Kisscut

Chapter Twelve

Lena dreamed that she heard a hammer pounding against a nail. When she rolled over in bed, she half expected to see her hand being pinned to the floor, but wh at she saw instead was Hank, tapping out the hinges to her bedroom door.

Lena sat up in bed, yelling, "What the fuck?"

"I told you things were gonna change," Hank said, still tapping at the pin holding the hinge together.

"Jesus Christ," Lena said, putting her hands to her ears, trying to block out the hammering sound. She looked at the clock on the dresser. "It's not even six o'clock," she yelled. "I don't even have to be at work until nine today."

"Gives us plenty of time," Hank said, sliding the pin from the hinge.

"You're taking off my door?" Lena demanded, pulling the sheet to her chest even though she was wearing a heavy sweatshirt and matching pants. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Hank ignored her as he started working on the top hinge.

"Stop it," Lena ordered, getting out of bed and taking the sheet with her.

Hank kept tapping, still ignoring her.

He said, "Things are changing, starting today."

"What things?"

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper. "Here," he said, handing it to her.

Lena unfolded the paper, but her eyes could not focus on the words. She was reminded of when she was a teenager, and Hank had not approved of a boy Lena was seeing. His solution then had been to nail her bedroom windows shut so that she would not be able to sneak out anymore at night. She had pointed out this was a fire hazard, and Hank had countered that he would rather see her burned alive than hooked up with that trash she was seeing.

Lena tried to take the hammer from him, but he was too strong.

She said, "I'm not a baby, goddamn it."

"You're my baby," Hank said, jerking the hammer back. He tapped out the last pin and the door dropped to the floor. "I held you in these hands," he said, dropping the hammer to show her his hands. "I walked with you at night when you wouldn't stop crying, I made sure you had your lunch when you went to school, and I loaned you the money to make the down payment on this house."

"I paid you back every goddamn penny."

"This here's the interest," he said, wrapping his hands around the edges of the door. He lifted it with a heavy groan.

Lena watched, incredulous, as he carried the door out into the hallway.

"Why are you doing this?" she whined. "Hank, stop it."

"No more secrets in this house," he mumbled, straining to set the door against the wall. He turned to her, saying, "I'm laying down the law here, child."

"I'm not doing any of this," she said, throwing the list at him.

"The hell you say," he countered, catching the paper before it hit the floor. "You're gonna do every goddamn thing on this list every day, or I'll have a talk with your boss. How's that?"

"Don't threaten me," she said, following him back into the bedroom.

"You take it as a threat if you want," Hank said, yanking open one of the drawers in her bureau. He rummaged through her underwear, then slammed the drawer closed and opened the next one.

"What are you doing?"

"Here," he said, pulling out a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt. "Put these on and be downstairs in five minutes."

Lena looked at him, and she noticed for the first time that Hank was not dressed in his usual jeans and loud Hawaiian shirt. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a beer advertisement on it and a pair of shorts that looked so new they still had the creases in them from being folded in the package. Brand new sneakers were on his feet, white socks pulled up to just under his knees. His legs were so white that she had to blink several times to see where his legs stopped and the socks began.

"Downstairs for what?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"We're going running."

"You're going to go running with me?" she asked, not believing this. Hank was about as out of shape as a geriatric in a wheelchair. He did not even like walking to the mailbox.

"Five minutes," he said, leaving the room.

"Bastard," Lena fumed, contemplating whether or not to go after him. She was so mad she couldn't see straight, but still, she took off her pants and slid on the shorts.

"Fucking prick," she mumbled, slipping on the shirt. She had no choice, and that was what was pissing her off. If Hank told Jeffrey half of the stuff he knew about Lena's behavior, Lena would be out on her ass so fast her head would spin.

Lena allowed herself a glance at the list. It started off with "exercise every day," and ended with "eat normal meals for breakfast, lunch, and supper."

From deep inside somewhere, she pulled up every curse word, every expletive, she had ever heard in her ten years as a cop and directed them all toward Hank. She finished with "… fucking motherfucker," then grabbed her sneakers and went downstairs.

Lena sat in Jeffrey's office, staring at the clock on his wall. He was ten minutes late, which had never happened as long as Lena could remember. She should probably be glad he wasn't here yet, because Lena needed to sit in order to recover from her morning run with Hank. He was a tough old man, and she had found herself being outpaced by him from their first step outside. Lena had to admit that some of her dogged determination must have come from her uncle, because he seemed to be like Lena: Once he got something in his head that he was going to do, nothing would stop him. Even when Lena had lagged behind, her lungs about to explode, her stomach churning from all the amino acids her muscles were giving up, he had simply jogged in place, his jaw set in an angry line, waiting for her to get over it and get moving.

"Hey," Jeffrey said, rushing into the office. His tie was loose around his neck and he carried his jacket over his arm.

"Hey," Lena said, standing.

He motioned for her to sit down. "Sorry I'm late," he said. "Traffic."

"Where?" Lena asked, because the only traffic in town was around the school, and then only at certain times.

Jeffrey did not answer her. He sat at his desk, buttoning his collar with one hand. Lena was not certain, but she could have sworn she saw a red mark on his neck.

She asked, "No word on Lacey yet?"

"No," he told her, tying his tie. "I talked to Dave Fine on my way in. He's got the notes from his sessions with Mark."

"He's just going to hand them over?" Lena asked, and not for the first time she was glad she had not talked to the pastor about her problems.

"Yeah," Jeffrey said, smoothing down his tie. "I was surprised, too."

Lena crossed her arms, staring at her boss. There was something different about him. She just couldn't place it.

"He's going to meet me at the hospital at ten," Jeffrey said, then looked at his watch. "I'm already late."

"I thought you wanted me to go with you?" Lena asked.

"I want you to get Brad and take Mark to his house," Jeffrey told her. "Get him some clean clothes, let him take a shower, whatever he needs to do, then take him to the hospital."

"Why?"

"His mother took a bad turn last night," Jeffrey said. "Fine thinks she'll probably be gone this morning." He tapped his fingers on his desk. "No matter what he did, I'm not going to keep that boy from seeing his mama one last time before she dies."

Lena was touched by this, but she tried not to let on.

Jeffrey jabbed a finger at her, as if in warning. "I mean it about Brad, Lena. You're not to be with Mark alone. Do you understand me?"

She thought to protest, but he was right. She did not want to be alone with Mark Patterson. There was something about him that was too raw. Perhaps she identified with him too much.

" Lena?" Jeffrey prompted.

She cleared her throat, then answered, "Yes, sir."

As usual, Brad drove through town at exactly the speed limit. Lena tried to quell her impatience at the same time she tried to ignore Mark sitting in the back seat. Without looking, she knew that Mark was staring at her. Both she and Jeffrey had agreed that it would be best to let his father deal with telling the boy his mother would probably be dead before the end of the day, but sitting there in the car with Mark less than two feet behind her, Lena felt like she was doing something wrong. Even with the safety guard between the front and back seats, she felt like Mark might come through the fence and grab her, demanding to know what was going on.

For Mark's part, whatever medication the doctor had given him last night seemed to work. He was back to his usual surly self, standing too close to Lena when she cuffed him, making a suggestive noise as she led him to the car. Lena wondered what had brought the change. Mark had seemed nearly catatonic the day before.

"It sure is hot out," Brad said, taking a left off of Main Street.

"I know," Lena agreed, wanting to keep up the small talk. "It's hotter now than it was last year."

"That's the truth," Brad answered. "I remember when I was little, it didn't seem like it ever got this hot."

"Me, neither," Lena said.

"Didn't even have an air conditioner until I was twelve."

"We got ours when I was fifteen," she told him, allowing a smile at the memory. Lena and Sibyl had stood in front of the little unit until their faces had felt like they were frozen in place.

"We used to beg my daddy to turn the hose on out in the yard," Brad said, giving a little laugh. "I remember once when my cousin Bennie came over-"

Mark kicked at the guard between the seats, saying, "Shut the fuck up."

Brad slammed on the brakes and turned around. "You do that again and we're gonna have to have us a talk."

Lena had never heard Brad threaten anyone, and she was surprised to see that he had it in him. For the first time, she let herself see that Brad actually didn't seem to like Mark Patterson.

"Chill, John Boy," Mark said.

