Kisscut

Chapter One

"Dancing Queen," Sara Linton mumbled with the music as she made her way around the skating rink. "Young and sweet, only seventeen."

She heard a furious clicking of wheels to her left and turned just in time to catch a small child before he crashed into her.

"Justin?" she asked, recognizing the seven year old. She held him up by the back of his shirt as his ankles wobbled over his in-line skates.

"Hey, Dr. Linton," Justin managed around gasps for breath. His helmet was too big for his head, and he pushed it back several times as he tried to look up at her.

Sara returned his smile, trying not to laugh. "Hello, Justin."

"I guess you like this music, huh? My mom likes it, too." He stared at her openly, his lips slightly parted. Like most of Sara's patients, Justin seemed a bit shocked to see her outside of the clinic. Sometimes she wondered if they thought she lived in the basement there, waiting for them to get colds or fevers so she could see them.

"Anyway," Justin pushed back his helmet again, knocking himself in the nose with his elbow pad. "I saw you singing it."

"Here," Sara offered, leaning down to adjust the chin strap. The music in the rink was so loud that Sara could feel the bass vibrating through the plastic buckle as she tightened it under his chin.

"Thanks," Justin yelled, then for some reason he put both his hands on top of the helmet, as if to rest them. The motion threw him off balance, and he stumbled, clamping on to Sara's leg.

Sara grabbed his shirt again and led them both over to the safety railing lining the rink. After trying on a pair of inline skates herself, Sara had asked for the old four-wheel kind, not wanting to fall on her ass in front of half the town.

"Wow." Justin giggled, throwing his arms over the railing for support. He was looking down at her skates. "Your feet are so huge!"

Sara looked down at her skates, feeling a flush of embarrassment. She had been teased about her large feet since she was seven years old. After nearly thirty years of hearing it, Sara still felt the urge to hide under the bed with a bowl of chocolate-fudge ice cream.

"You're wearing boy's skates!" Justin screeched, letting go of the rail so that he could point at her black skates. Sara caught him just before he hit the ground.

"Sweety," Sara whispered politely into his ear. "Remember this when you're due for your booster shots."

Justin managed a smile for his pediatrician. "I think my mom wants me," he mumbled, edging along the rail, hand over hand, casting a wary eye over his shoulder to make sure Sara was not following him.

She crossed her arms, leaning against the railing as she watched him go. Sara loved kids, a characteristic most pediatricians shared, but there was something to be said for not spending her Saturday night surrounded by them.

"That your date?" Tessa asked, coming to a stop beside her.

Sara gave her sister a hard look. "Remind me how I got roped into this."

Tessa tried to smile. "Because you love me?"

"Right," Sara returned caustically. Across the rink, Sara picked out Devon Lockwood, Tessa's latest boyfriend, who also worked in the Linton family's plumbing business. Devon was leading his nephew around the kiddy rink while his brother watched.

"His mother hates me," Tessa mumbled. "She gives me nasty looks every time I get near him."

"Daddy's the same way about us," Sara reminded her.

Devon noticed them staring and waved.

"He's good with children," Sara noted, returning his wave.

"He's good with his hands," Tessa said in a low voice, almost to herself. She turned back to Sara. "Speaking of which, where's Jeffrey?"

Sara looked back at the front entrance, wondering that herself. Wondering, too, why she cared whether or not her ex-husband showed up. "I don't know," she answered. "When did this place get so packed?"

"It's Saturday night and football season hasn't started; what else are people going to do?" Tessa asked, but did not let Sara change the subject. "Where's Jeffrey?"

"Maybe he won't come."

Tessa smiled in a way that let Sara know she was holding back a snide comment.

"Go ahead and say it."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Tessa said, and Sara could not tell if she was lying or not.

"We're just dating." Sara paused, wondering whom she was trying to convince, Tessa or herself. She added, "It's not even serious."

"I know."

"We've barely even kissed."

Tessa held up her palms in resignation. "I know," she repeated, a smirk on her lips.

"Just a few dates. That's all."

"You don't have to convince me."

Sara groaned as she leaned back against the railing. She felt stupid, like a teenager instead of a grown woman. She had divorced Jeffrey two years ago after catching him with the woman who owned the sign shop in town. Why she had started seeing him again was as much a mystery to Sara as it was to her family.

A ballad came on, and the lights dimmed. Sara watched the mirrored ball drop down from the ceiling, scattering little squares of light all over the rink.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Sara told her sister. "Will you keep an eye out for Jeff?"

Tessa glanced over Sara's shoulder. "Somebody just went in."

"There are two stalls now." Sara turned toward the women's rest room just in time to see a large teenage girl go in. Sara recognized the girl as Jenny Weaver, one of her patients. She waved, but the girl didn't see her.

Tessa muttered, "Hope you can wait."

Sara frowned, watching another teenager she did not recognize follow Jenny into the rest room. At this rate, Sara would go into renal failure before Jeffrey arrived.

Tessa tilted her head toward the front door. "Speaking of tall, dark, and handsome."

Sara felt a foolish smile come to her lips as she watched Jeffrey make his way toward the rink. He was still dressed for work in a charcoal-gray suit with a burgundy tie. As chief of police for Grant County, he knew most of the people in the room. He glanced around, looking for Sara, she supposed, stopping here and there to shake hands. She refused to do anything that would get his attention as he walked through the crowd. At this point in their relationship, Sara was content to let Jeffrey do all of the work.

Sara had met Jeffrey on one of her earlier cases as town coroner. She had taken the helm of the medical examiner's office as a way to earn extra money to buy out her retiring partner at the Heartsdale Children's Clinic. Even though she had paid off Dr. Barney years ago, Sara still kept the job. She liked the challenge of pathology. Twelve years ago, Sara had done her residency in the emergency room of Atlanta 's Grady Hospital. Going from such a fast-paced, life-and-death job to tummy aches and sinus infections at the clinic had been a shock to her system. The coroner's job was a challenge that helped keep her mind sharp.

Jeffrey finally caught sight of her. He stopped in the middle of shaking Betty Reynolds's hand, the corners of his mouth rising slowly, then dipping into a frown as he was pulled back into conversation with the owner of the town's five-and-dime.

