Indelible

by Karin Slaughter

  “Who else is here?” Smith demanded, and she heard the shotgun being cracked and loaded. “Show your face or I’ll kill this old lady, too!”

  Marla’s scream was cut off by a slap.

  Sara finally found Jeffrey near the center of the room. She could only see his right shoulder and arm. He was lying on his back. His body was motionless. Blood pooled around him and his hand held his gun at his side, the grip relaxed. He was five desks away on the diagonal, but she could still see the band of his Auburn class ring on his finger.

  A hushed “Sara” came from her right. Frank was crouched behind the steel fire door, his weapon drawn. He motioned for her to crawl back toward him, but Sara shook her head. His voice was an angry hiss as he repeated, “Sara.”

  She looked at Jeffrey again, willing him to move, to show some signs of life. The remaining children were still huddled with Brad, their sobs slowly stifled by fear. She could not leave any of them and she told this to Frank with another sharp shake of her head. She ignored his angry snort of breath.

  “Who’s left?” Smith demanded. “Show yourself or I’m gonna shoot this old bitch!” Marla screamed, but Smith screamed louder. “Who’s fucking back there?”

  Sara was about to respond when Brad said, “Over here.”

  Before she could let herself think, Sara ran in a crouch toward the closest desk, hoping Smith was looking at Brad. She held her breath, waiting to be shot.

  “Where’re those kids?” Smith demanded.

  Brad’s voice was amazingly calm. “We’re over here. Don’t shoot. It’s just me and three little girls left. We’re not gonna do anything.”

  “Stand up.”

  “I can’t, man. I gotta take care of these kids.”

  Marla cried, “Please don’t—” and her words were cut off by another slap.

  Sara closed her eyes for a second, thinking about her family, about all that had been left unsaid between them. Then she pushed them out of her mind and instead thought about the children left in the room. She stared at the gun in Jeffrey’s hand, pinning everything on the weapon. If she could get to Jeffrey’s gun, maybe they would have a chance. Four more desks. Jeffrey was only four more desks away. She let herself look at him again. His body was still, his hand unmoving.

  Smith was still focused on Brad. “Where’s your gun?”

  “It’s here,” Brad said, and Sara darted toward the next desk, overshooting it but managing to stop short behind a lateral filing cabinet. “I gotta bunch of little girls here, man. I’m not going to draw on you. I haven’t touched my gun.”

  “Throw it over here.”

  Sara held her breath and waited until she heard Brad’s gun sliding across the floor before she ran to the next desk.

  “Don’t move!” Smith screamed as Sara skidded to a stop behind the desk. Her feet were sweating, and she saw her own bloody footprints tracing her route across the floor. She stumbled, but caught herself before she fell into the open.

  Marla wailed, “Please!”

  There was the loud retort of flesh against flesh. Marla’s chair gave a god-awful groan, as if it had snapped in two. Sara watched under the desk as Marla’s body slammed into the ground. Saliva spurted from her mouth and her teeth slid across the tiles.

  “I told you not to move!” Smith repeated, giving Marla’s chair a vicious kick that sent it spinning into the wall.

  Sara tried to control her breathing as she moved closer to Jeffrey. One desk stood between them, but it was turned the wrong way, blocking her path. She would be in Smith’s line of fire if she ran. She was almost directly across from the children. They were three desks away. She could get the gun and…Sara felt her heart stop. What could she do with the gun? What could she accomplish that nearly ten cops could not?

  Surprise, Sara thought. She had surprise. Smith and his accomplice did not know that she was in the room. She would surprise them.

  “Where’s your backup?” Smith demanded.

  “I’m patrol. I don’t carry a second—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” He fired in Brad’s direction and instead of the screams Sara expected, there was silence. She looked back under the desks, trying to see if anyone had been shot. Three sets of glassy eyes stared back. Shock had taken over. The girls were too afraid to scream.

