Kisscut

Chapter Fifteen

Jeffrey felt like he had been blown across a hallway with a wooden door plastered to his body. His arms ached, and his knees felt like they would never bend right again. Working at the Weaver house had taken the rest of the day, but when he had cal led Sara at one in the morning, she had not hesitated to ask him over. Part of him was nervous about the way they had picked up so easily again. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Sara to say that she could not go through with this. Another part of him was just so damn happy to be back in her life that he wanted to enjoy every minute of it as much as he could. Even sitting in the tub with her, talking about what was probably one of the most horrible cases he had ever worked, he felt at home.

He watched Sara across the tub as she sipped her wine, obviously letting what he had just told her sink in. Jeffrey had forgotten how great the claw-footed tub in her master bathroom was. Six feet long with a center-mounted faucet, it was perfect for two people. They had spent half their marriage in this tub.

Sara rested her glass on her knee. "Where is Lena now?"

"The hospital," Jeffrey told her. "Patterson's still holding on."

"She saying anything?"

"Grace?" Jeffrey asked. Sara nodded, and he said, "She's pretty lucid, but she's got one of those morphine pumps for the pain."

"Breast cancer is an incredibly painful way to die."

"Good," he said, leaning over the tub to pick up his glass of wine. With his parents' shining example, Jeffrey had never taken to alcohol, but after today he needed something to take the edge off. Before he started talking to Sara, he had felt like his mind was spinning, not able to concentrate on one thing at a time like he needed to do. There were so many pieces to the case floating around, and so many questions that had yet to be answered. Somehow, the alcohol was giving him focus.

Sara asked, "Do you really think Grace Patterson will give a deathbed confession?"

"Not really, but you never know…" He paused, measuring his words. " Lena 's got this thing about Mark."

"What kind of thing?"

"She kept insisting that he was raped."

"He was," Sara pointed out. "Are you saying he willingly posed for those magazines, that he seduced his mother?"

"Of course not," he said, and he was glad she had made that point. "What I'm really worried about right now is Lena."

"She's doing the best she can," Sara told him. "Give her some time."

"I just can't take that kind of chance with her, Sara." He rubbed his eyes, still smelling gasoline on his hands even though he had scrubbed himself thoroughly with soap.

He said, "She's too close to the edge. I don't want to be the one standing there watching when she finally goes over. I don't think I could live with myself."

"It's going to take time for her to get past what happened," Sara said in a measured tone. "If she ever does at all."

"She won't even talk to anybody about it."

"You can't force her to do it," Sara countered. "She'll talk about it when she's ready to."

He stared into his glass, not responding.

"So," Sara said, obviously realizing he wanted to move on. "Let's change the subject."

"Okay."

She summarized what they knew, ticking the points off on her fingers. "Mark and Jenny were posing for the magazines at Dottie's house. Grace Patterson was involved with her son."

"Right."

"What about Teddy Patterson?"

"He could be the link here," Jeffrey said. "He's a truck driver. Maybe he picks up the magazines and takes them across the country."

"Where is he now?"

"Either at the hospital or at his trailer. Frank's been tailing him." Jeffrey took a healthy drink from his glass. "He doesn't seem too concerned that one of his kids might be brain dead and the other has been kidnapped."

"What's he doing?"

"Staying by his wife, mostly."

"Maybe he's focusing on one thing at a time?" Sara suggested. "His wife's dying, he's with her. That's something immediate he can do instead of just sitting around feeling helpless."

"Trust me, he's not the kind of guy to feel helpless."

"You think he'll do something?"

"I think he'll leave town as soon as his wife is dead," he told her. "I talked to Nick Shelton. We're thinking Teddy's going to be the contact for his collar over in Augusta."

"The guy Nick arrested who had the child pornography?"

He nodded, debating whether or not to tell Sara the rest, then deciding he should be open with her. "The meeting is being scheduled for tomorrow at noon."

"What meeting?" she asked, and he could see the concern in her eyes.

"Nick's guy, this porn distributor, got a call from a pay phone. A man's voice was on the other end." He paused, trying to gauge Sara's reaction. "I didn't recognize the voice, but they're meeting at the hotel over in Augusta to drop off the magazines."

"And I take it you're going to be there?"

"Yeah," he said. "I take it you've got a problem with that?"

She sighed. "I remember when we were married how I would cringe every time the phone rang and I didn't know exactly where you were."

He drank some wine, letting this sink in. "You never told me that before."

"I know I didn't," she said, then changed the subject again. "So, how does this work? Dottie and Grace do the magazines, Teddy Patterson delivers them, then Nick's guy distributes them around here?"

"Pretty much," Jeffrey confirmed. "We think Patterson probably makes stops all around the Southeast. Nick is going to pull his records from the Department of Transportation as soon as we bust him."

"Why not before?"

"Who knows who'd tip him off?" Jeffrey pointed out.

"Besides, Frank's glued to Teddy. It's not like he's going to be able to get away with anything."

"Why arrest Patterson now? Why not follow him on his route and pick up all the distributors?"

"Nick says they have a phone network. If one of them doesn't call the next with the okay, then they close shop. It's very sophisticated."

"I don't suppose anyone knows anything about where Lacey might be?"

"You don't suppose right."

"How long has the GBI been working on this pornography ring?"

"Years," Jeffrey said. "They just needed to know who was bringing them in."

"Is this where Dottie comes in?"

Jeffrey shrugged, because nothing was clear at this point. "I don't like to think about that woman having some kind of network. It means she's got a safe place to go and hide. It means she's connected to all kinds of people all over the world who are invested in helping her because she keeps supplying them with their sick porn." He felt his anger swelling again, and took a deep breath to calm himself. When that didn't work, he settled on drinking some more wine.

"You know they swap kids," Sara said, her tone measured. "Lacey could be in Canada or Germany by now." She paused, then continued, "Or, Dottie could be abusing Lacey herself. Dottie could be keeping her somewhere, doing God knows what." Sara's voice went up on this last part as the threat seemed to hit her.

Jeffrey rubbed his eyes, like he could wipe this away. "How could a woman, a mother, do that kind of thing to a child?"

"In my experience," Sara began, "women who abuse children are much more sadistic than men. I think it's because they know they can get away with it. They know no one will believe they're capable of hurting children." She added, "It's especially bad when it's a boy who is being abused. Let's take the incest out of it for a minute. A boy having sex with a woman twice his age is patted on the back. A girl doing the same thing is considered a victim. There's a big disparity there."

Jeffrey said, "I never even suspected his mother."

"Why would you? There was no reason to."

"I didn't have a problem with Teddy Patterson as a suspect."

Sara sat back in the tub and let him talk.

Jeffrey told her, "The crime scene techs are still at Weaver's house, but preliminary results show printer's ink in the basement."

"For magazines?" Sara asked. "I thought they needed a big press."

"They're not exactly slick," Jeffrey said. He drank more wine. "All the articles are about how to meet the right kid."

Sara pressed her lips together.

"I'll tell you what, Sara, I wish to God I hadn't seen any of it."

She stroked his leg with her foot. "Have you found the carpeting from the house?"

"Brad and Frank are going to check the dump at daybreak. Based on what they sampled from the floor, the carpets are coated in fluids."

"Body fluids?" she asked. "They soaked through?"

He nodded, not liking how that sounded, either. "There's also a room in the basement that looks like it was used as a darkroom." He rested his glass on the rim of the tub. "My guess is they used the house to take the pictures, and printed up the magazines there."

"An explosion would have destroyed all of that evidence."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I still can't figure out why she didn't strip Jenny's room."

"She didn't really need anything from Jenny's room, did she?"

"I guess not," he agreed.

"Did you find any evidence in the room?"

"Nothing. The gasoline might have covered semen traces. I don't know how that works."

"But there was nothing obvious?"

"Nothing," he said. "None of the pictures was taken in there. Maybe it was the only room in the house that was clean." He rubbed his eyes, feeling incredibly tired. "I can't believe this was going on in town and nobody knew about it."

Sara picked up the bottle of wine and filled his glass. "Do you remember what she said to me?" she asked. "She asked if I had cut Jenny open. Do you think she meant the castration?"

Jeffrey thought about this for a second. "She could have."

"I keep playing that interview back in my mind, and when I get to that point, I see how Dottie changed. You know what I'm talking about? She was almost relieved."

"I guess," Jeffrey said, though he could not remember. The interview seemed like a lifetime away.

Sara said, "I called the hospital. Mark still hasn't regained consciousness."

"Do they have a prognosis?"

"It's hard to tell with ABIs," she said, then, "anoxic brain injuries." He nodded, and she continued, "There's a lot of swelling in his brain. They won't know how much damage was done until the swelling goes down. The longer it takes, the worse it will be."

"Does he have a chance of being normal?"

She shook her head. "No." She paused, as if to let this sink in. "He'll never be the same again. That is, if he wakes up. There's going to be some damage."

"He just seemed like this punk kid."

Sara finished the wine and set her glass on the floor. "You think Teddy Patterson beat him up before he came to the clinic?"

Jeffrey had forgotten that detail. "I guess it's possible. What about Lacey, though? Why was Mark chasing after her?"

"She could have been threatening to tell."

"We didn't find any pictures of Lacey. Wouldn't Teddy Patterson handle something like that anyway?"

"Possibly," she said. "Maybe he was in the black Thunderbird."

"He was probably at the hospital," Jeffrey pointed out. "I'll have Frank check, but I'm pretty sure."

"If Lacey is the mother of that baby, who do you think the father is?"

"I don't know," he answered, because none of it really made any sense. Jeffrey put his hand over his eyes, trying to understand this. Lately, it seemed like every case he dealt with had some kind of weird twist to it that took a part of him with it. He longed for a simple money-motive or jealous threat gone wrong. He figured that he could take just about anything but knowing a child was in jeopardy.

Sara must have sensed his anguish. She slid toward him, and Jeffrey moved over so that she could put her head on his chest.

"You still smell smoky," she told him.

"Explosions can do that."

She ran her fingers along his chest, but it seemed like she was doing this more to make sure he was really there than to arouse anything in him. She curled a piece of his hair around her finger, saying, "I want you to be careful tomorrow."

"I'm always careful."

Sara sat up a little so that she could look him in the eye. "More careful than usual," she said. "For me, okay?"

"Okay," he nodded, pushing her hair back behind her ear. "What's going on with us?" he asked.

"I dunno," she said.

"It feels good, whatever it is."

She smiled, touching her fingers to his lips. "Yeah."

He opened his mouth to say more, but his cell phone rang, spoiling the moment.

"It's two in the morning," Jeffrey said, as if this made any difference. The phone was on the closed toilet lid, and Sara picked it up and handed it to him. "Maybe it's Nick?"

He checked the caller I.D. "It's the station."

Paul Jennings was a tall, barrel-chested man with a dark beard accentuating his round face. His white dress shirt was wrinkled, as were his brown polyester pants. But for the expectant expression on his face, Jeffrey thought he looked like a high school math teacher.

"Thank you for coming in," he said. "I was going to wait to call you, but I couldn't sleep. I had this feeling."

"It's all right," Jeffrey said, leading the man into his office.

"I know this is a shot in the dark. I just had this feeling," he repeated. "I took the first flight they had."

"I apologize for not returning your call," Jeffrey told him. "My secretary thought you were trying to sell me something."

Paul told him, "I work for a vinyl supply company up in Newark. I guess I should have made it clear why I was calling." He paused. "I've been looking for my daughter for so long, and I've been disappointed so many times." He held his hands up in a shrug. "Part of me couldn't believe they might be here, after all this time."

"I understand," Jeffrey told him, though he really had no idea what kind of pain this man had suffered over the last ten years. "Would you like some coffee?"

