Sara pulled back on the throttle as she neared the dock. Jeb was already there, taking off his orange life vest, looking just as goofy as he had before. Like Sara, he was wearing a heavy sweater and a pair of jeans. Last night’s storm had dropped the temperature considerably, and she could not guess why anyone would get out on the lake today unless they absolutely had to.
“Let me help you,” he offered, reaching out toward her boat. He grabbed one of the lines and walked along the deck, pulling the boat toward the winch.
“Just tie it here,” Sara said, stepping out of the boat. “I’ve got to go back over to my parents’ house later.”
“Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“No,” Sara answered, tying the other line. She glanced at Jeb’s rope, noting the girlie knot he had used looping it around the bollard. The boat would probably be loose inside of ten minutes, but Sara did not have the heart to give him a rope-tying lesson.
She reached into the boat, taking out two plastic grocery bags. “I had to borrow my sister’s car to go to the store,” she explained. “My car’s still impounded.”
“From the—” He stopped, looking somewhere over Sara’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” she answered, walking along the dock. “Did you get your gutter fixed?”
He was shaking his head as he caught up with her, taking the bags. “I don’t know what the problem is.”
“Have you thought about putting a sponge or something in the bottom of the spout?” she suggested. “Maybe that’ll help dampen the noise.”
“That’s a great idea,” he said. They had reached the house, and she opened the back door for him.
He gave her a concerned look as he placed the bags on the counter alongside his boat keys. “You really should lock your door, Sara.”
“I was just gone for a few minutes.”
“I know,” Jeb said. “But, you never know. Especially with what’s been going on lately. You know, with those girls.”
Sara sighed. He had a point. She just could not reconcile what was happening in town with her own home. It was as if Sara was somehow protected by the old “lightning never strikes twice” rule. Of course, Jeb was right. She would need to be more careful.
She asked, “How’s the boat doing?” as she walked toward the answering machine. The message light was not blinking, but a scroll through the caller ID showed that Jeffrey had called three times in the last hour. Whatever he wanted to say, Sara wasn’t listening. She was actually thinking about quitting at the coroner’s office. There had to be a better way to get Jeffrey out of her life. She needed to focus on the present instead of wishing for the past. Truth be told, the past was not as great as she had made it out to be.
“Sara?” Jeb asked, holding out a glass of wine.
“Oh.” Sara took the glass, thinking it was a little early for her to be drinking alcohol.
Jeb held up his glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” Sara returned, tilting the glass. She gagged at the taste. “Oh, God,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth. The sharp taste sat on her tongue like a wet rag.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ugh,” Sara groaned, holding her head under the kitchen faucet. She washed her mouth out several times before turning back to Jeb. “It turned. The wine turned.”
He waved the glass under his nose, frowning. “It smells like vinegar.”
“Yes,” she said, taking another swig of water.
“Gosh, I’m sorry. I guess I kept it a little too long.”
The phone rang as she turned off the faucet. Sara gave an apologetic smile to Jeb as she crossed the room, checking the caller ID. It was Jeffrey again. She did not pick up the phone.
“This is Sara,” her voice said from the answering machine. She was trying to remember which button to press when the beep came, then Jeffrey.
“Sara,” Jeffrey said, “I’m getting patient records to go over from Grady so we—”
Sara pulled the power cord out of the back of the machine, cutting Jeffrey off in midsentence. She turned back to Jeb with what she hoped was an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” she said.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. “Didn’t you use to work at Grady?”
“In another lifetime,” she answered, taking the phone off the hook. She listened for the dial tone, then rested the receiver on the table.
“Oh,” Jeb said.
She smiled at the quizzical look he gave her, fighting the urge to spit out the taste in her mouth. She walked over to the counter and started unpacking the bags. “I got deli meats at the grocery store instead,” she offered. “Roast beef, chicken, turkey, potato salad.” She stopped at the look he was giving her. “What?”
He shook his head. “You’re so pretty.”
Sara felt herself blush at the compliment. “Thanks,” she managed, taking out a loaf of bread. “Do you want mayonnaise?”
He gave her a nod, still smiling. His expression was almost worshipful. It was making her uncomfortable.
To interrupt the moment, she suggested, “Why don’t you put on some music?”
Following her directions he turned toward the stereo. Sara finished making the sandwiches as he trailed his finger down her CD collection.
Jeb said, “We’ve got the same taste in music.”
Sara suppressed a “Great” as she took plates out of the cabinet. She was halving the sandwiches when the music came on. It was an old Robert Palmer CD she had not heard in ages.
