Sunday

One Week Later

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tessa flopped into the chair opposite Sara at the dining room table. "Am I going to be throwing up like this for the rest of my life?"

"I hope not," Sara mumbled, not really paying attention. She was reading through a chart, trying to make sense of her own handwriting. "What does this say?" she asked, sliding the chart across to Tessa.

Tessa studied the scribble. "Permanent apples?" she guessed.

"That's what I got, too," Sara mumbled, taking back the file. She stared at the words, willing them to make sense.

Tessa r eached into Sara's briefc ase and took out a magazine.

"That's a journal," Sara told her.

"I may not be a doctor, but I do know how to read," Tessa shot back, flipping through the pages. After a couple of beats, she closed it, saying, "There aren't any pictures."

"There're some in the back," Sara told her, reaching across the table to show her sister a close-up of a very red, very enlarged appendix. She flipped the page to the companion shot, which showed the organ dissected in all of its bleeding glory.

"Oh, Jesus," Tessa groaned, clamping her hand over her mouth as she stood from the table. She nearly knocked Cathy over as she ran out of the room.

Cathy asked, "What's wrong with her?" as she put a plate of deviled eggs on the table.

"Dunno," Sara said, staring at the chart. "Oh," she said, finally figuring it out. "Palpated appendix."

Cathy frowned. "Do you have to do that at the dining room table?"

Sara stacked the charts together. "Not anymore," she said. "That was the last one."

Cathy sat across from her, taking a sip of Sara's iced tea. "How's that going?" she asked, indicating the charts.

"Slowly," Sara told her. "But, better than I thought. I mean, better for Grant. She kept a low profile here."

"As your father would say, don't shit where you eat."

"Exactly," Sara answered, her smile feeling tight across her face.

"Speaking of which," Cathy said. "I heard Dave Fine is going to trial."

Sara nodded. "He thinks he can stay out of jail."

"I think jail might be the only safe place for him," Cathy said, taking another sip of tea. "Did you talk to Lacey's father about her helping out at the clinic after school?"

Sara nodded, tucking the charts into her briefcase. "He's going to think about it."

"I don't imagine he'll stick around town long," Cathy said, giving Sara a careful look. "No matter what he's saying, people think he knew."

Sara shragged, not comfortable talking about this with her mother.

Cathy said, "I heard his tires got slashed outside the Piggly Wiggly the other day."

Sara studied her mother, trying to figure out what she was getting at.

"I just don't want you to get hurt," Cathy finally said. "I don't want to see you get close to this girl, then have her father take her away."

Sara busied herself arranging her briefcase. Jeffrey had said the same thing to her the other night.

"You know," Cathy began, "you could always adopt a child."

Sara felt a tight smile on her face. She took off her glasses and set them on the table. "I, uh…" She stopped, giving a humorless laugh. It was so much more complicated than that.

Cathy waited for Sara to speak.

"I really don't want to talk about that right now. Mama."

Cathy reached over and took Sara's hands in hers. "I'm here when you want to."

"I know."

Tessa walked back into the room and popped Sara on the back of the head, muttering, "Bitch."

Sara laughed, and Tessa stuck out her tongue.

Cathy raised an eyebrow as she stood from the table, but did not comment. She asked Tessa, "You feeling okay, baby?"

"Yes, Mama," Tessa answered, but she did not look it. Sara felt a flash of guilt for showing her the photograph.

"You sure?" Sara asked.

"Oh, I'm just peachy," Tessa snapped back. "My hair is oily, my skin feels scritchy, my pants are too tight." She stopped on this, tugging at the legs of her shorts. "They keep crawling up my crotch."

"Nature abhors a vacuum," Sara told her, laughing.

"Sara," Cathy warned, but she was laughing as she walked back into the kitchen.

Tessa sat down again, taking one of the deviled eggs. "Where's Jeffrey? He's half an hour late."

"I don't know," Sara said, watching her sister suck down the egg. "I thought you were sick to your stomach."

"I was," Tessa said, taking another egg. "Now… not so much."

Sara started to say something, then stopped when she heard a car pull up in the driveway. "That's Jeffrey," she said, standing up from the table so quickly that her chair fell back. She caught it before it hit the ground, and gave Tessa a nasty look, hoping to cut off the comment her sister obviously wanted to make.

Sara purposefully took her time walking to the front door. Jeffrey was about to knock when she opened the door. She leaned in to kiss him, but stopped when she saw the expression on his face. "What is it?"

He held up a videotape as his answer.

She shook her head, asking, "What?"

"Let's go into the den," he said, leading the way down the stairs. She could tell from the way Jeffrey held his shoulders as he walked that he was angry. His posture was rigid, his jaw set in a firm line.

Sara sat on the couch, watching Jeffrey put the tape in the VCR. He took a seat beside her, working the remote control until the picture came up. Sara recognized the black-and-white format as a surveillance tape.

"The post office in Atlanta," she said.

Jeffrey leaned back on the couch, and Sara pressed herself against him as they watched the tape. The scene was pretty ordinary, a room full of post office boxes with a table in the center of it. Jeffrey fast-forwarded the tape, playing it when a slim-looking young man came into the frame.

"He could be Mark Patterson," Sara whispered, watching the kid walk to the back of the room. As he came closer to the camera, the similarity between the boy and Mark was amazing. They had the same lanky build and insolent look about them. The way his clothes hung on his body conveyed the same androgynous sexuality.

Jeffrey said, "He looks just like him."

On screen, the boy had a suspicious walk as he crossed the room. He stopped, furtively looking around before opening a box. His back was to the camera, blocking the view, as he took out the contents of the box, looked around again, then shoved the envelopes into the waist of his pants. He tucked his shirt in as he walked toward the exit and past the camera.

Jeffrey paused the tape, freezing the image of the boy on the screen.

"She sent someone else," Sara guessed.

"He walked out into the parking lot, got into a black Thunderbird, and drove to a local mall," Jeffrey said. "No one showed up to meet him. He waited a couple of hours, then used a pay phone."

"To call whom?"

"Nick traced the number to a cell phone. No one answered it."

"What about the kid?"

"David Ross, a.k.a. Ross Davis," he told her. "Nick ran his prints. He was abducted ten years ago from his home in broad daylight. Missing, presumed dead."

Sara felt her heart sink in her chest. "Ten years?"

"Yeah," Jeffrey said, anger in his tone. "He was playing outside with his older brother. Dottie came up in her car. They think it was Dottie. Wanda. Whoever the fuck she is. It was a woman. Ross Davis went with her and never came home."

Sara put her hand to her heart. "His poor parents."

"He's not their kid anymore, Sara. He's just like Mark. He won't talk. Nick grilled him for six hours, and the kid wouldn't say a word. Wouldn't even acknowledge that he knew Dottie. He just said he was there picking up some of his mail."