Sara could guess what Betty was talking about. The store had been broken into twice in the last three months. Betty's posture was adversarial, and even though Jeffrey's attention was obviously elsewhere, she continued to speak to him.

Finally, Jeffrey nodded, giving Betty a pat on the back as he shook her hand, probably making an appointment to talk with her tomorrow. He extricated himself, then walked toward Sara, a sly smile on his face.

"Hey," Jeffrey said. Before she could stop herself, Sara was shaking his hand the way almost everyone else in the rink had.

"Hello, Jeffrey," Tessa interrupted, her tone uncharacteristically sharp. It was usually Eddie, their father, who was rude to Jeffrey.

Jeffrey gave a puzzled smile. "Hey, Tessie."

"Uh-huh," Tessa mumbled, pushing off from the rail. She skated away, tossing Sara a knowing look over her shoulder.

Jeffrey asked, "What was that about?"

Sara pulled back her hand, but Jeffrey held on to her fingers just long enough to let her know it was his choice to release her. He was so damn sure of himself. More than anything else, this quality appealed to Sara at a very base level.

She crossed her arms, saying, "You're late."

"I had trouble getting away."

"Is her husband out of town?"

He gave her the same look he gave witnesses he knew were lying. "I was talking to Frank," he said, naming the lead detective on the Grant County squad. "I told him that he's in charge tonight. I don't want anything to interrupt us."

"Interrupt what?"

The same smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Oh, I thought I'd seduce you tonight."

She laughed, backing up as he leaned in to kiss her.

"Kissing usually works better when the lips touch," he suggested.

"Not in front of half my practice," she countered.

"Come here, then."

Despite her better judgment, Sara ducked under the railing and took his hand. He rolled her into the back of the rink by the bathroom, tucking them into a corner and out of sight.

"This better?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sara answered, looking down at Jeffrey, because with the skates on she was a couple inches taller. "Much better. I really need to use the bathroom."

She started to move, but he stopped her, putting his hands on her waist.

"Jeff," she said, aware her tone was far from threatening.

"You are so beautiful, Sara."

She rolled her eyes like a teenager.

He laughed, trying, "I thought about kissing you all last night."

"Yeah?"

"I miss the way you taste."

She tried to sound bored. "It's still Colgate."

"That's not the taste I was talking about."

Her mouth opened in surprise, and he smiled, obviously pleased with her reaction. Sara felt something stir deep inside her and was about to say something-she had no idea what-when his pager went off.

He kept staring at her as if he didn't hear the beeping.

Sara cleared her throat, asking, "Shouldn't you answer that?"

He finally looked down at the pager clipped to his belt, muttering, "Shit," at what he saw.

"What?"

"Break-in," he answered curtly.

"I thought Frank was on call."

"He is for the little things. I've got to use the pay phone."

"Where's your cell phone?"

"Dead battery." Jeffrey seemed to get his irritation under control enough to offer her a reassuring smile. "Nothing is going to ruin tonight, Sara." He put his hand to her cheek. "Nothing is more important to me than tonight."

"Got a hot date after our dinner?" she teased. "Because we can cancel if you need to."

He narrowed his eyes at her before turning away.

Sara watched him go, letting a "Jesus Christ" hiss out between her lips as she leaned back against the wall. She could not believe that in less than three minutes he had managed to turn her into a blithering idiot.

She jumped as the bathroom door banged shut. Jenny Weaver stood there, looking out at the rink as if she was contemplating something. The teenager's skin looked pasty next to the black long sleeved T-shirt she was wearing. She held a dark red backpack in her hand, which she swung over her shoulder as Sara rolled toward her. The bag brushed against Sara's chest in a wide arc.

"Whoa," Sara said, backing up.

Jenny blinked, recognizing her pediatrician. She mumbled a soft, "Sorry," averting her eyes.

"It's okay," Sara returned, thinking to start a conversation; the girl seemed troubled. "How about you?" Sara asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, ma'am," Jenny said, clutching the bag to her chest.

Before Sara could say anything else, Jenny walked away.

Sara watched the teenager retreat into a crowd of kids near the video game room. The light from the screens gave Jenny's body a green cast as she disappeared into the corner. Sara sensed something was wrong, but it wasn't like she could chase the girl down and demand to know what was going on. At that age, everything was a drama. Knowing teenage girls, there was probably a boy involved.

The lights came up as the ballad ended, and another old rock song blared over the speakers, the bass resonating in Sara's chest. She watched the skaters in the rink pick up the tempo, wondering if she had ever been that agile. While Skatie's had changed ownership several times since Sara was a teenager, it was still the hot spot for Grant County 's teens. Sara had spent many a weekend night in the back of this very building, necking with Steve Mann, her first serious boyfriend. Their relationship had not been so much passionate as an alliance, both of them united in one cause: to get out of Grant. Steve's father had been struck down by a heart attack their senior year and Steve had been running the family hardware store ever since. Now he was married with kids. Sara had escaped to Atlanta, but returned a few years later.

And here she was tonight, back at Skatie's, necking with Jeffrey Tolliver. Or at least trying to.

Sara shrugged it off as she turned toward the bathroom. She put her hand on the doorknob, then jerked it back as she felt something sticky. The light was still low in this part of the rink, and Sara had to hold her hand close to her face in order to see what was on it. She caught the scent before she recognized the texture. She looked down at her shirt where Jenny Weaver's backpack had brushed against her.

A narrow streak of blood arced across her chest.

Chapter Two

Jeffrey tried not to rip the pay phone off the wall, but that was exactly what his hands were itching to do. He took a calming breath, dialed the number to the station, and patiently waited through the rings.

Maria Simms, his secretary and the station's part-time dispatcher, answered, "Good evening, Grant County Police Department, could you hold please?" then clicked him onto hold without waiting for an answer.

He took another deep breath, trying not to let his irritation get the best of him. Jeffrey thought about Sara back in the skating rink, probably talking herself out of their date tonight. Every step he took toward her, Sara took two steps back. He understood her reasons, but that did not mean he had to like them.

