Eddie Linton had purchased acreage around the lake when he first started making money from his plumbing business. He also owned six houses near the college that he rented out to students, as well as an apartment complex over in Madison that he was always threatening to sell. When Sara moved back to Grant from Atlanta, she had refused to live in her parents’ house. Something about moving back home, living in her old room, smacked of defeat to Sara, and at the time she was feeling beaten down enough without the constant reminder that she did not even have a space of her own.
She had rented one of her father’s houses her first year back, then started working weekends at the hospital in Augusta in order to save up a down payment for her own place. She had fallen in love with her house the first time the realtor showed her through. Built in a shotgun style, the house’s front door lined up directly with the back door. Off to the sides of the long hallway were two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small den on the right, with the living room, dining room, another bathroom and kitchen on the left. Of course, she would have bought the house if it had been a shack, because the view to the lake was phenomenal from the deck off the back. Her bedroom took full advantage of this, a large picture window flanked by three windows that opened out on either side. On days like today, she could see clear across, nearly to the university. Some days, when the weather was right, Sara took her boat into the school dock and walked to work.
Sara opened the window in her bedroom so she could hear Jeb’s boat when he got to the dock. Last night had seen another soft rain, and a cool breeze was coming off the lake. She studied her appearance in the mirror on the back of the door. She had chosen a wraparound skirt with a small floral print and a tight black Lycra shirt that fell just below her navel. Already, she had put her hair up, then let it back down. She was in the process of pinning it back up when she heard a boat at the dock. She slipped on her sandals and grabbed two glasses and a bottle of wine before walking out the back door.
“Ahoy,” Jeb said, tossing her a rope. He tucked his hands into his orange life vest, affecting what Sara supposed he thought was a jaunty sailor look.
“Ahoy yourself,” Sara answered, kneeling by the bollard. She put the wine and glasses down on the dock as she tied off the line. “Still haven’t learned to swim, have you?”
“Both my parents were terrified of the water,” he explained. “They never got around to it. And it’s not like I grew up near water.”
“Good point,” she said. Having grown up on a lake, swimming came second nature to Sara. She could not imagine not knowing how. “You should learn,” she said. “Especially since you’re boating.”
“Don’t need to know how,” Jeb said, patting the boat as he would a dog. “I can walk on water with this baby.”
She stood up, admiring the boat. “Nice.”
“Real babe magnet,” he joked, unhooking the vest. She knew he was teasing, but the boat, painted a deep metallic black, was sleek and sexy, with a dangerous look about it. Unlike Jeb McGuire in his bulky orange life jacket.
Jeb said, “I’ll tell you what, Sara, if you ever looked at me the way you’re looking at my boat right now, I’d have to marry you.”
She laughed at herself, saying, “It’s a very pretty boat.”
He pulled out a picnic basket and said, “I’d offer to take you for a ride, but it’s a bit nippy on the water.”
“We can sit here,” she said, indicating the chairs and table on the edge of the dock. “Do I need to get silverware or anything?”
Jeb smiled. “I know you better than that, Sara Linton.” He opened the picnic basket and took out silverware and napkins. He had also had the foresight to bring plates and glasses. Sara tried not to lick her lips when he pulled out fried chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, corn, and biscuits.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” she asked.
Jeb stopped, his hand on a tub of gravy. “Is it working?”
The dogs barked, and all Sara could think was, Thank God for small favors. She turned back to the house, saying, “They never bark. I’ll just go check.”
“You want me to come, too?”
Sara was about to tell him no but changed her mind. She had not been making that part up about the dogs. Billy and Bob had barked exactly twice since she had rescued them from the racing track in Ebro; once when Sara had accidentally stepped on Bob’s tail, and once when a bird had flown down the chimney into the living room.
She felt Jeb’s hand at her back as they walked up the yard toward the house. The sun was just dipping down over the roofline, and she shielded her eyes with her hand, recognizing Brad Stephens standing at the edge of the driveway.
“Hey, Brad,” Jeb said.
The patrolman gave a curt nod to Jeb, but his eyes were on Sara.
“Brad?” she asked.
“Ma’am.” Brad took off his hat. “The chief’s been shot.”
Sara had never really pushed the Z3 Roadster. Even when she drove it back from Atlanta, the speedometer had stayed at a steady seventy-five the entire way. She was doing ninety as she drove the back route to the Grant Medical Center. The ten-minute drive seemed to take hours, and by the time Sara made the turn into the hospital, her palms were sweating on the wheel.