Lena let herself glance back at Mark, and he licked his tongue out suggestively. She turned back around, staring out the front window, trying not to let him know that he had gotten to her.

The car lurched a bit as it moved forward, and Brad was quiet for the rest of the trip. Lena directed him toward the Patterson trailer by pointing with her finger instead of giving him verbal directions. She tried to let herself think that Mark was not in the back seat, but every few minutes she would remember, and it was almost like she could feel his breath on her neck.

"This is it," Lena said, indicating the trailer. She was out of the car before Brad had come to a complete stop. Her thigh muscles protested as she moved, and she cursed Hank again for making her run that morning.

Brad opened the back door, saying, "You gonna behave now?"

Mark took his time getting out of the car. When he stood, he was several inches shorter than Brad. He said something to the young patrolman that Lena could not hear. Whatever it was, it served to embarrass Brad, because his face turned completely red.

"Watch your mouth," Brad said, but there was no real threat to his tone, only what could be called shock. Brad grabbed the handcuffs around Mark's wrists and pulled him toward the trailer.

At the front door, Lena pulled Mark's keys out of her pocket. They had confiscated his things when he was arrested. She guessed that a key to the door would be on the ring.

"It's the third one," Mark said. "The one with the green rim." He smiled at Brad suggestively. "Rim, rimming, rim."

Brad's jaw worked, and he stared at the door as if he could open it with his mind.

Lena found the key and turned it in the lock. A breeze of cold air came from the trailer when she opened the door.

Mark stood in the doorway for just a second, his eyes closed, inhaling the scent of lilacs that greeted them.

"Come on," Brad said, pushing the boy inside.

Lena shot Brad a questioning look, wondering what had gotten into him. Brad was usually the most docile person in the world.

"Take the cuffs off him," Lena said.

Brad shook his head no. "We shouldn't do that."

Lena crossed her arms. "How's he supposed to bathe and get dressed with cuffs on?"

Mark gave Brad a wink. "You could stay with me, officer. Help scrub my back."

Before Lena knew what she was doing, she popped Mark on the back of the head. "Stop that," she told him, an-gry that he was making Brad so uncomfortable. She told Brad, "Why don't you watch the back of the trailer in case he tries to sneak out?"

Brad seemed relieved by this suggestion, and left without another word.

"What did you say to him?" she demanded.

"Just offered to help him relieve some of that stress he seems to have."

"Jesus Christ," Lena breathed. "Why would you do that to him?"

"Why not?" Mark shrugged.

Lena took out her handcuff key and motioned him over. He put the cuffs tight to his crotch so she would have to touch him to work the key.

"Hands out, Mark," Lena ordered.

He sighed dramatically, but did as he was told. "You like being chained up?" he asked.

"I'll give you ten minutes in the shower," she told him, releasing the cuffs. "If I have to come in after you, I won't be nice about it."

"Mmm…" Mark said, drawing out the sound. "Sounds tasty."

Lena clipped the handcuffs onto the back of her belt. "Ten minutes," she said, wondering if this was how Hank had felt this morning, ordering her around. She walked over to the couch and picked up a magazine before sitting down. Mark stood in the kitchen, watching her for what seemed like a full minute before he went back to his room. A couple of minutes later, she heard water running in the shower. Lena closed the magazine, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief.

She stood from the couch, holding on to the mantel as she stretched out her quads. Her legs hurting this much af-ter what a year ago would have amounted to a light run was beginning to piss her off. She was stronger than this. There was no way she could be so out of shape.

Lena picked up a framed photograph of Mark and Lacey standing in front of a nondescript roller coaster. Both children were smiling, and Mark's arm was thrown around Lacey's shoulders. In turn, she had her hand around his waist. They looked about three years younger than they were now. They looked happy.

"That was at Six Flags," Mark said.

Lena tried not to show he had startled her. Mark was standing about three feet away from her, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

"Get dressed," she said.

He pressed his lips together in a lazy smile, and she felt like an idiot for not checking his room first for contraband.

"What are you on?" she asked him.

"Cloud nine," he smiled, dropping onto the couch.

"Mark," Lena said, "Get up. Get dressed."

He stared at her, his lips slightly parted.

She asked, "What?"

He kept staring for just a second more, then asked, "What did it feel like?"

"What did what feel like?"

He looked down at her hands, and she crossed her arms so that he could not see the scars. She shook her head. "No."

"My dad told me what happened."

"I'm sure he took great pleasure in it."

Mark frowned. "He didn't, actually. Teddy doesn't get off on that kind of thing." He must have noticed Lena 's surprise, because he said, "Old Ted's a straight arrow, now. Very vanilla."

Lena turned back to the photograph. "Go get dressed, Mark. We don't have time for this."

"You tell me your secrets and I'll tell you mine."

Lena laughed. "You watch too many movies."

"I'm serious."

"I don't think so, Mark."

She heard a lighter click several times, and turned around to see Mark lighting a joint.

"Put that out," she told him.

He inhaled deeply, not obeying.

He said, "Don't you want to know what happened?"

"I want you to get dressed so that you can go see your mother."

He smiled, making himself comfortable on the couch. "I really thought you were going to pull that trigger the other night."

Without thinking, Lena sat at the opposite end of the couch. "You were watching me?" she asked, not feeling violated so much as caught.

He nodded, taking a long hit off the joint.

"Where were you?"

"By the shed," he told her. "I thought you were going to run right over it."

Lena felt a flush of shame.

"That man was beside the house. I thought he saw me, but he was watching you." Mark blew on the tip of the joint. "He's your father?"

"Uncle," she told him.

Mark took another hit on the joint, holding in the smoke for a few beats. He exhaled slowly, then asked, "How'd it feel, holding that gun in your mouth?"

"Wrong," she said, trying to recover. "That's why I didn't do it."

"No. Being raped," he said. "How'd it feel?"

Lena looked around the room, wondering why she was having this conversation with this kid.

"Bad," she said, then shrugged. "Just… not good."

He choked on a laugh. "I guess so."

"No," Lena said, then, wanting to get back in charge of the conversation, she said, "Why don't you tell me what happened, Mark?"

"Have you had sex yet?"

She didn't like the way he said "yet" as if it was something inevitable. "That's not really any of your business," she told him, amazed that she was able to talk about it so casually. For the first time in a while, Lena felt in control of herself and her emotions. She felt strong, and capable of handling this kid. In light of the fact that just a day ago she had tried to kill herself, this came as somewhat of a shock to her.

Lena said, "Tell me what's going on."

"My mom's gonna die," he said. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yes," she told him, looking down at her hands because she did not want him to read the truth in her face. "Is that what you want to talk about, your mom?"

He did not respond.

"Mark," Lena said. "Do you know where your sister is?"

He stared at her, his eyes watering. She was struck again by how much of a child he still was.

He said, "We're a lot alike, you know?"

"In what way?"

"In here," he said, putting his hand over his chest. "How did it feel being raped?"

She shook her head, not letting him distract her. "How are we alike, Mark? Has somebody hurt you?"

Something flashed in his eyes, and for just a moment she could see that he was in a tremendous amount of pain. Lena 's heart went out to him, and she felt something akin to a maternal urge to take care of Mark Patterson, even if she could not completely take care of herself.

She asked, "Who hurt you, Mark?"

He propped his foot up on the coffee table. "Why are you a cop?"

"Because I want to help people," she told him, though that was no longer entirely true. "Let me help you. Tell me what happened."

He shook his head over this. "How did it feel?" he asked again. "When you were being raped. What did that feel like?"

"Tell me why you want to know and I'll tell you."

He sucked on the joint, finishing it. He looked around for somewhere to put the butt, and Lena slid a plate across the coffee table for him.

He sat up, putting his elbows on his knees. "I wonder sometimes why people do things."

"I do, too," she said. "For instance, why would Jenny want to kill you?"

He waved this off. "She wasn't going to kill me."

"Is that why you pissed yourself?"

He laughed. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty."

"Why'd she do it, Mark?"

"She thought she could stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Stop me?" he asked, as if Lena might actually know the answer.

"Stop you from what?" She waited for him to answer, and when he didn't she tried, "Tell me about that party with Carson and the other boys."

He scowled. " Carson 's a pussy."

"Why'd you make Jenny sleep with them?"

"I didn't make her do shit," he spat out. "She wanted to do that. She was trying to make me jealous, showing me it didn't mean anything."

