A Faint Cold Fear

  “He was very good to Sibyl.”

  “Sibyl could take care of herself,” Lena insisted, though they both knew that was not necessarily true. Sibyl had been blind. Richard had been her eyes on campus, making her life a hell of a lot easier.

  Nan changed the subject, saying, “I wish you would talk to me about taking some of the insurance—”

  “No,” Lena cut her off. Sibyl had taken out a life-insurance policy through the college that paid out double for accidental death. Nan had been the beneficiary, and she had been offering half to Lena since the check cleared.

  “Sibyl left that to you,” Lena told her for what felt like the millionth time. “She wanted you to have it.”

  “She didn’t even have a will,” Nan countered. “She didn’t like to think about death, let alone plan for it. You know how she was.”

  Lena felt tears well into her eyes.

  Nan said, “The only reason she had the policy was the college offered it for free with her health insurance. She just put me because—”

  “Because she wanted you to have it,” Lena finished for her, using the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. She had cried so much in the last year that it no longer embarrassed her to do it in public. “Listen, Nan, I appreciate it, but it’s your money. Sibyl wanted you to have it.”

  “She wouldn’t have wanted you working for Chuck. She would’ve hated that.”

  “I’m not too crazy about it myself,” Lena admitted, though the only person she had ever said this to was Jill Rosen. “It’s just something to get by until I decide what I want to do with my life.”

  “You could go back to school.”

  Lena laughed. “I’m a little old to be going back to school.”

  “Sibby always said you’d rather sweat your butt off running a marathon in the middle of August than spend ten minutes inside an air-conditioned classroom.”

  Lena smiled, feeling the release as her mind conjured Sibyl’s voice saying this exact thing. Sometimes it was like a click in Lena’s brain, where the bad things were shut off and the good things came on.

  Nan said, “It’s hard to believe it’s been a year.”

  Lena stared out the window, thinking how odd it was that she was talking to Nan like this. Except for Sibyl, Lena would have stayed as far away as possible from someone like Nan Thomas.

  “I was thinking about her this morning,” Lena said. Something about the fear on Sara Linton’s face as they loaded her sister into the helicopter had cut Lena deeper than anything had in a long while. “Sibyl used to love this time of year.”

  “She loved walking in the woods,” Nan said. “I always tried to leave early on Fridays so we could go for a walk before it got too dark.”

  Lena swallowed, afraid that if she opened her mouth, a sob would escape.

  “Anyway,” Nan said, putting her palms flat on the table as she stood, “I’d better start cataloging some books before Chuck comes back and asks me to dinner.”

  Lena stood, too. “Why don’t you just tell him you’re gay?”

  “So he can get off on it?” Nan asked. “No thank you.”

  Lena conceded the point. She herself had worried about Chuck’s reading the paper and the lurid details of Lena’s attack.

  “Besides,” Nan said, “a guy like that will just say the only reason I don’t want him around is because I’m a lesbian and lesbians hate men.” Nan leaned forward conspiratorially. “When the truth is, we don’t hate all men. We just hate him.”

  Lena shook her head, thinking if that was the criteria, every woman on campus was a lesbian.

  4

  Grady Hospital was one of the most respected level-one trauma centers in the country, but its reputation among Atlantans was notoriously bad. Operated by the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, Grady was one of the few remaining public hospitals in the area, and despite the fact that it housed one of the nation’s largest burn units, had the most comprehensive HIV/AIDS program in the nation, and served as a regional treatment center for high-risk mothers and infants. If you came in with an upset stomach or a bad earache, you were more than likely looking at a two-hour wait to see a doctor—if you were lucky.

  Grady was a teaching hospital, and Emory University, Sara’s alma mater, as well as Morehouse College supplied a steady stream of interns. The emergency-room slot was highly sought by students, as Grady was said to be the best place in the country to learn emergency medicine. Fifteen years ago Sara had fought tooth and nail to win a position on the pediatric team, and she’d learned more in one year than most doctors learned in a lifetime. When she left Atlanta to move back to Grant County, Sara had never thought she would see Grady again, especially under these circumstances.

