Jeffrey slipped on a pair of underwear and limped toward the kitchen. His knee was still stiff from the buckshot, and his stomach had been upset since he walked into Julia Matthews’s room. He was worried about Lena. He was worried about Sara. He was worried about his town.
Brad Stephens had taken the DNA sample to Macon a few hours ago. It would take at least a week to get something back, perhaps another week to get time on the FBI DNA database to cross-check for known offenders. As with most police work, this was a waiting game. Meanwhile, there was no telling what the perpetrator was up to. For all Jeffrey knew, he could be stalking his next victim at this very moment. He could be raping his next victim at this very moment, doing things to her that only an animal would think to do.
Jeffrey opened the refrigerator, taking out the milk. On the way to get a glass, he flicked the overhead light switch, but nothing happened. He mumbled a curse toward himself as he took a glass out of the cabinet. He had disconnected the kitchen lights a couple of weeks ago when a new fixture he had ordered arrived in the mail. A call had come from the station just as he was stripping the wires, and the chandelier sat upended in its box, waiting for Jeffrey to find the time to hang it. At this rate, Jeffrey would be eating by the light from the refrigerator for the next few years.
He finished his milk and limped over to the sink to rinse the glass. He wanted to call Sara, to check on her, but knew better than that. She was blocking him out for her own reasons. He didn’t really have a leg to stand on since the divorce. Maybe she was with Jeb tonight. He had heard through Marla who had been talking to Marty Ringo that Sara and Jeb were seeing each other again. He vaguely remembered Sara saying something at the hospital the other night about a date, but his mind could not connect her words. Since the memory had come after Marla had deigned to mention the gossip to him, he could not rely on it.
Jeffrey groaned as he sat back down on the bar stool in front of the kitchen island. He had built the island months ago. He had actually built it twice, because he had not been pleased with the way it had looked the first time. Jeffrey was above all things a perfectionist, and he hated when things weren’t symmetrical. Since he lived in an old house, this meant that he was constantly having to adjust and readjust, because there wasn’t a wall in the house that was straight.
A slight breeze stirred the thick plastic strips lining the back wall of the kitchen. He was vacillating between French doors and a wall of windows, or extending the kitchen out about ten feet into the backyard. Some kind of breakfast nook would be nice, a place to sit in the mornings and look out at the birds in the backyard. What he really wanted was to put a large deck out there with a hot tub or maybe one of those fancy outdoor barbecues. Whatever he did, he wanted to keep the house open. Jeffrey liked the way the light came in during the day through the semitransparent strips. He liked being able to see into the backyard, especially at times like right now, when he saw someone walking back there.
Jeffrey stood, grabbing a bat out of the laundry room.
He slid through a crack in the plastic strips, tiptoeing across the lawn. The grass was wet from a slight mist in the night air, and Jeffrey shivered from the chill, hoping to God he did not get shot again, especially since he was dressed only in a pair of underwear. The thought occurred to him that whoever was lurking in the backyard might collapse from laughter rather than fear at seeing Jeffrey standing in the yard, naked but for his green boxers, holding a bat over his head.
He heard a familiar noise. It was a lapping, licking sound, the kind a dog made while grooming. He squinted in the moonlight, making out three figures by the side of the house. Two of them were short enough to be dogs. One of them was tall enough to only be Sara. She was looking into his bedroom window.
Jeffrey let the bat hang down as he tiptoed up behind her. He wasn’t worried about Billy or Bob, as the two greyhounds were the laziest animals he had ever seen. True to form, they barely moved as he sneaked up behind her.
“Sara?”
“Oh, Jesus.” Sara jumped, tripping over the nearest dog. Jeffrey reached forward, catching her before she fell on her backside.
Jeffrey laughed, giving Bob a pat on the head. “Peeping Tom?” he asked.
“You asshole,” Sara hissed, slapping her hands into his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“What?” Jeffrey asked innocently. “I’m not the one sneaking around your house.”
“Like you haven’t before.”
“That’s me,” Jeffrey pointed out. “Not you.” He leaned against the bat. Now that his adrenaline had stopped pumping, the dull ache had come back to his leg. “You want to explain why you’re looking in my window in the middle of the night?”