Jeffrey leaned against the wall, feeling the sweat start to drip down his back. August was coming on full force, making the record-breaking highs Georgia had seen in June and July look like winter weather. Some days, going outside, he felt as if he was breathing through a wet washrag. He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt to let some air in.

A short bark of laughter came from the front of the building, and Jeffrey peered around the corner, to get a clear view of the parking lot. There was a small group of boys hanging out beside a beat-up old Camaro, passing a cigarette between them. The pay phone was to the side of the building, so Jeffrey was shadowed by the bright green-and-yellow canopy. He thought he caught a whiff of pot, but wasn't sure. The kids had the stance of boys up to no good. Jeffrey recognized this not just because he was a cop but because he had hung out with a similar group at that age.

He was debating whether or not to approach them when Maria clicked onto the line.

"Good evening, Grant County Police Department, thanks for holding. Can I help you?"

"Maria, it's Jeffrey."

"Oh, hey, Chief," she said. "Sorry to bother you. It was a false alarm down at one of the stores."

"Which one?" he asked, remembering the earful he had just gotten from Betty Reynolds, who owned the five-and-dime downtown.

"Cleaners," she said. "Old man Burgess accidentally set it off."

Jeffrey wondered at Maria, who was well into her seventies, calling Bill Burgess an old man, but he let that slide. He asked, "Anything else?"

"There was something at the diner Brad called in, but they didn't find anything."

"What'd he call in?"

"Just said he thought he saw something, is all. You know how Brad is, calls in his own shadow." She gave a small chuckle. Brad was somewhat of a mascot around the station house, a twenty-one-year-old man whose round face and wispy blond hair made him look more like a boy. It was a joke among the senior squad to steal Brad's hat and hide it around various landmarks in town. Jeffrey had seen it resting on top of the statue of General Lee in front of the high school just last week.

Jeffrey thought of Sara. "Frank is in charge tonight. Don't page me unless someone's dead."

"Two birds with one stone," Maria chuckled again. "The coroner and the chief in one call."

He tried to remind himself that he had moved from Birmingham to Grant because he wanted to be in a small town where everyone knew their neighbor. Everyone knowing his own personal business was one of the few tradeoffs. Jeffrey was about to say something innocuous to Maria, but stopped when he heard a loud shriek from the parking lot.

He leaned around the corner to take a look just as a girl's voice yelled, "Fuck you, you fucking bastard."

Maria said, "Chief?"

"Hold on," he whispered, feeling his gut clench at the anger in the girl's voice. He knew from experience that a ticked-off young girl was the worst thing to have to deal with in a parking lot on a Saturday night. Boys he could handle, it was all a pissing contest and, for the most part, any young man wanted to be stopped from getting into an actual fight. Young girls tended to take a lot to get riled up and a hell of a lot more to get calmed back down. An angry teenage girl was something to fear, especially when she had a gun in her hand.

"I'm going to kill you, you fucking bastard," she yelled at one of the boys. His friends quickly peeled off into a semicircle, and the young man stood alone, the gun pointed at his chest. The girl was no more than four feet away from her target, and as Jeffrey watched, she took a step closer, narrowing the gap.

"Shit," Jeffrey hissed, then, remembering he had the phone in his hand, he ordered, "Get Frank and Matt over to Skatie's right now."

"They're over in Madison."

" Lena and Brad, then," he said. "Silent approach. There's a girl with a gun in the front parking lot."

Jeffrey slipped the phone back into its cradle, feeling his body tense. His throat was tight, and his carotid artery felt like a pulsating snake inside his throat. A thousand things went through his mind in the course of a few seconds, but he pushed these thoughts away as he took off his suit jacket and slid his paddle holster behind his back. Jeffrey held his arms out to the side as he walked into the parking lot. The young girl glanced his way as he came into her line of sight, but she still kept the gun leveled at the boy. The muzzle was pointing down toward the boy's gut and as Jeffrey drew closer he could see that her hand was shaking. Thankfully, her finger was not yet tucked around the trigger.

Jeffrey positioned himself so that he was parallel to the building. The girl's back was to the rink, the parking lot and highway in front of her. He hoped that Lena had the sense to make Brad come in from the side of the building. There was no telling what the girl would do if she felt crowded. One stupid mistake could end up killing a lot of people.

When Jeffrey was about twenty feet from the scene, he said, "Hey," loudly enough to get everyone's attention.

The girl startled, even though she had noticed his approach. Her finger slipped around the trigger. The weapon was a Beretta.32, a so-called mousegun, which was certainly not a man-stopper but could do plenty of damage up close. She had eight chances to kill somebody with that gun. If she was a good shot, and even a monkey would be at such close range, she was holding eight lives in the palm of her hand.

"Y'all get back," Jeffrey told the young men standing around. There was some hesitation before this sunk in, and the group finally moved toward the front of the parking lot. The smell of pot was pungent even at this distance, and Jeffrey could tell from the way the intended victim was swaying that he had smoked a great deal before the girl had surprised him.

"Go away," the girl ordered Jeffrey. She was dressed in black, the sleeves of her T-shirt pushed up past her elbows, probably to fight the heat. She was barely a teenager, and her voice was soft, but she managed to project it well.

She repeated her order. "I said go away."

Jeffrey stood his ground, and she turned her gaze back to the boy and said, "I'm gonna kill him."

Jeffrey held his hands out, asking, "Why?"

She seemed surprised by his question, which was why he had asked it. People with guns don't tend to do a lot of thinking when they're holding them. The nose of the gun tilted down slightly as she addressed Jeffrey.

"To stop him," she said.

"Stop him from what?"

She seemed to mull this over in her mind. "That's nobody's business."

"No?" Jeffrey asked, taking a step closer, then another. He stopped at around fifteen feet from the girl, close enough to see what was going on, but not enough to threaten her.

"No, sir," the girl answered, and her good manners put him a little more at ease. Girls who said "sir" did not shoot people.

"Listen," Jeffrey began, trying to think of something to say. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. "You're Chief Tolliver."

"That's right," he told her. "What do I call you? What's your name?"

She ignored the question, but the boy stirred, as if his pot-altered brain had just clicked in to what was going on. He said, "Jenny. It's Jenny."