She pulled into a handicap space at the side of the building so she would not block the ambulance doors. Sara was running by the time she reached the emergency room.
“What happened?” she asked Lena Adams, who was standing in front of the admitting desk. Lena opened her mouth to answer, but Sara ran past her into the hallway. She checked each room as she went by, finally finding Jeffrey in the third exam room.
Ellen Bray did not seem surprised to see Sara in the room. The nurse was putting a blood pressure cuff around his arm when Sara walked in.
Sara put her hand on Jeffrey’s forehead. His eyes opened slightly, but he did not seem to register her presence.
“What happened?” she asked.
Ellen handed Sara the chart, saying, “Buckshot to his leg. Nothing serious or they would’ve taken him to Augusta.”
Sara glanced down at the chart. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. She couldn’t even make out the columns.
“Sara?” Ellen said, her voice filled with compassion. She had worked in the Augusta emergency room most of her career. She was in semiretirement now, supplementing her pension by working nights at the Grant Medical Center. Sara had worked with her years ago, and the two women had a solid professional relationship built on mutual respect.
Ellen said, “He’s fine, really. The Demerol should knock him out soon. Most of his pain is coming from Hare digging around in his leg.”
“Hare?” Sara asked, feeling a little relief for the first time in the last twenty minutes. Her cousin Hareton was a general practitioner who sometimes filled in at the hospital. “Is he here?”
Ellen nodded, pumping the cuff’s bladder. She held up her finger for silence.
Jeffrey stirred, then slowly opened his eyes. When he recognized Sara, a slight smile crept across his lips.
Ellen released the blood pressure cuff, saying, “One-forty-five over ninety-two.”
Sara frowned, looking back at Jeffrey’s chart. The words finally started to make sense.
“I’ll go fetch Dr. Earnshaw,” Ellen said.
“Thanks,” Sara said, flipping the chart open. “When did you start on Coreg?” she asked. “How long have you had high blood pressure?”
Jeffrey smiled slyly. “Since you walked into the room.”
Sara skimmed the chart. “Fifty milligrams a day. You just switched from captopril? Why did you stop?” She got the answer in the chart. “ ‘Nonproductive cough prompted change,’ ” she read aloud.
Hare walked into the room, saying, “That’s common with ACE inhibitors.”
Sara ignored her cousin as he put his arm around her shoulders.
She asked Jeffrey, “Who are you seeing for this?”
“Lindley,” Jeffrey answered.
“Did you tell him about your father?” Sara snapped the chart closed. “I can’t believe he didn’t give you an inhaler. What’s your cholesterol like?”
“Sara.” Hare snatched the chart from her hands. “Shut up.”
Jeffrey laughed. “Thank you.”
Sara crossed her arms, anger welling up. She had been so worried on the drive over, expecting the worst, and now that she was here, Jeffrey was fine. She was inordinately relieved that he was okay, but for some reason she was feeling tricked by her emotions.
“Lookit,” Hare said, popping an X ray into the light box mounted on the wall. He gasped audibly, saying, “Oh my God, that’s the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Sara cut him with a look, turning the X ray right side up.
“Oh, thank God.” Hare sighed dramatically. When he saw she wasn’t enjoying his sideshow, he frowned. The thing that made Sara both love and hate her cousin was he seldom took things very seriously.
Hare said, “Missed his artery, missed his bone. Cut right through here on the inside.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “Nothing bad at all.”
Sara ignored the evaluation, leaning closer to double-check Hare’s findings. Aside from the fact that her relationship with her cousin had always been riddled with fierce competition, she wanted to make sure for herself that nothing had been missed.
“Let’s turn you over on your left side,” Hare suggested to Jeffrey, waiting for Sara to help. Sara kept Jeffrey’s injured right leg stable as they turned him, offering, “This should help bring your blood pressure down a little. Are you due for your medication tonight?”
Jeffrey supplied, “I’m late on a few doses.”
“Late?” Sara felt her own blood pressure rise. “Are you an idiot?”
“I ran out,” Jeffrey mumbled.
“Ran out? You’re within walking distance of the pharmacy.” She leveled a deep frown at Jeffrey. “What were you thinking?”
“Sara?” Jeffrey interrupted. “Did you come all the way over here to yell at me?”
She did not have an answer.
Hare suggested, “Maybe she can give you a second opinion on whether or not you should go home tonight?”