"No, no," Paul said, taking the seat Jeffrey indicated.

"We've got a fresh pot in the back," Jeffrey offered, walking around to the opposite side of the desk. He knew who this man was, and what he had to be told. Jeffrey wanted to keep some distance between them. He needed space.

"This is a picture of Wendy when she was three," Paul said, showing Jeffrey a photograph of a happy-looking child. Though it was taken several years ago, Jeffrey was still able to tell that the girl in the photograph had grown up to be Jenny Weaver.

"Was this just before she disappeared?" Jeffrey asked, sliding the photo back across his desk.

The man nodded, showing Jeffrey another picture. "Wanda took her shortly after that."

Jeffrey studied the next photograph, though he knew from first glance that Wanda Jennings was the person he knew as Dottie Weaver. He slid this back across, and watched as Paul stacked them together, putting the picture of Dottie Weaver on the bottom so he would not have to look at her while they talked.

Jeffrey asked, "Can you tell me when it was your wife and daughter disappeared?"

Paul shifted in his chair. "We were living in Canada while I went to graduate school," he said. "Vinyl siding wasn't how I planned to spend my professional career. But when Wendy was taken from me…" He paused, a sad smile on his lips. "Wanda was working as a nurse at the hospital. I guess she was there about five months when the allegations started."

"What kind of allegations?"

"She worked in the maternity ward," Paul said. "There were rumors that something wasn't right. That something was going on." He took a deep breath. "I didn't listen to them, of course. We had been married for three years by then. I loved my wife. I would never have thought she was capable of… And women don't really do that kind of thing, do they?"

Jeffrey was silent. They both knew the answer to that.

"So," Paul began. "She was put on administrative leave while they investigated the charges. Babies can't really tell you what happens to them, but there were rumors of some physical findings. I still didn't believe what people were saying, until one day there was a knock on the door. Two cops wanted to talk to me."

"Where was your wife?"

"She was out doing the shopping. I suppose they were watching the house, because they knocked on the door ten minutes after she left."

Jeffrey nodded for him to continue.

"They told me about the physical evidence," he said. "They had photographs and…" He stopped. "It was graphic."

"You don't have to tell me what they found," Jeffrey told him, and Paul seemed relieved.

"They wanted to check Wendy to see if she had been…" He paused. "I still could not accept that Wanda had done these things, let alone that she would ever harm our daughter. Wanda is very good at making people think she's trustworthy."

"Yeah," Jeffrey agreed, because he had seen that firsthand.

"When Wanda got back from the store, I confronted her with what they had said. We argued. Somehow, she convinced me that the police were wrong, that it was another woman at the hospital. A nurse I had met a couple of times and, honestly, did not like."

"People like your wife can be pretty persuasive."

"Yes," Paul said. "A week went by, and it was still in the news. The police actually did investigate this other woman." Tears came to his eyes. "We believe what we want to believe, don't we?"

Jeffrey nodded.

"I suppose it was three weeks later that the police came back. They had a warrant this time, and wanted to search the house." Paul looked at the picture of his child, resting his hand beside it. "They had talked to her the day before. It was an official interview. I guess they had finally found enough evidence to do something." He looked back at Jeffrey. "They came very early, about six in the morning. I was still asleep." He gave a humorless laugh. "I had stayed up late studying for a final. How something like that could have seemed important to me…"

"We all cope in different ways."

"Yes, well," he said, obviously not accepting this. "They were gone. Wanda had taken Wendy sometime during the night. I never saw or heard from them again."

"What brought you here?"

"A friend of mine called me," he said. "He runs credit checks for us at work, for the siding, and I had asked him a while back to keep an eye out for their social security numbers. About a week ago, Wendy's came up on a Visa application. The address was a post office box in your town."

Jeffrey nodded, thinking that Dottie Weaver, or whatever the hell her name was, had probably thought it was safe to use her daughter's identity after all of this time. She would have gotten away with it if Paul Jennings had not been so vigilant.

"Do you have the address?" Jeffrey asked, feeling hope for the first time. Dottie obviously wanted that credit card. She would have to come back for it.

Paul Jennings handed him a slip of paper. Jeffrey thought he recognized the address as that of the Mailing Post over in Madison. He copied it down and handed back the paper, hoping they might use this to trace Dottie and maybe find Lacey Patterson.

"I just had to come down and see for myself," Paul said, tucking the page back into his pocket. "To see if she was here."

Paul waited for Jeffrey to speak, but Jeffrey could not think how to tell the man what had happened to his daughter. What's more, Jeffrey was not sure how he could admit to this man, who had been searching for so many years, that the person who had killed Wendy Jennings was sitting across the desk from him.

"Is she here?" Paul repeated, a hopeful tone to his voice that cut Jeffrey in two.

"I don't know how to say this, Paul, but Wanda has disappeared and Wendy's dead."

Jeffrey did not know what he had been expecting the other man to do, but the look Paul Jennings gave him was surprising. For a split second, he seemed almost relieved to finally know for a fact where his daughter was, then it seemed to hit him that after all of this time, all of his searching, she was dead. His face fell, and he covered his eyes with his hands for a moment as he started to cry.

"I'm so sorry," Jeffrey told him.

Paul's voice shook as he asked, "When?"

"Last Saturday," Jeffrey said, then explained to Paul exactly what had happened, leaving out the fact that his daughter had been mutilated. Through the entire story, Paul shook his head, as if he could not accept what he was hearing. When Jeffrey revealed his own involvement in Jenny's death, the father's mouth dropped open.

"I didn't…" Jeffrey stopped, because he had been about to say that he did not have a choice. He wasn't so sure about that. Maybe there had been another choice. Maybe Jenny Weaver had not had it in her to pull the trigger. Maybe Jenny Weaver would be alive today.

The two men stared at each other over Jeffrey's desk, neither of them really knowing what to say. Paul's eyes were glazed like he was too shocked by what he had heard to go on.

"With her mother," Paul finally said, "I expected the worst." He pointed to the pictures on Jeffrey's desk. "That's how I think of her, Mr. Tolliver. I think of my little girl. I don't think of what Wanda did to her, the kind of horrible life she must have lived." He stopped, choking on a sob. "I think of my happy little girl."

"That's best," Jeffrey said, picking up on the man's grief. Tears came to his eyes, and when Paul saw this, he seemed to lose his reserve.

"Oh, God," the man said, putting his hand over his mouth. His body shook as he sobbed. "My poor little girl. My baby. My baby." He rocked back and forth to soothe himself.

"Paul," Jeffrey said, his voice thick with his own grief. He reached across the desk to pat the man's arm, but Paul Jennings took Jeffrey's hand in his own. Jeffrey had never held another man's hand before, and it felt odd to be doing so now. Though, if it helped Paul Jennings through his grief, it was the least he could do.

Paul tightened his grip on Jeffrey's hand. "She was such a sweet girl."

"I know she was," Jeffrey agreed, squeezing back. "My wife, Sara, saw her." Jeffrey realized suddenly that he had mis-spoken. "I mean my ex-wife. She's a pediatrician. Sara."

He looked up, hope in his eyes. "She saw Wendy?"

"Yes," Jeffrey told him. "Sara said she was a bright girl. Very intelligent, very sweet. She had a caring heart."

"Was she healthy?"

Jeffrey lied on purpose this time. There was no reason to tell this father what his daughter had been through. "Yes," he said. "She was very healthy."

Paul released Jeffrey's hand and picked up the photograph of his daughter. "She was always sweet, even as a baby. You can just tell with some kids. She had such a good heart."

Jeffrey took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. At the last minute he realized he should have offered it to Paul.

"I'm sorry," Jeffrey said.

"I don't blame you," Paul told him. "I blame her. I blame Wanda. She took my child. She did those horrible things to her." He cleared his throat and wiped his nose with his hand. "She put all of this into motion by being the kind of person she is." He locked eyes with Jeffrey. "I don't blame you," he repeated, his tone vehement. "Don't live with that guilt, Mr. Tolliver. I've lived with guilt my entire life. What if I had never married her? What if I had listened to the rumors? What if I had let the police check my little girl to see if her mother…?" He put his hand to his mouth, and again his body shook as he cried.

Jeffrey felt himself tearing up again, and tried to collect himself. All he could think of was Lacey Patterson's school picture on the flier in his desk drawer. He thought about what Jenny had been through, and what Mark still had ahead of him if he managed to pull out of the coma. He thought of Sara, too, and what she must be going through, the guilt she had to be feeling because these were her kids. Hell, they were Jeffrey's kids, too. Maybe because they didn't have any of their own they felt responsible for the whole town. And look at what Jeffrey had let happen. How many children had been hurt because Jeffrey had been blind to the evil going on in his own backyard?

"You did your job," Paul told Jeffrey, as if reading his mind. "You did what you had to do to protect that boy."

Jeffrey had not helped the girl he knew as Jenny Weaver. He had not rescued Mark or Lacey Patterson. He had not protected anyone but Dottie Weaver, who had sat in this very station house and spoon-fed them her lies.

Paul said, "So much came out after she left town." He looked down at his hands. "She did some baby-sitting on the weekends. Those children were abused, too."

Jeffrey sat up, trying not to let his own grief overshadow Paul's. He asked, "Was a warrant ever issued?"

"No," he said, then gave an ironic smile. "A couple of days later, they issued a warrant to arrest the other woman, but she had left town, too."

Jeffrey felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he thought about Lacey Patterson. "What was her name?"

"Markson," Paul said, wiping his nose again. "Grace Markson."

Chapter Sixteen

Lena sat beside Grace Patterson's bed, listening to the slow beeps of the heart monitor beside her. The blind was drawn on the window overlooking the hospital parking lot, but there wasn't much to see at this hour, anyway. Teddy Patterson sat across the bed from Lena in a tall recliner, his head leaned back, his mouth opened as he snored, seeming not to have a care in the world. He had laughed in Lena 's face when she suggested Grace had anything to do with what had happened to their children. Patterson was a con, and he had an innate distrust of cops. Of course, if he was involved in this thing up to his eyeballs, he wasn't likely to come clean and tell Lena where his daughter was being held. Teddy had actually demanded Lena leave, but for some reason Grace had requested she be allowed to stay. He had grumbled, but acquiesced. Patterson's wife had her nails dug so deep into his balls he didn't take a shit without getting her permission first. Grace seemed to be the center of Teddy's life and the longer Lena was in the same room with him, the clearer it was to her that Teddy didn't give a shit for either of his children.

Lena looked at Grace Patterson, watching her sleep, wondering at the power the woman seemed to have over her family. She had refused to be put on a ventilator, but a mask gave her oxygen to help her breathe. Pillows were propped around and under her body to keep her comfortable, but there was no mistaking that the woman was dying an extraordinarily painful death. In the few days since Lena had seen her, Grace Patterson had declined rapidly. Maybe it was being in the hospital that had done it to her, but Grace looked as much on her deathbed as she was. Her skin was sallow, her cheeks sunken. Her eyes were rheumy and constantly wept what on a normal person would have been tears.

Lena shifted in her chair, trying to get into a more comfortable position. Her tailbone felt as if it had been beaten with a bat, and her hands and feet were aching like they had after the attack. She had figured out an hour before that this was because she kept clenching her fists and curling her toes. Her body was tight with tension, and just being in the room with the Pattersons made her stomach clench like the rest of her body. She wanted to throttle them both, to remind them that every second ticking by could mean something horrible for Lacey.

Maybe they were being quiet because Lena was in the room. Teddy wasn't exactly acting the part of the grieving husband, as far as Lena could tell. He had watched television while his wife slept, laughing at sitcoms, then narrating for no one in particular the events unfolding during an action movie.