"Didn't hurt you got her drunk, either."

"Yeah, well," he said, waving her off.

"What did Jenny think she could stop, Mark?" Lena asked. "That night at Skatie's. What did she think she could stop?"

Mark twisted his lips to the side, as if he might tell her, then seemed to change his mind. He asked, "You think you'll find my sister?"

"Do you know where she is?"

He looked down, and she wondered if he knew where Lacey was or if he was feeling guilty for not knowing.

Lena sat back, her arms crossed, waiting for him to say what he needed to say.

"I feel like sometimes I'm not even real," he said. "Like maybe I'm in the room, and maybe I'm breathing the air, but nobody really sees me." He rubbed his eyes. "Then I think maybe if I'm not really here, that I need to be someplace else. Like, maybe I should just go ahead and pull the trigger, you know?"

Lena nodded, because she did know.

"What made you stop?" he asked her. "Why didn't you pull the trigger?"

She told him the truth about the gun, but not about the pills. "I thought about my partner finding me in the morning, and I couldn't do that to him."

"Do you believe in God?"

"I'm not sure," she answered. "Do you?"

He shook his head no.

"Is that why you stopped going to church?"

He looked at her, angry. "Don't be a cop with me."

"I am a cop, Mark." Lena kept her tone even, not matching his anger. She reached out and put her hand on his arm.

"I want to know what happened. Why did Jenny want to kill you?"

He sighed, slouching against the pillows. "She was such a sweet kid," he said. "I really cared about her."

"I know you did."

"Do you?" he asked. "I mean, do you really understand what it means to care about somebody?"

Lena thought of Sibyl when she said, "Yes, I do."

"Not me," he said. "I mean, before Jenny. I just didn't know what it meant to care like that."

"You love your mother."

He laughed, a hollow sound that vibrated in his chest. "She's going to die soon, isn't she?"

Lena pressed her lips together.

"I feel it," he said, putting his hand over his heart. "I felt it this morning, somehow, like she wasn't going to last much longer, like she wanted to let go." He started to cry. "It's this connection, you know? Like, I can feel what she feels." He turned to her suddenly, a bit of desperation in his tone. "Did you know when your sister died?"

"Yes," Lena lied. At the time, she had been on her way back from Macon and had no idea that something bad had happened. "I could feel it here," she said, putting her hand to her chest.

"Then you know," he said. "You know what that emptiness feels like."

Lena nodded, not saying more.

Mark looked away, then closed his eyes. She studied his profile, his sharp nose and squared jaw. Tears rolled down his cheeks and fell onto his chest.

"The first time," Mark began, his voice low, "I guess it was at Thanksgiving."

Lena kept her mouth closed, letting him take his time.

"Lacey and Jenny were down the hall in Lacey's room, and I wanted to borrow one of her CDs." He sighed, his chest rising and falling with the sound. "She started yelling at me, all mad and shit. I dunno. I guess Mama heard her yelling and came in and told us to stop."

Lena felt her heart rate accelerate, and said a small prayer to whoever was listening that Brad would not pick now to come back into the trailer. She tried to do the math and figure out how much time had passed since he left, but since she dared not look at her watch, Lena wasn't sure.

"Lacey turned up the radio in her room really loud," he said. "Mama let her. It's always been like that. She was always the favorite." He shook his head. "Lacey's sweet underneath, you know? Maybe she's spoiled, but she's sweet underneath. She has a good heart, just like Mama."

Lena waited, counting to twenty-five before Mark started speaking again.

"She came into my room a little later," he said. "I guess she knew I was still pissed off. Wanted to smooth things over. She was always like that, trying to make peace. I guess that's why so many people liked her, because she was good like that." A slight smile came to his lips, but he kept his eyes closed. "She just put her hand around the back of my neck, and then we started kissing for some reason. I mean, just kissing real deep for a long time."

Lena tried to remember what Jeffrey had said about not letting her personal feelings ruin a confession, but the thought of Mark Patterson kissing his baby sister made her stomach roll. She wanted to say something, to stop him so that she would not go through the rest of her life knowing this story, but she knew that she could not.

"I don't know how the rest of it happened," Mark said. "You know, we were kissing, and then she started rubbing me, and it felt so good." He looked at her, asking for her ap-proval. "I know it was wrong, okay? It just felt so good. I didn't want to stop."

Lena nodded, trying to control her expression. She doubted very seriously that Lacey Patterson had seduced her brother. Saying the victim had "asked for it" was a common theme among sexual predators.

"I can tell you don't understand," he said. "But you don't know what it's like. My dad is so fucking hard on me." He slammed his fist into his leg. "He just never lets up on me. Ever."

"I know," Lena told him, reaching out, making herself touch his arm. "I understand that part, Mark. I really do."

His expression softened, and he said, "I didn't make her do it."

"I believe you."

"She came on to me first," he said. "She was the one who came into my room. She was the one who started kissing me, who started touching me."

Lena nodded because that was all that she could do.

"She was so wet for me. I just…" He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut, as if to bring back the memory. "It felt so right being inside of her. And she wanted me. I could tell she wanted me. The way she put her hand on the back of my neck, and pulled me closer to her, deeper."

Lena swallowed back bile.

"Touching her and being with her and inside of her," Mark said. "I just felt complete, you know? Like things were finally right." He put his hand over his eyes. "She was so good at it. I mean, where did she learn to be so damn good at it?"

He seemed to want an honest answer, but Lena could not give him one.

"I mean, I look at my dad," he said, shaking his head. "It's not like he knows anything."

Lena spoke without thinking. "Your dad was sleeping with her, too?"

"Well, duh," he said, as if she were stupid.

Lena put her hand to her stomach, thinking about poor Lacey Patterson, and what hell she must have been through.

She said, "Tell me about Jenny."

Mark gave a humorless laugh. "Yeah, Jenny," he said. "I had been with her a couple of times before, like I told you." He paused. "She was sweet. She was all those things I told you."

"She seemed like a good friend."

"Yeah, well," he said, a bit of derision slipping into his tone. "She was a good friend until she caught us."

"Is that why she pointed the gun at you?"

"I guess part of it was that," he said. "Then, you know, maybe she just wanted it to stop. She said that a lot, that she just wanted it to stop."

"Was she jealous?"

He nodded slowly. "It hurt her to see it."

"She saw you together?"

He nodded again, the same slow movement. "We were in my bed, and she and Lacey came home from school."

Lena felt her heart stop midbeat. She opened her mouth to ask for a clarification, then closed it. She did not want to know. If she could have moved her body, she would have run from the room, covering her ears so that she could not hear any more. She couldn't move, though, and she sat motionless on the couch, watching Mark the way she would watch a car wreck.

"We were together, you know? I guess this was around Christmastime, right before they went on that stupid retreat." He threw his hand into the air. "Mama let me stay home from school. We had the whole day together." He smiled. "She lit some candles, and we took a long bath, and then we made love."

Lena was aware that she had stopped breathing.

"I guess we lost track of time," Mark said, giving a pitiful laugh. "Lacey and Jenny walked right into my room, and that was it."

Lena put her hand to her mouth to keep herself from speaking.

"Jenny loved my mom. I mean, it was complicated. Maybe it's better that Jenny's not around to watch Mama die. I think that would've killed her."

"Right," Lena managed.

"I know what you think, but she loved me, man. It felt so good to know that she loved me. It was like Lacey was always the favorite, but then she came to me, and I was the one. I was the one she loved most." Mark started to cry again. Before Lena knew what was happening, he had buried his face in her neck.

Lena forced the word, "Mark," out of her mouth, trying to push him away from her.

"Don't," he whispered, and his wet lips against her flesh made her want to vomit.

"Mark, no," she said. When he didn't move, Lena pushed him away as hard as she could. "Get away from me!" she yelled.

From the way he was looking at her, she imagined that every ounce of disgust she was feeling was written all over her face.

"Mark-"

"Bitch," he said, standing. "You fucking bitch!"

"Mark-"

The door popped open, and Brad stood there, his hand on the butt of his gun. Lena motioned him back as Mark stepped toward her.

Mark said, "I thought you would understand."

"I do," she told him, feeling panicked. "I do understand, Mark."

"Fucking bitch," he hissed. "You don't understand shit."