“Ah.” Jeffrey’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “Well, since you’re giving a second opinion, Dr. Linton, I’ve been experiencing some tenderness in my groin. Do you mind taking a look?”
Sara offered a tight smile. “I could do a rectal exam.”
“It’s about time you got your turn.”
“Je-e-sus,” Hare groaned. “I’m gonna leave you two lovebirds alone.”
“Thanks, Hare,” Jeffrey called. Hare tossed a wave over his shoulder as he left the room.
“So,” Sara began, crossing her arms.
Jeffrey raised an eyebrow. “So?”
“What happened? Did her husband come home?”
Jeffrey laughed, but there was a strained look in his eyes. “Close the door.”
Sara did as she was told. “What happened?” she repeated.
Jeffrey put his hand to his eyes. “I don’t know. It was so fast.”
Sara took a step closer, taking his hand despite her better judgment.
“Will Harris’s house was vandalized today.”
“Will from the diner?” Sara asked. “For God’s sake, why?”
He shrugged. “I guess some people got it into their heads that he was involved with what happened to Sibyl Adams.”
“He wasn’t even there when it happened,” Sara answered, not understanding. “Why would anyone think that?”
“I don’t know, Sara.” He sighed, dropping his hand. “I knew something bad would happen. Too many people are jumping to conclusions. Too many people are pushing this thing out of hand.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know,” he managed. “I was staying at Will’s house to make sure he was safe. We were watching a movie when I heard something outside.” He shook his head, as if he still could not believe what had happened. “I got up off the couch to see what was going on, and one of the side windows just exploded like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Next thing I know, I’m on the floor, my leg’s on fire. Thank God Will was sitting in his chair or he would’ve been hit, too.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, but she could tell from the set of his jaw that he had a good guess.
She was about to question him further when he reached his hand out, resting it on her hip. “You look beautiful.”
Sara felt a small jolt of electricity as his thumb slipped under her shirt, stroking her side. His fingers slipped under the back of her shirt. They were warm against her skin.
“I had a date,” she said, feeling a rush of guilt for leaving Jeb at her house. He had been very understanding, as usual, but she still felt bad about abandoning him.
Jeffrey watched her through half-closed eyes. He either did not believe her about the date or he would not accept that it could have been anything serious. “I love it when your hair is down,” he said. “Did you know that?”
“Yeah,” she said, putting her hand over his, stopping him, breaking the spell. “Why didn’t you tell me you have high blood pressure?”
Jeffrey let his arm drop. “I didn’t want to give you one more fault to add to your list.” His smile was a little forced and incongruous with the glassy look in his eyes. Like Sara, he seldom took anything stronger than aspirin, and the Demerol seemed to be working fast.
“Give me your hand,” Jeffrey said. She shook her head, but he persisted, holding his hand out to her. “Hold my hand.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you could’ve seen me at the morgue tonight instead of the hospital.”
Sara bit her lip, fighting back the tears that wanted to come. “You’re okay now,” she said, putting her hand to his cheek. “Go to sleep.”
He closed his eyes. She could tell that he was fighting to stay awake for her benefit.
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” he said, then fell asleep.
Sara stared at him, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath. She reached out, smoothing his hair back off his forehead, leaving her hand there for a few seconds before putting her palm to his cheek. His beard was coming in, a speckled black against his face and neck. She brushed her fingers lightly along the stubble, smiling at the memories that came. Sleeping, he reminded her of the Jeffrey she had fallen in love with: the man who listened to her talk about her day, the man who opened doors for her and killed spiders and changed the batteries in the smoke detectors. Sara finally took his hand and kissed it before leaving the room.
She took her time walking back up the hallway toward the nurses’ station, feeling an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. The clock on the wall showed she had been here an hour, and Sara realized with a start that she was back on hospital time, where eight hours went by like eight seconds.
“He asleep?” Ellen asked.
Sara leaned her elbows on the counter of the admitting desk. “Yeah,” she answered. “He’ll be okay.”
Ellen smiled. “Sure he will.”
“There you are,” Hare said, rubbing Sara’s shoulders. “How’s it feel to be in a real hospital with the big doctors?”
Sara exchanged a look with Ellen. “You’ll have to excuse my cousin, Ellen. What he lacks in hair and height he makes up for by being an asshole.”
“Ow.” Hare winced, pressing his thumbs into Sara’s shoulders. “Want to fill in for me while I run out for a bite to eat?”
“What’ve we got?” Sara asked, thinking that going home right now probably was not the best thing for her.
