told them, “They might have to perform a hysterectomy if they can’t get the bleeding under control.”

Her parents were both quiet at the news, though Sara knew what they were thinking as clearly as if they were screaming it at her. Tessa had been their only hope for grandchildren.

“Who did this?” Cathy finally asked. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” Sara whispered, the question echoing in her mind. What kind of monster would stab a pregnant woman and leave her for dead?

“Does Jeffrey know anything?” Eddie asked, and Sara could tell the effort it took for her father to say Jeffrey’s name.

“He’s doing everything he can,” Sara told him. “I’ll go back to Grant as soon as . . .” She could not finish.

Cathy asked, “What can we expect when she wakes up?”

Sara stared at her father, wanting to say something that would make him look up at her. If Eddie and Cathy had been anyone else, Sara would have told them the truth: that she had no idea what they should expect. Jeffrey often said that he didn’t like to talk to the relatives or friends of victims until he had something concrete to tell them. Sara had always thought this was a little cowardly on his part, but now she saw it was necessary, that people needed some kind of hope, some assurance that at least one thing would turn out all right.

“Sara?” Cathy prompted.

“They’ll want to monitor cranial activity. Probably do an EEG to make sure her brain isn’t damaged.” Sara grappled for something positive to say. Finally she told them the only thing she knew for certain. “There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong.”

Cathy had no more questions. She turned toward Eddie, closing her eyes, pressing her lips to his head.

Eddie finally spoke, but he still would not look at Sara. “You’re sure about the baby?”

Sara found she had trouble speaking. Her throat felt as dry as the riverbed when she managed to whisper, “Yes, Daddy.”

Sara stood at the vending machine outside the hospital cafeteria, punching the button on the snack machine until she felt a sharp pain in her knuckles. Nothing happened, and she bent down, checking the hopper, thinking she might have missed something. The bin was empty.

“Dammit,” she said, kicking the machine. With little fanfare, a KitKat dropped down.

Sara unwrapped the package, walking down the hallway to get away from the noise of the cafeteria. The food service had changed since she’d worked at the hospital. They served everything from Thai cuisine to Italian to juicy, thick hamburgers now. She imagined that it was a money pit for the hospital, but it did not make sense that a place dedicated to healing sold such unhealthy food.

Even at close to midnight, the hospital was throbbing with people, and the constant noise made it like walking around a beehive. Sara could not remember the noise from her internship, but she was certain it had been the same. Fear and sleeplessness had probably kept her from noticing. Back before interns had gotten organized and started to demand more humane hours, shifts at Grady ran twenty-four to thirty-six hours long. To this day Sara felt she had yet to catch up on her sleep.

She leaned her back against a door marked LINEN, knowing that she would never get up if she sat down again. Tessa had been out of surgery for three hours, and they had moved her to the ICU, where the family was taking turns staying with her. She was heavily sedated and had not yet woken up from surgery. Her condition was listed as guarded, but the surgeon thought the bleeding was under control. Tessa could still have children if she ever recovered enough from the ordeal in the forest to want one again.

Being in the tiny ICU room with Tessa, feeling Eddie and Cathy’s blame though they had not said one word to Sara about it, had been too much. Even Devon had avoided talking to Sara, skulking in the corner, his eyes wide with shock over what had happened to his lover and his child. Sara felt very near her breaking point, but there was no one around who could help her put the pieces together again.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, trying to remember the last thing her sister had said to her. In the helicopter Tessa had been post-ictal from the seizure and beyond communication. The last coherent thing she had said was in the car, when she told Sara that she loved her.

Sara bit into the KitKat even though she was not hungry.

“Evenin’, ma’am,” an older man said, tipping his hat to Sara as he walked by.

She made herself smile, watching him go up the stairs. The man was around Eddie’s age, but what she could see of his hair was completely white. His skin was almost translucent in the artificial light of the hospital, and though his dark blue pants and light blue shirt were clean-looking, she could smell something like grease or machine oil in his wake. He could have been a mechanic or a maintenance man at the hospital, or maybe he had someone upstairs holding on to life, just like Tessa.

A group of doctors stopped in front of the cafeteria doors, their scrubs wrinkled, their white jackets stained with various substances. They were young, probably students or interns. Their eyes were bloodshot, and there was something world-weary about them that Sara recognized from her own time here at Grady.