"Mark-"

He closed the distance between them in two steps, grabbing her hand and holding it up between them. "I thought you understood," he said, and she knew he meant her scars. "I thought you knew because you'd been there, man. You know what it's like. I know you do. You just won't fucking admit it because you're a coward."

Lena opened her mouth, but could not speak.

"Hey," Brad said, taking Mark's arm.

"Get away from me, faggot," Mark screamed, yanking his arm out of Brad's grasp. He pointed an accusatory finger at Lena, saying through clenched teeth, "You tricked me. You're all alike, goddamn it. She was right. You're all so weak. You never do the right thing."

Lena cleared her throat, trying, "Mark-"

Mark walked toward the hallway, his footsteps so heavy that the trailer shook.

"What the heck was that about?" Brad asked, his hand still resting on his gun.

Lena shook her head, unable to speak for just a moment.

"Are you okay?" Brad asked, going to the couch. He put his hand on her arm and she did not pull away.

"I can't believe…" Lena began, not knowing exactly what to say.

Brad sat beside her, taking her hand. " Lena?" he asked, patting her hand. "Talk to me."

She shook her head, taking back her hand. "He's just a kid," she said.

"A nasty kid," Brad told her. "Sometimes I wonder how they can get that way. When I was his age, I barely even knew what sex was. I thought a good time on a date was getting a kiss at the end."

Lena nodded, zoning out as he talked about his idyllic teen years.

"I just wonder," Brad said. "What makes them like that? What's changed?"

"Their parents," Lena said, but she knew that wasn't right. She pushed her hair back behind her ear, trying to suppress the shock she was still feeling. She looked at her watch, wondering if she should go get Mark. He had been gone a while.

"What did he mean?" Brad asked. "Wasn't that the same stuff Jenny was saying before?"

Lena finally managed to focus on the conversation. "Before when?" she asked.

"In the parking lot," Brad said. "You know, when she said adults never do the right thing."

"Oh, Jesus," Lena breathed, feeling all the air going out of her lungs. She jumped up from the couch and started off down the hall, Brad close behind her.

"Mark?" she yelled, knocking on the only closed door. She tried the handle, but it was locked.

"Dammit," Lena hissed, jamming her shoulder against the door. It would not budge. She motioned to Brad. "Kick it in."

He braced himself against the other side of the hall and punched his foot into the door. Unfortunately, the door was hollow at the center, and Brad's foot stuck in the splintered wood. He used Lena for leverage, pulling his foot out of the hole. She leaned down, looking into the room, trying to find Mark through the narrow opening.

"Oh, God," Lena gasped, stepping back to kick at the hole Brad had made. He joined in, and between them they managed to enlarge the opening enough for Lena to slip through. The splintered wood tore at her arms and face, but she barely noticed the pain as she tried to get into the room.

"Mark," she said, her voice high with panic. "Hold on, Mark. Hold on."

Brad pushed her from behind, and she fell into the room. Mark had hanged himself from a rod mounted high in the closet. The ceiling of the trailer was not high, and his feet dragged the ground. Still, the belt around his neck seemed to be doing the trick. His face was blue, his tongue protruding slightly. She grabbed his legs, holding him up to take some of the stress off his neck.

"Goddamn it, Brad," she cursed. "Get in here."

Brad finally managed to bust the door open wide enough to squeeze through, and he used his pocket knife to cut the belt while Lena held Mark's legs. It took forever for the knife to cut through the thick leather, and Lena felt her arms start to shake from holding Mark up for so long.

"No, no, no," Lena cried until Mark fell to the ground. She put her ear to his chest, trying to make out a heartbeat. A few seconds passed, then she finally heard a telltale thump, followed by another stronger one.

"Is he okay?" Brad asked, loosening the belt from Mark's neck.

Lena nodded, pulling a blanket off the bed. She wrapped it around Mark's body, saying, "Call an ambulance."

Chapter Thirteen

"Sara?" Molly asked, then repeated, "Sara?"

"Hmm?" Sara said. Molly, Candy Nelson, and her three children were all staring at her expectantly.

Sara shook her head a little, saying, "Sorry," before she went back to the examination. She had been worrying about Lacey Patterson, wondering what was happening to her.

"Breathe deeply," Sara told Danny Nelson.

"I've been breathing deeply for the last ten minutes," Danny complained.

"Hush up," his mama said.

Sara could feel Molly staring at her, but kept the focus on Danny. "That's good," she told him. "Put your shirt back on and I'll talk to your mother."

Candy Nelson followed her out into the hallway.

Sara said, "I want to send him to a specialist."

The mother put her hand to her heart, as if Sara had just told her Danny only had a couple of months to live.

"It's nothing to be nervous about," she assured her. "I just want you to get his ears checked by someone who knows more about them than I do."

"Are you certain he's okay?"

"I'm certain," Sara said, then, "Molly, could you write a referral for Matt DeAndrea over in Avondale?"

Molly nodded, and Sara walked into her office, dropping her stethoscope on the desk. She sat down in her chair, trying not to sigh. She found herself thinking about Jeffrey. Every part of her body felt alive, if not slightly bruised. Her back was killing her, but that wasn't surprising, considering they had not made it out of the hallway until around three that morning.

"So," Molly said, interrupting Sara's thoughts. "I guess this means we're taking Jeffrey's calls now?"

Sara blushed. "Is it that obvious?"

"Let's just say an ad in the Grant Observer would be more subtle."

Sara narrowed her eyes at the nurse.

"That's your last patient," Molly told her, smiling. "Are you going to the morgue?"

Sara opened her mouth to respond, but a banging noise echoed up the hallway, followed by a curse. Sara rolled her eyes at Molly, and trotted up the hall toward the bathroom. Thanks to a six year old with a keen interest in flushing his Matchbox collection down the toilet, the waste pipe had backed up. Sara had actually debated whether or not to call her father, knowing that Tessa would be working with him today. She did not have the proper tools to fix the toilet, however, and since she had taken yesterday afternoon off, she did not have the time to do the job. Besides, her father would have been very hurt if she had not called him to come to her rescue.

"Daddy," Sara whispered, shutting the bathroom door behind her. "This is a children's clinic. You can't cuss like that around here."

He shot her a look over his shoulder. "I cussed around you girls all the time and you turned out okay."

"Dad…" Sara tried again.

"That's right," he said. "I'm your father."

She gave up, sitting on the edge of the tub. As a child, Sara had often watched her father work, and Eddie had put on quite a show for Sara and Tessa, banging pipes, dancing around with a wrench in one hand and a plunger in the other. He wanted to teach his girls to be good with then-hands, and comfortable with their abilities. Sara often thought that he had been somewhat disappointed that Sara had not joined the family business when she got out of college, and chose instead to go to medical school. He had picked up the part of her tuition that the scholarships did not pay for, and made sure she had money to live on, but in his heart Sara knew Eddie would have been perfectly happy to have her back living at home, snaking drains and welding pipes alongside him. Some days, Sara was tempted. She certainly would be working fewer hours as a plumber.

Eddie cleared his throat and began, "The old West, right?"

Sara smiled, knowing he was about to tell one of his jokes. "All right."

"This sheriff goes into a saloon and says, 'I'm lookin' for a cowboy wearing a brown paper vest and brown paper pants.'" He waited a beat, making sure Sara was listening. "The bartender says, 'What's he wanted for?' And the sheriff says, 'Rustling.'"

Sara laughed despite herself.

Eddie returned to the job at hand, shoving a toilet auger down the bowl. The spindle beside him turned slowly, letting out the flexible metal snake with a pointed tip on the end that would hopefully clear the blockage.

He asked, "What'd this kid flush down again?"

"Matchbox car," Sara said. "At least, that's what we think."

"Little bastard," Eddie mumbled, and Sara just shook her head, knowing it was useless to try to censor him. She had learned that lesson nearly thirty years ago at a particularly embarrassing parent-teacher conference. Instead, Sara leaned her elbows on her knees and watched him work. Eddie Linton was not what anyone would call a snappy dresser, even when he tried. He was wearing a Culture Club T-shirt from a concert he had taken Sara and Tessa to when they were in high school. His green shorts were so old that they had strings hanging down. She leaned over and pulled at one.

"Hey," he said.

"You should let me get the scissors," she offered.

"Don't you have patients to see?"