Ellen gave a small smile. “We’ve got a frequent flier getting fluorescent light therapy in two.”
Sara laughed out loud. In the obscure language of hospital lingo, Ellen had just informed her that the patient in room two was a hypochondriac who had been left to stare at the overhead lights until he felt better.
“Microdeckia,” Hare concluded. The patient was not playing with a full deck.
“What else?”
“Some kid from the college sleeping off a long one,” Ellen said.
Sara turned to Hare. “I don’t know if I can take these complicated cases.”
He chucked her under her chin. “There’s a girl.”
“I guess I should go move my car,” Sara said, remembering she had parked in the handicap spot. As every cop in town knew the car she drove, Sara doubted she was likely to get a ticket. Still, she wanted to walk outside for some fresh air, take some time to collect her thoughts, before she went back in to check on Jeffrey.
“How is he?” Lena asked as soon as Sara walked into the waiting room. Sara looked around, surprised to see the room was empty but for Lena.
“We kept it off the radio,” Lena provided. “This kind of thing…” She let her voice trail off.
“This kind of thing what?” Sara prompted. “Am I missing something here, Lena?”
Lena looked away nervously.
“You know who did it, huh?” Sara asked.
Lena shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
“That’s where Frank is? Taking care of business?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He dropped me off here.”
“Pretty easy not to know what’s going on when you don’t bother to ask,” Sara snapped. “I guess the fact that Jeffrey could’ve died tonight is lost on you.”
“I know that.”
“Yeah?” Sara demanded. “Who was watching his back, Lena?”
Lena started to answer, but she turned away before saying anything.
Sara slammed the emergency room doors open with her hands, feeling anger well up. She knew exactly what was going on here. Frank knew who was responsible for shooting Jeffrey, but he was keeping his mouth closed out of some obscure sense of loyalty, probably to Matt Hogan. What was going through Lena’s mind, Sara could not begin to guess. After everything Jeffrey had done for her, to have Lena turn her back on him like this was inexcusable.
Sara took a deep breath, trying to calm herself as she walked around to the side of the hospital. Jeffrey could have been killed. The glass could have sliced through his femoral artery and he could have bled to death. For that matter, the original shot could have gone into his chest instead of through the window. Sara wondered what Frank and Lena would be doing now if Jeffrey had died. Probably drawing straws to see who got his desk.
“Oh, God.” Sara stopped short at the sight of her car. Lying on the hood of Sara’s car was a nude young woman with her arms spread out. She was on her back, her feet crossed at the ankle in an almost casual pose. Sara’s first instinct was to look up to see if the woman had jumped from one of the windows. There were no windows on this side of the two-story building, though, and the hood of the car showed no signs of impact.
Sara took three quick steps to the car, checking the woman’s pulse. A fast, hard beat came under Sara’s fingers, and she muttered a small prayer before running back into the hospital.
“Lena!”
Lena jumped up, fists clenched, as if she expected Sara to come over and start a fight.
“Get a stretcher,” Sara ordered. When Lena did not move, Sara yelled, “Now!”
Sara jogged back to the woman, half expecting her to be gone. Everything was moving in slow time for Sara, even the wind in her hair.
“Ma’am?” Sara called to the woman, raising her voice loud enough to be heard across town. The woman did not respond. “Ma’am?” Sara tried again. Still nothing.
Sara assessed the body, seeing no immediate signs of trauma. The skin was pink and ruddy, very hot to the touch despite the night cold. With her arms out and feet crossed as they were, the woman could’ve been sleeping. In the bright light, Sara could make out crusted blood around the palms of the woman’s hands. Sara lifted one of the hands to examine it, and the arm moved awkwardly to the side. There was an obvious dislocation at the shoulder.
Sara looked back at the woman’s face and was startled to notice that a silver piece of duct tape had been wrapped around her mouth. Sara couldn’t remember if the tape had been there before she had gone back into the hospital. Surely she would’ve noticed it before. Something like a taped mouth wasn’t easily overlooked, especially when the tape was at least two inches across by four inches long and dark silver. For just a brief second, Sara felt paralyzed, but Lena Adams’s voice brought her back to reality.
“It’s Julia Matthews,” Lena said, but her voice sounded far away to Sara.
“Sara?” Hare asked, walking quickly over to the car. His mouth dropped open at the sight of the nude woman.
“Okay, okay,” Sara mumbled, trying to get herself calm. She shot Hare a look of sheer panic, which he returned in kind. Hare was used to an occasional overdose or heart attack, nothing like this.