"Jenny?" Jeffrey asked her. "That's a pretty name."

"Yeah, w-well," Jenny stammered, obviously taken aback. She recovered quickly, though, saying, "Please just be quiet. I don't want to talk to you."

"Maybe you do," Jeffrey said. "Seems to me like you've got a lot on your mind here."

She seemed to debate this, then raised the gun back to the boy's chest. Her hand still shook. "Go away or I'll kill him."

"With that gun?" Jeffrey asked. "Do you know what it's like to kill someone with a gun? Do you know what that feels like?" He watched her digest this, knowing immediately that she did not have it in her.

Jenny was a large girl, probably fifty pounds overweight. Dressed totally in black, she had the appearance of one of those girls who blends in with the scenery as a way of life. The boy she was aiming the gun at was a good-looking kid, probably the object of an unrequited crush. In Jeffrey's day, she would have left a nasty note in his locker. Today, she was pointing a gun.

"Jenny," Jeffrey began, wondering if the gun was even loaded. "Let's work this out. This guy's not worth getting into trouble over."

"Go away," Jenny repeated, though her voice was not as firm. She used her free hand to wipe her face. He realized that she was crying.

"Jenny, I don't think-" He stopped as she disengaged the safety. The metallic click was like a knife in his ear. He reached around to his back, putting his hand on his weapon but not drawing.

Jeffrey tried to keep his voice calm and reasonable. "What's happening here, Jenny? Why don't we talk this through? It can't be that bad."

She wiped her face again. "Yes, sir," she said. "It is."

Her voice was so cold that Jeffrey felt a chill on his neck. He suppressed a shiver as he slid his gun out of its holster. Jeffrey hated guns because, as a cop, he saw what kind of damage they could do. Carrying one was something he did because he had to, not because he wanted to. In his twenty years on the police force, Jeffrey had drawn his weapon on a suspect only a handful of times. Of those times, he had fired it twice, but never directly at a human being.

"Jenny," he tried, putting some authority in his voice. "Look at me."

She kept her gaze on the boy in front of her for what seemed like forever. Jeffrey was silent, letting her have her sense of control. Slowly, she let her eyes turn toward Jeffrey. She let her gaze settle low, until she found the nine millimeter he held at his side.

She licked her lips nervously, obviously assessing the threat. The same dead tone rang in his ears when she said, "Shoot me."

He thought he had heard wrong. This was far from the answer he had been expecting.

She repeated, "Shoot me now or I'm gonna shoot him." With that, she lifted the Beretta toward the boy's head. Jeffrey watched as she spread her feet apart to a shoulder-width stance and cupped the butt of the gun with her free hand. Her posture was that of a young woman who knew how to hold a weapon. Her hands were steady now, and she kept her eyes locked on the boy's.

The boy whined, "Oh, shit," and there was a spattering sound on the asphalt as he urinated.

Jeffrey raised his gun as she fired, but her shot went wide over the boy's head, splitting pieces of the plastic sign and canopy off the building.

"What was that?" Jeffrey hissed, knowing that the only reason Jenny was still standing was that his gut had stopped his own finger from pulling the trigger. She had hit the center of the dot on the "i" in Skatie's. Jeffrey doubted most of his cops on the force could shoot with that much precision, under this much pressure.

"It was a warning," Jenny said, though he had not expected her to answer. "Shoot me," the girl repeated. "Shoot me or I swear to God I'm gonna blow his brains out right here." She licked her lips again. "I can do it. I know how to use this." She jerked the gun slightly, indicating what she meant. "You know I can do it," she said, again taking a wide stance to counteract the Beretta's recoil. She turned the muzzle slightly and blasted out the apostrophe on the sign. People in the parking lot might have scattered or yelled, but Jeffrey did not notice. All he could see was the smoke coming off the muzzle of her gun.

When he could breathe again, Jeffrey said, "There's a big difference between a sign and a human being."

She mumbled, and he strained to hear her say, "He's not a human being."

Jeffrey caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He recognized Sara instantly. She had taken off her skates and her white socks stood stark against the black asphalt.

"Honey?" Sara called, her voice pitched up in fear. "Jenny?" she said.

"Go away," Jenny snapped, but her tone was petulant, more like the child she was than the monster she had been just a few seconds earlier. "Please."

"She's okay," Sara said. "I just found her inside, and she's fine."

The gun faltered, then Jenny's resolve seemed to kick in as she raised it back, pointing the weapon squarely between the boy's eyes. The same dead voice came back with her resolve, and she said, "You're lying."

Jeffrey took one look at Sara and knew that the girl was right. Sara was not a practiced liar, so she was easy to read. Discounting that, even from this distance Jeffrey could see the blood covering the front of Sara's shirt and jeans. Someone inside the rink had obviously been injured and was possibly, probably, dead. He looked back at Jenny, finally able to reconcile the soft, little girl's face with the threat that she had become.

With a start, he realized that the safety was still engaged on his gun. He clicked it off, giving Sara a look of warning to stay back.

"Jenny?" Sara's throat made a visible swallow. Jeffrey did not recognize the singsong voice she used; she had never talked down to children. Obviously, whatever violence Jenny had wreaked inside the rink had altered Sara. Jeffrey did not know what to make of it. There hadn't been any gunfire in the rink, and Buell Parker, the rink's rent-a-cop, had said everything was fine when Jeffrey had checked in with him. Where was Buell, Jeffrey wondered. Was he inside, securing a crime scene, not letting anyone out? What had Jenny done inside the rink? Jeffrey would have given anything at that moment in time to pause the scene in front of him and find out exactly what had happened.

Jeffrey chambered a round into the nine-mil. Sara's head snapped around at the sound, and she held her hand out to him, palm down, as if to say, No, calm down. Don't do this. He looked past her shoulder at the rink entrance. He expected to see a group of spectators with their noses pressed to the glass, but the doorway was empty. What had happened inside that was more interesting than the scene playing out in front of him?

Sara tried again, saying, "She's fine, Jenny. Come see."

"Dr. Linton," Jenny said, her voice wavering, "please don't talk to me."

