A Grant County Collection: Indelible, Faithless and Skin Privilege

by Karin Slaughter

  'Yes,' he said, picking up the gun. 'I do.'

  'Oh, God –'

  He pointed the gun directly at her head, his hand steady. Sara closed her eyes, thinking of all the things she had never done in her life, wondering how her parents would get through this. Tessa still needed her, and Jeffrey . . . there was so much that Sara had left unsaid. She would give anything right now to be with him, feel his arms around her.

  'You're not a murderer,' she told him, her throat straining from the effort.

  'I'm so sorry,' Robert said, standing close enough for her to smell the sweat on him. Sara felt the cold metal of the gun press into her forehead, and she cried in earnest now, her eyes shut against everything else in the room. She heard the safety disengage, and another murmured apology.

  'Please,' she whispered. 'Please don't. Please.' She said the only thing that she thought might get through to him. 'I'm pregnant.'

  The gun stayed where it was a few long seconds before it dropped, and Robert cursed under his breath.

  She opened her eyes to find his back to her. His shoulders shook, and she thought he was crying until he turned around. Terror struck through her as she realized that he was laughing.

  'Pregnant?' he repeated, as if she had just told the punch line to a really good joke.

  'Robert –'

  'Everything comes so goddamn easy to him.'

  Instantly, Sara realized her mistake. 'I didn't –'

  'Jesus,' he hissed, pointing the gun back at her head. His hand shook this time, and he faltered, cursing again. 'Fuck.'

  'Jeffrey doesn't know,' she said, desperate to find the right thing to say. 'He doesn't know!'

  Robert kept the gun steady. 'He never will.'

  'He will!' she screamed. 'At the autopsy!' Robert's jaw set, and she kept talking as fast as she could. 'Is that how you want him to find out? Do you want him to find out when I'm dead? He'll find out, Robert. That's how he'll find out.'

  'Stop,' he ordered, pressing the gun to her skull. 'Just shut up.'

  'It's a boy!' she screamed, almost hysterical with fear. 'It's a boy, Robert. His son. Jeffrey's son.'

  He dropped the gun to his side again, not laughing this time.

  'You know what it's like to lose a child,' she told him, her body shaking so badly the chair began to rock. 'You know what it's like.'

  He ignored her, nodding his head slowly, as if he was having some sort of conversation with himself. Sara saw his lips moving, but no words came out. He engaged the safety before tucking the gun back into his pants, then picked up the roll of tape again.

  Sara watched him work the tape, knowing that he was going to tape her mouth shut so he could shoot her.

  'He loves me,' Sara gripped the arms of the chair with her hands, trying to break free.

  Robert tore off a strip of tape.

  'You're going to take that away from him,' she said, the words rushing out of her mouth. 'You're going to take away his child, Robert. His unborn child.' Sara's voice caught on the words, mostly because she knew that there was no other time in the world when she would be able to say them. 'Our child,' she said, loving the way the words felt in her mouth. 'Our baby.'

  Robert obviously heard the passion in her voice, because he stopped what he was doing.

  'I'm carrying his child,' Sara repeated, feeling herself letting go. She was at peace with this and whatever happened next. There was no explaining the logic behind her calm; it was simply the way she felt. 'Our baby.'

  'He's gonna hurt you,' Robert said. 'Anybody who loves him always ends up getting hurt.'

  'When you love somebody,' Sara told him, 'that's the risk you take.'

  He put his fingers to her bottom lip, tracing the broken skin. Before she knew what was happening, Robert leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. It was the softest kiss Sara had ever received, and she was too shocked to pull away.

  He said, 'I'm sorry,' then taped her mouth shut before she could answer. He stood in front of her, arms crossed over his chest. 'I'm sorry for hurting you,' he said. 'I've hurt enough people in my life already.' A sour look crossed his face, as if he'd had a thought that did not agree with him. 'Jeffrey's gonna think I was into him,' he said. 'You tell him that's not true, all right? I never thought about him that way – not ever.'

  Sara nodded because that was all she could do.

  'Tell him he's gonna be a great father, and that I would never take that from him.' Robert's voice caught. 'Tell him he was the best friend I ever had, and that there was nothing else to it.'