"He's gonna whup his ass," Teddy would tell them. Or, "Give that brother something to think about."

Teddy had fallen asleep during the news and seemed to be a heavy sleeper. Even when the nurse had come in to check Grace's stats, he had not stirred.

All this left Lena with was time to stare at Grace Patterson and think about what had happened in the last few days. Mark was at a different hospital than his mother because the ambulance crew had taken him to the closest emergency room. There was no telling what was going to happen to him, but none of his doctors seemed to think he would ever recover from what he had done to himself.

Lena thought about Mark, who was just like any other boy, just wanting love, wanting his mother's attention, and taking it any way he could. She also remembered herself at that age, and how fucked up she had been. Everything had been so emotional, and she had been desperate for anyone but Hank's approval. She had denned herself by what a small handful of outcasts at school thought of her, and used how she looked to get what in retrospect could only be called the wrong kind of attention.

Lena was fifteen when she first started sleeping with Russ Fleming, and while her body had been ready for the physical side of the relationship, emotionally, she had been a wreck. Russ was twenty-two, something Hank had a really big problem with, but Lena had thought she loved him, and Russ had played her like a pro. Anything he wanted, she gave him. He was a moody asshole, and Lena reacted to him like a thermometer, trying to soothe him one minute and seduce him the next. Her days were constant ups and downs, depending on how Russ was treating her, and if she wasn't crying in her room, she was sitting on the front porch, hands between her knees as she nervously waited for him to show up. She had been so young and so stupid, and Russ had given her what she thought was love.

Looking back now, Lena knew that he was just a paranoid pothead, getting his rocks off screwing a teenage girl, but at the time Lena had thought he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. It was amazing how stupid kids could be, and how desperate they were for love and attention. Mark must have been such an easy target for his mother. He must have felt like an open wound, convinced that only his mother could heal him. And now everything that he had survived had made him want to die. Lena understood the dichotomy all too well.

Grace took a sharp breath, waking up. Her eyes slowly opened. She stared for a while at the ceiling, as if her brain was trying to work out where she was and what was happening. Lena wanted to remind her, to tell her that she was dying, but Grace seemed to make that connection on her own.

The stiff pillowcase crackled as Grace turned her head toward Lena. Her eyes traveled down as far as they could go, past the blood pressure monitor on her arm to the I.V., which she followed to the self-administering morphine pump beside the bed. Lena had had one of these when she was in the hospital. The patient could control the release of morphine by pressing a button attached to the pump. The machine wouldn't let you kill yourself by holding the button down, but it did give the patient some sense of control over her own pain management.

Without being aware of what she was doing, Lena reached over and took the button away from Grace before the woman could press it. Lena had not been alone with Grace since she'd gotten here. Teddy seemed a sound enough sleeper for her to take advantage of the moment.

"Looking for this?" Lena whispered, holding up the device.

Grace's eyes flashed, then darted toward Teddy.

"You want to wake him up so he can hear what I have to say?" Lena asked, still keeping her voice low. "I talked to Mark, Grace. You want Teddy to know just how much you love your little boy?"

She swallowed, but that was all.

"You can talk," Lena said. She had heard Grace ask for ice chips only a few hours before. "I know you can talk."

Slowly, Grace reached up to the mask covering her nose and mouth. She pulled it to the side, panting with the effort. "Give…" she said. "Pump…"

Lena tested the weight of the button in her hand. It had felt so much heavier when she had used it for her own pain relief.

She asked, "Hurts, huh?"

Grace nodded, her face contorted in pain.

"You want to trade?" Lena asked, wagging the device like a piece of candy.

Grace had the audacity to smile, and something in her eyes seemed to say that she had underestimated Lena.

"Yeah?" Lena prompted. "Tell me where Lacey is and I'll let you drug yourself to hell and back."

Grace still smiled, but there was a hardness to her eyes now. She turned her head away from Lena to stare back up at the ceiling. Lena could see that the woman's hand shook as she placed it over her chest. The doctor had ordered more powerful narcotics on standby. Why Grace had not called for them earlier was a mystery. It wasn't as if the woman had a chance of getting out of this bed.

Lena said, "I know you want it, Grace. I know you need it."

Grace turned back to her. She inhaled sharply, then breathed out a labored, "No."

Lena stood, clenching her fist around the device. She still kept her voice down so as not to wake Teddy. "I know you raped Mark."

Grace's smile widened, as if this was a fond memory. She closed her eyes, and Lena was under the impression she was recalling a shared moment with her son.

"Tell me about Jenny Weaver," Lena hissed. "What did you do to her?"

"She was…" Grace began, still staring at the ceiling, tears streaming from her eyes. The tears were part of her medical condition, a sign of the physical pain she was in, not an indication that she felt any grief.

The mask was still pushed to the side, and Grace put her hand on it to move it back, but not before saying, "Such… a… sweet…"

Her voice trailed off, and Lena stood there, waiting for her to finish the sentence. When nothing came, she prompted, "Sweet what?"

Grace gave an almost angelic smile behind the mask. "Sweet… fuck."

"You bitch," Lena whispered, grabbing the pillow at Grace's side. She moved the mask off the woman's face and pressed the pillow down over her. Grace did not struggle under Lena, who was keeping her eye on Teddy as she tried to smother his wife. Grace's legs twitched slightly, and Lena stopped-made herself stop-pulling back the pillow. She fumbled, putting the mask back onto Grace's face, making sure she got the oxygen. What seemed like minutes but could have only been seconds passed before Grace opened her eyes again. She seemed surprised, then angry. Lena knew that killing her would have been a mercy. Grace Patterson only had a few hours at most left in this world. Lena would not hasten them.

Grace was panting angrily as she glared at Lena. Her mouth worked, and she whispered, "Coward."

Mark had called Lena this before, and maybe it was true, but not for the reason Grace was thinking.

Lena countered, "Not as cowardly as raping a child."

Grace shook her head, either denying that Mark was a child or that what she had done to him was rape.

"He tried to kill himself," Lena told her. "Did you know that?"

She could tell from Grace's reaction that she did not.

"Hanged himself in his closet, right after he told me you'd fucked him," she clarified. "He didn't want to live anymore, knowing what you'd done to him."

Grace stared back at the ceiling. The tears still came, but Lena could not tell if they were from grief or pain.

"He's in a coma. Probably won't wake up."

Grace whispered something, but Lena could not make out what she was saying. Lena leaned down, putting her ear close to the woman's mouth, her hand on the side of the bed. Without warning, Grace reached out, grabbing Lena 's hand. The woman was weak from the labor of dying, and Lena was able to pull her hand away, but not before she felt Grace's thumb brush across the scar on Lena 's hand. The touch was tender, almost sexual, and Lena could see the charge Grace got out of it.

"You sick bitch," Lena said, rubbing her hand as if she could wipe off the sensation. "You're going to rot in hell."

It seemed to take all of her energy, but the mother said in one smooth line, "I'll see you there."

Lena backed away until she was standing against the wall, feeling an eerie sense of déjà vu. Mark and Jenny had said almost the exact same thing to each other the night Jenny had died.

Lena stood there for a moment, watching Grace Patterson, then checking on Teddy. He was still sound asleep. She checked her watch. There were three more hours until sunrise, when the nurse would be back to check on Grace. Lena clipped the morphine button to the railing, well out of Grace's reach. She sat down in the chair, ignoring her own shaking hands as she waited for Grace Patterson to die.

Chapter Seventeen

Jeffrey was sweating under his bulletproof vest. The August heat combined with the weight of the Teflon vest would have felled an elephant by now. He had lost enough water from sweating to make the back of his throat feel like it had been rubbed with sandpaper.

"Good times," Nick said, using his handkerchief to wipe the back of his neck.

Jeffrey bit back a cutting remark, asking instead, "What time is it?"

Nick checked his watch. "Ten after," he said. "Don't sweat it, Chief. Criminals got their own sense of time."

"Yeah," Joe Stewart piped up. He was Nick's perp who had flipped, and from the way he was acting, Jeffrey imagined Nick had let the man do a little blow to keep the edge off. He was as wired as a Las Vegas street corner.

Jeffrey said, "You're sure you don't know anything about a missing girl?"

"How young is she?" Joe licked his lips. "You gotta picture of her?"

"Sit down," Nick ordered, kicking at Joe's shins with his pointy cowboy boots. Nick had gone all out for the part of a pedophile, and was wearing a pressed black shirt tucked into the tightest pair of blue jeans Jeffrey had ever seen on a man. Nick had even taken off his gold necklace and trimmed his beard for the occasion. Jeffrey imagined Nick lived for this kind of action. Truthfully, so did every cop Jeffrey knew, including himself.

"I tole you to sit," Nick reminded Joe.

Joe slumped on the bed, scratching his arms as he mumbled something under his breath. He was a skinny kid, probably in his late twenties. Pimples littered his face like spots on a dog, and he had picked at some of them, bringing blood.

Jeffrey looked at Nick. "Did you have to get him pumped up like this?"

"You want him pissing in his pants?" Nick asked.

"Wouldn't be much of a difference." Jeffrey pointed out. Joe smelled almost as bad as the musty thirty-dollar-a-night hotel room they were standing in.

Jeffrey asked, "Are you sure the air conditioner isn't working?"

"We turn it on, we won't be able to pick up the audio," Nick reminded him. "Settle down, Chief. It'll be over soon."

"What about Atlanta?" Jeffrey asked.

Nick's eyes darted to Joe. The post office box in Grant that Dottie had used for the credit card was a dummy drop. A forwarding address had been given so that all mail sent to Grant would automatically be forwarded on to a different post office box in Atlanta. Jeffrey had asked Nick to set up a surveillance, hoping Dottie would show up.

"It's in place," Nick told him. "As soon as I know something, you'll know something."

Jeffrey's phone vibrated at his side, and he clipped it off his belt. "Yeah?"

"Hey," Frank said. "Patterson's been in his trailer since his wife died this morning."

Jeffrey felt the tension drain from his body. Maybe Patterson had canceled the meeting. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Frank bristled. "He didn't even go to the hospital to see his kid."

"All right," Jeffrey said. He snapped the phone shut and reported the news to Nick.

"Maybe we'll be seeing Dottie?" Nick suggested. "Patterson's no fool. He knows he's being watched."

As if on cue, two knocks came at the door, followed by a pause, then another knock.

Jeffrey slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly open so as not to draw attention to it. He grimaced at the smell in the tiny room, which probably had not been ventilated since the Nixon administration.

Joe said, "Hey, man," and the door squeaked open.

"Who's this?" a man asked. Jeffrey strained to place the voice. The only thing he was certain of was that it did not belong to Dottie Weaver.

"Friend of mine," Joe said. "He likes little girls."

"Little, little girls," Nick chimed in. "Know what I mean, hoss?"

"Let's just get this over with," the man said in a terse voice. "I got the van pulled up on the side of the building. Let's go."

Jeffrey waited until they had left the room before walking out of the bathroom. He kept playing the man's voice in his mind, trying to place it, but no epiphany came. What did come was more sweat, and Jeffrey loosened the belt on his vest, wishing he hadn't worn it. Sara had asked him to.

though, and he had told her that he would. Maybe if she had considered that he might pass out from heat exhaustion, she would not have insisted.

The door was too dirty to lean against, so Jeffrey just stood beside it, sweating his ass off, waiting for Nick to give him the all-clear. To make the case stick, they had to get delivery, and that meant making sure the truck outside was filled with magazines.

To pass the time, Jeffrey counted to a slow one hundred in his head. He was around sixty-five when he heard Nick yelling, "Get down! Get down!"