They were obviously waiting for someone as they talked among themselves, their voices a low hum. Sara looked down at the chocolate in her hand, her eyes not really focusing on the label, as she heard them passing around hospital gossip, tossing out procedures they would like to get in on.

A man’s voice said, “Sara?”

Sara kept her eyes on the label, assuming that the man was talking to another Sara.

“Sara Linton?” the voice repeated, and she glanced up at the group of interns, wondering if one of her patients from the Heartsdale Children’s Clinic was working at Emory now. She felt ancient looking at their young faces until she caught sight of a tall, older man standing behind them.

“Mason?” she asked, recognition finally dawning. “Mason James?”

“That’s me,” he said, pushing through the group of interns. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I ran into your folks upstairs.”

“Oh,” Sara said, not knowing what else to say.

“I work here now. Pediatric trauma.”

“Right.” Sara nodded as if she remembered. She had dated Mason when she worked at Grady, but they’d lost touch after she moved back to Grant.

“Cathy told me you were down here getting something to eat.”

She held up the KitKat.

He laughed. “I see your culinary tastes haven’t changed.”

“They were out of filet mignon,” she told him, and Mason laughed again.

“You look great,” he said, an obvious lie that good breeding and manners helped him pull off smoothly. Mason’s father had been a cardiologist, just like his grandfather. Sara had always thought that part of Mason’s attraction to her lay in the fact that Eddie was a plumber. Growing up in a world of boarding schools and country clubs, Mason had not had much contact with the working class, beyond writing checks for their services.

“How . . . uh . . .” Sara struggled for something to say. “How have you been?”

“Great,” he said. “I heard about Tessa downstairs. It’s all over the ER.”

Sara knew that even in a hospital as large as Grady, a case like Tessa’s stuck out. Any violence involving a child was considered that much more horrific.

“I checked in on her. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No,” Sara told him. “Not at all.”

“Beth Tindall’s her doc,” he said. “She’s a good surgeon.”

“Yes,” Sara agreed.

He gave her a warm smile. “Your mother is still as pretty as ever.”

Sara tried to smile back. “I’m sure she was glad to see you.”

“Well, under the circumstances . . .” he allowed. “Do they know who did it?”

She shook her head, feeling her composure slip. “No idea.”

“Sara,” he said, brushing the back of her hand with his fingers, “I’m so sorry.”

She looked away, willing herself not to cry. No one had tried to console her since Tessa had been stabbed. Her skin prickled at his touch, and she felt foolish for taking comfort in such a small gesture.

Mason noticed the change. He cupped his hand to her face, making her look up at him. “Are you okay?”

“I should go back up,” she said.

He took her elbow, saying, “Come on,” as he led her down the hallway.

Sara listened to him talk as they walked toward the ICU, not really paying attention to his words but liking the soft, soothing monotone of his voice as he told her about the hospital and his life since Sara had left Atlanta. Mason James was the type of man who seemed to take everything in stride. When she’d been fresh from Grant County, Mason had seemed so cosmopolitan and grown-up to Sara, whose only dating experience at that point had been Steve Mann, a guy who thought that a good date ended with him fondling Sara in the backseat of his father’s Buick.

They turned the corner, and Sara could see her father and mother in the hallway, having what looked like a heated discussion. Eddie was the first to spot Sara and Mason, and he stopped whatever he was saying.

Eddie’s eyelids were drooped, and he looked more tired than Sara had ever seen him. Her mother seemed to have aged more in the last hour than she had in the last twenty years. They looked so vulnerable that Sara felt a lump come into her throat.

“I’m going to go check on Tess,” she said, excusing herself. She pushed the button to the right of the doors and walked into the ICU.

Like most hospitals, the intensive-care unit at Grady was small and secluded. The lights were darkened in the rooms and corridors, and the atmosphere was cool and soothing, as much for the few visitors who were allowed in every two hours as for the patients. All the rooms had sliding glass doors and afforded little privacy, but most of the patients were too sick to complain. Sara could hear the beeps of heart monitors and the slow breathing of ventilators as she walked to the back. Tessa’s room was directly across from the nurses’ station, which said something about how critical her case was.

Devon was in the room with her, standing a few feet from the bed with his hands tucked into his pockets. He leaned against the wall, though there was a comfortable chair right beside him.

“Hey,” Sara said.

He barely acknowledged her. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his dark skin looked pale in the artificial light of the room.

“Has she said anything?”

He took his time answering. “She opened her eyes a couple of times, but I don’t know.”