“I didn’t want to wake you up if you were asleep.”
“I was in the kitchen.”
“In the dark?” Sara crossed her arms, leveling him with a nasty look. “Alone?”
“Come on in,” Jeffrey offered, not waiting for her to respond. He kept his pace slow as he walked back toward the kitchen, glad when he heard Sara’s footsteps behind him. She was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans with an equally old white button-down shirt.
“You walk the dogs over here?”
“I borrowed Tessa’s car,” Sara said, scratching Bob on the head.
“Good thinking, bringing your attack dogs.”
“I’m glad you weren’t looking to kill me.”
“What makes you think I wasn’t?” Jeffrey asked, using the bat to hold the plastic aside so that she could get into the house.
Sara looked at the plastic, then at him. “I love what you’ve done to the place.”
“It needs a woman’s touch,” Jeffrey suggested.
“I’m sure there are plenty of volunteers.”
He suppressed a groan as he headed back into the kitchen. “Power’s out in here,” he offered, lighting a candle by the stove.
“Ha-ha,” Sara said, trying the light switch nearest her. She walked across the room, trying the other switch as Jeffrey lit another candle. “What’s the deal?”
“Old house.” He shrugged, not wanting to confess his laziness. “Brad took the sample to Macon.”
“A couple of weeks, huh?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Do you think he’s a cop?”
“Brad?”
“No, the perpetrator. Do you think he’s a cop? Maybe that’s why he left the handcuff key in…there.” He paused. “You know, as a clue.”
“Maybe he uses handcuffs to restrain them,” Sara said. “Maybe he’s into S&M. Maybe his mama used to cuff him to the bed when he was a little boy.”
He was puzzled by her flippant tone but knew better than to comment on it.
Out of the blue, Sara said, “I want a screwdriver.”
Jeffrey frowned at this, but he walked over to his toolbox and rummaged around. “Phillips?”
“No, a drink,” Sara answered. She opened the freezer door, taking out the vodka.
“I don’t think I’ve got orange juice,” he said as she opened the other door.
“This’ll do,” she said, holding out the cranberry juice. She rummaged in the cabinets for a glass, then poured what looked like a very stiff drink.
Jeffrey watched all this, concerned. Sara seldom drank, and when she did a glass of wine could turn her tipsy. He had never seen her drink anything stronger than a margarita their entire marriage.
Sara shuddered as she swallowed the drink. “How much was I supposed to put?” she asked.
“Probably a third of what you poured,” he answered, taking the drink from her. He took a small sip, nearly gagging from the taste. “Jesus Christ,” he managed around a cough. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“Me and Julia Matthews,” she tossed back. “Do you have anything sweet?”
Jeffrey opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she meant by that comment, but Sara was already rummaging through the cabinets.
He offered, “There’s some pudding in the fridge. Bottom shelf in the back.”
“Fat free?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Good,” Sara said, bending at the waist to find the pudding.
Jeffrey crossed his arms, watching her. He wanted to ask her what she was doing in his kitchen in the middle of the night. He wanted to ask her what had been going on lately, why she was acting so odd.
“Jeff?” Sara asked, rooting through the fridge.
“Hmm?”
“Are you looking at my ass?”
Jeffrey smiled. He hadn’t been, but he answered, “Yeah.”
Sara stood, holding the pudding cup in the air like a trophy. “Last one.”
“Yep.”
Sara pulled the top off the pudding as she scooted onto the counter. “This is getting to be a bad thing.”
“You think?”
“Well.” She shrugged, licking the pudding off the top. “College girls being raped, killing themselves. That’s not what we’re all about, is it?”
Again, Jeffrey was surprised by her cavalier attitude. This wasn’t like Sara, but lately he wasn’t sure exactly how she was.
“I guess not,” he said.
“You tell her parents?”
Jeffrey answered, “Frank picked them up at the airport.” He paused, then said, “Her father.” He stopped again. The sight of Jon Matthews’s anguished face was not something Jeffrey would soon forget.