"Sweety," Sara answered, her tone as shaky as Jenny's. "Look at me. Please just look at me." When the girl did not respond, Sara said, "She's fine. I promise you she's fine."

"You're lying," Jenny answered. "You're all liars." She turned her attention back to the boy. "And you're the worst liar of all," she told him. "You're going to burn in hell for what you did, you bastard."

The boy spoke in a fit of rage, spittle flying from his mouth. "I'll see you there, bitch."

Jenny's voice took on a calmness. Something seemed to pass between her and the boy, and when she answered, her voice was childlike. "I know you will."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jeffrey saw Sara step forward. He watched as Jenny sighted down the barrel of the short-nosed gun, lining it up to the boy's head. The girl stood there, stock-still, waiting. Her hands did not shake, her lip did not tremble, and her hand did not falter. She seemed more resigned to the task in front of her than Jeffrey did.

"Jenny…" Jeffrey began, trying to see some way out of this. He was not going to shoot a little girl. There was no way he could shoot this kid.

Jenny looked over her shoulder and Jeffrey followed her gaze. A police car had finally pulled up, and Lena Adams and Brad stepped out, weapons drawn. They were in a textbook triangle formation, with Jeffrey at the top.

"Shoot me," Jenny said, keeping her gun steady on the boy.

"Stand down," Jeffrey told the officers. Brad followed orders, but he saw Lena hesitate. He gave her a hard look, about to repeat his order, but finally she lowered her weapon.

"I'll do it," Jenny mumbled. She stood impossibly still, making Jeffrey wonder what was inside the girl that she could approach this situation with such resignation.

Jenny cleared her throat and said, "I'll do it. I've done it before."

Jeffrey looked to Sara for confirmation, but her attention was focused on the little girl with the gun.

"I've done it before," Jenny repeated. "Shoot me, or I'll kill him and then shoot myself anyway."

For the first time that night, Jeffrey assessed his shot. He tried to force his brain to accept that she represented a clear danger to the boy in front of her, no matter what her age was. If he hit her in the leg or shoulder, she would have enough time to pull the trigger. Even if Jeffrey went for her torso, there was still the chance that she would squeeze off a shot before she went down. At the level Jenny was pointing the gun, the boy would be dead before she hit the ground.

"Men are so weak," Jenny hissed, sighting the weapon. "You never do the right thing. You say you will, but you never do."

"Jenny…" Sara pleaded.

"I'll give you to five," Jenny told him. "One."

Jeffrey swallowed hard. His heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he saw rather than heard the girl as she counted.

"Two."

"Jenny, please." Sara clasped her hands in front of her as if in prayer. They were dark, almost black with blood.

"Three."

Jeffrey took aim. She wouldn't do this. There was no way she would do this. She could not have been more than thirteen. Thirteen-year-old girls did not shoot people. This was suicide.

"Four."

Jeffrey watched the young woman's finger tighten on the trigger, watched the muscles along her forearm work in slow motion as she moved to tighten her finger.

"Five!" she screamed, the veins in her neck standing out. She ordered, "Shoot me, goddamn it!" as she braced herself for the Beretta's recoil. He saw her arm tense and her wrist lock. Time moved so slowly that he could see her muscles engaging along her forearm as her finger tightened on the trigger.

She gave him one last chance, yelling, "Shoot me!"

And he did.

Chapter Three

At twenty-eight weeks old, Jenny Weaver's child might have been viable outside the womb had its mother not tried to flush it down the toilet. The fetus was well-developed and well-nourished. The brain stem was intact and, with medical intervention, the lungs would have matured over time. The hands would have learned to grasp, the feet to flex, the eyes to blink. Eventually, the mouth would have learned to speak of something other than the horrors it spoke of to Sara now. The lungs had taken breath, the mouth gasped for life. And then it had been killed.

For the past three-and-a-half hours, Sara had tried to reassemble the baby from the parts Jenny Weaver had left in the bathroom and in the red book bag they found in the trash by the video game room. Using tiny sutures instead of the usual baseball stitches, Sara had sewn the paper-thin flesh back together into the semblance of a child. Her hands shook, and Sara had redone some of the knots because her fingers were not nimble enough on the first try.

Still, it was not enough. Working on the child, tying the tiny sutures, was like pulling a thread on a sweater. For every area repaired, there was another that could not be concealed. There was no disguising the trauma the child had been through. In the end, Sara had finally accepted that her self-appointed task was an exercise in futility. The baby would go to the grave looking much the way she had looked the last time her mother had seen her.

Sara took a deep breath, reviewing her report again before signing off on her findings. She had not waited for Jeffrey or Frank to begin the autopsy. There had been no witnesses to the cutting and dissecting and reassembling Sara had performed. She had excluded them on purpose, because she did not think she could do this job while other people watched.

A large window separated Sara's office from the outer morgue, and she sat back in her chair, staring at the black body bag resting on the autopsy table. Her mind wandered, and she saw an alternative to the death she had been assessing. Sara saw a life of laughing and crying and loving and being loved, and then she saw the truth: Jenny's baby would never have these things. Jenny herself had barely had these things.

Since an ectopic pregnancy several years ago, Sara had been unable to have children. This had been hard news to bear at the time, but over the years the loss had dulled itself with other things, and Sara had learned to stop wanting what she knew she would never have. Yet there was something about the unwanted child on the table, the child whose own mother had taken her life, that stirred up these emotions in Sara again.

Sara's job was taking care of children. She held them in her arms, cradled them, and cooed at them the way she would never be able to with her own child. Sitting in the morgue, staring at the black bag, that longing to carry a baby came back with startling clarity, and with it came an emptiness that made her chest feel hollow.

There were footsteps on the stairs, and Sara sat up, wiping her eyes, trying to collect herself. She pushed her palms against the top of her desk and forced herself to stand as Jeffrey walked into the morgue. Sara was looking for her glasses, trying to compose herself, when she noticed that Jeffrey had not come directly into her office, as he normally did. Through the glass, she could see that he had stopped in front of the black bag. If he saw Sara, Jeffrey did not acknowledge her. Instead, he leaned over the table, his hands behind his back. Sara wondered what he was thinking, wondered if he was considering the life the baby could have had. Wondered, too, if Jeffrey was considering the fact that Sara could never give him children.