“Great sound system,” Jeb said. “Is that surround sound?”
“Yeah,” Sara answered. The speaker system was something Jeffrey had installed so that music could be heard throughout the house. There was even a speaker in the bathroom. They had taken baths at night sometimes, candles around the tub, something soft playing on the stereo.
“Sara?”
“Sorry,” she said, realizing she had zoned out.
Sara put down the plates on the kitchen table, setting them across from each other. She waited for Jeb to come back, then sat down, her leg tucked underneath her. “I haven’t heard this in a long time.”
“It’s pretty old,” he said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “My sister used to listen to this all the time.” He smiled. “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley. That was her name, Sally.”
Sara licked some mayonnaise off her finger, hoping the taste would mask the wine. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
He sat up in his chair, taking his wallet out of his back pocket. “She died a while ago,” he said, thumbing through the pictures in the front. He slid a photo from one of the plastic sleeves, holding it out to Sara. “Just one of those things.”
Sara thought that was an odd thing to say about the death of his sister. Still, she took the picture, which showed a young girl in a cheerleading outfit. She held her pom-poms out from her sides. A smile was on her face. The girl looked just like Jeb. “She was very pretty,” Sara said, handing him back the photograph. “How old was she?”
“She had just turned thirteen,” he answered, looking at the picture for a few beats. He slipped it into its plastic sleeve, then tucked the wallet in his back pocket. “She was a surprise baby for my parents. I was fifteen when she was born. My father had just gotten his first church.”
“He was a minister?” Sara asked, wondering how she could have dated Jeb before and not known this. She could have sworn he had once told her that his father was an electrician.
“He was a Baptist preacher,” Jeb clarified. “He was a firm believer in the power of the Lord to heal what ails you. I’m glad he had his faith to get him through, but…” Jeb shrugged. “Some things you just can’t let go of. Some things you can’t forget.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sara answered, knowing what he meant about not being able to let go. She looked down at her sandwich, thinking it was probably not appropriate to take a bite at this moment. Her stomach growled to spur her on, but she ignored it.
“It was a long time ago,” Jeb finally answered. “I was just thinking about her today, with all that’s been going on.”
Sara did not know what to say. She was tired of death. She did not want to comfort him. This date had been made to take her mind off what had been happening lately, not remind her of it.
She stood from the table, offering, “Did you want something else to drink?” Sara walked over to the refrigerator as she talked. “I’ve got Cokes, some Kool-Aid, orange juice.” She opened the door and the sucking sound reminded her of something. She just could not put her finger on it. Suddenly it hit her. Rubber stripping on the doors to the ER at Grady had made the exact same sucking noise when they opened. She had never made the connection before, but there it was.
Jeb said, “Coke’s fine.”
Sara reached into the fridge, shuffling around for the sodas. She stopped, her hand resting on the trademark red can. She felt a light-headedness, as if she had too much air in her lungs. She closed her eyes, trying to keep her sense of balance. Sara was back in the ER. The doors opened with that sucking sound. A young girl was wheeled in on a gurney. Stats were called out by the EMT, IVs were started, the girl was intubated. She was in shock, her pupils blown, her body warm to the touch. Her temperature was called out, one hundred three. Her blood pressure was through the roof. She was bleeding profusely from between her legs.
Sara ran the case, trying to stop the bleeding. The girl started to convulse, jerking out the IVs, kicking over the supply tray at her feet. Sara leaned over her, trying to stop the girl from doing any further damage. The seizing stopped abruptly, and Sara thought she might have died. Her pulse was strong. Her reflexes were weak but registering.
A pelvic examination revealed the girl had recently had an abortion, though not one that had been given by a qualified physician. Her uterus was a mess, the walls of her vagina scraped and shredded. Sara repaired what she could, but the damage was done. Whatever healing she would do was left up to the girl.
Sara went to her car to change her shirt before talking to the girl’s parents. She found them in the waiting area and told them the prognosis. She used the right phrases, like “guarded optimism” and “critical, but stable.” Only the girl did not make it through the next three hours. She had another seizure, effectively frying her brain.
At that point in her career, the thirteen-year-old girl was the youngest patient Sara had ever lost. The other patients who had died under Sara’s care had been older, or sicker, and it was sad to lose them, but their deaths had not been so unexpected. Sara was shocked by the tragedy as she made her way toward the waiting area. The girl’s parents seemed just as shocked. They had no idea their daughter had been pregnant. To their knowledge, she had never had a boyfriend. They couldn’t understand how their daughter could be pregnant, let alone dead.