"This is my morgue day," she told him. Even though there was a stack of paperwork waiting for her at the morgue, Sara did not want to deal with it. As a matter of fact, she would be perfectly content to sit here all day with her father. At least until Jeffrey got off work.

Eddie looked at her over his shoulder. "What are you so happy about?"

"Having you here," she said, rubbing his back.

"Yeah, right," he mumbled, shoving the snake in harder. "This is a pain in the ass. You should charge that kid for my time."

"I'll see what his insurance company says."

Eddie sat back on his heels. "Your sister's in the van."

Sara did not respond.

He gave her a serious look. "When I was in the war, I watched men die."

Sara barked a laugh. "You fixed toilets at Fort Gillem, Daddy. You never even left Georgia."

"Well…" He waved this off. "There was that corporal from Connecticut who couldn't handle his grits." Eddie crossed his arms and gave her a serious look. "Anyway, what I mean is, life is too short."

"Yes," Sara agreed. She saw evidence of that at the morgue on an almost weekly basis.

"Too short to be mad at your sister."

"Ah," Sara said, getting it. "Did she tell you what we're arguing about?"

"Do you girls ever tell me anything?" he grumbled.

"It's complicated," Sara told him.

"I bet it's not," Eddie countered, pulling the snake out of the toilet, hand over hand. "I bet it's real simple." He rolled the metal snake around a spindle, telling her, "Go get me the power auger."

"I have to get to work," she said.

"Right after you get the auger," he told her, handing her the coiled snake.

Sara hesitated, then took it. "I'm not doing this because you told me to."

He held up his hands. "You haven't done anything I've told you to do since 1979."

She stuck out her tongue at him before leaving the room. Sara took the back door and walked around the clinic so that the patients in the waiting room would not see her. Technically, she was off-duty, but there was always someone who knew her, and Sara did not want to be stopped.

Eddie's work van was backed into a parking space beside Sara's car. LINTON AND DAUGHTERS was painted on the side panels. A drawing of a commode with a roll of pink toilet tissue on the back of the tank served as the logo. As Sara drew near, she could see Tessa sitting behind the wheel, the windows rolled up and the engine on. She had probably been waiting out here for at least thirty minutes.

Sara yanked the passenger's side door open. Tessa did not look up. Obviously, she had seen Sara approach.

"Hey," Sara called over the roar of the air-conditioning, tossing the auger into the back of the van. She got into the van and slammed the door behind her.

Tessa gave a reluctant, "Hey," back, then, "Did they find that kid?"

"Not yet." Sara leaned her back against the door so that she was facing her sister. She slipped off her clogs and hooked her toes onto the edge of Tessa's seat.

"That's my side," Tessa told her, a phrase that had been oft repeated when they took car rides as children.

"So," Sara said, prodding Tessa's leg with her big toe. "What're you gonna do?"

"Stop it," Tessa slapped at her feet. "I'm mad at you."

"I'm mad at you," Sara told her.

Tessa turned back around, resting her hands on the steering wheel. "I'm sorry I said what I said." She paused. "About not having children."

Sara let some time pass. "I'm sorry I asked if Devon 's the father."

"Well…"-Tessa shrugged-"he is, if you were really wondering."

"I wasn't," she said, though part of her had been.

Tessa turned, leaning her back against the door so she could face Sara. She pulled her feet up under her and the two sisters stared at each other, neither saying anything.

Sara broke the silence. "If you want to do this…" she began, trying to sound like she meant it. "If you really need to do this… I'll support you. You know that."

Tessa asked her, "Where did all that come from?"

"I just…" Sara began, looking for a way to explain her feelings. "I've just seen so many kids hurt this week, and I…" She let her voice trail off. "How I feel about this doesn't matter, Tessie. It's your decision."

"I know that."

"I know it's your choice," Sara repeated. "I know that you're not doing this lightly-"

"It's not that," Tessa stopped her.

"What is it, then?"

Tessa looked out the window, and was silent. After a while, she said, "I'm just really, really scared."

"Tessie." Sara reached out, taking her sister's hand. "What are you scared of?"

"It's Mom and Dad," she said, and she started to cry. "What if I'm not as good as they are? What if I'm a horrible mother?"

"You won't be," Sara assured her, stroking Tessa's hair back.

"You were right before," Tessa told her. "I am selfish. I do only think of myself."

"I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did. I know you did, because it's true." Tessa wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I know I'm selfish, Sara. I know I'm immature." She laughed with some irony. "I'm thirty-three years old and I still live with my parents."

"Not in the same house."

Tessa laughed, even as she cried. "Oh, God, please, don't stick up for me."

Sara laughed, too. "Tess, you're such a good person. You love kids."

"I know I do. It's just different thinking about having them around twenty-four hours a day." She shook her head. "What if I do something horrible? What if I drop him, or what if it's a girl and I end up dressing her up like that Ramsey kid?"

"Then we'll have you committed."

"I'm serious," Tessa whined, but she laughed as well. "What if I don't know how to do it right?"

"Mama and Daddy will be there to help," Sara reminded her. "I will, too." She let that sink in, then amended, "If that's what you decide to do, I mean. If you want to keep it."

Tessa leaned forward. "You would be a great mother, Sara."

Sara pressed her lips together, not wanting to cry.

"I just don't know what to do."

Sara took a deep breath, then let it go. "You don't have to decide right now," she said. "You could wait a couple of days, just to see how you feel once the shock has worn off."

"Yeah."

"I do think you should tell Devon. He has a right to know."

Tessa nodded slowly. "I know he does," she said. "Maybe I didn't want to tell him because I know what he'll say." She gave a wry smile. "He'll get exactly what he wants."

"You don't have to marry him."

"Oh, and give Dad a heart attack, living in sin?"

"I seriously doubt he'd have a heart attack." Sara smiled. "He might take you over his knee…"

"Yeah, well." Tessa took a tissue from the center console. She blew her nose in three short bursts, the way she had done since she was a baby. "Maybe somebody should take me over his knee."

Sara squeezed her hand. "You make this decision, Tess. Whatever you decide, I'm with you."

"Thank you," Tessa mumbled, wiping her nose with another tissue. She sat back against the window again, and took a long look at Sara. After a few beats, a smile broke out on her face.

Sara asked, "What?"

"You look so obvious."

"So obvious what?"

Tessa kept smiling. "So obviously fucked."

Sara laughed, and the sound echoed in the van.

"Was it good?" Tessa asked.

Sara glanced out the window, feeling a bit mischievous. "Which time?"

"You slut," Tessa screamed, throwing the used tissue.

"Hey." Sara deflected the tissue with her hand.

"Don't go all big sister on me," Tessa warned. "Tell me what happened."

Sara felt a blush creeping up her neck. "No way."

"What changed your mind?" she asked. "I mean, last I heard, you didn't even want to date him."

"Mama," Sara answered. "She told me to make up my mind."

"And?"

"We've just been doing this stupid back-and-forth thing for so long." Sara paused, thinking about how to phrase it. "I have to give it another try. I either have to get him out of my system and go on, or keep him in my system and live with it."

Tessa asked, "Was it good?"

"It was nice to feel something new," she said, thinking about the night before. "It was nice to stop feeling guilty for a while." As an afterthought, she added, "And scared."

"Over that missing girl?"

"Over everything," Sara said, not going into details. She made it a point not to talk about her work at the morgue with her family. This protected Sara as much as it protected them. There had to be a part of her life that wasn't overshadowed by death and violence. "It was nice to…"

"Have a screaming orgasm?"

Sara clicked her tongue, smiling. "It was pretty spectacular." She shook her head, because that wasn't right. "It was amazing. Totally-"

"Oh, shit," Tessa sat up, wiping her eyes. "Dad's coming."

Sara sat up, too, though she did not know why. It was not as if Eddie could send her to her room for sitting in the parking lot too long.

"Where's that auger?" he demanded, throwing open Sara's door. "What're you two talking about in here?" When he did not get an answer, he said, "Do you know how much gas you're wasting, sitting here with the engine running?"

Sara laughed, and he popped her on the leg, asking, "What would your mama say if she saw that look on your face?"

Tessa answered, "Probably, 'It's about damn time.'"

They started giggling, and Eddie gave them both a sharp look before slamming the door closed and walking away.

The morgue was housed in the basement of the Grant Medical Center, and no matter how hot it got outside, it was always cool in the tiled subterranean rooms. Sara felt bumps come out on her skin as she walked back to her office.