Jeffrey pushed the door open, his weapon drawn. Nick had already taken down the suspect, and a lanky looking man in a black suit was facedown on the ground with his hands on the back of his head.

"Don't move, you perverted motherfucker," Nick told him, frisking for weapons. "Am I gonna find anything that'll cut me?" he asked.

The man mumbled something, and Nick kicked him. "Am I?" he repeated.

A firm "No" came this time.

There were three other GBI agents covering the perp, so Jeffrey tucked his gun back into his holster as he walked toward the scene.

Nick was still so pumped full of adrenaline from the arrest that when he spoke to Jeffrey he was still yelling. "This your man?" he asked. "This the scumbag motherfucker?"

Jeffrey could tell from the back that it wasn't Teddy Patterson, never mind the fact that Teddy would have had to have been Superman to get from Grant to Augusta this fast.

"Turn him over," Jeffrey said, resting his hand on the butt of his gun.

Nick grabbed the guy by his cuffed hands and yanked him around so hard that Jeffrey thought he heard the man's shoulder popping.

"Hold on," the man yelled. He gave Nick a dirty look, and started to give one to Jeffrey before recognition came. All the color drained from the man's face, and his lips parted slightly in surprise.

Jeffrey imagined he looked just as shocked.

Nick asked, "I guess you know him?"

Jeffrey couldn't find his voice. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he could tell Nick, "His name is Dave Fine."

Chapter Eighteen

Brock's Funeral Home was housed in one of the oldest houses in Grant. The man who had been in charge of the railroad maintenance depot had built the Victorian castle, complete with turrets, before his bosses in Atlanta thought to question where he was getting all the money to build such a prestigious home. John Brock had purchased the house at auction for a ridiculously low sum and started a funeral home out of the first floor and basement shortly after. The family lived above the business, and Dan Brock had suffered endless taunts from other kids, starting when the bus picked him up in front of the house every morning and only ending at the end of the day when he was dropped off. Brock had learned to fight back at an early age, and threatened to touch them all with his dead-man hands if they did not leave him alone. All of them but Sara, that is. She had never been part of the boisterous crowd, and spent most of the ride studying for class. Dan usually shared a seat with Sara on the bus, because everyone else was too scared he would give them cooties.

Inside the funeral home, the first floor of the house was decorated with rich velvet curtains and heavy green carpeting. Chandeliers dating back to the early 1900s hung at opposite ends of the long hall that divided the house. Long benches were against the wall, interspersed with tables containing boxes of Kleenex and trays with water pitchers and fresh glasses. Two large viewing rooms were at the front of the hall, with a smaller one in back, opposite the casket showroom. The house's original kitchen served as an office. Sara stood outside the heavy oak door in front of the office, giving it two soft knocks. When no one answered, she opened the door and peered in. Audra Brock, Dan's mother, had her head down on the desk. Sara listened quietly, picking out the older woman's muffled snores. A plate of half-finished barbecue was by Audra's arm, and Sara assumed the old woman was taking an after-lunch nap.

Sara had attended many viewings at Brock's, and she was familiar enough with the layout to find her way to the basement, where the embalming room was. She held on to the railing lining the narrow stairway, stepping carefully on the bare wooden steps. A long time ago Sara had slipped on these stairs and it had taken her bruised tailbone three weeks to heal.

At the bottom of the steps, she took a left, going past the casket storage room and into a large open space that served as the embalming area. A pump had been turned on, and Sara could feel the noise vibrating through the walls. Dan Brock sat by the body of Grace Patterson, reading a newspaper as the embalming machine removed her blood and replaced it with chemicals.

Sara said, "Dan," to get his attention.

Brock jumped, dropping his newspaper. "Oh, me," he laughed. "I thought that came from her."

"I know the feeling," she told him, because despite the fact that she had worked for the county going on ten years, Sara still got spooked sometimes late at night when she was alone in the morgue.

He stood from the chair and offered her his hand. "To what do I owe this pleasure. Dr. Linton?"

Sara took his hand, wrapping it in both of her own. "I've got a really strange request," she began. "And you may throw me out for asking."

He cocked his head, giving her a puzzled look. "I can't imagine anything you could say that would make me do that, Sara."

"Well," she said, still holding onto his hand. "Let me ask you, then you can decide."

The clinic was humming with activity when Sara opened the back door. She walked to the nurses' station, and without even saying hello asked Nelly, "Has Jeffrey called?"

Nelly gave a tight smile. "And how was your lunch, Dr. Linton?"

"I had to postpone," Sara told her, leaving out why. Nelly had made it clear that she wasn't exactly comfortable with the work Sara did at the morgue.

Sara asked, "Has he called?"

Nelly shook her head. "I did hear something about Dot-tie Weaver, though."

Sara raised an eyebrow. "What, exactly?"

Nelly lowered her voice. "Deanie Phillips lives next door to her," she said. "She heard a loud boom yesterday and walked over to see what was happening."

"What was happening?"

"Well," Nelly said, leaning her elbows on the counter. "According to Deanie, she heard some of the cops talking about Dottie being involved in something to do with Lacey Patterson's disappearance."

Sara tried not to groan. Despite the fact that she had lived in Grant almost all of her life, Sara was still amazed at how fast gossip got around town. "Don't believe everything you hear," Sara told Nelly, though the fact that the gossip was closer to the truth than not was a little startling. There was no telling what the town would do when they found out that Dottie Weaver was really Wanda Jennings. Sara was having a hard time reconciling that fact herself, not to mention that her exam at the funeral home pointed to the fact that Grace Patterson had recently given birth to a child.

"Yes, ma'am," Nelly said, a coy smile at her lips. She could read Sara almost as well as Cathy Linton could.

"Anyone call while I was out?"

"You've got three achy-grumpies," Nelly said, handing her the messages.

Sara glanced through them, asking, "When's my next appointment?"

"The Jordans in about five minutes," Nelly said. "They're scheduled for one-thirty, but you know Gillian's always late."

Sara looked at her watch, wondering why Jeffrey had not called. Surely it didn't take as long as an hour to process Teddy Patterson, especially considering it was still technically Nick's case. For just a second, she thought about calling him, but then reconsidered. Jeffrey probably would not appreciate her checking up on him, even if she had a good reason.

"I'm gonna grab a Coke," she told Nelly. "I'll be right back."

Sara looked at her watch again as she walked down the hallway. She did the math in her head, thinking Jeffrey should not take longer than an hour to get back to Grant.

She walked into exam room seven and flipped on the lights. Over the past ten years, they had used this room for storage, and it looked like it. Rows of shelves ran the length of the room like bookshelves in a library. Sara could not even remember half the things that were in here.

She opened the refrigerator and let out a curse when she saw that all the Diet Cokes were gone. "Elliot," she muttered, because he was always stealing things from the fridge. She opened the freezer and was not too surprised to see that her Dove Bars and a couple of frozen dinners were gone. Well, not technically gone. With his usual sensitivity, Elliot had thought to leave the empty boxes and wrappers in the freezer.

"I'm gonna kill him," she said, slamming the fridge shut.

Sara walked up the hallway, feeling all the anger that had been welling up for the last week coming to a head. She stopped herself outside her office, thinking it wasn't fair to Elliot to let him take the brunt of this, even if he was a Dove-Bar-stealing ferret.

"Give me a minute," she said, holding up her hand to Nelly, who was approaching with an armful of charts.

Sara walked into her office and slid the door closed behind her. She looked around the small room, taking in all the pictures stuck on the wall, until she got to Lacey Patterson's. The photo had been taken a few years ago, and the girl's hair was shorter than Sara remembered. Compared to the school picture in the missing-person flier, Lacey could be a different girl. That was the thing with children at this age-in a couple of years, there was no telling what she would look like. She could put on weight or lose weight. Her hair might get darker or lighter. Her cheekbones might become pronounced, her jaw softer. Dottie Weaver, or who-ever she was, had this huge advantage going for her: Lacey would grow up. Of course, after a certain amount of time, this would become a liability for someone in the business of exploiting young children. What would happen to Lacey when she was too old for the game? Would she end up like her mother, abusing other children? Would she find a way to get out from Dottie's clutches?

"Dr. Linton?" Nelly knocked on the door. "Chief's on line four."

Sara leaned over her desk, snatching up the phone. "Jeff?" she asked, aware of the hope in her voice.

"We haven't found her," he said, sounding defeated.

Sara tried to hide her disappointment. The more time that passed the less likely they would be to find the girl. "I'm just glad you're okay," she said. "Did Teddy come without a fight?"

"It wasn't Teddy," he said, then told her who it was.

Sara was sure she had heard wrong. "The preacher?"

"I'll call you later, okay?"

"Yeah," she said, hanging up the phone.

Sara looked around the office. She found pictures of Dave Fine's two kids to the left of Lacey's, then let her eyes travel over the others: girls who had been in the church choir Dave helped out with, or who had been coached by him on the softball team. There was no telling how many kids Dave Fine had been trusted with, and no telling how many kids there were whose trust he had betrayed.

Chapter Nineteen

Dave Fine had asked for a Bible, and the preacher rested his right hand on top of the book as he stared blankly at Nick Shelton. He seemed almost perplexed as to why he was here.

"I love children," Fine said. "I've always loved children."

Nick leaned back in his chair, balancing it on the back legs. "Sure you do, Preacher."

Jeffrey kept his mouth closed, because Dave Fine was Nick's collar. His fists were itching to do some real damage to the preacher, and there was a buzzing in the back of Jeffrey's mind, telling him that Dottie was still out there, doing God only knows what to Lacey Patterson, and the asshole pervert across the table from him was one of the people who had helped her get away.

"Well," Nick said, holding his arms out in a big shrug. "Tell me your story."

Fine stared at the Bible, as if he felt he could get strength from the book. His hands were sweating, and Jeffrey could see a darker streak on the black cover where perspiration had rubbed off his palm.

"I've worked at the church for going on fifteen years," Fine said. "I grew up in Grant. I was baptized in that very chapel."

Nick bounced the chair slightly, waiting him out.

"I married my wife there," he continued. "I baptized my two little boys there."

Silence filled the room, and Jeffrey let himself look at Dave Fine. He was the type of man who served as a living example of the phrase "pillar of his community." Fine volunteered with the seniors' program down at the Y, delivering meals to the elderly every weekend. His children played Softball on the peewee league, and Fine coached the girls' team.

Jeffrey loosened his collar, thinking about all the young girls Fine came in contact with on a daily basis. His fists clenched again.

"I never touched any of them," Fine said, as if he could read Jeffrey's mind. "I know it's wrong. I know that." He ran his thumb along the spine of the Bible. "I prayed for strength, and God gave it to me."

Nick crossed his arms, and Jeffrey could sense that this was getting to the other man. Nick wasn't overtly religious, but Jeffrey knew that he attended church every Sunday. One of the clunky gold charms around his neck was a cross with a diamond embedded at the center.

"I never touched my children," Fine insisted. "I never hurt my boys."

Nick said, "You understand we can't take your word for that."

Fine seemed shocked that someone would not trust him. "I would never touch my sons," he said. "I would never do that."

"We know you're not into little boys." Nick told him. "But, you gotta understand. Preacher, we gotta check it out."

Fine stared at the Bible. "I would never have acted on my feelings if she hadn't approached me."

"Dottie Weaver?" Nick clarified.

"Jenny was such a sweet child. She had a light in her. A true light that God put there." Fine's lips curved up in a smile. "She sang like an angel. She really did. You could hear God coming through her voice."

"Yeah," Nick said. "I bet you could."

Fine gave him a sharp look, as if he deserved more respect than this. The man seemed not to realize that he was in a police station, about to be sent to jail for a long time.