  Silence filled the room like a poisonous gas. Sara counted to thirty-one before Smith asked, “You still there, man?”

  She put her hand to her chest, scared her heart was beating too loudly. From what she could see of Brad, he was not moving. Her mind flashed on an image of him sitting there, his arms still around the children, his head gone. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force the image from her brain.

  She chanced another look at Smith, who was standing where Marla had greeted her less than ten minutes ago. He had a nine-millimeter in one hand and the shotgun in another. His jacket was open and Sara could see two empty holsters along with extra shells for the shotgun strapped to his chest. Another pistol was tucked into the front of his jeans and at his feet was a long black duffel bag that probably contained more ammunition. The second gunman was behind the counter, his weapon still pointing toward the front door. His body was tensed, his finger resting to the side of the trigger on his rifle. He was chewing gum, and Sara found his silent gum-chewing more unnerving than Smith’s threats.

  Smith repeated, “You there, man?” He paused before trying again. “You there?”

  Finally, Brad said, “I’m here.”

  Sara let out a slow breath, relief weakening her muscles. She flattened herself to the floor, knowing the best way to get to Jeffrey would be to slide past a row of overturned filing cabinets. Slowly, she made her way along the cold tiles, reaching her hand out toward his. The tips of her fingers finally grazed the cuff of his jacket. She closed her eyes, inching closer.

  The gun in his hand was spent, though Sara could have guessed as much if she had let herself think about it. Jeffrey had been reloading when he was shot, and the magazine had dropped to the floor, splitting on impact. Bullets were everywhere—useless, unused bullets. She shouldn’t be surprised by that, just like she shouldn’t be surprised to feel the coldness of his skin or, when her fingers finally rested upon his wrist, the absence of his pulse.

  Chapter Two

  9:22 A.M.

  Ethan,” Lena said, cradling the phone with her shoulder as she tied the laces on her new black high-top sneakers. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why,” she snapped. “I can’t be late for work my first day back.”

  “I don’t want you to do this.”

  “Really? Because it wasn’t clear the eighteen million other times you said it.”

  “You know what?” he said, his tone still controlled because he was actually stupid enough to think he could talk her out of this. “You can be such a bitch sometimes.”

  “It took you long enough to figure that out.”

  He embarked on one of his little tirades, but Lena only half listened as she stared at herself in the mirror on the back of the door. She looked good today. Her hair was tied up and the suit she had bought on sale last week was cut just right for her build. She slid back the jacket, resting her hand on her holstered police-issue nine. The metal felt reassuring under her hand.

  “Are you listening to me?” Ethan demanded.

  “No,” she said. “I’m a cop, Ethan. A detective. It’s who I am.”

  “We both know who you are,” he told her, his tone sharper. “And we both know what you’re capable of.” He waited a beat, and she bit her tongue, forcing herself not to respond to the challenge.

  He changed tactics. “Does your boss know you’re seeing me again?”

  “It’s not like we’re sneaking around.”

  He had heard the defensiveness in her tone, and pounced. “That’d make things real good for you at work, don’t you think? It’ll take less than a week for it to get around that you’re being nailed by an ex-con.”
>
  She dropped her hand from the gun, swearing under her breath.

  “What’d you say?” he demanded.

  “I said it’s already gotten around, you idiot. Everybody at the station already knows.”

  “They don’t know everything,” he reminded her in a low, threatening tone.

  Lena glanced at the clock by her bed. She could not be late her first day back. Things were going to be tense enough without her breezing in five minutes behind. Frank would use it as another reason she was not ready to return to the force, and Matt, his cohort, would agree. Today would be a harder test for Lena than her first day in uniform. Just like then, everyone would be looking at her to fail. The difference was that now they would feel sorry for her if she fucked up, whereas before they would have cheered. If she was honest with herself, Lena would rather have their cheers than their pity. If this did not work out today, she did not know what she would do. Move, probably. Maybe they were hiring in Alaska.

  She told Ethan, “I’ll probably have to work late tonight.”