“My baby,” the father whispered. He repeated the phrase over and over, his voice quiet with grief. “She was my baby.”
“You must be wrong,” the mother said. Rummaging around in her purse, she pulled out a wallet. Before Sara could stop her, a photograph was found—a school picture of the young girl in a cheerleading uniform. Sara did not want to look at the picture, but there was no consoling the woman until she did. Sara glanced down quickly, then looked a second, more careful time. The photograph showed a young girl in a cheerleading outfit. She held her pom-poms out from her sides. A smile was on her face. The expression was a sharp contrast to the one on the lifeless girl lying on the gurney, waiting to be moved to the morgue.
The father had reached out, taking Sara’s hands. He bent his head down and mumbled a prayer that seemed to last a long time, asking for forgiveness, restating his belief in God. Sara was by no means a religious person, but there was something about his prayer that moved her. To be able to find such comfort in the face of such a horrible loss was amazing to her.
After the prayer, Sara had gone to her car to collect her thoughts, to maybe take a drive around the block and work her mind around this tragic, unnecessary death. That was when she had found the damage done to her car. That was when she had gone back into the bathroom. That was when Jack Allen Wright had raped her.
The picture Jeb had just shown her was the same picture she had seen twelve years ago in the waiting room.
“Sara?”
The song changed on the stereo. Sara felt her stomach drop as the words “Hey, hey, Julia” came from the speakers.
“Something wrong?” Jeb asked, then quoted the words from the song. “ ‘You’re acting so peculiar.’ ”
Sara stood, holding up a can as she closed the refrigerator. “This is the last Coke,” she said, edging toward the garage door. “I’ve got some outside.”
“That’s okay.” He shrugged. “I’m fine with just water.” He had put his sandwich down and was staring at her.
Sara popped the top on the Coke. Her hands were shaking slightly, but she didn’t think Jeb noticed. She brought the can to her mouth, sipping enough to let some of the Coke spill onto her sweater.
“Oh,” she said, trying to act surprised. “Let me go change. I’ll be right back.”
Sara returned the smile he gave her, her lips trembling as she did so. She forced herself to move, walking down the hall slowly so as not to raise the alarm. Inside her room, she snatched up the phone, glancing out the bank of windows, surprised to see the bright sunlight pouring in. It was so incongruous with the terror she felt. Sara dialed Jeffrey’s number, but there were no corresponding beeps when she pressed the buttons. She stared at the phone, willing it to work.
“You took it off the hook,” Jeb said. “Remember?”
Sara jumped up from her bed. “I was just calling my dad. He’s coming by in a few minutes.”
Jeb stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. “I thought you said you were going by their house later.”
“That’s right,” Sara answered, backing toward the other side of the room. This put the bed between them, but Sara was trapped, her back to the window. “He’s coming to get me.”
“You think so?” Jeb asked. He was smiling the same way he always did, a lopsided half grin that you would find on a child. There was something so casual about him, something so nonthreatening, that Sara wondered for half a second if she had drawn the wrong conclusion. A glance down at his hand snapped her out of it. He was holding a long boning knife at his side.
“What gave it away?” he asked. “The vinegar, wasn’t it? I had a bear of a time getting it in through the cork. Thank God for cardiac syringes.”
Sara put her hand behind her, feeling the cold glass of the window under her palm. “You left them for me,” she said, going through the last few days in her mind. Jeb had known about her lunch with Tessa. Jeb had known she was at the hospital the night Jeffrey was shot. “That’s why Sibyl was in the bathroom. That’s why Julia was on my car. You wanted me to save them.”
He smiled, nodding slowly. There was a sadness around his eyes, as if he regretted that the game was over. “I wanted to give you that opportunity.”
“Is that why you showed me her picture?” she asked. “To see if I would remember her?”
“I’m surprised you did.”
“Why?” Sara asked. “Do you think I could forget something like that? She was a baby.”
He shrugged.
“Did you do that to her?” Sara asked, recalling the brutality of the home abortion. Derrick Lange, her supervisor, had guessed a clothes hanger had been used.
She said, “Were you the one who did it?”
“How did you know?” Jeb asked, a defensive edge to his tone. “Did she tell you?”
There was something more to what he was saying, a more sinister secret behind his words. When Sara spoke, she knew the answer before she even finished her sentence. Taking into account what she had seen Jeb was capable of, it made perfect sense.
She asked, “You raped your sister, didn’t you?”
“I loved my sister,” he countered, the defensive tone still there.