Jeffrey said, "How did Dottie approach you?"

Fine seemed relieved that Jeffrey was taking over. "She didn't exactly approach me so much as lure me," he said. "Adam never thought to eat of the forbidden fruit until Eve tempted him."

Nick said, "Seems to me Adam's snake had something to do with that."

Fine frowned. "It wasn't like that. It was never about sex for me."

"But, you did have sex with her," Nick said.

Fine chewed his lip. "Not at first," he said. "I just wanted to spend some time with her." He paused, and took a deep breath. "Dottie let me take her to the movies, and sometimes we would go into Macon to get her some clothes." He looked up at Jeffrey and Nick, obviously needing their approval. "Her father had abandoned her," he told them. "I was just trying to fill in, to make her feel loved and wanted."

Nick was silent, but Jeffrey could see the muscles in his arms tense.

"I just wanted to nurture her, to give her some guidance."

"Did you?" Nick asked, not bothering to hide his hostility.

"I know what you're thinking, and it's not like that, it's not like that at all."

Jeffrey tried to remain calm, asking, "What's it like?"

"It's like…"-Fine made a wide gesture with his hands-"it's about love. It's about listening to children, and trying to understand their wants and their needs."

"Did she want sex from you?" Nick asked.

Fine dropped his hands. "I never would have touched her that way. I was content just to have her company."

Jeffrey asked, "What changed that?"

"Dottie." He spit the word out of his mouth as if it was poison. "I had always thought about it, always. Not with Jenny, but with other girls. Some girls that I saw just around town." He blinked his eyes several times, and Jeffrey was struck by how easily these men cried for themselves. They never seemed to cry for the children they hurt.

Fine said, "But I've always been content with my fantasies. That's always been enough for me." His voice rose. "I'm a happily married man," he told them. "I love my wife and my sons."

"Sure you do," Nick said, the flippant tone back.

Fine shook his head. "You don't understand."

Jeffrey leaned over the table. "Explain it to me, Dave. I want to understand."

"She was such a smart girl, and so well-spoken." He picked up the Bible. "She read the Book with me. We prayed. We understood each other."

Jeffrey glanced at the Bible. While at some level Jeffrey had always believed in the presence of good and evil, he had never really attached a biblical significance to it. Seeing Dave Fine's hand on the Bible, hearing his tale of se-ducing Jenny Weaver through prayer, struck him as the highest form of blasphemy.

Nick said, "Okay, you prayed with her. What happened to change that?"

Fine set the book back on the table. "Dottie changed that," he said. "She called me in the middle of the night."

"When was this?"

"Around Thanksgiving," he said. "This past Thanksgiving."

"Then what?" Jeffrey asked, thinking the bastard was probably lying.

"I went to her house, because she said that Jenny wasn't doing well. She said she was upset, and that she needed to talk to me." His eyes filled with tears again. "I was her friend. I couldn't ignore a plea for help."

Jeffrey nodded for him to continue, trying to block the image that came to his mind of Sara pointing out the pelvic fracture in Jenny Weaver's X ray. The girl had been brutally raped. Dave Fine could have been the man who did it.

Dave cleared his throat. "I had never really been inside the house before. Jenny always waited for me on the front steps." He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "When I got there, Dottie led me upstairs. Upstairs to Jenny's room."

Fine fell silent, and neither Jeffrey nor Nick prompted him to continue. After what seemed like a long while, he picked back up where he had left off.

"We did things," he said, his voice low. "I'm ashamed to say that we did things."

"You did things," Jeffrey told him, wanting to make that point.

"Yes," Fine agreed. "I did things."

"Did the acts only take place in Jenny's room?" Jeffrey asked, thinking that this would explain why Dottie would risk not stripping Jenny's room. The only evidence they found would point back to Dave Fine.

"Yes." He swallowed hard. "Only in her room."

The men were silent as Fine seemed to get his thoughts together. He was certainly good at painting himself as a helpless victim. A thirteen-year-old girl might have bought his act, but the more excuses Fine made for his actions, the more Jeffrey wanted to kill him.

Finally, Fine said, "Dottie took pictures. I didn't know until later." He gave a humorless chuckle. "She brought them to the church the next day, and threatened to expose me if I didn't do what she said."

"What did she want you to do?"

"Make those deliveries," he said. "I used the church van." He put his hand over his mouth. "God forgive me, I used the church van."

Jeffrey crossed his arms, willing himself to calm down. Nick Shelton was so angry there was almost a heat coming off of him. How this sick fuck could cry for himself was beyond him. Dave Fine felt sorrier for himself than he did for the kid he raped.

Jeffrey asked, "Where's Dottie now?"

"I have no idea," Fine said, tapping his palm on the Bible for emphasis. "That's the God's truth."

"When did you see her last?" Jeffrey asked, knowing he could not trust the answer.

"Monday. She had Mark at the house. They stripped everything. They painted the walls, they moved the printing press."

"Where did they move it to?"

"I don't know," he said, and he seemed to be telling the truth. "They put it in a truck, an unmarked truck."

"And then?"

"She told me that I still had to make this last delivery or she would send the pictures to the police station."

"What about Lacey Patterson?"

Jeffrey wasn't sure whether or not something registered in Fine's eyes. The man said, "I have no idea. Dottie wouldn't tell me something like that. I wasn't involved in that end of things. I only did what she said to protect my family. Our lives."

Jeffrey crossed his arms, asking, "When did you get the magazines?"

"That night," he answered. "I put them in the basement of the church until this morning."

"You already knew about the meeting in Augusta?"

"No," he shook his head, vehement. "She called me last night. It sounded like she was on a cell phone."

"You said the last time you saw her was Monday," Jeffrey reminded him.

"It was the last time," Fine countered. "You said the last time I saw her, not the last time I spoke with her."

Jeffrey let this pass. "What did she say?"

"She told me about the hotel, when to meet Joe, what the code word was for the next pickup." Fine paused. "She said she was still around, watching me."

"Do you believe that?" Nick asked. "You think she's still in town?"

Fine shrugged. "She's capable of anything," he said.

"Capable of what, for instance?" Jeffrey asked. When Fine did not answer, he asked, "What do you think she's going to do to Lacey Patterson?"

Fine looked away. "I don't know what she does. I was only involved with Jenny."

Jeffrey stared at the other man, trying to understand him. Fine was so good at justifying his actions, he could proba-bly pass a lie detector test. Jeffrey seriously doubted the man even believed what he had done to Jenny Weaver was wrong.

Fine volunteered, "I know Dottie needs money. She told me she had to wait around for the next payoff." His voice rose as he tried to defend himself. "I was being blackmailed. I had no choice."

Jeffrey ignored the excuse, instead thinking about Dot-tie's post office box in Atlanta. Dottie had no way of knowing that they knew about the drop. She would think she was safe. They might have a chance of catching her before she had time to rape another kid, or sell off Lacey Patterson.

"So," Nick said. "You packed the magazines in the church van this morning and toddled on over to Augusta?"

"I had a bad feeling about it," he said, picking at the pages of the Bible. "I guess I wanted to get caught. I couldn't go on with this hanging over me."

Jeffrey said, "Mark felt the same way."

Fine snorted. "Mark," he said, as if he were talking about the devil himself.

Nick exchanged a glance with Jeffrey.

"You know why Jenny wanted to shoot him?" Fine asked them, a slight grimace on his face. "Because he was going to end up doing the same thing."

"Doing what?"

"He enjoyed it," Fine told them. "Mark didn't have any qualms about what he was doing."

"And you did?" Nick shot back.

Fine ignored the question.

"You're saying Mark liked posing for the pictures?" Jeffrey asked, and in his mind he saw Mark's pained expression in the magazines they had found. This was not the face of a kid who was enjoying himself.

"He didn't just like it. He wanted to do it." Fine tapped his finger on the table. "If you ask me, it was just a matter of time before he started in on his sister. Jenny knew that. As cruel as that family was to her, she knew what Mark had become. She knew he would end up abusing Lacey." He sniffed, as if holding back tears. "Jenny was trying to protect Lacey from that animal."

"You have proof of this?" Jeffrey demanded.

"Grace had him in the game since he was six," Fine told them. "It was only a matter of time. Jenny knew this."

"You have no way of knowing what Mark would've ended up doing," Jeffrey said. "If every kid who was raped by some freak like you grew up to molest children-"

Fine interrupted him. "You don't know Mark very well, Chief Tolliver. Trust me, he would've been hurting kids, just like his mother." He shook his head, giving a snort. "He learned from the master."

Jeffrey countered, "He was just a kid himself."

Fine held up his finger, as if he was making a good point. "He was a grown man. He could've stopped."

Nick barked, "So could you."

The comment cut, and Fine showed it by looking down at the Bible, his lips pursed in a classic pout, like he had been falsely accused.

The room was quiet as they all seemed to take a deep breath.

Jeffrey tried to keep his tone even, asking, "Did you tell Jenny your theory about Mark? Is that why she wanted to shoot him?"

Fine stared at the Bible.

Jeffrey took his silence as a confirmation. "What else did Dottie have you do?"

"Just the deliveries."

"No, before that."

"She made me come over when she was taking the pic-tures," he said. "I didn't want to, but she held my life in her hands." He held out his hands to illustrate the point. "If those pictures ever got out," he said, "it would have ruined me. My wife, my children…" Tears welled into his eyes. "I have responsibilities."

"You posed for more pictures?" Jeffrey asked, wondering at anyone who could be so stupid. Or, maybe he wasn't stupid, maybe he enjoyed it.

Fine nodded. "I didn't want to. She…"-he looked for the right word-"she liked to humiliate people. She got something out of that."

"How did she humiliate you?"

"She knew I didn't like boys, and she made me do things."

"Things with Mark Patterson?"

He gave a tight nod, and for the first time, he actually showed shame. "What Jenny and I had was… special. I know you don't understand that, but there was something between us. Something that bonded us." He put his hand over his eyes. "She was my first. I loved her so much."

Jeffrey cut him off. "Shut up about that part of it, Dave, or I swear to God I'll beat the ever loving shit out of you."

Fine looked up, and he seemed hurt that they did not understand.

Jeffrey said, "Why did you stop? With Jenny, I mean. What stopped the sexual contact?"

"She rejected me," he told them, tears welling into his eyes. "She said she didn't want anything more to do with me." He sniffed loudly. "After the pictures… I don't know. It was as if Dottie was proving something to Jenny, my showing up that night."

"Proving you were all alike," Jeffrey provided, thinking this was just the kind of thing a woman like Dottie Weaver would do.

"That's not true," Fine insisted. "I loved Jenny. I cared about her deeply."

"That's why you tried to visit her after the church retreat?"

"She looked sick," Fine told them. "I didn't know what was wrong with her and Dottie wouldn't let me near her. I even posed for more of her pictures just to get into the house, just to see if Jenny was all right, but Grace kept her at the trailer when I was there."

Jeffrey clenched his teeth together knowing Fine had willingly gone to Dottie's so he could molest more children. The fact that Fine truly believed he loved Jenny Weaver was just as obvious as the fact that there was something seriously wrong with his mind.

Nick asked, "What about Grace Patterson? What was her involvement in this?"

Fine scowled at the name. "She was worse than Dottie. She was disgusting."

"How so?"

"The things she came up with," he said, his voice coarse. "May she rot in hell for her sins."

Jeffrey did not point out the obvious. "Dottie and Grace were together on this?"

He nodded. "Grace directed most of the photo shoots. Dottie took care of the business end of things." He waited a beat. "All the poses were Grace's idea. She liked to get in on them, touch some of the children. The more sadistic it could be the better."

"Dottie never did this, too?"