Sara cleared her throat as she walked into the room, holding the autopsy report to her chest. She slid the chart onto the edge of the table and stood across from Jeffrey, the baby between them. The bag was too large for the baby and it gaped open around the body like a blanket because Sara had not had the emotional strength to zip the child into more darkness and place her on a shelf in the freezer.

There was nothing she could think to say, so Sara was quiet. She tucked her hand into the pocket of her lab coat, surprised to find her glasses there. She was putting them on when Jeffrey finally spoke.

"So," he said, his voice gravelly and low as if he had not used it much lately. "This is what happens when you try to flush a baby down the toilet."

She felt her heart stop at his callousness, and did not know how to respond to it. She slipped off her glasses and rubbed the lenses with the tail of her shirt to give herself something to do.

Jeffrey took a deep breath and let it go slowly. She leaned in closer, thinking she smelled alcohol, knowing this could not be the case because Jeffrey seldom drank more than the occasional beer while watching Saturday college football.

"Tiny feet," he mumbled, his eyes still on the body. "Are they always that small?"

Again, Sara did not answer. She looked at the feet, the ten toes, the wrinkled skin on the soles. These were the kind of feet a mother would kiss. These toes were the kind of toes a mother would count each day the way a gardener counts blooms on a rose bush.

Sara bit her lip, trying not to let herself go again. The emptiness in her chest was almost overwhelming, and she put her hand over her heart without thinking.

When Sara was finally able to look up, Jeffrey was staring at her. His eyes were bloodshot, tiny red lines shooting out from his irises. He seemed to be having trouble holding himself up. She did not know if this was from alcohol or grief.

"I thought you didn't drink," she said, aware there was an accusatory tone to her voice.

"I thought I didn't shoot children, either," he said, staring somewhere over her shoulder.

Sara wanted to help him, but she felt paralyzed by her own grief.

"Frank," Jeffrey said. "He gave me a shot of whiskey."

"Did it help?"

His eyes watered, and she watched him fighting this. His jaw worked and he gave a humorless smile.

"Jeffrey-"

He shook off her concern, asking, "Did you find anything?"

"No."

"I don't-" He stopped, looking down, but not at the child. His eyes were focused on the tiled floor. "I don't know how to behave," he finally said. "I don't know what I should be doing."

Something in his tone cut Sara deep down. To see him broken like this hurt her more than the pain she was experiencing herself. She walked around the table and put her hand on his shoulder, but he would not turn toward her.

He asked, "Did you think she was going to shoot him?"

Sara felt a lump in her throat, because she had not let herself consider this question up until now. Jenny's back had been to Sara. Only Jeffrey, Lena, and Brad had a clear view of the scene.

"Sara?"

The way Jeffrey was looking at her, Sara knew that now was not the time for equivocation.

"Yes," she answered, making her voice firm. "It was a clean shot, Jeffrey. You had to take it."

Jeffrey walked away from her. He turned and leaned his back against the wall, asking, "Mark is probably the father, right?" He rested his head against the wall. "The boy she was going to shoot?"

Sara put her hands in her pockets, made her feet stay flat on the ground so that she would not walk over to him. She said, "It would make sense."

"His parents won't let us interview him until tomorrow. Did you know that?"

She shook her head slowly side to side. Mark wasn't under suspicion for anything. It wasn't as if Jeffrey could arrest the kid for having a gun pointed at his chest.

"They say he's been through enough." Jeffrey let his head drop down. "What would make her do something like that? What has she been through that would make her think…?" His voice trailed off as he looked back up at Sara. "She was one of yours, right?"

"They moved here about three years ago." Sara paused, trying to shift gears. She knew that it would help Jeffrey more to talk this through like any other case rather than to dwell on the horror of his involvement. At this moment in time, it was irrelevant that this wasn't what she needed.

He asked, "Where from?"

"I think they were from up North somewhere. Her mother moved down here after what sounded like a nasty divorce."

"How do you know this?"

"Parents tell me things." She paused. "I didn't know Jenny was pregnant. I don't think she's been in for at least six months, maybe more." Sara put her hand to her chest. "She was such a sweet kid. I never would have imagined that she'd do something like this."

He nodded, rubbing his eyes. "Tessa's not sure she can I.D. anybody from the restroom. Brad's gonna take over one of the yearbooks from the school, see if anybody looks familiar. I want you to look, too."

"Of course."

"It was so packed," he said, obviously meaning the skating rink. "People left before giving statements. I don't know if we'll be able to track everyone down."

"Did you get anything?"

He shook his head no. "You're sure only two people went into the bathroom? Jenny and one other?"

"That's all I saw," Sara answered, though after tonight she did not know how she could ever be sure of anything again. "I didn't see her. I suppose if she was in my practice I would have recognized her. I guess." Sara stopped, trying to remember, but nothing new popped into her head. "She was tall, maybe wearing a baseball cap."

He looked up at this. "You remember the color?"

"It was dark, Jeffrey," Sara answered, knowing she was letting him down. She understood now why so many witnesses willingly gave false testimony. She felt stupid and useless for not knowing who the other girl was. Her mind tried to compensate for this by throwing out random bits of information that could or could not be real memories.

Sara said, "I'm not even sure if it was a baseball cap, now that I'm thinking about it. I wasn't paying attention." She tried to smile. "I was looking for you."

He did not smile back. Instead, he said, "I talked to her mother."

"What did you say?"

His flippant tone was back. " 'I shot your daughter, Mrs. Weaver. Sorry about that.'"

Sara chewed her bottom lip. In a larger county, Jeffrey would not have been in charge of notification; he would be off the job pending an investigation. Of course, Grant County was far from large. All the responsibility rested squarely on his shoulders.

"She didn't want the autopsy," he said. "I had to explain to her that she didn't really have a choice. She said it was…" He paused. "She said it was killing her twice."

Sara felt guilt settle into the pit of her stomach.

"She called me a baby killer," he said. "I'm a baby killer now."