"Hey, Dr. Linton," Carlos said in his soft, heavily accented voice. He was dressed in his usual green scrubs, and held a clipboard at an angle against his thick waist. Sara had hired Carlos six years ago, right out of high school. He was short for his age, and wore his hair cut in a bilevel, which did not do much for his round face. Carlos was efficient, though, and he never complained about having to do what amounted to shit work, literal and figurative. Sara could trust him in the morgue to take care of things and keep his mouth shut.

Sara managed a smile for him. "What's up?"

He handed her his clipboard, saying, "That Weaver kid is still here. What do you want me to do with her?"

Sara felt her heart sink as she thought of the baby. Dottie Weaver had no reason to claim the child since Sara had told her it was not Jenny's. Something about that fragile little girl sitting in the freezer broke Sara's heart.

"Dr. Linton?" Carlos asked.

"I'm sorry," Sara apologized. "What did you say?"

"I asked what you wanted to do with the bodies."

Sara shook her head at the plural, thinking she had missed something. She looked down at the chart and saw that Jenny Weaver's name was at the top. Sara thumbed through the paperwork, noting that she had released the body on Sunday. There was no accompanying form from the funeral home to verify that she had been picked up.

"She's still here?" Sara asked.

Carlos nodded, tucking a hand into his hip.

"We haven't gotten a call from Brock?" she asked, referring to the funeral director in town.

"No, ma'am," he said.

Sara glanced back at the paperwork, as if that could offer an explanation. "We haven't heard from the mother?"

"We haven't heard from anybody."

"Let me make some phone calls," she told him, walking into her office.

Sara knew the number to Brock's Funeral Home by heart, and she dialed it into the phone, watching Carlos through the window. He was mopping the floor in slow, deliberate strokes, his back to her.

The phone was picked up on the first ring. "Brock's Funeral Home."

"Brock," Sara said, recognizing the man's voice. Dan Brock was Sara's age, and they had gone to school together from kindergarten on.

"Sara Linton," Brock said, genuine pleasure in his voice. "How you?"

"I'm great, Brock," she answered. "I hate to cut right down to business, but have you gotten a call on a Jennifer Weaver?"

"The one what was shot last weekend?" he asked. "Sure haven't. Gotta say, I was expecting that call."

"Why is that?"

"Well, Dottie goes to my church," he told her. "I just assumed she'd call on me."

"Do you know her well?"

"Well enough to say hi to," he answered. "Plus, that little Jenny was a peach. She was in the children's choir for a while. Sang like an angel."

Sara nodded, remembering that Brock directed the children's choir in his spare time. "Sara?" Brock prompted.

"Sorry," Sara told him, thinking she was too easily distracted lately. "Thanks for the information."

"It hasn't been in the paper, either."

"What's that?"

"The obituaries," Brock said, giving a self-deprecating chuckle. "Tools of the trade. We like to see who's doing who, if you know what I mean."

"And there's been no mention?"

"Nary a peep," he told her. "Maybe they sent her up North? I think that's where her daddy is."

"Still, it would've been in the paper, right?" Sara asked, playing dumb. Brock was generally discreet because of the business he was in, but she did not want to start rumors.

"Maybe," he said. "Or the church bulletin at least. I haven't seen it there, either." He paused, then said, "Heck, Sara, you know how some people are about death. They just don't want to admit it happened, especially with a kid involved. Maybe she handled it quietly just so she could get through it, you know?"

"You're right," Sara told him. "Anyway, thanks for the information."

"I hear Grace Patterson doesn't have much longer," he said, and she imagined business was slow if he was being so chatty. "That's gonna be a hard one."

"You know her, too?"

"She helped me with the choir before she took sick this last time. Wonderful woman."

"I've heard that."

"From what I've gathered, she's just eat up with the cancer," he said. "Those are always the hard ones." His voice had dropped, and he seemed genuinely upset. "Well, hell, Sara, you know what I'm talking about."

Sara did, and she understood his grief. She couldn't imagine having to do Dan Brock's job. He probably felt the same way about hers.

"Guess there's no word on the little girl yet?" he asked.

"No," Sara said. "Not that I know of."

"Jeffrey's a good man," he told her. "If anyone can find her, it's him."

Sara wanted to believe this, but with everything she had learned about the case lately, she wasn't too sure.

Brock lightened his tone. "You take care now," he said. "Best to your mama and them."

Sara wished him the same and hung up the phone. She pressed the button for a new line and called Jeffrey.

Chapter Fourteen

Lena tried not to make it too obvious that she was listening to Jeffrey's telephone conversation with Sara Linton. This was incredibly difficult to do, as they were both in the front seat of Jeffrey's car. Lena looked out the window, feigning a casualness she did not feel. Part of her was still struck by what had happened with Mark only hours before. Time would only tell if he would make it. Oxygen had been cut off to his brain for some time, and until he woke up from the coma, there was no way to predict how much damage had been done.

Lena glanced at Jeffrey as he told Sara what Mark had said about his relationship with Grace Patterson. Whatever Sara said in response was brief and to the point, because Jeffrey agreed with her immediately.

"I'll see you tonight," Jeffrey said, then replaced the phone in the cradle. He started in on Lena immediately. "I told you not to be alone with Mark," he said.

"I know," Lena responded, and started to tell him again why she had let Brad leave the trailer. He stopped her, holding up his hand.

"I'm only going to say this once, Lena," Jeffrey began, and it seemed like he had been wanting to say this for a while. "You're not the boss here."

"I know that."

"Don't interrupt me," he ordered, cutting his eyes at her. "I've been doing this job a hell of a lot longer than you, and I tell you to do things a certain way because I know what I'm doing."

She opened her mouth to agree, but then thought better of it.

"Being a detective gives you some autonomy, but at the end of the day you take your orders from me." He looked at her, as if anticipating she'd argue. "If I can't trust you to follow simple orders, why should I keep you working for me?"

Obviously, it was her turn to speak, but she couldn't come up with anything to say.

"I want you to think about this, Lena. I know you like your job and I know you're good at it when you decide to be, but after what happened…" He shook his head, as if that wasn't right. "Even before what happened. You've got a problem taking orders, and that makes you more dangerous to me than the crooks."

Lena felt the sting from his words and rushed to defend herself. "Mark wouldn't have confided in me if Brad had been there."

"He might not have tried to take his life, either," Jeffrey said. He was quiet, staring out at the road as he drove. He sighed, then said, "That wasn't fair."

Lena was silent.

"Mark probably would've found a way to do something like this. He's a very troubled kid. It wasn't your fault."

She nodded, not knowing whether what he was saying was true or not. At least he was trying to comfort her, which is a hell of a lot more than she had done with him when they had talked about his shooting Jenny Weaver.

"And it's not just Mark. Have you made an appointment with a therapist yet?"

She shook her head.

Jeffrey said, " Lena, I hate to say this now, but there never seems to be a good time." He paused, as if making sure to word this carefully. "You need to think about whether or not you want to be a cop anymore."

She nodded, biting the tip of her tongue so that she wouldn't start crying. How could she not be a cop? If she wasn't a police detective, what was she? Certainly not a sister; barely a woman. Lena wasn't even sure some days if she was a human being.

"You're a good cop," he said.

She nodded again, resting her head against her hand, staring out the side window so he wouldn't see her face. Her throat felt like it was closing up as she strained not to cry. She hated herself for being so weak, and the thought of breaking down in front of Jeffrey was enough to keep her from sobbing like a girl.

"We'll talk when this case is over," Jeffrey told her, and his voice was reassuring, but it didn't help. "I want to help you, Lena, but I can't help you if you don't want to be helped."

It sounded like Hank's A.A. bullshit, and Lena had had enough of that to last her a lifetime. She cleared her throat and said, "Okay," still staring out the window.

Jeffrey was silent as he drove, and she didn't speak again until she noticed that he missed the turnoff heading back into town and the station.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Dottie Weaver's house," he said. "She hasn't picked up the body at the morgue."

"It's been a while," Lena said, surreptitiously wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Do you think something's wrong with her?"

"I don't know," Jeffrey told her, his jaw working.

"Do you think she's done something?" Lena asked. "Like Mark?"

He gave her a curt nod, and she did not push it.

Jeffrey pointed up the road, saying, " Randolph Street is up here, right?"