"She knew how to make the ones that looked real. The romantic ones. Dottie worked the softer stuff and Grace worked the hard core." He licked his lips nervously, as if by default the women were more guilty than he was. "They knew each other from way back."

"They told you this?"

"No," he said. "Jenny did. Jenny said that she and her mother moved around a lot. Wherever they went, Grace would visit them at least once a month."

Jeffrey asked, "What about Teddy Patterson?"

Fine shook his head. "He would have killed us all if he had known."

Nick showed his surprise. "He didn't know?"

"Of course not" Fine snapped. "We never did anything unless he was out of town on business. He drove a truck."

Nick sounded as skeptical as Jeffrey felt. "He never delivered any of the magazines?"

"Grace kept him out of it," Fine said. "He wasn't that kind of man."

"What kind of man is that?" Nick asked.

Fine stared at the Bible again. "A man like me, I guess. A man who would be with children."

"A man who would hurt children," Nick corrected.

"I didn't hurt her."

"You didn't?" Jeffrey asked, leaning across the table. "You wanna tell me how a thirteen-year-old girl gets a pelvic fracture?"

"There were other men she was with," Fine countered, yet he did not seem surprised by the information.

"Other men who weren't gentle like you?" Jeffrey goaded.

"It wasn't like that."

"Really?" Jeffrey said, incredulous. "How big are you, Dave? You want me to look up in Jenny's autopsy records how much smaller she is than you?"

Fine cleared his throat, but he did not answer. He took the Bible off the table and held it to his chest. Jeffrey stared at the man, thinking there was something he was missing. He saw it then-the wedding ring on Dave's left hand. His mind flashed on the image he had seen earlier in the maga-zine: the hand firmly behind Jenny Weaver's head, pushing her down so that she gagged on him.

"You son of a bitch," Jeffrey said, lunging across the table. His knee caught the edge, but he didn't care as his hands wrapped around the Bible.

"Jeffrey," Nick yelled, halfheartedly trying to pull Jeffrey back.

Jeffrey let the anger take hold of him, saying, "You sick son of a bitch," as he ripped the Bible from the preacher's hands. Fine had been holding on so tightly that he fell back in his chair. "I saw the pictures, asshole. I saw what you did to her. I saw how you raped her."

Jeffrey stood, looking at him over the table. "You don't deserve this," he said, indicating the Book. "What you did to those kids… what you did to her…"

"It was just Jenny," Fine insisted, sitting up.

Jeffrey started to go around the table, then stopped himself, thinking Fine wasn't worth it.

Fine repeated, "It was just Jenny."

"You left your fucking wedding ring on in those pictures," Jeffrey told him, putting the Bible down. "I saw it in at least ten different pictures with ten different kids." He walked around the table, groaning at the pain in his knee. "You fucking idiot."

"You can't talk to me that way," Fine snapped.

Jeffrey grabbed his arm, yanking him up off the floor. "You'd better be glad I'm talking and not beating the shit out of you."

"This is police brutality," Fine said, brushing off his pants. "I want a lawyer."

Jeffrey said, "Buddy Conford wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole."

"I've got someone else," Dave said, tucking his shirt into his pants. "Someone from Atlanta."

Nick provided, "Someone who defends perverts like him all the time. Probably takes his fee in pictures."

Fine smiled, and for the first time, he appeared to be on the outside what he was on the inside. "Or little girls."

Jeffrey felt his shoulders tighten, and the animal desire to rip Fine's throat out was only quelled by the possibility that Fine knew more than he was saying.

"You're going to jail," Jeffrey told the preacher. "You know what they do to people like you in jail?"

"Right," Fine said. "I watch television. I know you're just talking crap."

"Crap?" Nick said. "You mean that bloody stuff you're gonna find in your underwear every morning?"

Fine had the gall to look smug. "I don't think I'm going to jail."

Nick asked, "What makes you think that?"

"I've got a bargaining chip," Fine said, smiling.

"What bargaining chip," Jeffrey shot back, trying not to sound eager. If Fine thought he had power here he would never tell them what he knew.

"Let's just wait for my lawyer to get here," Fine said, holding out his hands to be cuffed. "I don't have anything to say without my lawyer."

"Think about that in general lockup," Jeffrey said, pulling out his handcuffs.

"Goodness me," Nick breathed. "General lockup."

"What's that?" Fine asked, something close to panic in his voice.

Jeffrey tightened the cuffs on Fine's wrists. "Just jail."

"Funny thing about jail, though," Nick began. "Lots of fellas in there had someone just like you in their lives when they were growing up."

Fine turned around. "What does that mean?"

Jeffrey smiled, turning Fine toward the door. "Means while you're waiting for your fancy lawyer to drive here all the way from Atlanta, you'll have plenty of time to explain to your fellow inmates how it's all about love."

"Wait a minute." Fine stood where he was, even as Jeffrey tried to push him. "I'll have my own cell," he said as if he was certain this would happen.

"No you won't, you sick fuck," Jeffrey said, pushing him so hard that Nick had to catch him before he fell.

"It's the law," Fine insisted. "You can't put me in with other inmates."

"I can do whatever I want," Jeffrey told him.

"Wait a minute," Fine repeated, his voice shrill and panicked. "You can't do that."

"Why not?" Jeffrey asked, grabbing the preacher by the collar and forcing him out of the room.

"No," Fine said, reaching for the door but missing. His fingernails trailed across the wood as he grabbed for anything to hold on to.

"You got something to tell me, Dave?" Jeffrey asked, pushing him down the hall.

"Help me," Fine said, reaching for a patrolman who happened to be coming out of the bathroom. The cop looked at Fine, then Jeffrey, then walked on as if he hadn't seen anything.

"Move," Jeffrey said, still holding him up by his collar.

"Somebody help me!" Fine screamed, bending his knees until he was on the floor. Jeffrey still dragged him down the hallway by his shirt collar.

"Help!" Fine screamed.

"Help you like you helped Jenny?" Nick asked, walking beside him. "Help you like you're helping Lacey?"

"I don't know where she is!" Fine screamed, putting his hands on the floor to give more resistance.

Jeffrey saw Maria stick her head around the corner. She looked at Fine, then turned back around.

"Help me!" Fine cried, his voice hoarse from the effort. "Oh, Lord, please help me."

Jeffrey's hand was cramping. He let go, and Fine dropped to the floor, sobbing. "Oh, Lord, please deliver me from these men," he prayed.

Nick bent down in front of him. "The Lord helps those who help themselves," he suggested.

"But you can keep on praying, Dave," Jeffrey told him. "You can pray the papers don't print how you died from having your asshole ripped open."

Nick put his hand on Fine's shoulder. "Hate to have your wife and kids read about that, Dave. It's a bad way to have to go."

Fine looked up, tears streaming down his face. "Okay," he said. "Okay, okay."

"Okay what?" Jeffrey asked.

"Okay," he repeated. "I might know where she is."

Jeffrey drove while Nick sat in the back seat alongside Fine. Behind them, an unmarked car with four GBI officers drove at a safe distance.

"You better not be fucking with us, Dave," Jeffrey said, making a right turn to circle the block for the third time.

"I told you I'm not sure what the address is," Fine insisted. "Dottie only took me here once."

"What'd she take you here for?" Nick asked.

"Nothing," he mumbled, looking out the window.

Jeffrey looked at him in the rearview mirror. "This better not be just you postponing the inevitable."

"I'm not, okay?" Fine snapped. "I told you this was where she did some business."

"What kind of business?" Jeffrey asked.

Fine looked like he wasn't going to answer, but for some reason he did. Jeffrey liked to think it was guilt that made Fine tell them things, but he had been a cop long enough to know it was plain and simple stupidity.

Fine said, "This guy, he keeps kids here sometimes."

"You sure it's just him alone there?" Jeffrey asked.

"Yes," Fine insisted. "It's mostly used as a safe house."

"Safe for who?" Nick asked.

"Who do you think?" Fine snapped. "He keeps pictures mostly, but a couple of times I saw some kids and a couple of cameras."

"And out of the goodness of your heart you reported him to the police," Nick suggested.

Fine stared out the window, probably feeling sorry for himself. They had spent an hour driving to Macon, then another two hours driving around different subdivisions looking for this house that Dave Fine said he would recognize only by sight. Jeffrey looked in the rearview mirror, wondering how much longer they had before somebody called the Macon cops about two suspicious-looking cars in the neighborhood.

They were on tricky ground here. Technically, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had jurisdiction over the state, but as a courtesy, they should have notified the Macon Police Department that they were conducting surveillance on their turf. As Jeffrey and Nick weren't even sure Dave Fine had ever been here, let alone whether or not Lacey Patterson was being held in Macon, there wasn't much they could tell the Macon Police Department. They couldn't get a warrant without a street address, but Nick was counting on im-minent jeopardy to cut through that red tape. They could always say later that they saw something suspicious in the house. With a child involved, and time being of the essence, neither one of them was worried about getting slapped on the wrist for this.

"Turn here," Fine said. "Left up here. This street looks familiar."

Jeffrey did as he was told, thinking it was pointless because they'd already been down this road.

"Then up here on the right," Fine told him, excitement in his voice.

Jeffrey took the right, going down a new street. He exchanged a look with Nick.

"There it is," Fine told them. "It's the one on the right with the gate."

Jeffrey didn't slow the car, but he had enough time to see that all the windows had the blinds drawn. The outside security lights were also on even though it was the middle of the day. The gate had a large padlock on it. Whether or not this was to keep people out or keep them in remained to be seen.

Jeffrey stopped the car at the end of the street and waited for the other car to catch up with them. He could hear cars from the interstate, which was less than thirty feet from where they had parked. Jeffrey guessed the people who lived around here got used to the noise, but right now, every car was like fingernails against a blackboard.

Agent Wallace got out of the car, leaving two men and one woman inside. He adjusted his belt, even though he was wearing a shoulder harness. He was a beefy young guy who worked out enough to make the material around the short sleeves of his shirt look about ready to break. His cheeks were so close-shaven that Jeffrey could almost make out the razor marks.

"That the house with the gate?" he asked, taking off his sunglasses.

"That's what our guy says," Jeffrey told him.

Wallace looked back at the car, meeting Dave Fine's glare. He spit on the road, crossing his arms across his broad chest. "Motherless piece of shit," he mumbled.

Nick had been on the other side of the car, calling the Macon Police Department. "He's not happy," Nick said.

"Didn't think he would be," Jeffrey answered, knowing that if someone from the GBI had called Jeffrey to say an operation was going down in Grant that Jeffrey knew nothing about, he'd be pissed, too.

Nick said, "It'll take 'em a while to get their heads out of their asses and get over here."

"Did you tell them the house?"

Nick smiled. "Hell, I couldn't even remember the street."

Jeffrey laughed, glad he was here instead of back at the Macon police department.

Nick opened the back door and grabbed Dave Fine's hands. Before the preacher could protest, Nick had cuffed him to the strap over the door. "That'll hold him."

Fine said, "You can't leave me here."

"If I were you," Nick said, "I'd relish this time alone."

Fine colored. "You said I'd get my own cell back at the station."

"Yeah," Jeffrey agreed. "That's the station, though. I've got no control over what happens to you in prison."

Nick chuckled, knocking on the hood of the car. "Don't worry, Davey boy. I'm sure you'll meet yourself some quality folk in prison."

"You can't do that," Fine insisted.

Nick smiled. "Don't worry there, preacher. Near about all of 'em already found God. You can pray with them till your heart's content."

Fine shot Jeffrey a panicked look. "You promised!"

"I promised about my jail, Dave," Jeffrey reminded him. "I've got no control over what happens in the big jail. That's up to you and the state."

