He had the grace to look embarrassed. “It might have slipped out.”

She lightly punched him in the chest and he fell over on his back as if she had really hit him.

She said, “They’re a tight bunch.”

“The family?”

“I didn’t notice anything particularly weird about them. Well, no more weird than my family, and before you open your mouth, Mr. Tolliver, remember I’ve met your mother.”

He accepted defeat with a slight nod of his head. “Was Mary there?”

“Yes.”

“She’s the other sister. Lev’s excuse for not coming in was that she was ill.”

“She didn’t look sick to me,” Sara told him. “But I didn’t exactly give her an exam.”

“What about the others?”

She thought for a moment. “Rachel wasn’t around much. That Paul certainly likes to control things.”

“Lev does, too.”

“He said my husband is a lucky man.” She smiled, knowing this would annoy him.

Jeffrey worked his jaw. “That so?”

She laughed as she put her head on his chest. “I told him I was the lucky one to have such an honest husband.” She said “husband” in the grand Southern tradition, drawing out the word as “huuuz-bun.”

She smoothed down his chest hair because it was tickling her nose. Jeffrey traced his finger along his Auburn class ring, which she was still wearing. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to say something, to ask her the same question he had been asking her for the last six months, but he didn’t.

Instead, he said, “What did you need to see for yourself tonight?”

Knowing she couldn’t postpone the inevitable much longer, she told him, “Mama had an affair.”

His body tensed. “Your mother? Cathy?” He was as disbelieving as Sara had been.

“She told me a few years ago,” Sara said. “She said it wasn’t a sexual affair, but she moved out of the house and left Daddy.”

“That doesn’t sound like her at all.”

“I’m not supposed to tell anybody.”

“I won’t tell,” he agreed. “God, who would believe me?”

Sara closed her eyes again, wishing her mother had never told her in the first place. At the time, Cathy had been trying to help Sara see that she could work things out with Jeffrey if she really wanted to, but now, the information was about as welcome as a theological discussion with Cole Connolly.

She told him, “It was with this guy who founded the church. Thomas Ward.”

Jeffrey waited a beat. “And?”

“And I don’t know what happened, but obviously Mama and Daddy got back together.” She looked up at Jeffrey. “She told me they got together because she was pregnant with me.”

He took a second to respond. “That’s not the only reason she went back to him.”

“Children change things,” Sara said, coming as close to talking about their own inability to have children as she had ever dared. “A child is a bond between two people. It ties you together for life.”

“So does love,” he told her, putting his hand to her cheek. “Love ties you together. Experiences. Sharing your lives. Watching each other grow old.”

Sara laid her head back down.

“All I know,” Jeffrey continued, as if they hadn’t been talking about themselves, “is that your mother loves your father.”

Sara braced herself. “You said Lev has my hair and my eyes.”

Jeffrey didn’t breathe for a full twenty seconds. “Christ,” he whispered, disbelieving. “You don’t think that-” He stopped. “I know I was teasing you, but-” Even he couldn’t say it out loud.

Sara kept her head on his chest as she looked up at his chin. He had shaved, probably expecting some kind of celebration tonight in light of the good news about his blood test.

She asked him, “Are you tired?”

“Are you?”

She twirled her fingers in his hair. “I might be open to persuasion.”

“How open?”

Sara lay back, taking him with her. “Why don’t you feel for yourself?”

He took her up on the offer, giving her a slow, soft kiss.

She told him, “I’m so happy.”

“I’m happy you’re happy.”

“No.” She put her hands to his face. “I’m happy you’re okay.”

He kissed her again, taking his time, teasing her lips. Sara felt herself start to relax as he pressed his body into hers. She loved the weight of him on top of her, the way he knew how to touch her in all the right places. If making love was an art, Jeffrey was a master, and as his mouth worked its way down her neck, she turned her head, eyes partly closed, enjoying the sensation of him until her peripheral vision caught an unusual flash of light across the lake.

Sara narrowed her eyes, wondering if it was a trick of the moon against the water or something else.

“What?” Jeffrey asked, sensing her mind was elsewhere.

“Shh,” she told him, watching the lake. She saw the flash again, and pressed against Jeffrey’s chest, saying, “Get up.”

He did as he was told, asking, “What’s going on?”

“Are they still searching the forest?”

“Not in the dark,” he said. “What-”

Sara snapped off the bedside light as she got out of bed. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, and she kept her hands in front of her, feeling her way to the window. “I saw something,” she told him. “Come here.”

Jeffrey got out of bed, standing beside her, staring across the lake.

“I don’t see-” He stopped.

The flash had come again. It was definitely a light. Someone was across the lake with a flashlight. The spot was almost exactly where they had found Abby.

“Rebecca.”

Jeffrey moved as if a gun had been fired. He’d thrown on his jeans before Sara even managed to find her clothes. She could hear his footsteps cracking the pine needles in the backyard as she slipped on a pair of sneakers and took off after him.

The full moon illuminated the path around the lake, and Sara kept pace with Jeffrey from several yards behind. He hadn’t put on a shirt, and she knew that he wasn’t wearing shoes because she had put on his. The heel of the right sneaker was pushed down, and Sara made herself stop for a few seconds in order to slip it on properly. This cost her precious time, and she pushed herself even harder as she ran, feeling her heart pound in her throat. She ran this same route most mornings, but now she felt as if it was taking forever to get to the other side of the lake.

Jeffrey was a sprinter while Sara was better suited for long-distance running. When she finally passed her parents’ house, her second wind kicked in and in a few minutes, she had caught up with him. They both slowed their pace as they approached the forest, finally coming full stop as a flashlight beam crossed the path in front of them.

Sara felt herself being yanked down by Jeffrey as he crouched out of sight. Her own breathing matched his, and she thought that the noise alone would give them away.

They watched as the flashlight went toward the woods, farther in to the spot where Jeffrey and Sara had found Abigail just three days ago. Sara had a moment of panic. Perhaps the killer came back later for the bodies. Perhaps there was a third box that all their searching had not turned up and the abductor had returned to perform another part of the ritual.

Jeffrey’s mouth was close to her ear. He whispered, “Stay here,” walking off in a crouch before she could stop him. She remembered he was barefoot, and wondered if he was even thinking through his actions. His gun was back at the house. No one knew they were out here.

Sara followed him, keeping well behind, desperately trying not to step on anything that would make a noise. Ahead, she could see the flashlight had stilled, pointing down at the ground, probably at the empty hole where Abby had been.

A high-pitched scream echoed in the woods, and Sara froze.

A laugh- more like a cackle- followed, and she was more frightened by this than the scream.

Jeffrey kept his voice firm, authoritative, as he told the person holding the light, “Stay exactly where you are,” and the girl screamed again. The flashlight went up, and Jeffrey said, “Get that thing out of my face.” Whoever was on the other end obeyed, and Sara took another step forward.