"Yes," Lena confirmed, and Jeffrey took the turn onto Randolph. The driveways were few and far between, most of the houses set back from the road and resting on three to four acres each. They were in an older section of Grant, built back before people started throwing cheap houses on top of each other. Jeffrey braked the car in front of a gray mailbox that was open in the front, mail stacked so tight someone would have to use a crowbar to get it out.

"This is it," he said. He backed up the car and turned into a tree-lined driveway. If he noticed the four copies of the Grant Observer wrapped in plastic bags at the head of the drive, he did not say.

The Weaver home was farther back from the road than Lena would have guessed, and a few seconds passed before a small ranch house came into view. A second level had been added at some point, and the bottom of the house did not really match the top.

"Do you see a car?" Jeffrey asked, stopping in front of an open carport.

Lena looked around, wondering why he had asked a question with such an obvious answer. "No."

They both got out of the car, and Lena walked around the perimeter of the house, checking every window on the first floor. Either the curtains or the blinds were drawn on each one, and she could not see inside. There was a double door leading to what was probably the basement, but it was locked tight. The small windows around the foundation had been painted black from the inside.

As she circled back around the house, she could hear Jeffrey knocking on the front door, calling, "Mrs. Weaver?"

Lena stood at the bottom of the porch steps, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. "I couldn't see anything. All the curtains are drawn." She told him about the basement and the blackened windows.

Jeffrey glanced around the yard, and she could sense how anxious he was. Dottie Weaver had not bothered to get her newspapers or mail for a while. She was divorced and her daughter had just been killed. Maybe she had felt there wasn't a lot to go on living for.

Jeffrey asked, "Did you check the windows?"

"They're all locked tight," she reported.

"Even that broken one?"

Lena got his meaning. As law officers, they needed a damn good reason to go into Weaver's house without a warrant. A bad feeling was not good enough to go on. A broken window was.

She asked, "You mean the broken one in the basement?"

He gave her a curt nod.

"What if an alarm goes off?"

"Then we'll call the police," he said, walking down the steps.

Lena would have broken the window herself, but she appreciated that Jeffrey was trying to keep her out of this gray area of the law as much as he could. She leaned against the porch railing, waiting for the sound of broken glass. It came about a minute later, and then several more minutes passed with nothing further from Jeffrey. She was about to go around to the back of the house when she heard his footsteps inside.

He stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob, the other holding a bright yellow raincoat.

"Lacey's?" Lena asked, taking the coat. It was small enough for a child, but the label in the back took away all doubt. Someone had sewn the child's name onto it in case it was lost.

"Jesus," Lena mumbled, then looked back up at Jeffrey. He shook his head no, meaning he had not found her in the house.

He stepped aside so that she could walk in. Heat enveloped her, and the house felt hotter inside than it was outside. The first room was large, and probably was used as a living room. It was hard to tell, though, because all the furniture was gone. Even the carpet had been pulled up from the floor, and the tacking around the perimeter stood out like teeth.

"What the…?" Lena said, walking through the room. She noticed that Jeffrey had his weapon drawn, the muzzle pointed toward the floor. Lena followed suit, kicking herself for being so stupid. She had been so shocked to see Lacey's coat and the state of the house that she had forgotten that someone might still be in the house. With all the noise they had made outside, whoever might be inside was certainly aware there was company.

Jeffrey nodded for her to follow him into the kitchen, which was in the same state as the main room. All the cabinet doors were open, showing empty shelves. Lena walked through the dining room, a den, and a small office, all of them empty, all of them missing carpeting.

The house had a bad feeling to it, and she let herself think what Jeffrey had probably thought when he had found the yellow raincoat. Lacey had been here. She could still be here. At least, her body could.

"Smell that?" Jeffrey whispered.

Lena sniffed the air, and realized that she had been smelling fresh paint with something sharper underneath. "Clorox," she whispered back. "Something else I can't place."

"Those pictures of Mark you took when you arrested him," Jeffrey began. "He had paint on his clothes, right?"

Lena nodded, turning around in the room. She looked around the corner, finding the stairs. "Have you been up yet?" she asked, just as a tapping noise came from upstairs.

They both raised their weapons at the same time, and Lena took point before Jeffrey could. She walked sideways up the stairs, keeping her gun directed up toward the ceiling. She tested her foot on each stair, noting that they, too, had been stripped. Every muscle in her body tensed as adrenaline pumped through her system.

At the top of the stairs, Lena paused before looking down a long hallway. A wall was to her left, a small window that she had not noticed from the outside mounted up high. It was cracked open, and Lena saw some leaves and debris on the floor. Black curtains hung from a rod with weights sewn into the bottom edges. The paint under the window was marked where the weights had hit it, and fresh white paint lined the edge of the material. Lena pointed this out to Jeffrey, thinking it might have caused the noise they heard, and Jeffrey shrugged, as if to say maybe, maybe not.

Lean started to go down the hall, but Jeffrey walked ahead of her, peering into the open doorways of each room. She followed, seeing that the bathroom and two bedrooms had been cleaned out just like the downstairs. She wondered if Jeffrey's gut clenched each time he looked into a room, thinking Lacey Patterson might be in there. Lena had an eerie reminder of this morning with Mark as Jeffrey stopped in front of the only closed door at the end of the hall.

He stood in front of the door, both hands cupping his gun. For some reason, he wasn't moving, and Lena thought to take over, but something about the look on his face stopped her. Was he scared of what he would find? Lena knew she was.

He leaned toward the door, like he heard something.

She mouthed, "What?"

He shook his head, as if to tell her to give him a minute to think. Lena stood beside him, her shoulder to the wall by the door, sweating as she waited for him to make a decision. She hoped he would not wait too long, because stopping to think was taking away some of her resolve.

Finally, he motioned her back behind him, then even farther back. He kept waving her down the hall, then into the stairway. When she was standing on the stair second from the top, her neck craned so she could look around the corner, he seemed satisfied. Lena braced herself for action as he raised his foot and kicked in the door. A flash of light came a split-second later, and somehow the door blew back, pushing Jeffrey down the hallway. A roar came a couple of beats later, and Lena ducked into the stairs as a ball of fire flashed up the hallway.

"Jesus," she whispered, covering herself with her arms as she knelt on the stairs. Lena waited for the heat to envelop her, or flames to eat her alive, but nothing happened. She stood from her crouch and peered around the corner into the hallway. Jeffrey was underneath the door, but he was moving. The top of the door was charred to a crisp. There were black soot marks along the walls, but there was no fire. The heat must have been so intense that it burned itself out.

She heard a crackling to her left and turned quickly. The black curtains were on fire. Lena took off her jacket and beat them until they fell from the rod. She stamped the last embers out on the floor just as Jeffrey pushed the door off of him.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded, touching his face and body, probably to see if he had been burned. He seemed okay from what Lena could tell. Somehow, the door had protected him from the blast.

"I have no idea," she said, dropping her coat and walking over to help him stand.

"I thought I smelled something outside the door," he told her, leaning heavily on her shoulder. "What the hell was that?"

She asked, "What did you smell?"

"Gasoline, I guess. I wasn't sure. It was hard to tell with the paint." He brushed his slacks off, but there was really no point. They both looked at his shoes. The soles had melted from the heat.

"Dammit," he muttered. "I just bought these last week."

Lena stared at him, wondering if he had hit his head.

"Are you all right?" he asked, brushing something off her shoulder.

"I'm fine," she told him, and she was, but only because Jeffrey had made her stand in the stairwell.

"Is that out?" he asked, pointing to the window. The heat from the blast had knocked out the panes and busted the sash. There were dark gashes in the wall where the curtains had ignited.

"I think so," Lena said, brushing back her hair. Dust fell out, and she guessed the ends might have been burned.

Jeffrey walked down the hall, stopping just outside the doorway of the room. He was being careful, looking for a second device. Finally, he stepped into the room and turned around. "There was a trigger over the door," he said, his hand over his chest. Lena wondered just for a second how he could be thinking so clearly. He could have easily been killed by the blast.

Jeffrey pointed over the jamb, saying, "There's a wire here that goes…" He followed something with his eyes, turning slowly around the room. "Here."