“She’s trying to wake up,” Sara told him. “That’s good.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“If you need a break . . . ,” she began, but Devon did not wait for her to finish. He walked from the room without a backward glance.

Sara pulled the chair over to Tessa’s bed and sat down. She had been sitting most of the day waiting for news, but she felt exhausted.

Bandages covered Tessa’s head where they had stitched her scalp back into place. Two drains were attached to her belly to draw off fluid. A catheter hung from the bed rail, only partially full. The room was dark, the only light coming from the various monitors. Tessa had been taken off the ventilator an hour before, but the heart monitor was still attached, its metallic beep announcing every beat of her heart.

Sara stroked her sister’s fingers, thinking that she’d never noticed what small hands Tessa had. She could still remember Tessa’s first day of school, when Sara had taken her hand to walk her to the bus stop. Before they left, Cathy had lectured Sara to take care of her little sister. The theme was a familiar one throughout their childhood. Even Eddie had told Sara to take care of her sister, though Sara later figured the real reason her father had always encouraged Tessa to tag along on Sara’s dates with Steve Mann: Eddie knew about the Buick’s large backseat.

Tessa’s head moved, as if she sensed someone was there.

“Tess?” Sara said, holding her hand, gently squeezing. “Tess?”

Tessa made a noise that sounded more like a groan. Her hand moved to her stomach, as it had a million times over the last eight months.

Slowly Tessa’s eyes opened. She looked around the room, her eyes finding Sara.

“Hey,” Sara said, feeling a relieved smile come to her face. “Hey, sweetie.”

Tessa’s lips moved. She put her hand to her throat.

“Are you thirsty?”

Tessa nodded, and Sara looked for the cup of ice chips the nurse had left by the bed. The ice had mostly melted, but Sara managed to find a few slivers for her sister.

“They put a tube down your throat,” Sara explained, sliding the ice into Tessa’s mouth. “You’ll feel sore from that for a while, and it’ll be hard to talk.”

Tessa closed her eyes as she swallowed.

“Do you have much pain?” Sara asked. “Do you want me to get the nurse?”

Sara started to stand, but Tessa did not let go of her hand. She didn’t have to vocalize the first question on her mind. Sara could read it in her eyes.

“No, Tessie,” she said, feeling tears stream down her face. “We lost it. We lost her.” Sara pressed Tessa’s hand to her lips. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

Tessa stopped her without saying a word. The beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room, a metallic testament to Tessa’s life.

“Do you remember?” Sara asked. “Do you know what happened?”

Tessa’s head moved once to the side for no.

“You went into the woods,” Sara said. “Brad saw you pick up a bag and put trash in it. Do you remember that?”

Again she indicated no.

“We think someone was there.” Sara stopped herself. “We know someone was in the woods. Maybe he wanted the bag. Maybe he . . .” She did not finish her train of thought. Too much information would only confuse her sister, and Sara was not sure of the facts herself.

Sara said, “Someone stabbed you.”

Tessa waited for more.

“I found you in the woods. You were lying in the clearing and I . . . I tried to do what I could. I tried to help. I couldn’t.” Sara felt her composure slip again. “Oh, God, Tessie, I tried to help.”

Sara put her head down on the bed, ashamed that she was crying. She needed to be strong for her sister, needed to show her that they would get through this together, but the only thing she could think about was her own blame in all of this. After a lifetime of looking out for Tessa, Sara had failed her at the one time she was needed most.

“Oh, Tess,” Sara sobbed, needing her sister’s forgiveness more than anything else in her life. “I’m so sorry.”

She felt Tessa’s hand on the back of her head. The touch was awkward at first, but Tessa was trying to pull Sara toward her.

Sara looked up, her face inches from Tessa’s.

Tessa moved her lips, not yet used to using her mouth. She breathed the word “Who?” She wanted to know who had done this to her, who had killed her child.

“I don’t know,” Sara said. “We’re trying, sweetie. Jeffrey’s out there right now doing everything he can.” Sara’s voice caught. “He’ll make sure whoever did this to you never hurts anybody again.”

Tessa touched her fingers to Sara’s cheek, just under her eye. With a trembling hand, she wiped away Sara’s tears.

“I’m so sorry, Tessie. I’m so sorry.” Sara begged, “Tell me what I can do. Tell me.”

When Tessa spoke, her voice was scratchy, little above a whisper. Sara watched her lips move, but she could hear Tessa speak as plainly as if she had shouted.

“Find him.”