Sunday

Chapter Thirty

JEFFREY drove back from the hospital in Augusta feeling like a sol dier returning from war. Lena would physically recover from her wounds, but he had no idea if she would ever recover from the emotional damage Jeb McGuire had wrought. Like Julia Matthews, Lena was not talking to anybody, not even her uncle Hank. Jeffrey did not know what to do for her, other than give her time.

Mary Ann Moon had called him exactly an hour and twenty minutes after they had talked. Sara's patient's name had been Sally Lee McGuire. Moon had taken the time to key the surname into a general search of the hospital staff. With a specific name, it only took a few seconds for Jeremy "Jeb" McGuire's name to come up. He was doing his internship at the pharmacy on Grady's third floor when Sara worked there. Sara would have no cause to meet him, but Jeb could have certainly made it a point to meet her.

Jeffrey would never forget the look on Lena's face when he busted down the attic door. In his mind, he recalled the photographs of Sara whenever he thought of Lena lying there, nailed to Jeb's attic floor. The room had been designed to be a dark box. Dull black paint covered everything, including the panels of plywood nailed over the windows. Chains through eye hooks had been screwed to the floor, and two sets of nail holes at both the top and bottom of the restraints showed where the victims had been crucified.

In the car, Jeffrey rubbed his eyes, trying not to think about everything he had seen since Sibyl Adams had been murdered. As he crossed the Grant County line, all he could think was that everything was different now. He would never look at the people in town, the people who were his friends and neighbors, with the same trusting eyes as he had this time last Sunday. He felt shell-shocked.

Turning into Sara's driveway, Jeffrey was aware that her house, too, looked different to him. This was where Sara had fought Jeb. This is where Jeb had drowned. They had pulled his body out of the lake, but the memory of him would never be gone.

Jeffrey sat in his car, staring at the house. Sara had told him she needed time, but he wasn't about to give it to her. He needed to explain what had been going through his mind. He needed to reassure himself as well as her that there was no way in hell he was going to stay out of her life.

The front door was open, but Jeffrey gave a knock before walking in. He could he ar Paul Simon singing "Have a Good Time" on the stereo. The house was turned upside down. Boxes lined the hallway and books were off the shelves. He found Sara in the kitchen, holding a wrench. Dressed in a white sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of ratty gray sweatpants, he thought that she had never looked more beautiful in her life. She was looking down the drain when he knocked on the door jamb.

She turned, obviously not surprised to see him. "Is this your idea of giving me some time?" she asked.

He shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets. She had a bright green Band-Aid covering the cut in her forehead and a white bandage around her arm where the glass had gone deep enough for sutures. How she had managed to survive what she did was a miracle to Jeffrey. Her strength of spirit amazed him.

The next song came on the stereo, "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover." Jeffrey tried to joke with her, saying, "It's our song."

Sara gave him a wary look before fumbling for the remote. Abruptly, the music stopped, the silence replacing the song filling the house. They both seemed to take a few seconds to adjust to the change.

She said, "What're you doing here?"

Jeffrey opened his mouth, thinking that he should say something romantic, something to sweep her off her feet. He wanted to tell her that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, that he had never really known what it meant to be in love until he had met her. None of these things came, though, so he offered her information instead.

"I found the transcripts from your trial, Wright's trial, in Jeb's house."

She crossed her arms. "That so?"

"He had newspaper clippings, photographs. That kind of thing." He stopped, then, "I guess Jeb moved here to be close to you."

She gave a condescending, "You think?"

He ignored the warning behind her tone. "There are some other attacks over in Pike County," Jeffrey continued. He couldn't stop himself, even though he could tell from her expression that he should just shut the hell up, that she did not want to know these things. The problem was that it was much easier to tell Sara the facts than for Jeffrey to come up with something on his own.

He continued. "The sheriff over there has four cases he's trying to tie to Jeb. We'll need to get some samples for the lab so he can do a crosscheck with the DNA samples they took at the scene. Plus what we have from Julia Matthews." He cleared his throat. "His body's over at the morgue."

"I'm not doing it," Sara answered.

"We can get somebody from Augusta."

"No," Sara corrected. "You don't understand. I'm going to hand in my resignation tomorrow."

He could not think of anything to say but "Why?"

"Because I can't do this anymore," she said, indicating the space between them. "I can't keep this up, Jeffrey. This is why we divorced."

"We divorced because I made a stupid mistake."

"No," she said, stopping him. "We're not going to have this same argument over and over again. This is why I'm resigning. I can't keep putting myself through this. I can't let you hang around the periphery of my life. I have to get on with it."

"I love you," he said, as if that made any difference. "I know I'm not good enough for you. I know I can't begin to understand you and I do the wrong things and I say the wrong things and I should've been here with you instead of going to Atlanta after you told me about-after I read about-what happened." He paused, then, "I know all that. And I still can't stop loving you." She did not answer, so he said, "Sara, I can't not be with you. I need you."

"Which me do you need?" she asked. "The one from before or the one who was raped?"

"They're both the same person," he countered. "I need them both. I love them both." He stared at her, trying to find the right thing to say. "I don't want to be without you."

"You don't have a choice."

"Yes, I do," he answered. "I don't care what you say, Sara. I don't care if you resign or you move out of town or you change your name, I'm still going to find you."

"Like Jeb?"

Her words cut deep. Of all the things she could have said, this was the cruelest. She seemed to realize this, because she apologized quickly. "That wasn't fair," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Is that what you think? That I'm like him?"

"No." She shook her head side to side. "I know you're not like him."

He looked at the floor, still feeling wounded by her words. She could have screamed that she hated him and caused less pain.

"Jeff," she said, walking toward him. She put her hand to his cheek and he took it, kissing the palm.

He said, "I don't want to lose you, Sara."

"You already have."

"No," he said, not accepting this. "I haven't. I know I haven't because you wouldn't be standing here right now. You would be back over there, telling me to leave."

Sara did not contradict him, but she walked away, back toward the sink. "I've got work to do," she mumbled, picking up the wrench.

"Are you moving?"

"Cleaning," she said. "I started last night. I don't know where anything is. I had to sleep on the sofa because so much shit's on my bed."

He tried to lighten things up. "At the very least, you'll make your mama happy."

She gave a humorless laugh, kneeling down in front of the sink. She covered the drain pipe with a towel, then locked the wrench over it. Putting her shoulder into it, she pushed the wrench. Jeffrey could tell it wouldn't budge.