As if to remind them both of where they were, the woman’s body began to convulse.
“She’s going to be sick,” Sara said, picking at the edge of the tape. Without pausing, she ripped off the tape. In one swift motion, she rolled the woman onto her side and held her head down as she vomited in fits and starts. A sour smell came, almost like bad cider or beer, and Sara had to turn away to take a breath.
“It’s okay,” Sara whispered. She stroked the woman’s dirty brown hair back behind her ear, remembering that she had done the same thing for Sibyl just two days ago. The vomiting stopped abruptly, and Sara gently rolled her back over, keeping her head steady.
Hare’s tone was urgent. “She’s not breathing.”
Sara cleared the woman’s mouth with her finger, surprised to feel some resistance. After a few seconds of digging, she pulled out a folded driver’s license, which she handed to a surprised Lena Adams.
“Breathing’s back,” Hare said, relief flooding his voice.
Sara rubbed her fingers clean on her skirt, wishing she’d had on a pair of gloves before she had stuck her fingers into the woman’s mouth.
Ellen jogged to the car, her jaw set as she angled a long stretcher in front of her. Without words, she stepped to the woman’s feet, waiting for Sara’s signal.
Sara counted to three, then they both moved the woman onto the bed. Sara felt a sick taste in her mouth as they did this, and for a few seconds she saw herself on the bed instead of the woman. Sara’s mouth went dry and she felt a numbness overcome her.
“Ready,” Hare said, strapping the woman to the bed.
Sara trotted beside the gurney, holding on to the young woman’s hand. The time it took them to get back into the hospital was interminable. The bed seemed to be rolling through glue as they entered the first trauma room. The woman made small murmurs of pain with each jolt of the bed. Briefly, Sara latched on to the woman’s fear.
Twelve years had passed since Sara had practiced emergency medicine and she needed to concentrate on the tasks at hand. In her head, Sara went over what she’d learned her first day in the ER. As if to prompt Sara, the woman started wheezing, then gasping for air. The first priority was to establish an airway.
“Jesus,” Sara hissed as she opened the woman’s mouth. Under the bright lights of the exam room, Sara could see that her top front teeth had been knocked out, obviously within the last few days. Again, Sara felt herself freezing up. She tried to shake this off. Sara had to think of this woman as a patient or they would both be in trouble.
In seconds Sara had intubated the woman, careful with the tape so as not to do further damage to the skin around the mouth. Sara fought the urge to cringe as the ventilator kicked in. The sound almost sickened her.
“She’s got good sounds,” Hare reported, handing Sara a stethoscope.
“Sara?” Ellen said. “I can’t get a peripheral.”
“She’s dehydrated,” Sara reported as she tried to find a vein on the woman’s other arm. “We should drop a central anyway.” Sara held her hand out for the needle, but one was not immediately placed in her hand.
“I’ll get it from two,” Ellen said, then left the room.
Sara turned back to the young woman on the bed. There did not seem to be any bruises or cuts on her body other than the marks on her hands and feet. Her skin was warm to the touch, which could point to any number of things. Sara did not want to jump to conclusions, but already the similarities between Sibyl Adams and the woman in front of her were going through her mind. They were both petite women. They both had dark brown hair.
Sara checked the woman’s pupils. “Dilated,” she said, because the last time she’d done something like this, the rule had been to call out your findings. She exhaled slowly, noticing for the first time that Hare and Lena were in the room.
“What’s her name?” Sara asked.
“Julia Matthews,” Lena provided. “We were looking for her at the school. She’s been missing for a couple of days.”
Hare glanced at the monitor. “Pulse ox is falling.”
Sara checked the ventilator. “Fi02 is thirty percent. Bump it up a little.”
“What’s that smell?” Lena interrupted.
Sara sniffed the woman’s body. “Clorox?” she asked.
Lena caught another whiff. “Bleach,” she confirmed.
Hare nodded as well.
Sara examined the woman’s skin carefully. There were lines of superficial scrapes all along the body. Sara noticed for the first time that the woman’s pubic hair had been shaved off. From the lack of growth, Sara guessed she had been shaved in the last day or so.
Sara said, “She’s been scrubbed clean.”
She smelled the woman’s mouth but did not pick up the strong scent that usually comes from ingesting bleach. Sara had seen some rawness in the back of the throat when she’d tubed the woman, but nothing out of the ordinary. Obviously the woman had been given a drug similar to if not actually belladonna. Her skin was so hot to the touch that Sara could feel it through her gloves.