“She was just a child.”
“She came to me,” he said, as if this was some kind of excuse. “She wanted to be with me.”
“She was thirteen years old.”
“ ‘If a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, and see her nakedness and she see his nakedness, it is a wicked thing.’ ” His smile seemed to say he was pleased with himself. “Just call me wicked.”
“She was your sister.”
“We are all God’s children, are we not? We share the same parents.”
“Can you quote a verse to justify rape? Can you quote a verse to justify murder?”
“The good thing about the Bible, Sara, is that it’s open to interpretation. God gives us signs, opportunities, and we either follow them or we don’t. We can choose what happens to us that way. We don’t like to think about it, but we are the captains of our own destinies. We make the decisions that direct the course of our lives.” He stared at her, not speaking for a few beats. “I would have thought you learned that lesson twelve years ago.”
Sara felt the earth shift under her feet as a thought came to her. “Was it you? In the bathroom?”
“Lord, no,” Jeb said, waving this off. “That was Jack Wright. He beat me to it, I guess. Gave me a good idea, though.” Jeb leaned against the door jamb, the same pleased smile twisting his lips. “We’re both men of faith, you see. We both let the Spirit guide us.”
“The only thing you both are is animals.”
“I guess I owe him for bringing us together,” Jeb said. “What he did for you has served as an example for me, Sara. I want to thank you for that. On behalf of the many women who have come since then, and I do mean come in the biblical sense, I offer a sincere thank-you.”
“Oh, God,” Sara breathed, putting her hand to her mouth. She had seen what he had done to his sister, to Sibyl Adams, and to Julia Matthews. To think that this had all started when Jack Wright had attacked her made Sara’s stomach turn. “You monster,” she hissed. “You murderer.”
He straightened, his expression suddenly changed by rage. Jeb went from being a quiet, unassuming pharmacist to the man who had raped and killed at least two women. Anger radiated from his posture. “You let her die. You killed her.”
“She was dead before she got to me,” Sara countered, trying to keep her voice steady. “She lost too much blood.”
“That’s not true.”
“You didn’t get it all out,” she said. “She was rotting from the inside.”
“You’re lying.”
Sara shook her head. She moved her hand behind her, looking for the lock on the window. “You killed her.”
“That’s not true,” he repeated, though she could tell from the change in his voice that part of him believed her.
Sara found the lock, tried to twist it open. It wouldn’t budge. “Sibyl died because of you, too.”
“She was fine when I left her.”
“She had a heart attack,” Sara told him, pressing against the lock. “She died from an overdose. She had a seizure, just like your sister.”
His voice was frighteningly loud in the bedroom, and the glass behind Sara shook when he yelled, “That is not true.”
Sara gave up on the lock as he took a step toward her. He still held the knife down at his side, but the threat was there. “I wonder if your cunt’s still as sweet as it was for Jack,” he mumbled. “I remember sitting through your trial, listening to the details. I wanted to take notes, but I found after the first day that I didn’t need to.” He reached into his back pocket, taking out a pair of handcuffs. “You still got that key I left for you?”
She stopped him with her words. “I won’t go through this again,” she said with conviction. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
He looked down at the floor, his shoulders relaxed. She felt a brief moment of relief until he looked back up at her. There was a smile at his lips when he said, “What makes you think it matters to me if you’re dead or not?”
“You gonna cut a hole in my belly?”
He was so shocked that he dropped the handcuffs on the floor. “What?” he whispered.
“You didn’t sodomize her.”
She could see a bead of sweat roll down the side of his head as he asked, “Who?”
“Sibyl,” Sara provided. “How else could shit get inside her vagina?”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Is it?” Sara asked. “Did you bite her while you fucked the hole in her belly?”
He shook his head vehemently side to side. “I didn’t do that.”
“Your teeth marks are on her shoulder, Jeb.”
“They are not.”
“I saw them,” Sara countered. “I saw everything you did to them. I saw how you hurt all of them.”
“They weren’t hurting,” he insisted. “They didn’t hurt at all.”
Sara walked toward him until she was standing with her knees against the bed. He stood on the other side, watching her, a stricken look on his face. “They suffered, Jeb. Both of them suffered, just like your sister. Just like Sally.”
“I never hurt them like that,” he whispered. “I never hurt them. You’re the one who let them die.”
“You raped a thirteen-year-old child, a blind woman, and an emotionally unstable twenty-two-year-old. Is that what gets you off, Jeb? Attacking helpless women? Controlling them?”
His jaw clenched. “You’re just going to make it harder for yourself.”
