His mouth moved down her body, his tongue exploring between her legs, his teeth rough against her. She tried to reach her hands to him, to pull him closer, but she found herself immobilized. Suddenly, he was on top of her, pushing her hands away from her body, out to the side as if to pin her back as he entered her. There was a wave of pleasure that seemed to last for hours, then sudden, excruciating release. Her whole body opened to him, her back arching, wanting to weld her flesh into his.

Then, it was over. Lena felt her body letting go, her mind coming back into focus. She rolled her head side to side, reveling in the aftermath. She licked her lips, opening her eyes to just a slit as she looked into the dark room. A clinking sound came from far away. Another more immediate sound came from all around, an irregular ticktock, like a clock, only with water. She found that she could no longer remember the word for water pouring out of the clouds.

Lena tried to move, but her hands seemed unwilling. She glanced out, seeing the tips of her fingers, even though there was no light to show them. Something was around her wrists, something tight and unrelenting. Her mind made the connection to move her fingers, and she felt the rough surface of wood against the back of her hand. Likewise, something encircled her ankles, holding her feet to the floor. She could not move her legs or arms. She was literally splayed to the floor. Her body seemed to come alive with this one realization: she was trapped.

Lena was back in the dark room, back where she had been taken hours ago; or was it days? Weeks? The clinking was there, the slow beat of water torture pounding into her brain. The room had no windows and no light. There was only Lena and whatever was holding her to the floor. A light came suddenly, a blinding light that burned her eyes. Lena tried to pull away from the restraints again, but she was helpless. Someone was there; someone she knew who should be helping her but was not. She writhed against the bonds, twisting her body, trying to free herself, to no avail. Her mouth opened, but no words would come. She forced the words through her mind-Help me, please-but was not rewarded with the sound of her own voice.

She turned her head to the side, blinking her eyes, trying to look past the light, just as a minute pressure came against the palm of her hand. The sensation was dull, but Lena could see from the light that the tip of a long nail was pressed into the palm of her hand. Also in the light, a hammer was raised.

Lena closed her eyes, not feeling the pain.

She was back at the beach, only not in the water. This time she was flying.

Chapter Twenty-four

MARY Ann Moon was not a pleasant woman. There was a set to her mouth that said "don't fuck with me" before Jeffrey even had the opportunity to introduce himself. She had taken one look at Wrights broken monitoring bracelet and directed her comments to Jeffrey.

"Do you know how much those things cost?"

It had gone downhill from there.

Jeffreys biggest problem with Moon, as she liked to be called, was the language barrier. Moon was from somewhere up east, the kind of place where consonants took on a life of their own. In addition to this, she spoke loudly and abruptly, two things that were considered very rude to southern ears. On the elevator ride up from central processing to the interview rooms, she stood too close to him, her mouth set in a fixed line of disapproval, her arms crossed low over her waist. Moon was about forty years old, but it was the hard kind of forty that too much smoking and drinking can do to a person. She had dark blond hair with light strands of gray mixed in. Her lips had wrinkles spreading out from them in deep rays.

Her nasal tone and the fact that she spoke sixty miles an hour gave Jeffrey the impression that he was talking to a French horn. Every response Jeffrey gave her was slow in coming because he had to wait for his brain to translate her words. He could tell early on that Moon took this slowness for stupidity, but there really wasn't anything he could do about it.

She said something to him over her shoulder as they walked through the precinct. He slowed it down, realizing she had said, "Tell me about your case, Chief."

He gave her a quick rundown of what had happened since Sibyl Adams had been found, leaving out his connection to Sara. He could tell the story wasn't progressing quickly enough, because Moon kept interrupting him with questions he was about to answer if she would give him a second to finish his sentence.

"I take it you went into my boy's house?" she said. "You see all that Jesus shit?" She rolled her eyes. "That nine mill didn't walk in under your pant leg, did it, Sheriff Taylor?"

Jeffrey gave her what he hoped was a threatening look. She responded with an outburst of laughter that pierced his eardrum. "That name sounds familiar."

"What's that?"

"Linton. Tolliver, too." She put her tiny hands on her slim hips. "I'm very good about notification, Chief. I've called Sara maybe a handful of times to let her know where Jack Allen Wright is. It's my job to do victim notification on an annual basis. Her case was ten years ago?"

"Twelve."

"So, that's at least twelve times I've talked to her."

He came clean, knowing he was busted. "Sara is my ex-wife. She was one of Wright's first victims."

"They let you work the case knowing your connection?"

"I'm in charge of the case, Ms. Moon," he answered.

She gave him a steady look that probably worked on her parolees, but did nothing but irritate Jeffrey. He was about two feet taller than Mary Ann Moon and not about to be intimidated by this little ball of Yankee hate.

"Wright's a Depo freak. You know what I mean by that?"

"He obviously likes taking it."

"This goes way back to his early days, right after Sara. You've seen pictures of him?"

Jeffrey shook his head.

"Follow me," Moon said.

He did as he was told, trying not to step on her heels. She was fast about everything but walking, and his stride was more than double hers. She stopped in front of a small office that was jam-packed with file storage boxes. She stepped over a pile of manuals, pulling a file off her desk.

"This place is a mess," she said, as if the fact had nothing to do with her. "Here."

Jeffrey opened the file, seeing a younger, slimmer, less womanly photograph of Jack Allen Wright clipped to the top page. He had more hair on his head, and his face was lean. His body was cut the way men who spend three hours a day lifting weights get, and his eyes were a piercing blue. Jeffrey remembered Wright's rheumy eyes from before. He also remembered that part of Sara's ID had come from his clear blue eyes. Every aspect of Wright's appearance had been altered since he had assaulted Sara. This was the man Jeffrey had been expecting when he searched Wright's house. This was the man who had raped Sara, who had robbed her of her ability to give Jeffrey a child.

Moon shuffled through the file. "This is his release photo," she said, sliding out another photograph.

Jeffrey nodded, seeing the man he knew as Wright.

"He served hard time, you know that?"

Jeffrey nodded again.

"Lots of men try to fight. Some of them just give in."

"You're breaking my heart." Jeffrey mumbled. "He have many visitors in prison?"

"Just his mother."

Jeffrey closed the file and handed it back to her. "What about when he got out of jail? He obviously went off the Depo, right? He raped again?"

"He says he didn't, but there's no way in hell he'd be able to get it up on the dosage he was supposed to be taking."

"Who was supervising it?"

"He was under his own supervision." She stopped him before he could say anything. "Listen, I know it's not perfect, but we have to trust them sometimes. Sometimes we're wrong. We were wrong with Wright." She threw the folder back on her desk. "He goes to the clinic now and gets his Depo injected once a week. It's all nice and clean. The bracelet you were kind enough to destroy kept him under close supervision. He was in line."