Ellen entered the room. Sara watched the nurse as she opened the central line kit on one of the trays. Ellen’s hands didn’t seem as steady as they usually did. This scared Sara more than anything else.
Sara held her breath as she jabbed the three-inch needle into the woman’s jugular. The needle, called an introducer, would act as a funnel for three separate IV ports. When they found out what kind of drug the woman had been given, Sara would use one of the extra ports to help counteract the effects.
Ellen stood back from the patient, waiting for Sara’s orders.
Sara rattled off the tests as she flushed the ports with heparin solution to keep them from clotting. “Blood gases, tox screen, LFT, CBC, chem twenty-seven. Go ahead and pull for a coag panel while you’re at it.” Sara paused. “Dip her urine stat. I want to know what’s going on before I do anything else. Something’s keeping her knocked out. I think I know what it is, but I need to be sure before we start treatment.”
“All right,” Ellen answered.
Sara checked for positive blood return, then flushed the lines again. “Normal saline, wide open.”
Ellen did as she was told, adjusting the IV.
“Do you have a portable X ray? I’ll need to make sure I did this right,” Sara said, indicating the internal jugular line. “Plus I need a chest, a flat of the abdomen, and a look at her shoulder.”
Ellen said, “I’ll get it from down the hall after I draw the blood work.”
“Also, check for GHB, roofies.” Sara spoke as she secured the dressing around the needle. “We’ll need to do a rape kit.”
“Rape?” Lena questioned, stepping forward.
“Yes,” Sara answered, her tone sharp. “Why else would someone do this to her?”
Lena’s mouth worked, but no answer came. She had obviously kept this case separate from her sister’s up until that point. Lena’s eyes locked on to the young woman, and she stood at the foot of the bed, her body ramrod straight. Sara was reminded of the night Lena had come to the morgue to see Sibyl Adams. The young detective’s mouth was set in that same angry line.
“She seems stable,” Ellen offered, more to herself than anyone else.
Sara watched as the nurse used a small syringe to draw blood from the radial artery. Sara rubbed her own wrist, knowing how painful the procedure could be. She leaned against the bed, her hands on Julia Matthews’s arm, trying to somehow convey that she was safe now.
Hare brought her back with a gentle “Sara?”
“Hm?” Sara was startled. They were all looking at her. She turned to Lena. “Can you help Ellen with the portable?” she asked, trying to use a firm voice.
“Yeah,” Lena returned, giving Sara an odd look.
Ellen filled the last syringe. “It’s down the hall,” she told Lena.
Sara heard them leave, but she kept her eyes on Julia Matthews. Sara’s vision tunneled, and for the second time she felt herself on the gurney, saw a doctor leaning over her, taking her pulse, checking her vitals.
“Sara?” Hare was looking at the woman’s hands, and Sara was reminded of the marks she had first seen in the parking lot.
Both palms were punctured through the center. Sara glanced down at the woman’s feet, noting that they, too, had been punctured in the same way. She bent to examine the wounds, which were clotting rapidly. Specks of rust added color to the dried black blood.
“The palm has been pierced through,” Sara offered. She looked under the woman’s fingernails, recognizing thin slivers of wood pressed under the nails. “Wood,” she reported, wondering why someone would take the time to scrub the victim down with bleach in order to remove physical traces, yet leave slivers of wood under the nails. It did not make sense. And then to leave her arranged on the car in such a way.
Sara worked all of this out in her head, and her stomach responded to the obvious conclusion with a slight pitch. She closed her eyes, picturing the woman as she had been when Sara first found her: legs crossed at the ankles, arms at ninety-degree angles from the body.
The woman had been crucified.
“Those are puncture wounds, right?” Hare said.
Sara nodded, not taking her eyes off the woman. Her body was well nourished and her skin had been taken care of. There were no needle marks to indicate prolonged drug use. Sara stopped in her tracks, realizing she’d assessed the woman as if she were at the morgue rather than the hospital. As if sensing this, the heart monitor went into failure, the shrill scream of the machine putting Sara on alert.
“No,” Sara hissed as she leaned over the woman, starting compressions. “Hare, bag her.”
He fumbled around in the drawers for the bag. Within seconds, he was squeezing air into the woman’s lungs. “She’s in V-tach,” he warned.
“Slow,” Sara said, wincing as she felt one of the patient’s ribs crack under her hands. She kept her eyes on Hare, willing him to cooperate. “One, two, squeeze. Quick and hard. Keep it calm.”
