"We're not ganging up on you," Tessa countered. "We're trying to help you."

"What happened to me," Sara began, her words clipped and precise, "has nothing to do with what happened to Sibyl Adams and Julia Matthews." She leaned across the bed, giving Tessa a look of warning. They could both play at this game.

"That's not your decision to make," Tessa countered.

Sara felt her anger boiling over at the threat. "You want me to tell you how they're different, Tessie? You want to know the things I know about these cases?" She did not give her sister time to answer. "For one, nobody carved a cross on my chest and left me to bleed out in the toilet." She paused, knowing the impact her words would have. If Tessa wanted to push Sara, Sara knew how to push back.

Sara continued, "For another, no one knocked out my front teeth so they could sodomize my face."

Tessa's hand went to her mouth. "Oh, God."

"Nobody nailed my hands and feet to the floor so he could fuck me."

"No," Tessa breathed, tears coming to her eyes.

Sara could not stop herself, even though her words were obviously acid in Tessas ears. "Nobody scrubbed out my mouth with Clorox. Nobody shaved my pubic hair so there wouldn't be any trace evidence." She paused for breath. "Nobody stabbed a hole in my gut so he could-" Sara forced herself to stop, knowing she was going too far. Still, a small sob escaped from Tessa's mouth as she made the connection. Her eyes had been on Sara's the entire time, and the look of horror on her face sent waves of guilt through Sara.

Sara whispered, "I'm sorry, Tessie. I'm so sorry."

Tessa's hand slowly fell from her mouth. She said, "Jeffrey is a policeman."

Sara put her hand to her chest. "I know that."

"You're so beautiful," Tessa said. "And you're smart and you're funny and you're tall."

Sara laughed so that she wouldn't cry.

"And this time twelve years ago, you were raped," Tessa finished.

"I know that."

"He sends you postcards every year, Sara. He knows where you live."

"I know that."

"Sara," Tessa began, a begging quality to her voice. "You have to tell Jeffrey."

"I can't."

Tessa stood firm. "You don't have a choice."

Friday

Chapter Eighteen

JEFFREY slipped on a pair of underwear and limped toward the kitchen. His knee was still stiff from the buckshot, and his stomach had been upset since he walked into Julia Matthews's room. He was worried about Lena. He was worried about Sara. He was worried about his town.

Brad Stephens had taken the DNA sample to Macon a few hours ago. It would take at least a week to get something back, perhaps another week to get time on the FBI DNA database to cross-check for known offenders. As with most police work, this was a waiting game. Meanwhile, there was no telling what the perpetrator was up to. For all Jeffrey knew, he could be stalking his next victim at this very moment. He could be raping his next victim at this very moment, doing things to her that only an animal would think to do.

Jeffrey opened the refrigerator, taking out the milk. On the way to get a glass, he flicked the overhead light switch, but nothing happened. He mumbled a curse toward himself as he took a glass out of the cabinet. He had disconnected the kitchen lights a couple of weeks ago when a new fixture he had ordered arrived in the mail. A call had come from the station just as he was stripping the wires, and the chandelier sat upended in its box, waiting fo r Jeffrey to find the time to hang it. At this rate, Jeffrey would be eating by the light from the refrigerator for the next few years.

He finished his milk and limped over to the sink to rinse the glass. He wanted to call Sara, to check on her, but knew better than that. She was blocking him out for her own reasons. He didn't really have a leg to stand on since the divorce. Maybe she was with Jeb tonight. He had heard through Maria who had been talking to Marty Ringo that Sara and Jeb were seeing each other again. He vaguely remembered Sara saying something about a date at the hospital the other night, but his mind could not connect her words. Since the memory had come after Maria had deigned to mention the gossip to him, he could not rely on it.

Jeffrey groaned as he sat back down on the bar stool in front of the kitchen island. He had built the island months ago. He had actually built it twice, because he had not been pleased with the way it had looked the first time. Jeffrey was above all things a perfectionist, and he hated when things weren't symmetrical. Since he lived in an old house, this meant that he was constantly having to adjust and readjust, because there wasn't a wall in the house that was straight.

A slight breeze stirred the thick plastic strips lining the back wall of the kitchen. He was vacillating between French doors and a wall of windows, or extending the kitchen out about ten feet into the backyard. Some kind of breakfast nook would be nice, a place to sit in the mornings and look out at the birds in the backyard. What he really wanted was to put a large deck out there with a hot tub or maybe one of those fancy outdoor barbecues. Whatever he did, he wanted to keep the house open. Jeffrey liked the way the light came in during the day through the semitransparent strips. He liked being able to see into the backyard, especially at times like right now, when he saw someone walking back there.

Jeffrey stood, grabbing a bat out of the laundry room.

He slid through a crack in the plastic strips, tiptoeing across the lawn. The grass was wet from a slight mist in the night air, and Jeffrey shivered from the chill, hoping to God he did not get shot again, especially since he was dressed only in a pair of underwear. The thought occurred to him that whoever was lurking in the backyard might collapse from laughter rather than fear at seeing Jeffrey standing in the yard, naked but for his green boxers, holding a bat over his head.

He heard a familiar noise. It was a lapping, licking sound, the kind a dog made while grooming. He squinted in the moonlight, making out three figures by the side of the house. Two of them were short enough to be dogs. One of them was tall enough to only be Sara. She was looking into his bedroom window.

Jeffrey let the bat hang down as he tiptoed up behind her. He wasn't worried about Billy or Bob, as the two greyhounds were the laziest animals he had ever seen. True to form, they barely moved as he sneaked up behind her.

"Sara?"

"Oh, Jesus." Sara jumped, tripping over the nearest dog. Jeffrey reached forward, catching her before she fell on her backside.

Jeffrey laughed, giving Bob a pat on the head. "Peeping Tom?" he asked.

"You asshole," Sara hissed, slapping her hands into his chest. "You scared the shit out of me."

"What?" Jeffrey asked innocently. "I'm not the one sneaking around your house."

"Like you haven't before."

"That's me," Jeffrey pointed out. "Not you." He leaned against the bat. Now that his adrenaline had stopped pumping, the dull ache had come back to his leg. "You want to explain why you're looking in my window in the middle of the night?"

"I didn't want to wake you up if you were asleep."

"I was in the kitchen."

"In the dark?" Sara crossed her arms, leveling him with a nasty look. "Alone?"

"Come on in," Jeffrey offered, not waiting for her to respond. He kept his pace slow as he walked back toward the kitchen, glad when he heard Sara's footsteps behind him. She was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans with an equally old white button-down shirt.

"You walk the dogs over here?"

"I borrowed Tessas car," Sara said, scratching Bob on the head.

"Good thinking, bringing your attack dogs."