“Father took it hard, huh?” Sara said. “Daddies don’t like to know their little girls have been messed with.”
“I guess not,” Jeffrey answered, wondering at her choice of words.
“You would guess right.”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “He took it really hard.”
Something flashed in Sara’s eyes, but she looked down before he could tell what was going on. She took a long drink from her glass, spilling some down the front of her shirt. She actually giggled.
Despite his better judgment, Jeffrey asked, “What’s wrong with you, Sara?”
She pointed at his waist. “When’d you start wearing those?” she asked.
Jeffrey looked down. Since the only thing he was wearing was his green boxers, he assumed that’s what she meant. He looked back at her, shrugging. “A while ago.”
“Less than two years,” she noted, licking more pudding.
“Yeah,” he offered, walking over to her, arms out from his sides, showing off his underwear. “You like ’em?”
She clapped her hands.
“What’re you doing here, Sara?”
She stared at him for a few seconds, then put the pudding down beside her. She leaned back, her heels lightly hitting the bottom cabinets. “I was thinking the other day about that time I was on the dock. Do you remember?”
He shook his head, because they had spent practically every free second of every summer on the dock.
“I had just gone for a swim, and I was sitting on the dock, brushing my hair. And you came up and you took the brush and you started to brush it for me.”
He nodded, remembering that was the very thing he had been thinking about when he woke up in the hospital this morning. “I remember.”
“You brushed my hair for at least an hour. Do you remember that?”
He smiled.
“You just brushed my hair, and then we got ready for dinner. Remember?”
He nodded again.
“What did I do wrong?” she asked, and the look in her eyes almost killed him. “Was it sex?”
He shook his head. Sex with Sara had been the most fulfilling experience of his adult life. “Of course not,” he said.
“Did you want me to cook you dinner? Or be there more when you got home?”
He tried to laugh. “You did cook me dinner, remember? I was sick for three days.”
“I’m being serious, Jeff. I want to know what I did wrong.”
“It wasn’t you,” he answered, knowing the excuse was trite even as he finished the sentence. “It was me.”
Sara sighed heavily. She reached for the glass, finishing the drink in one gulp.
“I was stupid,” he continued, knowing he should just shut up. “I was scared because I loved you so much.” He paused, wanting to say this the right way. “I didn’t think you needed me as much as I needed you.”
She leveled him with a gaze. “Do you still want me to need you?”
He was surprised to feel her hand on his chest, her fingers lightly stroking his hair. He closed his eyes as she traced her fingers up to his lips.
She said, “Right now, I really need you.”
He opened his eyes. For just a split second, he thought she was joking. “What did you say?”
“You don’t want it now that you have it?” Sara asked, still touching his lips.
He licked the tip of her finger with his tongue.
Sara smiled, her eyes narrowing, as if to read his mind. “Are you going to answer me?”
“Yeah,” he said, not even remembering the question. Then, “Yes. Yes, I still want you.”
She started kissing his neck, her tongue making light strokes along his skin. He put his hands around her waist, pulling her closer to the edge of the counter. She wrapped her legs around his waist.
“Sara.” He sighed, trying to kiss her mouth, but she pulled away, instead letting her lips travel down his chest. “Sara,” he repeated. “Let me make love to you.”
She looked back at him, a sly smile on her face. “I don’t want to make love.”
His mouth opened, but he did not know how to respond. Finally he managed, “What does that mean?”
“It means…” she began, then took his hand and held it up to her mouth. He watched as she traced the tip of his index finger with her tongue. Slowly, she took his finger into her mouth and sucked it. After what seemed not nearly enough time, she took it out, smiling playfully. “Well?”
Jeffrey leaned in to kiss her, but she slid off the counter before he could. He moaned as Sara took her time kissing her way down his chest, nipping the band of his underwear with her teeth. With difficulty, he knelt on the floor in front of her, again trying to kiss her mouth. Again, she pulled away.
“I want to kiss you,” he said, surprised at the begging tone to his voice.
She shook her head, unbuttoning her shirt. “I can think of some other things you can do with your mouth.”