  “Somebody’s coming,” the man beside Sara said, and everyone in the waiting room—thirty people at least—looked up at the nurse expectantly.

  “Ms. Linton?”

  Sara’s heart lifted, and for a split second she thought her mother had finally arrived. Sara stood, putting down a magazine to save her chair, though she had been taking turns saving places with the old man beside her for the last two hours.

  “Is she out of surgery?” Sara asked, unable to keep the tremble from her voice. The surgeon had estimated four hours at least, a conservative guess to Sara’s thinking.

  “No,” the nurse told her, leading Sara to the nurses’ station. “You have a phone call.”

  “Is it my parents?” Sara asked, raising her voice to be heard. The hallway was crowded with people; doctors and nurses whizzing by with purpose in their step as they tried to keep a handle on their ever-increasing patient load.

  “He said he’s a police officer.” The nurse handed the phone to Sara, saying, “Keep it brief. We’re really not supposed to allow private calls on this line.”

  “Thanks.” Sara took the phone, leaning her back against the nurses’ station, trying to stay out of the way.

  “Jeffrey?” she asked.

  “Hey,” he said, sounding as stressed as she felt. “Is she out of surgery?”

  “No,” she told him, glancing up the hallway toward the surgical suites. Several times she had thought about walking through the doors, trying to find out what was happening, but there was a guard posted who seemed very intent on doing his job.

  “Sara?”

  “I’m here.”

  Jeffrey asked, “What about the baby?”

  Sara felt her throat tighten at the question. She could not talk about Tessa with him. Not like this. She asked, “Did you find out anything?”

  “I talked to Jill Rosen, the suicide’s mom. She couldn’t tell me much. We found a chain, some kind of necklace with a Star of David, that belonged to the kid in the woods.”

  When Sara did not respond, Jeffrey told her, “Andy, the suicide, was either in the woods or someone who took the chain from him went into the woods.”

  Sara made herself respond. “Which do you think is likely?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Brad saw Tessa pick up a white plastic bag on the way up the hill.”

  “She had something in her hand,” Sara remembered.

  “Is there any reason she would be picking up trash?”

  Sara tried to think. “Why?”

  “Brad said that looked like what she was doing on the hill. She found a bag and started putting trash in it.”

  “She might,” Sara said, confused. “She was complaining about people littering earlier. I don’t know.”

  “Maybe she found something on the hill and put it in the bag? We found the Star of David that belonged to the victim, but that was deeper in the forest.”

  “If Tessa did pick up something, that would mean someone was watching us while we were with the body. What’s his name again—Andy?”

  “Andy Rosen,” he confirmed. “Do you still think something’s suspicious?”

  Sara did not know how to answer. Examining Rosen seemed like a lifetime away. She could barely recall what the boy had looked like.
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  “Sara?”

  She told him the truth. “I don’t know anymore.”

  “You were right that he tried it before,” he said. “His mom confirmed it. Slit his arm open.”

  “A previous attempt and a note,” Sara said, thinking that, barring something that might jump out in the autopsy, those two factors would generally be conclusive enough to rule the death a suicide. She said, “We could run a tox screen. He wouldn’t have gone over that bridge without a struggle.”

  “His back was scraped.”

  “Not in a violent way.”

  “I can get Brock to check that out,” he offered. Dan Brock, a local mortician, had been the county coroner before Sara had taken the job. “I haven’t let it out that there’s anything suspicious. Brock can keep a secret.”

  She said, “He can pull blood samples, but I want to do the autopsy.”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to?”

  “If this is connected,” she began. “If whoever did this to Tess . . .” Sara couldn’t finish, but she had never in her life felt such a need for vengeance. Finally she said, “Yes. I’ll be able to do it.”