“Fuck you, you sick bastard.”
“No,” he said. “It’ll be the other way around.”
“Come on,” Sara taunted, clenching her fists. “I dare you to try.”
Jeb lunged toward her, but Sara was already moving. She ran full force toward the picture window, tucking her head as she broke out the glass. Pain flooded her senses, shards of glass cutting into her body. She landed in the backyard, tucking as she rolled a few feet down the hill.
Sara stood quickly, not looking over her shoulder as she ran toward the lake. Her arm was cut across the bicep and a gash was in her forehead, but these were the least of her concerns. By the time she got to the dock, Jeb was close behind her. She dove into the cold water without thinking, swimming under the water until she could no longer breathe. Finally, she surfaced ten yards from the dock. Sara saw Jeb jump into her boat, too late remembering she had left the key in the ignition.
Sara dove under the water, pushing herself, swimming as far as she could before surfacing. When she looked back around, she could see the boat coming toward her. She dove down, touching the bottom of the lake as the boat sped over her. Sara turned underwater, heading toward the rock field lining the far side of the lake. The area was no more than twenty feet away, but Sara felt her arms tiring as she swam. The coldness of the water hit her like a slap in the face, and she realized that the low temperature would slow her down.
She surfaced, looking around for the boat. Again, Jeb came at her full throttle. Again, she ducked under the water. She came up just in time to see the boat skimming toward the submerged rocks. The nose of the boat hit the first one head-on, popping up, flipping the boat over. Sara watched as Jeb was thrown from the boat. He flew through the air, splashing into the water. His hands clawed helplessly as he tried to keep himself from drowning. Mouth open, eyes wide with terror, he flailed as he was pulled down below the surface. She waited, holding her breath, but he did not come back up.
Jeb had been thrown about ten feet from the boat, away from the rock field. Sara knew the only way she would make it to the shore was to swim through the rocks. She could tread water for only so long before the cold enveloped her. The distance to the dock was too great. She would never make it. The safest route to the shore would take Sara past the overturned boat.
What she really wanted to do was stay where she was, but Sara knew the cold water was luring her into a sense of complacency. The lake’s temperature wasn’t down to freezing, but it was cold enough to bring on moderate hypothermia if she stayed in too long.
She swam a slow crawl to conserve body heat, her head just above the water as she made her way through the field. Her breath was a cloud in front of her, but she tried to think of something warm; sitting in front of a fire, roasting marshmallows. The hot tub at the YMCA. The steam room. The warm quilt on her bed.
Altering her course, she went around the far side of the boat, away from where Jeb had gone down. She had seen too many movies. She was terrified he would come from the deep, grabbing her leg, pulling her down. As she passed the boat, she could see a large hole in the front where the rock had torn through the bow. It was overturned, the belly up to the sky. Jeb was on the other side, holding on to the torn bow. His lips were dark blue, a stark contrast against his white face. He was shivering uncontrollably, his breath coming out in sharp puffs of white. He had been struggling, wasting his energy trying to keep his head above water. The cold was probably lowering his core temperature with every passing minute.
Sara kept swimming, moving more slowly. Jeb’s breathing and her hands pushing through the water were the only sounds on the still lake.
“I c-c-can’t swim,” he said.
“That’s too bad,” Sara answered, her voice tight in her throat. She felt as if she were circling a wounded but dangerous animal.
“You can’t leave me here,” he managed around chattering teeth.
She started to sidestroke, turning in the water so as not to put her back to him. “Yes, I can.”
“You’re a doctor.”
“Yes, I am,” she said, continuing to move away from him.
“You’ll never find Lena.”
Sara felt a weight drop onto her. She treaded water, keeping her eyes on Jeb. “What about Lena?”
“I t-t-took her,” he said. “She’s somewhere safe.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He gave what she assumed was a shrug.
“Where’s somewhere safe?” Sara demanded. “What did you do to her?”
“I left her for you, Sara,” he said, his voice catching as his body started shaking. From the recesses of her mind, Sara recalled that the second stage of hypothermia was marked by uncontrollable shaking and irrational thought.
He said, “I left her somewhere.”
Sara moved slightly closer, not trusting him. “Where did you leave her?”
“You n-n-need to save her,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. His face dipped down, his mouth dropping below the waterline. He snorted as water went up his nose, his grip on the boat tightening. There was a cracking sound as the boat moved against the rock.