  “I don’t mind,” he told her, relaxed by the implication that she would see him later. “Why don’t you come over?”

  “Because your dorm smells like puke and piss.”

  “I could come over there.”

  “Yeah, that’d be great. With my dead sister’s gay lover in the next room? No thanks.”

  “Come on, baby. I want to see you.”

  “I don’t know how late I’ll be,” she told him. “I’ll probably be tired.”

  “Then we can just sleep,” he offered. “I don’t care. I want to see you.”

  His voice was soothing now, but Lena knew if she kept resisting he would turn nasty. Ethan was only twenty-three, almost ten years younger than Lena, and he had yet to figure out that a night spent apart was not the end of their relationship. Though, sometimes, Lena wished it could be that easy to make the break from him. Maybe now that she had a job again, something more demanding to occupy her brain than the daytime TV schedule, she could finally get away.

  “Lena?” Ethan said, as if a sixth sense told him she was thinking about leaving. “I love you so much, baby.” His voice grew even softer. “Come see me tonight. I’ll make us dinner, maybe get some wine…?”

  “I missed my period last month.”

  He sucked in air and her only regret was that she could not see his expression.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “You think I’m joking?” she asked. “I’m three weeks late.”

  Finally, he came up with “Stress can do that, right?”

  “So can sperm.”

  He was quiet, his breathing the only noise on the line.

  She forced something that sounded like a laugh. “Still love me, baby?”

  His voice was tight and controlled. “Don’t be like that.”

  “Lookit,” she said, wishing that she had never even mentioned it to him. “Don’t worry, okay? I’ll take care of it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what it means, Ethan. If I’m…” She couldn’t even say the word. “If something’s happened, I’ll take care of it.”

  “You can’t—”

  The phone beeped, and Lena had never been so thankful for call-waiting in her life. “I’ve got to get this. I’ll see you around.” She clicked the phone to the other call before Ethan could say anything else.

  “Lee?” a raspy voice said. Lena suppressed a groan, thinking she would have been better off sticking with Ethan.

  “Hey, Hank.”

  “Happy birthday, girl!”

  She smiled before she caught herself.

  “Didja get my card?”

  “Yeah,” she told her uncle. “Thanks.”

  “You get yourself something nice?”

  “Yeah,” Lena repeated, tugging the jacket back into place. Hank’s two hundred dollars could have been better spent on groceries or her car payment, but Lena had splurged for once. Today was an important day. She was a cop again.

  Her cell phone rang, and she saw from the caller ID that it was Ethan, calling on his cell phone. He was still holding on call-waiting.

  Hank said, “You need to get that?”

  “No,” she told him, turning off the phone mid-ring and tucking it into her jacket pocket. She opened the bedroom door and walked into the hallway as Hank started his usual birthday story about how the day Lena and her twin sister, Sibyl, came to live with him was the happiest day of his life. She stopped in the bathroom, checking herself in the mirror again. She had dark circles under her eyes, but the tinted foundation she’d used helped take care of the problem. Nothing could be done about the deep purple gash on her bottom lip where she had bitten down too hard and split it.

  A picture of Sibyl was tucked into the frame of the mirror. It had been taken a month or so before she was killed, and though Lena wanted to remove the photograph, this wasn’t her house. As she did almost every morning, Lena compared the picture of her twin to her own reflection in the mirror, not liking what she saw. When Sibyl died, they had appeared almost completely identical. Now Lena’s cheeks were hollow and her dark hair wasn’t as thick or shiny. She looked a hell of a lot older than thirty-three, but it was the hardness in her eyes more than anything else that gave her that appearance. Her skin didn’t glow like it used to, but Lena was hoping to get that back. She was running every day and doing free weights at the gym with Ethan almost every night.