"You said we'd work out a deal."

Jeffrey said, "A deal for reduced sentence, but you're still going to jail."

Fine started to say more, but Nick slammed the door in the man's face.

"Pussy," Nick said.

"He will be to somebody," Jeffrey agreed, using the remote to lock the car doors.

"Goddamn," Nick said, his eyes lighting up as he checked his revolver. "Can't believe I'm getting to do this twice in one day."

"We'll take junior, here." Jeffrey indicated Wallace, who looked about ready to jump out of his skin. Jeffrey probably looked the same way. There was enough adrenaline in his blood to give a lesser man a heart attack.

Nick bounced on the balls of his feet as he walked toward the other car and told the three agents inside they were in charge of the back.

"Let's give 'em a couple, three minutes head start," Nick said, checking his watch. Time could either stand still or fly during a situation like this.

Nick looked back at the car, where Dave Fine was pouting. He said, "I wouldn't leave a dog trapped in that car in this heat."

"Me, neither," Jeffrey said, making no move to roll down the windows.

They were quiet, staring out at the busy interstate while they waited for Nick's signal.

Finally, Nick looked at his watch and said, "Let's go."

Jeffrey tucked his gun into his shoulder holster as they walked. He had worn his ankle holster as well. Normally, Jeffrey would feel uncomfortable armed this way, but for the moment he felt ready for anything the small house might have to offer.

Trees and high shrubs had obscured a lot of the house from the street. Up close, Jeffrey could see it was mostly brick with vinyl siding on the trim and overhangs. The gutters were painted a bright white to match the trim. The house was small, probably two bedrooms with one bath and a kitchen-living room combination. There were houses like this all over Grant, built cheap just after the war, meant to be starter homes for returning veterans. Cement blocks served as the foundation with vents to let the house breathe.

"No basement," Nick said.

Jeffrey nodded, pointing to the roofline. There did not appear to be a second story, either, but someone could definitely hide in the attic.

Wallace went first, easily scaling the five-foot-tall chain-link fence from the side that was most concealed by the shrubs. Nick had a little more difficulty, and groaned quietly as he lost his footing on the other side, his butt hitting the ground. Jeffrey followed them, wondering why his knee was giving him trouble, then remembering how he had hurt it lunging for Fine.

When they were all safe on the other side, Nick took a small walkie-talkie out of his pocket and said, "We're inside the perimeter."

There was a faint "Check," as the others got into position.

Jeffrey took out his gun indicating they should head toward the front door. As they got closer, they could hear soft music coming from the house. Jeffrey recognized a boy group, but couldn't put a name to them.

Wallace stopped at the front door, his gun held up beside his head. He counted off to three then kicked at the door.

Nothing happened.

"Shit," Wallace cursed, shaking his leg out. For just a moment, Jeffrey considered that they might have the wrong house. Then he thought about the fact that someone could be waiting behind that locked front door with a double-barreled shotgun, ready to blow off their heads. He thought of Sara for a split second, and how she said she worried about him, then he thought about Lacey Patterson and pushed everything else from his mind.

Jeffrey indicated to Wallace that they would kick together this time. He counted off to three, and this time the door didn't hold.

"Police!" Nick yelled, storming in after them. There was no man standing inside with a shotgun. Instead there was a young girl wearing a short pink T-shirt and matching underwear. She could have just woken up from a nap.

Jeffrey pointed his gun up to the ceiling. He was about to ask her if she was okay when the little girl pointed silently down a hallway.

Jeffrey took off his jacket and put it around the girl while Nick and Wallace checked the other side of the house. He ushered her to the front porch, telling her to wait for him inside the front of the gate. He wanted to say something to her, to put his arm around her and tell her that she was okay now, but there was something so vacant about the child he could not bring himself to do it. She seemed beyond any kind of comfort.

Nick and Wallace came back, shaking their heads that no one was in the other side of the house. Nick tilted his chin up, indicating he would go first down the hall. Jeffrey was eerily reminded of Dottie Weaver's house as they walked in. The setup was similar, but the feeling was different. A dirty strip of carpeting muffled the sound of their feet on the hardwood floor. There were framed pictures of children's art on the wall.

Ahead, Nick flattened himself against the wall beside a closed door. This was where the music was coming from, and Jeffrey could make out the chorus now, "I love you, love you, my sweet baby."

Nick reached down and opened the door, crouching in the entrance in one swift motion. Something unreadable passed on his face, and he stood, walking into the room with his gun still drawn. Jeffrey followed him, seeing a king-size bed with mirrors all around it. The sheets were messed up, as if there had been recent activity, and there was a smell in the room that Jeffrey did not want to put a name to. The stereo was propped up on the box it came in, sickly sweet music still pouring out from the speakers. Two video cameras on tripods were pointed at the bed, the mirrors on the walls reflecting the scene back to Jeffrey. He stood there, wanting nothing more than to get out of this room, as Nick checked under the bed, then opened the door to one of the closets.

Wallace made a noise to get their attention then nodded down the hallway. Jeffrey backed outside the room as Nick checked the last closet, then followed.

Wallace put his mouth close to Jeffrey's ear and whispered, "I saw a boy go in there," indicating a closed door on the opposite side of the hall.

Nick pointed to a cord hanging down from the ceiling where the retractable stairs to the attic were. The cord wasn't moving, but that was no guarantee no one was up there.

Jeffrey passed the bathroom, which was small and dirty. Toys were stacked on the counter and in the empty tub. There was no shower curtain or closet in there, but some cabinets were built into the wall along the hallway. Jeffrey opened the first cabinet, but all it contained were the items you would expect: towels, wash rags, some diapers. The diapers got to him for some reason, and for the first time that day, he lost what little hope he had that they would find Lacey Patterson alive.

Nick put his hand on Jeffrey's shoulder, and Jeffrey got the feeling he was thinking the same thing.

There was one last room in the small house, and Jeffrey took the lead this time, pressing himself to the closed door just as Nick had. He threw the door open, crouching around the corner with his gun drawn, but the room appeared empty.

Three twin beds were shoved into the corner, dirty-looking sheets bunched up on them. There were no frames or box springs, just the mattresses flat on the floor. Sheets were nailed tightly to the windows like canvas over a frame. There was only one closet in the room, and Jeffrey walked over to it, expecting to see the worst behind it. He stood to the side and opened it, only to find shelves packed tight with boxes. Red numbers labeled the boxes, and Jeffrey pulled one of them out, frowning when he saw it was full of pictures. He looked at the other boxes and realized the numbers were probably the age of the kids in the pictures. The top row contained a few that were labeled "0-1."

He remembered the boy Wallace had seen, and bent down on one knee. A couple of boxes on the bottom of the closet looked crooked, and Jeffrey pulled them out. He leaned down and saw a frightened little boy, not more than six years old, with his head between his knees. The boy saw Jeffrey, then reached out to pull the boxes back around him. He was so frightened that the boxes shook from his touch.

Jeffrey stood, thinking he would see the fear in that kid's eyes for as long as he lived. He wanted to pull the boy out from his hiding place and tell him that it was over, but Jeffrey wasn't sure that it was. The adult or adults who had done this were still in this house somewhere. It was better to leave the kid where he was safe rather than put him in more danger.

Jeffrey heard Nick's boots on the floor and turned to see him walking out the door. He watched as Nick lowered the attic stairs, the springs squeaking loud enough to vibrate in Jeffrey's ears. He unfolded the steps, which made a hollow thunking noise against the floor. Nick took out a mini flashlight, holding it between his teeth as he used one hand to climb the stairs and held his service revolver in the other. Jeffrey held his breath as Nick poked his head into the attic space. After a quick look around, Nick shook his head, taking the flashlight out of his mouth.

"Empty," Nick said. He took the radio out of his pocket and asked, "Did anyone come out the back?"

Crackling came, then a woman's voice said, "That's a negative, sir. We've got the back and the sides."

Nick sighed heavily, disappointment coming off him like sweat. "Let Robbins stay back there. I need you and Peters inside to help us do another check."

"You think we missed anything?" Wallace asked.

"Hell, I don't know," Nick said. He picked up the stairs to fold them back up, but his hand slipped, and the stairs thunked to the ground again. He started to try again, but Jeffrey stopped him, pointing to the floor.

Nick shook his head, but then he seemed to play it back in his mind and realized what Jeffrey had. The stairs hadn't sounded right when they hit the floor. Nick finally nodded, and he leaned down, pointing to a line of dirt where the rug had been raised then dropped back down.

Jeffrey pulled the stairs up and tucked them back into the attic. He holstered his gun and picked up the carpet. There was an outline of a trap door underneath it, about three feet square with a small, hinged pull in the center. Jef-frey indicated for Wallace to stand on the back side of the door, straddling the sides, and open it. Nick and Jeffrey stood on the other side, their guns drawn.

Time moved slowly, and Jeffrey could hear the stupid song that had been playing since they'd come in switch to another equally drippy ballad as the trap door creaked open. He could feel sweat dripping down his face, and tasted blood in his mouth as he bit the inside of his lip. Then the door was open, and about three feet down he saw a very scared-looking Lacey Patterson lying curled up on the ground under the house. She was filthy, and her hair had been cut close to her scalp. There was a bruise on her forehead, and her eyes were barely open. She had either been drugged or beaten or both.

"Holy Jesus," Wallace muttered.

Jeffrey got down on his stomach so that he could see her better, asking, "Lacey?"

The child did not respond, though at this distance, he could see there was something white at the corners of her mouth.

"Lacey?" he tried again, putting his gun beside him on the floor so he could reach in and touch her forehead. She felt clammy and there was something gritty on her skin.

Jeffrey told Wallace, "Hold my feet," as he reached into the hole. He managed to hook his hands under her arms and get a good grip on her. Wallace kept him from sliding in as Jeffrey started to pull Lacey out. She was small, but her body was deadweight. He asked Nick for help, and between the three of them they managed to get her out of the hole.

"You're okay," Nick said, setting her down on the floor inside the bedroom.

Jeffrey sat back on his heels, wiping the dust from his forehead. The crawl space was filthy, red Georgia clay like powder from the heat.

Suddenly, there was a scratching noise from underneath the house as if someone was moving. Without thinking, Jeffrey dove into the hole, catching himself with his hands so he wouldn't fall on his face. It was dark under the house, low-hanging pipes giving it the appearance of a maze. Jeffrey blinked several times, trying to acclimate himself, when a flash of light came from the far end of the house.

"Nick!" he yelled, taking off, using his elbows and feet to propel himself through the small space. From above, he heard footsteps running through the house, and prayed Nick's man in the back would act quickly.

Up ahead, he saw a pair of feet slipping through a narrow vent opening. Jeffrey followed as fast as he could, banging his head on a gas line. He kept going toward the light, turning at the last minute and using his feet to kick at the hole. The mortar was weak in the old house, and bricks flew out from the force. Jeffrey turned back around, pushing himself through the opening, feeling intense pain as his pants tore on the jagged brick.

"Stop!" Robbins screamed. He was just a kid, his feet out wide, his gun in front of him, pointing at the figure running toward him.

Jeffrey knew what was going to happen and it did. The runner smacked right into Robbins, who dropped his gun. Jeffrey stood, unable to move as he recognized the runner.

"Dottie!" Jeffrey yelled.

Dottie stood, their eyes locking. She raised her hands like she meant to surrender, then took off running toward the backyard. Jeffrey knelt, pulling out his ankle gun in one swift movement as he lined up to take the shot. He stopped as Dottie jumped the fence and ran into the neighbor's backyard, which was full of kids playing on a swing set.