Sara shook her head no. "You didn't have a choice," she said, knowing this was true. She had made love to this man, shared her life with him. There was no way he had misjudged.

Sara said, "You followed procedure."

He gave a derisive laugh.

"Jeff-"

"You think she would have done it?" he asked again. "I don't think she would have, Sara. I'm thinking back on it, and maybe she would have walked away. Maybe she would have-"

"Look at this," Sara interrupted, indicating the table. "She killed her own child, Jeffrey. Do you think she wouldn't have killed the father, too?"

"We'll never know, will we?"

Silence came like a thick cloud. The morgue was in the basement of the hospital, a tiled room with an institutional feel. The compressor on the freezer was the only noise, and it turned off with a loud click that echoed against the walls.

"Was the baby alive?" Jeffrey asked. "When she was born, was she alive?"

"She wouldn't have survived long without medical help," Sara said, not answering his question. For some reason, she wanted to protect Jenny.

"Was the baby alive?" he repeated.

"She was very small," she said. "I don't think she would have…"

Jeffrey walked back to the table. He tucked his hands into his pockets as he stared at the baby. "I want…" he began. "I want to go home. I want you to go home with me."

"Okay," she answered, hearing his words but not sure she understood what he wanted.

He said, "I want to make love to you."

Sara's eyes must have registered her shock.

"I want to-" He stopped himself midsentence.

Sara stared at him, a sinking feeling in her chest. "You want to make a baby."

The look in his eyes told her this had been the last thing on his mind. Sara felt a flush of humiliation. Her heart jumped into her throat, and she could not speak.

He shook his head, "That's not what I was going to say."

Sara turned away from him, her cheeks burning. She could not think of words to cover what she had already said.

He said, "I know you can't-"

"Forget about it."

"It's just that I-"

She was mad at herself, not Jeffrey, but when she spoke to him, her tone was sharp. "I said forget about it."

Jeffrey waited a few beats, obviously looking for the right thing to say. When he finally spoke, his tone was plaintive and sad. "I want to go back about five hours, okay?" He waited for her to turn around. "I want to be back in that stupid fucking skating rink with you, and when my pager goes off, I want to throw it in the fucking trash."

Sara stared at him, not trusting herself to speak.

"That's what I want, Sara," he repeated. "I wasn't thinking about the other. What you said-"

She stopped him, holding up her hand. There were footsteps on the stairs, two sets of them. Sara walked into her office, drying her eyes as she went. She tugged a Kleenex out of the box on her desk and blew her nose, then counted to a slow five, bracing herself, swallowing back the humiliation she felt.

When she turned around, detective Lena Adams and Brad Stephens were in the morgue, standing by Jeffrey, who by his look had managed to mask his emotions much as Sara had. All three of them had their hands clasped behind their backs the way cops do when they're at a scene so they won't accidentally contaminate anything. In that moment, Sara hated them all, even Brad Stephens, who was as harmless as a fly.

"Hey, Dr. Linton," Brad said, taking off his hat as she walked into the room. His face was paler than usual and there were tears in his eyes.

"Will you…?" Sara began, then had to stop. She cleared her throat. "Will you please go upstairs and get some sheets for me?" she asked. "Bed sheets. About four of them." Sara did not need the sheets, but Brad had been one of her patients. She still felt the need to protect him.

Brad gave her a smile, obviously glad to have something to do. "Yes, ma'am."

After he had left, Lena asked in a matter-of-fact way, "Have y'all already done the baby?"

Jeffrey answered, "Yes," even though he had not been there. He noticed the chart at the end of the table and picked it up. Sara did not say anything as he took his pen out of his breast pocket and scribbled his signature along the bottom of the autopsy report. Technically, Sara had violated several laws by performing the autopsy without at least one witness.

"Is the girl in the freezer?" Lena asked, walking toward the door. There was a cavalier bounce to her walk, as if what Lena was seeing was a common occurrence. Sara knew Lena had been through a lot recently, but she still felt angry at the other woman's attitude.

"Here?" Lena prompted, her hand on the freezer door.

Sara nodded, not moving. Jeffrey walked over to help Lena, and Sara zipped the bag closed around the baby before she could stop herself. Her heart was pounding like a drum in her chest by the time Lena and Jeffrey rolled the gurney containing Jenny Weaver's body into the room. They both braked the wheels by the table, waiting for Sara to move the bag. Finally, Jeffrey scooped the large black bag into his arms. Sara looked away as he cradled what was obviously the head with his hand. The loose ends of the bag dragged the floor as he walked toward the freezer.

Lena made a point of looking at her watch. Sara wanted to slap her, but instead she walked over to the metal supply cabinet beside the sinks. She opened a sterile pack and slipped on a gown, glancing over her shoulder at the freezer, wondering what was taking Jeffrey so long. Sara was helping Lena move the body onto the table when he finally emerged.

"Here," he said, taking Lena 's place as they maneuvered the body of Jenny Weaver onto the white porcelain table. Weaver was a large girl, and the hoses at the head of the table rattled as they moved her into place.

Sara propped the head up on a black block, trying to think of herself as a coroner rather than the girl's pediatrician. In her ten years as Grant's medical examiner, there had been only four cases where Sara had known the deceased. Jenny Weaver was the first victim who had also been a patient at the clinic.

Sara rolled over a fresh tray with clean instruments, making sure she had everything that she needed. The two hoses at the head of the table were used to evacuate the body during examination. Over this was a large scale for weighing organs. At the foot was a tray for dissecting. The table itself was concave in shape, with high sides to keep matter from spilling over and a pronounced downward slant toward a large brass drain.

Carlos, Sara's assistant at the morgue, had placed a white sheet over Jenny Weaver's body. A medium-sized red dot spread out over the part that covered her throat. Sara had let Carlos take care of Jenny while she worked on the child. He had taken the X rays and prepared Jenny for autopsy while Sara had tried in vain to do something right for the baby. If Carlos was surprised when Sara told him to go home when he was finished with Jenny, he did not say.

Sara folded back the sheet, stopping just above the girl's chest. The wound was far from clean and most of the right side of her neck dangled like pieces of raw meat. Cartilage and bone stood out from the black blood that had clotted around the wound.