  Sara nodded her head again, trying to understand what had changed.

  'I'm sorry about taping up your mouth. I know I promised.'

  Sara watched him go, helpless to do anything. Seconds later, she heard a car door slam and an engine start. She recognized the shoddy muffler of Robert's truck as he backed out of the driveway.

  He was gone.

  Sara began to cry again, this time from relief. She could not remember shedding so many tears in her life. Her nose began to run, and she sniffed, choking because of the tape. Her elation was quickly replaced by panic as she labored to get air into her lungs. Several seconds passed before the claustrophobia that threatened to overwhelm her started to recede. She had to get out of this chair. She could not just sit there waiting for Nell or Possum or Jeffrey to rush in and rescue her. She could not let any of them – especially Jeffrey – find her like this; helpless, afraid. No one was ever going to see her that way again.

  Sara scanned the room, trying to find something that would help her get out of the chair. Rocking forward would land her face-first on the floor, so she rocked the chair side to side until she managed to tip it over. Her head whacked into the hardwood floor with a firm thud and she felt the same dizziness from before as her eardrum vibrated from the impact. A sharp pain ran up her shoulder where she had landed on it, but the arm of the chair had loosened from the fall, too. She jerked the wood back and forth several times, trying to dislodge the dowels, but the arm held firm. The chair was probably older than all of them, something Nell's ancestors had built to last a lifetime.

  Sara took a breath, trying to think what to do next. The rockers on the bottom of the chair kept her from uprighting it and crawling to the door. Robert had taped her wrists, but not her fingers. Even if she could not manage to get free of the chair, she could try to take the tape off her mouth. If she could get the tape off her mouth, she could scream. If she could scream – even if no one could hear her – she would be okay.

  Using all her strength, Sara pulled her arm up toward her mouth. After several minutes, perspiration on her arm helped the tape fold into a tight line that cut into her flesh, but she still forced up her arm, stretching the tape to its limit. When the tape had given as much as it would, Sara slid her arm back and forth, rubbing a nasty burn from the friction. The adhesive balled up in black dots, and Sara managed to force her arm a few inches forward. She tried to move it back, but the tape pinched up her skin, blood seeping out from underneath.

  She considered the situation like a math problem, calculating the variables, adding in her pain threshold before attempting anything else. She arched her back as much as the tape around her chest and upper arms allowed, contorting her body until her shoulder screamed from the pain. Still, she kept pushing herself, stretching the tape around her chest until her mouth was inches from her hand. Her fingers had turned almost completely white from the lack of circulation, but Sara managed to touch the edge of the tape with her middle finger.

  She gave herself a break, counting to sixty, letting the minute pass as the throbbing in her arm and shoulder leveled off to a dull ache. Her fingers had touched the tape. That was enough to keep her trying. Sara stretched again, trying to reach the tape covering her mouth. Sweat from her skin and blood and saliva from her mouth had worked on the adhesive, so that when she gave one final effort, she managed to grab the edge of the tape between her thumb and index finger and pull.

  Though not en
ough to pull off the tape.

  Sara's breathing was labored and she felt the room closing in on her again, but she coached herself not to quit, knowing she could not give up this close to the goal. Her body ached from the effort, but still, she managed to contract her muscles enough to make another grab. This time, the tape came off, and she opened her mouth, panting like a dog with its head out the window.

  'Ha!' she screamed to the empty room, feeling as if she had vanquished some great foe. Maybe she had. Maybe she had vanquished her fear. Still, she was taped to the chair, lying pretty much facedown on the floor with few options and nothing but time.

  'Well,' Sara told herself. 'No reason to give up now.' This same kind of thinking had gotten her through medical school, and she was not about to abandon it now.

  She focused on her arm, wondering if she could reach the tape with her teeth. The tape around her chest was already cutting into her breasts. She could not imagine what the bruises would look like, but Sara knew that bruises eventually faded.

  Suddenly, she heard a noise in the front of the house. She opened her mouth to call for help but stopped herself. Had Robert changed his mind? Had he returned to finish the job?