“Okay, okay,” Hare mumbled, concentrating on squeezing the bag.
Despite the great press given CPR, it was merely a stopgap measure. CPR was the act of physically forcing the heart to circulate blood into the brain, and very rarely could this be done manually as efficiently as a healthy heart performing the task on its own. If Sara stopped, so would the heart. It was a time-buying procedure until something else could be done.
Lena, obviously alerted by the shrieking monitor, ran back into the room. “What happened?”
“She crashed,” Sara said, feeling a slight sense of relief as she spotted Ellen in the hallway. “Amp of Epi,” she ordered.
Sara watched impatiently as Ellen popped open a box of Epi and put the syringe together.
“Jeesh.” Lena cringed as Sara administered the drug straight into the woman’s heart.
Hare’s voice rose a few octaves. “She’s in V-fib.”
With one hand Ellen took the paddles off the cart behind her, charging the defibrillator with the other.
“Two hundred,” Sara ordered. The woman’s body jumped into the air as Sara electrocuted her. Sara watched the monitor, frowning when there was no corresponding reaction. Sara shocked her two more times with the same response. “Lidocaine,” she ordered just as Ellen popped another box.
Sara administered the drug, keeping an eye on the monitor.
“Flat line,” Hare reported.
“Again.” Sara reached for the paddles. “Three hundred,” she ordered.
Again, she shocked the woman. Again, there was no response. Sara felt a cold sweat come over her. “Epi.”
The sound of the box popping open was like a needle in Sara’s ear. She took the syringe, pushing the Adrenalin directly into the woman’s heart one more time. They all waited.
“Flat line,” Hare reported.
“Let’s go to three-sixty.”
For the fifth time, a charge went through the woman’s body with no response.
“Goddamnit, goddamnit,” Sara muttered, resuming compressions. “Time?” she called.
Hare glanced at the clock. “Twelve minutes.”
It had seemed like two seconds to Sara.
Lena must have sensed from Hare’s tone of voice where he was going with this. She whispered under her breath, “Don’t let her die. Please, don’t let her die.”
“She’s in prolonged asystole, Sara,” Hare said. He was telling her that it was too late. It was time to stop, time to let go.
Sara narrowed her eyes at him. She turned to Ellen. “I’m going to crack her chest.”
Hare shook his head, saying, “Sara, we don’t have the capabilities here.”
Sara ignored him. She felt down the woman’s ribs, cringing as she made contact with the one she had broken. When Sara’s fingers reached the bottom of the diaphragm, she took a scalpel and sliced a six-inch opening into the upper abdomen. She slipped her hand into the incision, reaching under the rib cage and into the woman’s chest.
She kept her eyes closed, blocking out the hospital as she massaged the woman’s heart. The monitor showed false hope as Sara squeezed, manually circulating the woman’s blood. A tingling came to her fingers, and in her ears she could hear a slight piercing tone. Nothing else mattered as she waited for the heart to respond. It was like squeezing a small balloon filled with warm water. Only this balloon was life.
Sara stopped. She counted to five seconds, eight, then up to twelve, before being rewarded with spontaneous beeps from the heart monitor.
Hare asked, “Is that her or you?”
“Her,” Sara offered, letting her hand slip out. “Start a lidocaine drip.”
“Jesus Christ,” Lena muttered, hand to her own chest. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
Sara snapped off her gloves, not answering.
The room was quiet but for the beeps of the heart monitor and the in and out of the ventilator.
“So,” Sara said. “We’ll do a darkfield for syphilis and a gram stain for gonorrhea.” Sara felt her face flush over this. “I’m sure a condom was used, but make a note to follow up in a few days for pregnancy.” Sara was conscious of a waver in her voice that she hoped Ellen and Lena did not pick up. Hare was another matter. She could hear what he was thinking without even looking at him.
He seemed to sense her nervousness and tried to make light of it. “Good God, Sara. That’s the sloppiest incision I’ve ever seen.”
Sara licked her lips, willing her own heart to calm. “I was trying not to upstage you.”
“Prima donna,” Hare offered, wiping perspiration from his forehead with a pad of surgical gauze. “Jesus Christ.” He laughed uncomfortably.
“We don’t see much of this around here,” Ellen said as she packed surgical towels into the incision to control the bleeding until it was closed. “I can call Larry Headley over in Augusta. He lives about fifteen minutes from here.”