  Jeffrey seemed doubtful, but he told her, “We’re checking Andy’s apartment. They found a pipe in his room. The mom says he had a drug problem a while back, but the dad says he kicked it.”

  “Right,” Sara said, feeling her anger flare at the thought of her sister’s being caught in the crossfire of something as stupid and pointless as a drug transaction gone wrong. Tessa’s stabbing was the sort of violence that people who said drugs were harmless fun tended to ignore.

  “We’re dusting his room, trying to get prints to run through the computer. I’m going to talk to his parents tomorrow. The mother gave me a couple of names, but they’ve already transferred out of school or graduated.” Jeffrey paused, and she could tell he was feeling frustrated.

  The surgical doors burst open, but the patient was not Tessa. Sara pressed her heels into the baseboard of the nurses’ station so the team could pass by. An older woman with dark blond hair was on the gurney, her eyelids still taped closed from surgery.

  “How did his parents take the news?” Sara asked, thinking of her own parents.

  “Okay, considering.” Jeffrey paused. “She really broke down in the car. There was something going on with her and Lena. I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Like what?” Sara asked, though Lena Adams was the last person in the world she cared about right now.

  “I don’t know,” he said, unsurprisingly. She could hear him drumming his fingers on something. “Rosen lost it in the car. Just lost it.” The drumming stopped. “Her husband called me when he found out. They routed him through from the station.” He paused for a moment. “They’re both pretty torn up. This kind of thing can be hard on people. They tend to—”

  “Jeffrey,” Sara interrupted, “I need you . . .” She felt her throat closing again, as if the words were choking her. “I need you here.”

  “I know,” he told her, resignation in his voice. “I don’t think I can.”

  Sara wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. One of the passing doctors looked up at her, then quickly back down at the chart he held in his hands. Feeling foolish and exposed, Sara tried to steel herself against the emotions that wanted to come. She said, “Sure, okay. I understand.”

  “No, Sara—”

  “I’d better get off this phone. It’s the one at the nurses’ station. Some guy’s been on the phone in the waiting room for an hour.” She laughed, just to get some release. “He’s speaking in Russian, but I think he’s been making drug deals.”

  “Sara,” Jeffrey stopped her, “it’s your dad. He asked me—he told me not to come.”

  “What?” Sara said the word so loudly that several people looked up from their work.

  “He was upset. I don’t know. He told me not to come to the hospital, that it was a family matter.”

  Sara lowered her voice. “He doesn’t get to decide—”

  “Sara, listen to me,” Jeffrey said, his voice calmer than she felt. “It’s your dad. I’ve got to respect that.” He paused. “And it’s not just your dad. Cathy said the same thing.”

  She felt foolish repeating herself, but all she could say was, “What?”

  “They’re right,” he said. “Tessa shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have let her—”

  “I’m the one who brought her to the scene,” Sara reminded him, the guilt she’d been feeling for the last few hours suddenly raging back up inside her.

  “They’re just upset right now. Understandably upset.” He stopped, like he was trying to think how to phrase his words. “They need some time.”

  “Time to see what happens?” she asked. “So if Tessa makes it, then you’re welcome back to Sunday dinner, but if she doesn’t . . .” Sara could not complete the sentence.

  “They’re angry. That’s how people get when something like this happens. They feel helpless, and they get angry at whoever’s around.”

  “I was around, too,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  For a moment Sara felt too shocked to speak. Finally she asked, “Are they mad at me?” but she knew that her parents had every reason to be. Sara was in charge of Tessa. She always had been.

  Jeffrey said, “They just want time, Sara. I have to give them that. I won’t upset them any more.”

  She nodded, though he couldn’t see her.

  “I want to see you. I want to be there for you and for Tessa.” She could hear the grief in his voice and knew how hard this was for him. Still, she could not help feeling betrayed by his absence. Jeffrey had a history of not being around when she needed him most. He was doing the right thing, the respectful thing, now, but Sara was in no mood for noble gestures.