“Sara—”
She shook her head. “Don’t talk, Jeffrey.”
He thought it was odd that she had said this, because the best part of sex with Sara was the talking. He put his hands to either side of her face. “Come here,” he said.
“What?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.” He waited for her to answer his question, but she just stared at him.
He asked, “Why won’t you let me kiss you?”
“I just don’t feel like kissing.” Her smile was not as sly. “On the mouth.”
“What’s wrong?” he repeated.
She narrowed her eyes at him as a warning.
“Answer me,” he repeated.
Sara kept her eyes on him as she let her hand travel down past the waist of his shorts. She pressed her hand against him, as if to make sure he got her meaning. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
He stopped her hand with his own. “Look at me.”
She shook her head, and when he made her look up she closed her eyes.
He whispered, “What’s wrong with you?”
Sara didn’t answer. She kissed him full on the mouth, her tongue forcing its way past his teeth. It was a sloppy kiss, far from what he was used to with Sara, but there was an underlying passion that would have buckled his knees had he been standing.
She stopped suddenly, dropping her head to his chest. He tried to make her look back up at him, but she wouldn’t.
He asked, “Sara?”
He felt her arms go around him again, but in a very different way from before. There was a desperate quality to her tightening hold, as if she were drowning.
“Just hold me,” she begged. “Please just hold me.”
Jeffrey woke with a start. He reached out, knowing even as he did that Sara would not be there beside him. He vaguely recalled her sneaking out some time ago, but Jeffrey had been too tired to move, let alone stop her. He turned over, pressing his face into the pillow she had used. He could smell lavender from her shampoo and a slight trace of the perfume she wore. Jeffrey held the pillow, rolling over onto his back. He stared at the ceiling, trying to remember what had happened last night. He still could not get his head around it. He had carried Sara to bed. She had cried softly on his shoulder. He had been so afraid of what was behind her tears that he had not questioned her anymore.
Jeffrey sat up, scratching his chest. He could not stay in bed all day. There was still the list of convicted sexual offenders to complete. He still needed to interview Ryan Gordon and whoever had been at the library with Julia Matthews the last night she had been seen before the abduction. He also needed to see Sara, to make sure she was okay.
He stretched, touching the top of the door jamb as he walked into the bathroom. He stopped in front of the toilet. There was a stack of papers on the sink basin. A silver sliding clip was across the top pages, binding together what looked to be about two hundred sheets of paper. The pages looked dog-eared and yellowed, as if someone had paged through them a number of times. It was, Jeffrey recognized, a trial transcript.
He looked around the bathroom, as if the transcript fairy who had left it might still be around. The only person who had been in the house was Sara, and he could not think why she would leave something like this. He read the title page, noting the date was from twelve years ago. The case was the State of Georgia v. Jack Allen Wright.
A yellow Post-it note was sticking out from one of the pages. He flipped the transcript open, stopping at what he saw. Sara’s name was listed at the top of the page. Another name, Ruth Jones, probably the district attorney who had prosecuted the case, was listed as the questioner.
Jeffrey sat on the toilet and began to read Ruth Jones’s examination of Sara Linton.
Q. Dr. Linton, could you please tell us in your own words the events which took place on the twenty-third day of April, this time last year?
A. I was working at Grady Hospital where I was a pediatric resident. I had a difficult day and decided to go for a drive in my car between shifts.
Q. Was there anything unusual you noticed at this time?
A. When I got to my car, the word cunt had been scraped into the passenger’s side door. I thought perhaps this was the work of a vandal, so I used some duct tape I kept in the trunk to cover it.
Q. Then what did you do?
A. I went back into the hospital for my shift.
Q. Would you like a drink of water?
A. No, thank you. I went to the rest room, and while I was washing my hands at the sink, Jack Wright came in.
Q. The defendant?
A. That’s correct. He came in. He was carrying a mop and wearing gray coveralls. I knew he was the janitor. He apologized for not knocking, said he’d come back later to clean, then left the bathroom.
