Without thinking, Lena did another U-turn, pulling parallel to the Dart. She got out of her car, looking into the market for Terri Stanley. She was inside, paying the guy behind the register, and even from this distance, Lena could almost smell the defeat on her. Shoulders slumped, eyes cast down. Lena suppressed the urge to thank God she’d happened to run into her.

The Celica’s gas tank was almost full, but Lena turned on the pump anyway, taking her time removing the gas cap and putting in the nozzle. By the first click of the pump, Terri had come out of the store. She was wearing a thin blue Members Only jacket, and she pushed the sleeves up to her elbows as she walked across the brightly lit filling station. Terri was obviously preoccupied as she walked to her car, and Lena cleared her throat several times before the woman noticed her.

“Oh,” Terri said, the same word she had uttered the first time she’d seen Lena at the police station.

“Hey.” Lena ’s smile felt awkward on her face. “I need to ask you-”

“Are you following me?” Terri looked around as if she was scared someone would see them together.

“I was just getting gas.” Lena took the nozzle out of the Celica, hoping Terri didn’t notice she’d put in less than half a gallon. “I need to talk to you.”

“Dale’s waiting for me,” she said, tugging down the sleeves of her jacket. Lena had seen something, though-something all too familiar. They both stood there for the longest minute of Lena ’s life, neither one knowing what to say.

“Terri…”

Her only answer was, “I need to go.”

Lena felt words sticking in her throat like molasses. She heard a high-pitched noise in her ear, almost like a siren warning her away. She asked, “Does he hit you?”

Terri looked down at the oil-stained concrete, ashamed. Lena knew that shame, but on Terri it brought out anger in Lena like she hadn’t known in a while.

“He hits you,” Lena said, narrowing the space between them as if she needed to be close to be heard. “Come here,” she said, grabbing Terri’s arm. The woman winced from pain as Lena yanked up the sleeve. A black bruise snaked up her arm.

Terri didn’t move away. “It’s not like that.”

“What’s it like?”

“You don’t understand.”

“The hell I don’t,” she said, tightening her grip. “Is that why you did it?” she demanded, anger sparking like a brush fire. “Is that why you were in Atlanta?”

Terri tried to squirm away. “Please let me go.”

Lena felt her rage becoming uncontrollable. “You’re scared of him,” she said. “That’s why you did it, you coward.”

“Please…”

“Please what?” Lena asked. “Please what?” Terri was crying in earnest now, trying so hard to pull away that she was almost on the ground. Lena let go, horrified when she saw a red mark on Terri’s wrist working its way below the bruise Dale had made. “Terri-”

“Leave me alone.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

She headed back to her car. “I’m going.”

“I’m sorry,” Lena said, following her.

“You sound like Dale.”

A knife in her stomach would have been easier. Still, Lena tried, “Please. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” she spat, yanking open the car door.

“Terri-”

“Leave me alone!” she screamed, slamming the door with a loud bang. She locked the door as if she was afraid Lena might pull her out of the car.

“Terri-” Lena tried again, but Terri had pulled away, tires burning rubber on the pavement, the hose from the gas pump stretching, then popping out of the Dart’s gas tank. Lena stepped back quickly as gas splattered onto the ground.

“Hey!” the attendant called. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” she told him, picking up the nozzle and replacing it on the pump. She dug into her pocket and tossed two dollars at the young man, saying, “Here. Go back inside.” She climbed back into her car before he could yell anything else.

The Celica’s tires caught against the pavement, the car fishtailing as she pulled away. She didn’t realize she was speeding until she blew past a broken-down station wagon that had been parked on the side of the road for the last week. She forced her foot to back off on the accelerator, her heart still pounding in her chest. Terri had been terrified of Lena, looking at her like she was scared she’d be hurt. Maybe Lena would have hurt her. Maybe she would have turned violent, taking her rage out on that poor helpless woman just because she could. What the hell was wrong with her? Standing at the gas station, yelling at Terri, she had felt like she was yelling at herself. She was the coward. She was the one who was scared of what might be done to her if anyone found out.

The car had slowed to almost a crawl. She was on the outskirts of Heartsdale now, a good twenty minutes from home. The cemetery where Sibyl was buried was out this way, on a flat plain behind the Baptist church. After her sister had died, Lena had gone there at least once, sometimes twice a week, to visit her grave. Over time, she had cut down on her visits, then stopped going altogether. With a shock, Lena realized she hadn’t visited Sibyl in at least three months. She had been too busy, too wrapped up in doing her job and dealing with Ethan. Now, at the height of her shame, she could think of nothing more appropriate than going to the graveyard.

She parked at the front of the church, leaving the doors unlocked as she walked toward the front gates of the memorial garden. The area was well lit, overhead lights illuminating the grounds. She knew she had driven here for a reason. She knew what she needed to do.

Someone had planted a handful of pansies by the entrance to the cemetery, and they swayed in the breeze as Lena walked by. Sibyl’s grave was to the side of the grounds that bordered the church, and Lena took her time walking through the grassy lawn, enjoying the solitude. She had spent almost twelve hours straight on her feet today, but something about being here, being close to Sibyl, made the walk less daunting. Sibyl would have approved of being buried here, Lena always thought. She had loved the outdoors.

The cement block Lena had upended and used for a bench was still on the ground beside Sibyl’s marker, and Lena sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees. In the daytime, a huge pecan tree gave shade to the spot, tendrils of sunlight slipping through the leaves. The marble slab marking Sibyl’s final resting place had been cleaned to a shine, and a quick look around at the other gravesites proved that this had been done by a visitor rather than the staff.

There weren’t any flowers. Nan was allergic.

Like a faucet being turned on, Lena felt tears pool in her eyes. She was such a horrible person. As bad as Dale was to Terri, Lena had been worse. She was a cop: she had a duty to protect people, not scare the shit out of them, not grab their wrist so hard that she left a bruise. She was certainly in no position to call Terri Stanley a coward. If anything, Lena was the coward. She was the one who had scurried off to Atlanta under the cover of lies, paying some stranger to slice out her mistakes, hiding from the repercussions like a frightened child.

The altercation with Terri had brought back all the memories Lena had tried to suppress, and she found herself back in Atlanta, reliving the whole ordeal again. She was in the car with Hank, his silence cutting like a knife. She was in the clinic, sitting across from Terri, avoiding her eyes, praying it would be over. She was taken back to the freezing operating room, her feet resting in the icy cold stirrups, her legs splayed for the doctor who spoke so calmly, so quietly, that Lena had felt herself being lulled into a sort of hypnotic state. Everything was going to be fine. Everything will be okay. Just relax. Just breathe. Take it slow. Relax. It’s all over. Sit up. Here are your clothes. Call us if there are complications. You all right, darlin’? Do you have someone waiting for you? Just sit in the chair. We’ll take you outside. Murderer. Baby killer. Butcher. Monster.