Jeffrey took off after her, pumping his arms as he ran. He hurdled the fence without breaking stride, running around kids like an obstacle course. He saw Dottie run into the house, slamming the door behind her. Jeffrey took the steps two at a time, busting the door open with his shoulder, breaking into the hallway and nearly smacking into a line of kids. The first one barely came up to Jeffrey's waist, and he sidestepped to miss the boy, slamming full force into the wall. His arm felt like it was on fire, and Jeffrey dropped his gun.

"Sir?" a young woman asked. She was probably around twenty, and her dark brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked terrified.

Jeffrey sat up, pressing his fingers into his arm to see if he had broken anything. He realized he was panting from running. There were at least ten kids around, all of them looking at Jeffrey with the same fear in their eyes as the young woman had. His heart stopped as he realized he was in a day-care center. All of these kids, so close to Dottie; he could not fathom the implications.

"Sir?" the woman repeated, pulling some of the kids close to her.

Jeffrey pulled his badge out of his back pocket, showing it to her. He tried to catch his breath so he could speak. "Where…?" he began. "The woman…?"

"Wendy?" the girl asked. "Wendy James?"

Jeffrey shook his head, thinking she did not understand.

"She just left," the girl told him. "She ran through the house and-"

Jeffrey jumped up, scattering the kids as he retrieved his gun. He ran out the open front door, into the yard and to the street. He could see a car ahead, taking a right to merge onto the busy interstate. It could have been white or tan or gray. It could have been a four door or a coupe or a hatchback. He did not know what kind of car it was. All he knew was that it was gone.

Chapter Twenty

Jeffrey walked around to the dock behind Sara's house. The moon was high above the trees, and a breeze was coming in off the lake. Jeffrey stood in the grass, watching Sara, feeling some of the stress start to drain out of him. She sat in one of the two deck chairs on the dock, her legs crossed at the ankle in front of her. In the moonlight, Jeffrey could see she was staring out at the rocks in the water. The greyhounds were with her and she rested her hand on Bob's head. She was wearing a pair of shorts and one of his old shirts. Jeffrey stared at her, thinking that she looked even better now than she did the night before.

She turned in her chair when she heard his footsteps on the dock. Billy and Bob kept their heads down, staring out at the water.

"Don't let them scare you," Sara teased.

"They're so ferocious," Jeffrey said. He went on one knee to pet Bob on the head. The dog rolled over, kicking his left leg into the air as Jeffrey scratched his belly.

Sara put her hand on Jeffrey's shoulder. "How's Lacey?"

He sighed. "Better. The sleeping pills are wearing off, but she's still groggy."

"Did they find anything?"

"There was no evidence of recent abuse," Jeffrey said.

"Just recent?"

He nodded. "There were signs that something happened before."

Sara seemed to sense he did not want to give specifics right now. She asked, "What did her father say?"

Jeffrey kept scratching Bob's belly, enjoying the simple pleasure. "He said he's glad to have her back."

"Does he have a problem with me talking to her tomorrow?"

"Not last I checked," Jeffrey said. "He still thinks it was all Dottie."

She stroked his hair back behind his ear. "Have they identified the kids yet?"

"They're running the fingerprints now. Who knows what will come up? One of them sounded Canadian. This boy…" He let his voice trail off, not sure he could tell Sara what they found in that house. It was like a cancer, rotting his brain every time he thought about it.

"What about the day care behind the house?"

"She had just started working there," Jeffrey said. "Maybe a week or so. All the kids are being checked out, but they're thinking she didn't have time."

Sara asked the question that had kept him up at night, "Do you think you'll ever find Dottie?"

"We're hoping she doesn't know we picked up on Jenny's social security number," he said, giving Billy equal time behind the ears and on his belly. "She's picked up mail there before, according to one of the workers. She's been renting the box about a year now. Mail from two other boxes has been forwarded there."

Sara pressed her lips together. "Sounds like she knows what she's doing."

"We're coordinating with the credit card company. They're mailing it out tomorrow. It should be in the box in a couple of days." He shrugged. "From there, we just sit and wait. She shouldn't take long to get it. I'm sure she needs the money to set up shop, wherever she is."

"You think that's what she's doing?"

He gave her a sad smile. "The guy at the post office says there's another card from a different company in the box right now."

"What's with all the cooperation?" Sara asked. She knew better than anyone that people were reluctant to assist the police these days. "Didn't they ask for a subpoena?"

"No," Jeffrey told her. "It's amazing how helpful people are when you tell them that children are involved."

"So," Sara began. "What next?"

"We're going to have to coordinate with the school, find out how many kids were involved in this thing."

"I want to check every file at the clinic."

"Will Molly help you?"

Sara nodded. "I already talked with her. We need to be careful about this. The hard part is going to be dealing with the hysterics whose kids never had contact with Dave Fine or Dottie or Grace."

"You think people will do that?"

"Yes," Sara answered. "You can't blame them, but we're going to have to find a way to screen out the real cases from the bogus ones. We're lucky in a way that this was happening to older kids who can talk about what happened."

"They didn't look that old in the pictures."

"The FBI will have someone assign ages to the kids. They'll use the Tanner scale. There are certain markers that tell you how old a kid is."

"I hate that there's even such a thing."

"Do you want me to go to the school with you?"

Jeffrey sighed, thinking about how hard the next few days were going to be. Of course, it wasn't her job to talk to Lacey Patterson, either. He said, "I know you don't have to, Sara, but do you mind?"

"No," she told him. "Of course not."

"What I want to know is why do the kids protect these people?" Jeffrey asked, because that was the one thing that he could not understand. "Why didn't Lacey or Jenny talk to one of their teachers, or go to you?"

"It's hard for them," Sara explained. "Their parents are all they have, all they know. It's not like they can move out and get jobs. A lot of times parents convince them that it's normal, or that they don't have an alternative."

"Like Stockholm syndrome," he said. "Where the victim falls in love with the abductor."

"That's a good analogy," Sara told him. "Their parents set up this pattern where they abuse them, then buy them ice cream. Or they guilt them into doing what they want, or trick them. Kids don't know that it's not supposed to be that way." Sara sighed. "And the fact is, the kids love their parents. They want to please them. They don't want to get their parents in trouble. They want the behavior to stop, but they don't want to lose their mother and father." She paused. "There's a real dependency there. The parents cause the pain, but they're also the ones who take it away."

She continued, "I've also been thinking about the baby."

He didn't look at her, but said, "Yeah?"

"Grace's baby was a girl. Maybe Jenny thought she was protecting the baby. Maybe that's why she helped Grace get rid of the baby."

He thought it over, thinking that Jenny was so afraid of Grace she would've done anything to avoid her wrath. Jeffrey finally said, "It's possible."

"I really think that's why she did it," Sara said with conviction. "I think Grace made her help kill the baby and Jenny was so upset all she could think to do was kill Mark, the father." She sounded so sure of herself that Jeffrey looked up at her. He could see how this was eating her up inside as much as it was him.

Jeffrey stood and stretched his arms up to the sky. He did not want to think about this anymore. He did not want to know that there were other kids like Jenny and Mark out there, being abused by their parents. He did not want to think about Dottie Weaver holding on to Lacey Patterson so she could exploit the child. Something had to give. Jeffrey did not think he could go on knowing that Dottie Weaver was out there doing whatever she wanted to children. He did not want to think about her preying on another small town somewhere.

He said, "It's almost cool out here."

"Isn't the breeze nice? I'd forgotten what it was like."

"It doesn't bother you to be out here in the dark?"

"Why would it?" she asked.

He looked at her. "Sometimes I think you're the strongest person I know."

She smiled, indicating that he should sit beside her.

He sat in the chair with a groan. Jeffrey had not realized until that moment just how tired he was. He leaned his head back, looking up at the night sky. Clouds obscured the stars, and it looked like August was releasing its stranglehold on the thermometer. Fall would come soon, and the leaves would drop from the trees and the air would turn colder and Jenny Weaver would still be dead.

Jeffrey asked, "Did you release the body?"

"Yes," she answered.

"What about the baby?"

"I talked to Brock. He's donating the service. There's a plot in the Roanoke Cemetery."

"I'll pay for it."

"I already took care of it," she said. "Will you go to the service with me?"

"Yeah," he answered, feeling it was the least he could do.

"Paul Jennings said to tell you to remember what he said."

Jeffrey was silent.

"What did he say?"

"That I shouldn't blame myself for what happened," he told her. "That I shouldn't make myself live with that guilt."

She reached over and squeezed his arm. "He's right."

"He said I should blame Dottie."

"Maybe you should."

"Dave Fine blames Dottie, too."

"It's not the same thing," she told him, sitting up in her chair. "Jeffrey, look at me…" She waited until he did. "You did what you had to do."

"I stopped Jenny from killing Mark so that he could turn around and hang himself," Jeffrey told her. "He still hasn't regained consciousness. He might never."

"And that's your fault?" she asked him. "I never knew you were so powerful, Jeffrey." She listed things out: "You made Jenny Weaver point a gun at Mark, you made Mark hang himself. Did you bring Dottie here, too? Did you make her abduct Lacey? Did you make Dottie work with Grace Patterson at that hospital? Did you make her do those things she did to children?"

"I'm not saying that."

"But, you are," she insisted. "If you want to blame somebody, blame me."

He shook his head, saying, "No."

"I saw all of them," Sara pointed out. "I saw Mark and Lacey practically from the time they were born. Jenny was a patient of mine. Is it my fault?"

"Of course it's not."

"Then how is it yours?"

Jeffery leaned his head on his hand, not wanting Sara to see how upset he was. "You didn't pull the trigger," he said. "You didn't kill her."

Sara got out of her chair and knelt in front of him. She took his hands in hers and said, "You know how I told you I worry about you when I don't know where you are and the phone rings?"

He nodded.

"I worry because I know you," she said, squeezing his hands for emphasis. "I know what kind of cop you are, and what kind of man you are."

"What kind of man am I?" he asked,

Her voice took on a softer tone. "The kind of man who wouldn't hesitate to be the one to kick in that door instead of Lena. The kind of man who risks his life every day to make sure that other people are safe. I love that about you," she insisted. "I love that you're strong, and that you think things through, and that you don't just react." Sara put her hand to his cheek. "I love that you're gentle, and that you worry about Lena, and that you feel responsible for everything that happens in town."

He started to speak, but she pressed her finger to his lips so that he would not interrupt her. "I love you because you know how to comfort me and how to drive me crazy, and how to make my dad want to beat you to a pulp." She low-ered her voice. "I love how you touch me, and how safe I feel when I'm with you." She kissed his hands. "You're a good man, Jeffrey," she told him. "Listen to Paul Jennings. Listen to me. You did the right thing." She held his hands to her lips and kissed his fingers.

She said, "It's okay to question yourself, Jeffrey. You did that, and now you have to move on."

He looked out at the rocks jutting from the lake, and wondered if there would ever be a day in his life when he did not think of Jenny Weaver, and the role he had played in her death.

Sara told him, "You're a good man, Jeffrey."

He did not believe her. Maybe if he still didn't feel pain in his knee from jumping Dave Fine, or remember how good it felt to kick Arthur Prynne in the gut, it would be easier. Maybe if he didn't still see that set of frightened eyes from the back of the closet in Macon.

"Jeffrey," Sara repeated. "You're a good man."

"I know," he lied.

"Know it in here," she told him, pressing her fingers to his chest.

Jeffrey brushed Sara's hair back behind her ear, and all he could think to say was, "You're so beautiful."

Sara rolled her eyes at the compliment. "Is that all you've got to say?"

He offered, "Why don't we go inside, and I'll answer you in greater detail?"

Sara leaned back on her hands, a smile playing at her lips. "Why do we have to go inside?"