“I don’t understand why he doesn’t have any defensive wounds,” Jeffrey said. “He just lay down and took the beating?”

“He has a high transverse fracture of the maxilla, a LeFort III. I’ve only seen that in textbooks.”

“You’ve got to speak English for me.”

“The flesh of his face was nearly beaten off his skull,” she said. “If I had to guess what happened, I would say someone took him completely by surprise, punched him in the face and knocked him out.”

“One punch?”

“He’s a small guy,” she pointed out. “The first hit could’ve been the one that snapped his spinal cord in two. His head jerks around, that’s it.”

“He was holding on to the laundry line,” he reminded her. “It was wrapped around his hand.”

“He could’ve reflexively grabbed it as he fell,” she countered. “But there’s no way at this point to tell which injury is ante- and what’s postmortem. I think what we’ll find is that whoever did this knew how to put a beating on somebody, and they did it quickly and methodically, then got out of there.”

“Maybe he knew his attacker.”

“It’s possible.” She asked, “What about his next-door neighbor?”

“Around ninety years old and deaf as a board,” Jeffrey said. “Tell you the truth, from the way the room smelled, I don’t even think the old man leaves it to go to the bathroom.”

Sara thought that could be true about all the occupants of the house. After being in Donner’s room for just half an hour, she felt filthy. “Was anybody else in the house last night?”

“Landlady was downstairs, but she keeps the TV up loud. Two other guys were living there- both alibied out.”

“You sure?”

“They were arrested for drunk and disorderly an hour before it happened. They slept it off courtesy of your tax dollars in the Grant County Jail.”

“I’m glad I can give something back to the community.” Sara snapped off her gloves.

As usual, Carlos had been standing quietly by, and she asked, “Can you go ahead and stitch him up?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, going to the cabinet to get the proper materials.

Sara took off her safety glasses and head covering, relishing the feel of fresh air. She slipped off her gown and dropped it in the laundry bag as she headed back to her office.

Jeffrey did the same as he followed her, saying, “I guess it’s too late to go to church with Tessa tonight.”

She glanced at her watch as she sat down. “Not really. I’ve got time to run home and take a shower.”

“I don’t want you to go,” he said, leaning against her desk. “I don’t like how any of these people are looking.”

“Do you have a connection between the church and Donner?”

“Does tenuous count?”

“Is there anyone in particular you think might have done this?”

“Cole Connolly’s been in prison. He’d know how to put a beating on somebody.”

“I thought you said he was an old man.”

“He’s in better shape than I am,” Jeffrey said. “He didn’t lie about his jail time, though. His records are pretty old, but they show twenty-two years of hard time in the Atlanta pen. The car boost from when he was seventeen probably happened in the fifties. It wasn’t even on the computer, but he mentioned it anyway.”

“Why would he kill Chip, though? Or Abby, for that matter? And what’s his connection to the cyanide? Where would he get it?”

“If I could answer those questions, we probably wouldn’t be here,” he admitted. “What do you need to see for yourself?”

She remembered her phrase from earlier on the phone and felt like kicking herself for saying anything at all. “It’s just something stupid.”

“Stupid how?”

Sara stood up and closed the door, even though Carlos was probably the most discreet person she had ever met.

She sat back down, her hands clasped in front of her on the desk. “It’s just something stupid that popped into my head.”

“You never have stupid things pop into your head.”

She thought to correct him, the most recent example being her risky behavior the other night, but instead said, “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

He stared at the back wall, making a clicking noise with his tongue, and she could tell he was upset.

“Jeff.” She took his hand in both of hers, holding it to her chest. “I promise I’ll tell you, okay? After tonight, I’ll tell you why I need to do this, and we’ll both laugh about it.”

“Are you still mad at me about sleeping on the couch?”

She shook her head, wondering why he wouldn’t let that go. She had been hurt to find him on the couch, not mad. Obviously she wasn’t as good an actress as she liked to think. “Why would I be mad at you about that?”

“I just don’t understand why you’re so hell-bent on getting involved with these people. Considering the way Abigail Bennett was killed and the fact that another girl connected with this case is missing, I’d think you’d be doing your damned best to keep Tessa away from them.”

“I can’t explain it right now,” she told him. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you or him”- she gestured toward the exam room- “or this case, or some religious conversion on my part. I promise you that. I swear.”

“I don’t like being left out of your life like this.”

“I know you don’t,” she told him. “And I know it’s not fair. I just need you to trust me, okay? Just give me a little room.” She wanted to add that she needed the same room she had given him last night, but didn’t want to bring up the subject again. “Just trust me.”

He stared at her hands around his. “You’re making me really nervous, Sara. These could be very dangerous people.”

“Are you going to forbid me to do it?” She tried teasing: “I don’t see a ring on my finger, Mr. Tolliver.”

“Actually,” he said, sliding open her desk drawer. She always took off her jewelry and left it in her office before performing a procedure. His Auburn class ring was sitting beside the pair of diamond earrings he had given her for Christmas last year.

He picked up the ring, and she held out her hand so that he could slide it onto her finger. She thought he would ask her not to go again, but instead he told her, “Be careful.”

Sara parked her car in front of her parents’ house, surprised to see her cousin Hare leaning against his convertible Jaguar, decked out like a model in GQ.

He tossed out a “Hey, Carrot” before she had time to close her car door.

Sara looked at her watch. She was five minutes late picking up Tessa. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve got a date with Bella,” he told her, taking off his sunglasses as he walked over to meet her. “Why’s the front door locked?”

She shrugged. “Where are Mama and Daddy?”

He patted his pockets, pretending to look for them. Sara loved her cousin, she really did, but his inability to take anything seriously made her want to strangle him sometimes.

She glanced at the apartment over the garage. “Is Tessa home?”

“She’s wearing her invisible suit if she is,” Hare told her, slipping his sunglasses back on as he leaned against her car. He was wearing white slacks and Sara wished for just a moment that her father hadn’t washed her car.

She told him, “We’re supposed to go somewhere.” Not wanting to endure the ridicule, Sara didn’t tell him where. She looked at her watch again, thinking she would give Tessa ten more minutes, then go home. She wasn’t particularly excited about going to church, and the more she thought about Jeffrey’s concerns, the more she was beginning to believe this was a bad idea.

Hare slid down his glasses, batting his eyelashes as he asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me I look pretty?”

Sara was unable to stop herself from rolling her eyes. The thing she detested most about Hare was that he wasn’t content to be silly by himself. He always managed to bring out the juvenile in others.