  “Sara?”

  “All right,” she said. “You’re right.”

  “I’ll go by and feed the dogs, okay? Take care of the house.” He paused again. “Cathy said they’d go by your house on the way to bring you some clothes.”

  “I don’t need clothes,” Sara told him, feeling her emotions rise up again. She could only whisper, “I need you.”

  His voice was soft. “I know, baby.”

  Sara felt tears threatening to come again. She had not let herself cry yet. There had not been time when Tessa was in the helicopter, and then the emergency room and the waiting room—even the bathroom, where Sara had changed into a pair of scrubs one of the nurses had found for her—had been too crowded for her to take a private moment to let herself give in to the grief she felt.

  The nurse chose this moment to interrupt. “Ms. Linton?” she said. “We really need the phone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sara told her. Then, to Jeffrey, “I have to get off this line.”

  “Can you call me from somewhere else?”

  “I can’t leave this area,” Sara said, watching an older couple walking up the hallway. The man was slightly stooped, the woman holding him up by the arm as they shuffled along, reading the signs on the doors.

  Jeffrey said, “There’s a McDonald’s across the street, right? Near the university parking decks?”

  “I don’t know,” Sara answered, because she had not been into this part of Atlanta in years. “Is there?”

  “I think there is,” he told her. “I’ll meet you there at six tomorrow morning, okay?”

  “No,” she said, watching the older couple come closer. “Take care of the dogs.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sara continued watching the man and his wife. With a start, Sara realized that she had not recognized her own parents.

  Jeffrey said, “Sara?”

  “I’ll call you later,” she said. “They’re here. I’ve got to go.”

  Sara leaned over the counter to hang up the phone, feeling disoriented and afraid. She walked down the hall, hugging her arms to her stomach, waiting for her parents to start looking like her parents again. With a startling clarit
y, she realized how old they were. Like most grown children, Sara had always pictured her mother and father as somehow not going past a certain age, yet here they were, elderly and so frail-looking she wondered how they managed to walk.

  “Mama?” Sara said.

  Cathy did not reach for her, as Sara had thought she would, had wanted her to do. One arm stayed around Eddie’s waist, as if she needed to hold him up. The other she held at her side. “Where is she?”

  “She’s still in surgery,” Sara told her, wanting to go to her, knowing from Cathy’s hard expression that she should not. “Mama—”

  “What happened?”

  Sara felt a lump in her throat, thinking that Cathy did not even sound like her mother. There was an impenetrable edge to her voice, and her mouth was set in a straight, cold line. Sara took them to the side of the busy hallway so they could talk. Everything felt so formal, as if they had just met.

  Sara began, “She wanted to come along with me—”

  “And you let her,” Eddie said, and the accusation behind his words cut deep. “Why in God’s name did you let her?”

  Sara bit her lip to keep from trying. “I didn’t think—”

  He cut her off. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Eddie,” Cathy said, not to reprimand him but to tell him that now was not the time.

  Sara was quiet for a moment, willing herself not to get more upset than she already felt. “They’ve got her in surgery now. She should be in for another couple of hours.” They all looked up as the doors opened again, but it was just a nurse, probably taking a break from surgery.

  Sara continued, “She was stabbed in the belly and the chest. There was a grazing head wound.” Sara put her hand to her own head, showing them where Tessa’s head had hit the rock. She paused there, thinking about the wound, feeling the same panic well up. She wondered not for the first time if it had all been a terrible dream. As if to snap her out of it, the surgical doors popped open again, and an orderly pushing an empty wheelchair passed through.

  Cathy said, “And?”

  “I tried to control the bleeding,” Sara continued, seeing the scene playing out in her mind. In the waiting room, she had been going over and over what had happened, trying to figure out what she could have done differently, only to realize how hopeless the situation had been.