Q. Then what happened?
A. I went into the stall to use the bathroom. The defendant, Jack Wright, jumped down from the ceiling. It was a drop ceiling. He handcuffed my hands to the handicapped railing, then taped my mouth shut with silver duct tape.
Q. Are you sure this was the defendant?
A. Yes. He had on a red ski mask, but I recognized his eyes. He has very distinctive blue eyes. I remember thinking before that with his long blond hair, beard, and blue eyes he looked like Bible pictures of Jesus. I am certain that it was Jack Wright who attacked me.
Q. Is there any other distinguishing mark that leads you to believe it was the defendant who raped you?
A. I saw a tattoo on his arm of Jesus nailed to the cross with the words JESUS above it and SAVES below it. I recognized this tattoo as belonging to Jack Wright, a janitor at the hospital. I had seen him several times before in the hallway, but we had never spoken to each other.
Q. What happened next, Dr. Linton?
A. Jack Wright pulled me down off the toilet. My ankles were pinned by my pants. They were on the floor. My pants. Around my ankles.
Q. Please, take your time, Dr. Linton.
A. I was pulled forward, but my arms were back behind me like this. He kept me pulled forward by putting one arm around my waist. He held a long knife, approximately six inches, to my face. He cut my lip to warn me, I suppose.
Q. Then what did the defendant do?
A. He put his penis in me and raped me.
Q. Dr. Linton, could you tell us what, if anything, the defendant said during the time he raped you?
A. He kept referring to me as “cunt.”
Q. Could you tell us what happened next?
A. He tried several times to bring himself to ejaculation, but was unsuccessful. He pulled his penis out of me and brought himself to climax [mumbled].
Q. Could you repeat that?
A. He brought himself to climax on my face and chest.
Q. Could you tell us what happened then?
A. He cursed me again, then stabbed me with his knife. In the left side, here.
Q. Then what happened?
A. I tasted something in my mouth. I choked. It was vinegar.
Q. He poured vinegar into your mouth?
A. Yes, he had a small vial, like a perfume sample would come in. He tilted it into my mouth and said, “It is finished.”
Q. Does this phrase have any particular significance to you, Dr. Linton?
A. It’s from John, in the King James version of the Bible. “It is finished.” According to John, these are the last words Jesus says as he’s dying on the cross. He calls for something to drink, and they give him vinegar. He drinks the vinegar, then, to quote the verse, he gives up the ghost. He dies.
Q. This is from the crucifixion?
A. Yes.
Q. Jesus says, “It is finished.”
A. Yes.
Q. His arms pinned back like this?
A. Yes.
Q. A sword is stabbed into his side?
A. Yes.
Q. Was anything else said?
A. No. Jack Wright said this, then left the bathroom.
Q. Dr. Linton, do you have any idea how long you were left in the bathroom?
A. No.
Q. Were you still handcuffed?
A. Yes. I was still handcuffed and I was on my knees looking down at the floor. I was unable to right myself, to sit back.
Q. Then what happened?
A. One of the nurses came in. She saw the blood on the floor and started to scream. A few seconds later, Dr. Lange, my supervisor, came into the room. I’d lost a great deal of blood, and I was still handcuffed. They started to help me, but they couldn’t do much with the cuffs on. Jack Wright had rigged the lock so that they would not open. He had shoved something into the lock, a toothpick or something. A locksmith had to be called to cut them off. I passed out during this time. The position of my body was such that blood continued to pool from the stab wound. I lost a great deal of blood during this time from the stab wound.
Q. Dr. Linton, take your time. Would you like to take a short break?
A. No, I want to continue.
Q. Could you tell me what happened subsequent to the rape?
A. I became pregnant from this contact, and subsequently developed an ectopic pregnancy, which is to say that an egg was implanted in my fallopian tube. There was a rupture which caused bleeding into my abdomen.
Q. What effect, if any, has this had on you?
A. A partial hysterectomy was performed wherein my reproductive organs were removed. I can no longer have children.
Q. Dr. Linton?
A. I would like to take a recess.
Jeffrey sat in his bathroom, staring at the pages of the transcript. He read through them again, then once more, sobs echoing in the bathroom as he cried for the Sara he had never known.