Jeffrey gave the screen door a gentle knock before letting himself in. Will Harris was sitting in his chair, a glass of iced tea beside him. He stood when Jeffrey entered the room.

"I didn't mean to bring you out here," Will said. "I was just reporting it. My neighbor got me kind of scared."

"Which one?" Jeffrey asked.

"Mrs. Barr across the way." He pointed out the window. "She's an older woman, scares real easy. She said she didn't see anything. Your people already asked her." He walked back to his chair and picked up a piece of white paper, which he offered to Jeffrey. "I got kind of scared, too, when I saw this."

Jeffrey took the paper, tasting bile in the back of his throat as he read the threatening words typed onto the white sheet of paper. The note said: "Watch your back, nigger."

Jeffrey folded the paper, tucking it into his pocket. He put his hands on his hips, looking around the room. "Nice place you got here."

"Thank you," Will returned.

Jeffrey turned toward the front windows. He did not have a good feeling about this. Will Harris's life was in danger simply because Jeffrey had talked to him the other day. He asked, "You mind if I sleep on your couch tonight?"

Will seemed surprised. "You think that's necessary?"

Jeffrey shrugged. "Better safe than sorry, don't you think?"

Chapter Twelve

LENA sat at the kitchen table in her house, staring at the salt and pepper shakers. She tried to get her head around what had happened today. She was certain that Ryan Gordons only crime was being an asshole. If Julia Matthews was smart, she had headed back home or was lying low for a while, probably trying to get away from her boyfriend. This left the reason Jeffrey and Lena had gone to the college wide open. There were still no suspects for her sister's murder.

With each minute that passed, with each hour that went by with no solid lead toward finding the man who had killed her sister, Lena felt herself getting more and more angry. Sibyl had always warned Lena that anger was a dangerous thing, that she should allow other emotions to come through. Right now, Lena could not imagine herself ever being happy again, or even sad. She was numbed by the loss, and anger was the only thing that made her feel like she was still alive. She was embracing her anger, letting it grow inside of her like a cancer, so that she would not break down into a powerless child. She needed her anger to get her through this. After Sibyl's killer was caught, after Julia Matthews was found, Lena would let herself grieve.

"Sibby." Lena sighed, putting her hands over her eyes. Even during the interview with Gordon, images of Sibyl had started to seep into Lena 's mind. The harder she fought them off, the stronger they were.

They came in flashes, these memories. One minute, she was sitting across from Gordon, listening to his pathetic posturing, the next she was twelve years old, at the beach, leading Sibyl down to the ocean so they could play in the water. Early on after the accident that had blinded Sibyl, Lena had become her sister's eyes; through Lena, Sibyl was sighted again. To this day, Lena thought this trick was what made her a good detective. She paid attention to detail. She listened to her gut instinct. Right now, her gut was telling her any more time focusing on Gordon was wasted.

"Hey there," Hank said, taking a Coke out of the refrigerator. He held up a bottle for Lena, but she shook her head.

Lena asked, "Where did those come from?"

"I went to the store," he said. "How'd it go today?"

Lena didn't answer his question. "Why did you go to the store?"

"You didn't have anything to eat," he said. "I'm surprised you haven't wasted away."

"I don't need you to go to the store for me," Lena countered. "When are you going back to Reece?"

He seemed pained by her question. "In a couple of days, I guess. I can stay with Nan if you don't want me here."

"You can stay here."

"It's no trouble, Lee. She's already offered her sofa."

"You don't need to stay with her," Lena snapped. "Okay? Just drop it. If it's only a few days, that's fine."

"I could stay in a hotel."

"Hank," Lena said, aware her voice was louder than it needed to be. "Just drop it, okay? I've had a really hard day."

Hank fiddled with his bottle of Coke. "Wanna talk about it?"

Lena bit back the "Not with you" that was on the tip of her tongue. "No," she said.

He took a swig of Coke, staring somewhere over her shoulder.

"There are no leads," Lena said. "Other than the list." Hank look puzzled, and she explained, "We've got this list of everybody who moved to Grant in the last six years who's a sexual predator."

"They keep a list of that?"

"Thank God they do," Lena said, heading off any civil liberties arguments he wanted to start. As an ex-addict, Hank tended to side with personal privacy over common sense. Lena was in no mood for a discussion about how ex-cons had paid their dues.

"So," Hank said, "you've got this list?"

"We've all got lists," Lena clarified. "We're knocking on doors, trying to see if anybody matches up."

"To?"

She stared at him, trying to decide whether or not to go on. "Someone with a violent sexual assault in their background. Someone who's white, between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five. Someone who thinks of himself as a religious person. Someone who might have seen Sibyl around. Whoever attacked her knew her routines, so this person had to be someone who knew her by sight or in passing."

"That sounds like a pretty narrow margin."

"There are nearly a hundred people on the list."

He gave a low whistle. "In Grant?" He shook his head side to side, not quite buying this.

"That's just the last six years, Hank. I guess if we go through these without finding anyone, we'll go back even further. Maybe ten or fifteen years."

Hank pushed his hair back off his forehead, giving Lena a good look at his forearms. She pointed to his bare arms. "I want you to keep your coat on tonight."

Hank looked down at the old track marks. "If you want me to, okay."

"Cops will be there. Friends of mine. People I work with. They see those tracks and they're gonna know."

He looked down at his arms. "I don't think you'd have to be a cop to know what these are."

"Don't embarrass me, Hank. It's bad enough I had to tell my boss you're a junkie."

"I'm sorry about that."

"Yeah, well," Lena said, not knowing what else to offer. She was tempted to look him over, to pick at him until he exploded and she got a good fight out of him.

Instead, she turned in her chair, looking away from him. "I'm not in the mood for a heart-to-heart."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," Hank said, but he did not get up. "We need to talk about what to do with your sister's ashes."

Lena held her hand up to stop him. "I can't do that right now."

"I've been talking to Nan -"

She interrupted him. "I don't care what Nan has to say about this."

"She was her lover, Lee. They had a life together."

"So did we," Lena snapped. "She was my sister, Hank. For God's sake, I'm not going to let Nan Thomas have her."

" Nan seems like a real nice person."

"I'm sure she is."

Hank fiddled with the bottle. "We can't leave her out of this just because you're uncomfortable with it, Lee." He paused, then, "They were in love with each other. I don't know why you have a problem accepting that."

"Accepting it?" Lena laughed. "How could I not accept it? They lived together. They took vacations together." She remembered Gordon's earlier comment. "Evidently the whole fucking college knew about it," she said. "It's not like I had a choice."

Hank sat back with a sigh. "I don't know, baby. Were you jealous of her?"