  Footsteps crunched across the glass from the broken coffee table, but no one called out. Whoever had entered the house was taking their time, going from room to room. She heard movement in the kitchen, and waited to see where they would go next. Had Robert forgotten something? When Sara surprised him, had he been looking for something other than Possum's gun? If it was someone who belonged in the house, they would have surely called out by now.

  Sara clenched her teeth, fighting the pain as she tried to stretch toward her hand. She twisted and turned as much as she could in the chair, scratching Nell's good wood floors, pushing her mouth toward the tape.

  'Sara?' Jeffrey stood in the doorway, Nell's ax in his hands. 'Jesus Christ,' he said, looking around the room, obviously searching for the person who had ransacked the house.

  'He's gone,' Sara told him, still straining toward her hand.

  Jeffrey dropped the ax on the floor as he rushed toward her. 'Are you okay?' He put his hand to her eye. 'You're bleeding.' He looked around the room. 'Who did this? Who would –'

  'Get me loose,' Sara told him, thinking if she spent one more second in the chair, she would start screaming and not ever be able to stop.

  Jeffrey must have understood, because he took out his pocketknife and sliced through the tape without asking any more questions.

  'Oh, God,' Sara groaned as she rolled out of the chair, unable to do anything but lie on her back. Her shoulder was killing her and her body felt bruised and battered.

  'You're okay,' Jeffrey told her, rubbing the circulation back into her hands.

  'Robert –'

  Jeffrey did not seem surprised to learn his friend had done this. 'Did he hurt you?' His expression darkened. 'He didn't –'

  Sara thought about everything that had happened, what had brought Robert to this point, and said, 'He just scared me.'

  Jeffrey put his hand to her face, checking the cut over her eye and her split lip. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her neck, as if his kiss could make everything better. Somehow, it did, and without thinking, Sara felt herself giving in to him, holding on to him as tightly as she could.

  'You're okay,' he told her, rubbing her back. 'You're okay,' he kept saying.

  'I'm okay,' she told him, and with a calming clarity, she knew he was right.

  TWENTY-THREE

  3:17 P.M.

  Smith kept smiling at her, waiting to see her reaction. 'He raped my mother,' he repeated. 'Then he killed her to shut her up.'

  Lena felt neither shocked nor appalled. 'No, he didn't,' she said, never more sure of anything in her life. 'I know the type of man who can do that sort of thing, and Jeffrey's not like that.'

  'What do you know about it?' Smith asked.

  'I know enough,' was all she said.

  Smith clicked his tongue once. 'You don't know shit,' he said, petulant. He told Sara, 'Let's get this started.'

  'I can't do a block,' she said. 'The brachial plexus is too complicated.'

  'You don't need to do a block,' Smith told her. 'He's passed out.'

  'Don't be stupid.'

  'Watch it, lady,' he warned. He rummaged through the case Lena had brought from the ambulance. 'Use this,' he said, holding up a vial of lidocaine. He took out a flashlight and shone it in his face with a smile. 'Now you can see.'

  Sara did not move.

  'Do it,' he ordered, his face made more horrific by the flashlight.

  Sara seemed about to refuse, but something made her give in. Maybe Jeffrey's condition was too serious to let it go on for much longer. Maybe she was trying to buy some time. Either way, she did not look confident that what she was about to do would work.

  She took a pair of gloves out of the box and snapped them on. Even Lena could see that she was scared, and she wondered how in the hell Sara thought she could remove a bullet from Jeffrey's arm with her confidence so shaken.

  Sara's hands steadied as she used a pair of scissors to cut away Jeffrey's shirt. If he was awake, he wasn't moving, and Lena was glad he could not see what was going on.

  'Lena,' Sara said. 'I need to know if this is really lidocaine.'

  Lena felt the weight of her question. 'I have no idea,' she said.

  'Why did Molly make such a big deal about it?'

  'I don't know,' Lena answered, wishing there was some way to tell Sara the truth. 'Maybe she thought she could knock him out,' she said, meaning Smith.

  Sara took the bottle of medicine and snapped off the protective cap. She picked up a syringe and drew back the plunger.