  Call-waiting beeped again, and Lena gritted her teeth, wishing she hadn’t said anything to Ethan about her period. She had never been regular, but neither had she ever been this late. Maybe it was because she was working out so much, training to get ready for the job again. The last six weeks had been like preparing for a marathon. And then, Ethan was right about stress. She was under a lot of stress lately. She had been under a lot of stress for the last two years.

  Lena pressed her hand to her eyes. She wasn’t going to think about it. Last year, a pretty good shrink had told her that sometimes denial could be a good thing. Today was definitely a good day to pull a Scarlett O’Hara. She would think about it tomorrow. Shit, maybe she wouldn’t think about it until next week.

  She interrupted Hank’s story, which had left out some important details, like the fact that he’d been a speed freak and an alcoholic when social services had dropped Sibyl and Lena on his lap—and that was the happy part of the story. “How’d this weekend go?”

  “Better than I thought,” Hank said, sounding pleased. He had turned The Hut, his dilapidated bar on the outskirts of the shithole town where Lena had grown up, into a weekend karaoke bar. Considering Hank’s regular clientele, this was somewhat of a gamble, but Hank’s success proved Lena’s long-held theory that a drunk redneck would do anything when the lights were turned down low.

  “Baby,” Hank began, his tone turning serious. “I know today’s a big day and all….”

  “It’s no big deal,” she said. “Really.”

  “You don’t have to talk all tough with me,” he said, his temper flaring. Sometimes, he was so like her that Lena felt a flicker of shock when he spoke.

  “Anyway,” Hank said, “I just want you to know if you need anything—”

  “I’m fine,” she interrupted, not wanting to have this conversation again.

  “Just let me damn finish,” he snapped. “I’m trying to say that if you need anything, I’m here. Not just money and all, but you know you’ve got that if you need it.”

  “I’m fine,” she repeated, thinking hell would freeze over before she went to her uncle Hank for help with anything.

  The phone beeped, and Lena ignored it again. She walked into the kitchen and would have turned back around if Nan hadn’t grabbed her arm.

  “Happy birthday!” Nan said, clapping her hands with sheer joy. She took a box of matches from her apron, and Lena watched as she lit the single candle on top of a white-frosted yellow cupcake. There was another cupcake on the counter with a similar candle, b
ut Nan left that one alone.

  Nan began to sing, “Happy birthday to you,” and Lena told Hank, “I’ve got to go.”

  “Happy birthday!” he repeated, nearly in time with Nan.

  Lena ended the call. The phone began ringing almost immediately, and she turned it on then quickly off again as Nan finished the song.

  “Thanks.” Lena blew out the candle, hoping to God Nan didn’t expect her to eat anything. Her stomach felt like she had swallowed a rock.

  “Did you make a wish?”

  “Yeah,” Lena said, thinking it best not to tell her what.

  “I know you’re too nervous to eat it,” Nan said, peeling the paper away from the little round cake. She smiled, taking a bite. Sometimes Nan was so damn intuitive it made Lena uncomfortable; it was like they were an old married couple.

  Nan asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, thanks,” Lena said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. The coffeemaker was one of the few things Lena kept in the shared parts of the house. Most of the time, she stayed confined to her room, reading or watching the small black-and-white television she had gotten free from the bank when she opened a new checking account.

  Lena had moved in with Nan out of dire necessity, but no matter what Nan did to try to make her feel comfortable here, Lena had a strong sense of not belonging. Nan was the perfect roommate, if you could tolerate that kind of perfection, but Lena had finally gotten to the place where she wanted her own house with her own things. She wanted a mirror she could look at in the morning without having the last two years thrown back in her face. She wanted Ethan out of her life. She wanted the rock in her gut to go away. For the first time in her life, she wanted her period.

  The phone rang again. Lena pressed the buttons in rapid succession, hanging up the call.

  Nan took another bite of cupcake, watching Lena over the mound of frosting. She chewed slowly, then swallowed. “It’s such a shame you have to wear makeup now. You’ve got great skin.”

  The phone rang again, and Lena clicked it off. “Thanks.”