“I would appreciate that,” Sara said, taking another pair of gloves from the box on the wall.
“You okay?” Hare asked, his tone casual. His eyes showed his concern.
“Fine,” Sara answered, checking the IV. She told Lena, “I guess you can find Frank?”
Lena had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’ll go see.” She left the room, her head down.
Sara waited until she was gone, then asked Hare, “Can you take a look at her hands?”
Hare was silent as he examined the woman’s palms, feeling the bone structure. After a few minutes, he said, “This is interesting.”
Sara asked, “What’s that?”
“Missed all the bones,” Hare answered, rotating the wrist. When he got to the shoulder, he stopped. “Dislocated,” he said.
Sara crossed her arms, suddenly cold. “From trying to get away?”
Hare frowned. “Do you realize how much force it would take to dislocate your shoulder blade?” He shook his head, unable to accept it. “You’d pass out from the pain before you’d—”
“Do you realize how terrifying it is to be raped?” Sara’s gaze bored right into him.
Pain registered in his expression. “I’m sorry, honey. Are you okay?”
Tears stung the back of her eyes, and Sara had to fight to keep her voice even. “Check her hips, please. I want you to do a full report.”
He did as he was told, giving Sara a curt nod after the examination. “I’m thinking there’s some ligature damage in the hip, here. I need to do this when she’s awake; it’s fairly subjective.”
Sara asked, “Can you tell anything else?”
“All the bones in her hands and feet were missed. Her feet were speared between the second and third cuneiforms and the navicular. That’s very precise. Whoever did it knew what he was doing.” He paused, looking down at the floor to regain his composure. “I don’t see why someone would do this.”
“Look at this,” Sara said, pointing to the skin around the woman’s ankles. They both had angry black bruises around their circumference. “Obviously there was a secondary restraint to hold the feet down.” Sara picked up the woman’s hand, noticing a fresh scar at the wrist. The other had the same mark. Julia Matthews had attempted suicide at some point during the last month. The scar was a white line slashing vertically across her small wrist. A dark bruise put the old wound in stark relief.
Sara did not bring this to Hare’s attention. Instead, she offered, “It looks to me like a band was used, probably leather.”
“I’m not following.”
“The piercing was symbolic.”
“Of?”
“Crucifixion, I would imagine.” Sara put the woman’s hand back by her side.
Sara rubbed her arms, fighting the chill in the room. She walked over, opening drawers, looking for a sheet to cover the young woman. “If I had to guess, I would say that the hands and feet were nailed back from the body.”
“Crucifixion?” Hare dismissed this. “That’s not how Jesus was crucified. The feet would be together.”
Sara snapped, “Nobody wanted to rape Jesus, Hare. Of course her legs were spread apart.”
Hare’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed this. “Is this what you do at the morgue?”
She shrugged, looking for a sheet.
“Christ, you’ve got more balls than I do,” Hare said, breathing heavily.
Sara tucked the sheet around the young woman, trying to comfort her. “I don’t know about that,” she said.
Hare asked, “What about her mouth?”
“Her front teeth were knocked out, I imagine to facilitate fellatio.”
His voice rose in shock. “What?”
“It’s more common than you think,” Sara told him. “The Clorox removes trace evidence. I imagine he shaved her so we couldn’t do a comb for his pubic hair. Even during normal sex, hairs are torn out. He could have shaved her for the sexual thrill, though. A lot of attackers like to think of their victims as children. Shaving the pubic hair would fuel that fantasy.”
Hare shook his head, overcome with the nastiness of the crime. “What kind of animal would do this?”
Sara stroked back the woman’s hair. “A methodical one.”
“Do you think she knew him?”
“No,” Sara answered, never more sure of anything in her life. She walked over to the counter where Lena had left the evidence bag. “Why did he give us her driver’s license? He doesn’t care if we know who she is.”
Hare’s tone was incredulous. “How can you be so sure?”
“He left—” Sara tried to catch her breath. “He left her in front of the hospital where anybody could’ve seen him dump her.” She put her hand over her eyes for just a second, wishing that she could hide. She had to get out of this room. That much she was certain of.
Hare seemed to be trying to read her expression. His face, normally open and kind, took on a stern look. “She was raped in a hospital.”
“Outside a hospital.”
“Her mouth was taped shut.”
“I know that.”
“By someone who obviously has some kind of religious fixation.”
“Right.”
“Sara—”
She held up her hand for silence as Lena returned.
Lena said, “Frank’s on his way.”