Lena peeked in to see what he was talking about. Three cans of gasoline were stacked in the corner. On top of them was a scorched bath towel and something that looked like it had been a clock radio at one time. The plastic was blown apart, and wires spewed out. The walls and ceiling were scorched and the plastic slats of the blinds in the window looked melted together, but remarkably nothing had ignited.

Lena looked at the device, wondering who could have built something so rudimentary. The metal cans were sealed tight, and the clock had not even been connected to them, as far as she could tell. She touched the towel, then sniffed it. Whoever had arranged the bomb had not even doused the towel in gasoline to help it ignite.

She said, "This was stupid."

"Yeah," Jeffrey agreed. "What exploded, though?"

"I have no idea," she said, looking around the room. For the first time, she noticed that this was the only room in the house that was still furnished. Carpet was on the floor, and posters of boy bands were stuck on the wall. There was a little-girl feel to the room, with its once pink walls, white wicker furniture, and shelves full of stuffed animals. A full-sized bed with a pink blanket over it was against the wall opposite the door. The material was stiff-looking, as if it had been saturated at one point, then air-dried in the heat. Lena touched the blanket, then sniffed her fingers.

She said, "Gasoline."

Jeffrey was looking around the room, too. "Everything looks like it was soaked in gas," he said. "The windows are locked tight. Maybe the fumes built up, and when the door triggered the clock, the fumes caught fire?" Jeffrey looked down the hallway. "Fire needs oxygen to burn. Maybe the open window at the end of the hall sucked it out?"

"It sure looked that way from where I was standing," Lena told him. "The bomb guys can figure that out."

"Right," he said, and pulled his cell phone out of his breast pocket. He made two calls, one to Frank at the station to get the bomb squad moving, the other to Nick Shelton at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He requested that a crime scene team come out to the house and search it with a fine-tooth comb.

"We've got some time before they show up," Jeffrey said, closing the phone.

"Great," Lena mumbled, thinking between the heat and the odor in the house, they might asphyxiate before reinforcements came.

"Why didn't she strip this room, too?" Jeffrey asked.

Lena shrugged. "Maybe it was too hard for her to come in here after Jenny died."

"I guess," he mumbled, wiping something out of his eyes. "But why go to the trouble to strip the house if they thought the bomb would burn it down?"

"Arson inspectors can find just about anything," Lena told him. "You can watch the Discovery channel and know-that."

"It's like she hated her," Jeffrey said, not letting it go. "I can understand not stripping the room, but this…"-he indicated the gas tanks-"this doesn't make sense."

Lena thought about Mark, and how he might have purposefully rigged the bomb not to explode.

"Who would do this?" he asked. "Grace? Dottie? Was it Mark? None of this makes any sense."

To give herself something to do, she looked around the room. A set of cat figurines was on the dresser alongside some makeup that could only belong to a little girl.

"Maybe she didn't want to be reminded of Jenny?" Lena suggested, and even as she said the words, she got a bad taste in her mouth. "The bomb would have taken out everything."

"Maybe Dottie was abducted," Jeffrey guessed.

"By whom?" Lena asked. "That doesn't jibe. And if she was, how did Lacey's coat get in here? Are you saying that whoever snatched Lacey came after Dottie, too? Then took the time to strip and clean the house?"

Jeffrey asked, "You think Dottie planted the bomb?"

Lena shrugged, even though she was sure in her heart that Mark had planted the bomb. The paint on his clothes, the chemical smell on his body, all pointed to him at the very least being in this house during the last few days. There was no telling what he had been doing.

Jeffrey was obviously thinking the same things as Lena. He said, "Mark had paint on his clothes. We can have the lab check it against the paint on the walls."

"It looked fresh," Lena reluctantly provided.

"Why would Dottie Weaver strip the house this way? Why would she leave without at least burying her daughter?"

Lena wondered again if he'd hit his head. He was repeating the same questions over and over again, as if she might suddenly come up with the answer. She was about to ask him if he wanted to sit down when he turned around and looked at the bed in the middle of the room as if it might start talking to him. After a couple of moments of this, he took his foot and kicked the mattress over.

"What's that?" Lena asked, but she could see well enough for herself. About twenty cheap-looking magazines had been stowed between the mattress and the boxspring. All of them had children on the covers doing the kinds of things that children should never be made to do. They all had the same title, too, Child-Lovers in a fancy script with a familiar heart drawing inserted where the "o" in lover should be.

Lena put her hand on the wall, trying to steady herself.

"You okay?" Jeffrey asked, cupping her elbow as if she might faint.

"The design."

"It's the same one Mark has on his hand," he said, pushing through the stack of magazines. He mumbled, "I used to hide shit under my bed, too."

"Why would Mark do that?" Lena asked, not able to move past this point. "Why would he put that on his hand?"

Jeffrey turned back to the bed. "Maybe it's his way of saying he likes younger girls. Maybe that's how those guys operate so they know each other," he suggested, picking up one of the magazines. He leafed through it, then picked up another. His jaw worked as he stopped on a particular page.

"What?" Lena asked, looking over his shoulder. A picture of Mark, probably taken a few years ago, served as the centerfold.

Lena picked up a magazine and skimmed through it until she found another picture of Mark. Jenny was in this one, and they were doing something Lena could not describe. Worse, in the back pages there were photos of Mark with older men and some women. The adults' faces were not shown, but Mark was revealed from head to toe. His expression was pained, and it brought tears to Lena 's eyes to see him compromised like this. Seeing what Mark had done and what he had obviously been made to do hurt Lena more than she wanted to admit. She finally understood why he had wanted to know what it felt like for her to be raped. He wanted to compare notes.

Jeffrey examined the magazines, his jaw clenched so tight she had trouble understanding him when he spoke. "These aren't exactly sophisticated. I guess a small press could handle it."

"Probably," she agreed.

"Christ," Jeffrey hissed, scowling at the magazine he was holding. '"This guy has on his wedding ring." The disgust in his voice would have peeled paint off the walls. "That's Jenny," he said.

Lena looked at the photograph. Jenny Weaver was pictured, a man's hand firm on the back of her neck as he guided her down. The gold of the man's wedding ring caught the light, and Lena wondered if that was part of the thrill for the perverts who looked at these pictures, thinking that the guy was married and having sex with little girls.

She said, "That's disgusting."

"Here's the same ring in another one," Jeffrey said, but he didn't show her the photo. He continued to flip the pages. "And another one."

Lena asked, "Are you sure it's the same-?"

"Fucking pervert," Jeffrey yelled, then twisted the magazine in his hands and threw it against the wall. "What the fuck is happening here?" he screamed. She could see a vein in his neck throbbing. "How many kids were involved in this thing?"

Lena tucked her hands into her pockets, letting him get it out.

Jeffrey turned, looking out the window at the backyard.

His voice was softer, but she could still hear the anger when he asked, "Do you recognize any of the other kids?"

Lena picked up a magazine, but he stopped her. "I don't want you looking at this shit," he said. "We'll get Nick's people on it." He put his hand to his forehead, like a bad headache was about to strike. "How many kids are involved in this thing?" he repeated. "How many Grant kids were wrapped up in this?"

She didn't have the answer, but he knew that.

He flipped open his phone again. "I'm going to get Nick here to look at this," he said. "I want you to go to the hospital and try to get something out of Grace Patterson."

She shook her head, not understanding.

"She's connected to Mark and Jenny. She has to know something," he told her. "I'd do it myself, but I'd probably rip her fucking throat out." She saw his grip tighten around the phone. "Voice mail." He waited a couple of beats, then said, "Nick, Jeff Tolliver. I need you to call me as soon as possible. We've got something new on the Lacey Patterson case." He ended the call, saying to Lena, "There's no way this isn't a priority now."

Lena nodded, thinking she had never seen him this angry, not even at her.

He dialed another number into the phone. While he was waiting for someone to answer, he instructed Lena, "I want you to confront Grace on what you know. I want you to tell her exactly what Mark told you, and I want you to find out what the fuck has been going on."

"Do you think she'll tell me anything?"

"Her daughter is missing," he reminded her. "We found her coat here."

Lena looked down at her hands. "Considering what she was doing to Mark, do you think she cares?"

He flipped the phone closed again, looking her in the eye. "Tell you the truth, Lena, I don't know what the hell to think about anybody involved in this case."

He was about to open his phone again when it rang. Before he answered it, he gave Lena his keys and nodded toward the door, telling her, "Go."