Sara walked over to the light box on the wall and turned it on. The light flickered, then showed the X rays Carlos had taken of Jenny Weaver.

She studied the films carefully, at first not understanding what she was seeing. She checked the name on the chart again before calling out her findings. "You can see here there are faded lines of a fracture to the left humerus, which I would date at less than a year old. It's not a typical fracture, especially for someone who was not athletic, so I'm assuming it came from some kind of abuse."

"Did you treat her for this?" Jeffrey asked.

"Of course not," Sara answered. "I would have reported it. Any doctor would have reported it."

"Okay," Jeffrey said, holding up his hands. Her tone must have been sharper than Sara realized, because Lena seemed to be taking a sudden interest in the floor.

Sara turned back to the X ray. "There's also evidence of trauma around the costal cartilage, which is here in the rib." She pointed to the chest film. "Up here, near the sternum, there's bruising that's consistent with a hard push or shove, moving posteriorly. That's to the back." She let this sink in, wondering if Jenny had seen another doctor for this. A first-year resident would recognize something was not right with this kind of injury.

Sara said, "I would guess the person who did this was taller than her. It's recent, too."

Sara popped a new X ray into the light box. She crossed her arms over her chest, studying the film. "This is the pelvic girdle," she explained. "Note the fade line here against the ischium. This would indicate traumatic pressure to the pubis. It's what's commonly referred to as a stress fracture."

"Stress from what?" Jeffrey asked.

Sara was surprised when Lena provided the answer to Jeffrey.

"She was raped," Lena said, the same way she might say the girl's eyes were blue. "Raped hard. Right?"

Sara nodded, and was about to say something else when she heard footsteps on the stairs again. She guessed from the sloppy lope that Brad had returned.

"Here you go," Brad said, walking backward through the door. He held an armful of sheets, his hat dangling from his hand.

Sara stopped him, asking, "Did you get pillowcases?"

"Oh," Brad said, surprised. He shook his head. "Sorry, no."

"I think they're on the top floor," Sara said. "Could you get at least four?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered, setting the sheets down on a table by the door.

Lena crossed her arms as he left. "He's not twelve," she said.

Jeffrey spoke to Lena for the first time since she had entered the morgue, giving her an uncharacteristic, "Shut up."

Lena colored, but she was silent; also out of character.

"The bruising on her chest couldn't really be treated with anything other than Tylenol," Sara continued. "The pelvic fracture could heal on its own. It might explain why she had weight gain recently. It would be hard for her to get around."

Jeffrey asked, "You think the boyfriend was abusing her?"

"Someone was," Sara said, looking over the films again, trying to see if she had missed anything. All the times she had seen Jenny Weaver, Sara had never suspected child abuse. How the child had kept it hidden, and why, Sara did not know. Of course, it wasn't as if Sara ordered X rays for sore throats, Jenny didn't take off her clothes, evidently and Jenny had never taken off her clothes for an examination. Teenage girls were very sensitive about their bodies, and Sara had always slipped her stethoscope under Jenny's shirt to listen to her chest and lungs so the girl would not be embarrassed.

Sara walked over to the table to resume the preliminary examination. Her hands shook slightly as she pulled back the sheet, and Sara was so absorbed in trying to get her hands to stop shaking that she did not notice what she was uncovering.

"Holy shit," Lena said, giving another low whistle.

Jeffrey did not reprimand her this time, though, and Sara understood why. There were small cuts across the girl's body, specifically on her arms and legs. The wounds were at various stages of healing, but some of them looked as recent as the last few days.

"What happened?" Jeffrey asked. "Was she trying to kill herself?"

Sara looked at the slices marking the skin. None of them was across the wrist or in places that would be apparent to anyone who was not looking for something specific. This would at least explain why the girl was wearing a long-sleeved shirt in the middle of summer. Thin rows of very deep cuts lined Jenny's left forearm, starting about three inches from the wrist and where the sleeve might have rolled up. Dark scars indicated that the injuries were a common occurrence. The leg cuts were much deeper, and seemed to have a crisscross pattern to them. Sara could guess from the scarring that the deeper cuts radiated from the knee to the thigh. The girl had done this to herself.

"What is this?" Jeffrey asked, though he must have known.

"Cutting," Lena provided.

"Self-injuring," Sara corrected her, as if that made it any better. "I've seen it at the clinic before."

"Why?" Jeffrey asked. "Why would someone do this?"

"Stupidity, for the most part," Sara told him, feeling anger well into her stomach. How many times had she seen this girl? How many signs had Sara missed? "Sometimes they just want to know what it feels like. Usually they're just acting out, not thinking about the consequences. This, though," she stopped, staring at the deep cuts along Jenny's left thigh. "This is something else. She hid them, she didn't want people to know."

"Why?" Jeffrey repeated. "Why would she do this?"

"Control," Lena answered him, and Sara did not like the look she was giving the child. It was almost respectful.

"It's a deep psychosis," Sara countered. "Usually bulimics or anorexics do it. It's a form of self-loathing." She gave Lena a purposeful look. "Usually something sets it off. Abuse or rape, for instance."

Lena held her gaze for just a second before looking away.

Sara continued, "There are other things that can lead to it, too. Substance abuse, mental illness, problems at school or at home."

Sara walked over to the supply cabinet and took out a plastic speculum. After slipping on a second pair of gloves, she unwrapped the speculum and clicked it open. Lena cringed slightly at the sound, and Sara was thankful that the detective was capable of showing a little emotion.

Sara walked down to the foot of the body and propped the feet apart. She stopped suddenly, her mind not accept-ing what her eyes saw. She dropped the speculum on the table.

Lena asked, "What is it?"

Sara did not answer. She had thought that after tonight nothing could shock her. She had been so wrong.

"What is it?" Lena repeated.

"She hasn't given birth to a child," Sara answered. "Any child."

Jeffrey indicated the unused speculum. "How can you be sure without completely examining her?"

Sara stared at them both, not sure how to say this. "Her vagina has been sewn shut," she finally told them. "From the rate of healing, I'd say it's been that way for at least six months."