  To Smith, she said, 'Pour all the Betadine on the wound.'

  Smith did not protest the order, and he even used a swab to wipe down Jeffrey's arm. With the blood washed away, Lena saw what looked like a small puncture wound in the front part of Jeffrey's armpit.

  Sara took the syringe, holding it above the site. She said to Lena, 'You're sure?'

  'I don't know,' Lena repeated, trying to convey with her eyes that it was all right. Smith was staring a hole into her, though, and Lena looked down at Jeffrey, hoping Smith did not see her certainty.

  Sara put the needle right into the wound, and Lena sucked air through her teeth without even thinking about it. She forced herself to look away, feeling a phantom pain in her own arm. She saw Brad had moved closer to Sonny. He licked his lips, looking somewhere over her head. She guessed he was looking at the station clock, and a current of panic went up her spine as she realized that it might be fast.

  Smith held up the flashlight so that Sara could see, giving Lena a perfect view of his Navy SEAL watch. There were all sorts of buttons and dials on it, and she remembered from the ad that the time was synchronized with the atomic clock in Colorado, which was accurate to within a millisecond or something impossible like that. The watch was huge, like a chunk of metal on his wrist. In the middle of the round black face was a digital readout showing the time to the seconds.

  3:19:12.

  Twelve minutes. But did his watch have the same time as hers? As Molly's and Nick's? Lena did not dare check her own watch or look at the clock behind her. Smith would know immediately what was going on and they would all be dead.

  'Scalpel,' Sara said, holding out her hand.

  Smith slapped the scalpel into her palm, and Sara cut the skin, dissecting the flesh as she followed the path of the bullet. She used the remaining medicine in the syringe as she went, finally squirting the bulk of it into the open wound. Lena tried not to watch, but she found herself mesmerized by the inner workings of Jeffrey's arm. Sara obviously knew what she was doing, but Lena had no idea how she managed to remain calm. It was like she had become a different person.

  'I need more light,' Sara told Smith, and he leaned closer with the flashlight as she probed the arm. 'Closer,' she said, but Smith did not move. Sara cursed under her bre
ath, using the back of her arm to wipe the sweat off her forehead. She leaned closer to better see what she was doing, her body an awkward arch.

  Jeffrey gave a low moan, though he did not appear to be awake.

  Sara told Lena, 'Watch his breathing.'

  She put her fingers to Jeffrey's chest, feeling the gentle up and down as he took in air. Slowly, she turned her wrist, trying to check her watch. The room was hot, and sweat dripped down her arm. The metal band had slipped around to the inside of her wrist and there was no way to see the time.

  Sara jerked back as blood squirted straight up into her face. She wiped it off with the back of her hand and kept going, telling Smith, 'Forceps.'

  He rooted around for the instrument with one hand, holding the light with the other. Sara used some gauze to wipe away blood, saying, 'I can't see it.'

  'Hate that for you,' Smith said, sounding as if he was enjoying the drama.

  'I can't get it if I can't see it.'

  'Calm down,' Smith said, handing her the forceps, which looked like giant tweezers. 'Here,' he said, shaking them in the air.

  Sara took the forceps, but she did nothing.

  'You're taking all the fun out of this,' Smith said, patting gauze around the incision. 'You can find it,' he coaxed. 'I have faith in you.'

  'I could kill him.'

  'Now you know how I feel,' he said, flashing a nasty grin. 'Go on.'

  For a second, Sara looked as if she was going to refuse, but she put her thumb and fingers through the handle of the forceps and inserted them into the wound. More blood squirted up, and she said, 'Clamp.' When Smith did not move fast enough, she said, 'Now! Give me the clamp!'

  Smith held out the instrument and Sara dropped the forceps on the floor. They clattered, a crushed bullet pinging against the tiles. She reached in with the clamp even as blood pumped all around her. Then suddenly, the blood stopped.

  Lena looked at Smith's watch again.

  3:30:58.

  'That wasn't so bad,' Smith said, obviously pleased. He used the flashlight to see inside the wound, a big smile plastered on his face, as if he was a child who had won a game against an adult.