Sara felt a sudden rush of heat through her body. “Where is she, Jeb?” When he didn’t answer, she told him, “You can die out here. The water’s cold enough. Your heart will slow down until it stops. I’d give you twenty minutes, tops,” she said, knowing it would be more like a few hours. “I’ll let you die,” Sara warned, never more certain of anything in her life. “Tell me where she is.”
“I’ll tell you on th-th-the shore,” he mumbled.
“Tell me now,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t leave her somewhere to die alone.”
“I wouldn’t,” he said, a spark of understanding in his eyes. “I wouldn’t leave her alone, Sara. I wouldn’t let her die alone.”
Sara moved her arms out to her side, trying to keep her body moving so that she would not freeze. “Where is she, Jeb?”
He shook so hard the boat shuddered in the water, sending small wakes toward Sara. He whispered, “You need to save her, Sara. You need to save her.”
“Tell me or I’ll let you die, Jeb, I swear to God, I’ll let you drown out here.”
His eyes seemed to cloud and a slight smile came to his blue lips. He whispered, “ ‘It is finished,’ ” as his head dropped again, but this time he didn’t stop it. Sara watched as he let go of the boat, his head slipping underwater.
“No,” Sara screamed, lunging toward him. She grabbed the back of his shirt, trying to pull him up. Instinctively, he started to fight her, pulling her down instead of letting her pull him up. They struggled this way, Jeb grabbing her pants, her sweater, trying to use her as a ladder to climb back up for air. His fingernails raked across the cut in her arm, and Sara reflexively pulled away. Jeb was pushed back from her, the tips of his fingers brushing across the front of her sweater as he tried to find purchase.
Sara was pulled down as he climbed up. There was a solid thud as his head slammed against the boat. His mouth opened in surprise, then he slipped soundlessly back under the water. Behind him, a streak of bright red blood marked the bow of the boat. Sara tried to ignore the pressure in her lungs as she reached toward him, trying to pull him back up. There was just enough sunlight for her to see him sinking to the bottom. His mouth was open, his hands stretched out to her.
She surfaced, gasping for air, then ducked her head back underwater. She did this several times, searching for Jeb. When she finally found him, he was resting against a large boulder, his arms held out in front of him, eyes open as he stared at her. Sara put her hand to his wrist, checking to see if he was alive. She went up for air, treading water, her arms out to the side. Her teeth were chattering, but she counted out loud.
“One–one thousand,” she said through clicking teeth. “Two–one thousand.” Sara continued counting, furiously treading water. She was reminded of old games of Marco Polo, where either she or Tessa would tread water, their eyes closed, as they counted out the requisite number before searching each other out.
At fifty, she took a deep breath, then dove back down. Jeb was still there, his head back. She closed his eyes, then scooped him up under his arms. On the surface, she crooked her arm around his neck, using her other arm to swim. Holding him this way, she started toward the shore.
After what seemed like hours but was only a minute at most, Sara stopped, treading water so that she could catch her breath. The shore seemed farther away than it had before. Her legs felt disconnected from her body, even as she willed them to tread water. Jeb was literally deadweight, pulling her down. Her head dipped just below the surface, but she stopped herself, coughing out the lake, trying to clear her mind. It was so cold, and she felt so sleepy. She blinked her eyes, trying not to keep them closed too long. A small period of rest would be good. She would rest here, then drag him back to the shore.
Sara leaned her head back, trying to float on her back. Jeb made this impossible, and again she started to dip below the water. She would have to let Jeb go. Sara realized that. She just could not force herself to do it. Even as the weight of his body started to pull her down again, Sara could not let go.
A hand grabbed her, then an arm was around her waist. Sara was too weak to struggle, her brain too frozen to make sense of what was happening. For a split second she thought it was Jeb, but the force pulling her up to the surface was too strong. Her grip around Jeb loosened, and she opened her eyes, watching his body float back down to the bottom of the lake.
Her head broke the surface and her mouth opened wide as she gasped for air. Her lungs ached with each breath, her nose ran. Sara started to cough the kind of wracking coughs that could stop the heart. Water came out of her mouth, then bile, as she choked on the fresh air. She felt someone beating on her back, knocking the water out of her. Her head tilted down into the water again, but she was jerked back by her hair.
“Sara,” Jeffrey said, one hand around her jaw, the other holding her up by the arm. “Look at me,” he demanded. “Sara.”
Her body went limp, and she was conscious of the fact that Jeffrey was pulling her back toward the shore. His arm was hooked across her body, under her arms, as he did an awkward one-handed backstroke.
Sara put her hands over Jeffrey’s arm, leaned her head against his chest, and let him take her home.