Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,1

said, “I’m late for lunch with Tess. What did you need?”

He seemed taken aback by her curt tone. “You just looked distracted yesterday,” he said. “In church.”

“I wasn’t distracted,” she mumbled, flipping through the mail. She stopped at the sight of a postcard, her whole body going rigid. The front of the card showed a picture of Emory University in Atlanta, Sara’s alma mater. Neatly typed on the back beside her address at the children’s clinic were the words “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

“Sara?”

A cold sweat came over her. “I need to go.”

“Sara, I—”

She hung up the phone before Jeffrey could finish his sentence, shoving three more charts into her briefcase along with the postcard. She slipped out the side door without anyone seeing her.

Sunlight beamed down on Sara as she walked into the street. There was a chill in the air that had not been there this morning, and the dark clouds promised rain later on tonight.

A red Thunderbird passed, a small arm hanging out the window.

“Hey, Dr. Linton,” a child called.

Sara waved, calling “Hey” back as she crossed the street. Sara switched the briefcase from one hand to the other as she cut across the lawn in front of the college. She took a right onto the sidewalk, heading toward Main Street, and was at the diner in less than five minutes.

Tessa was sitting in a booth on the far wall of the empty diner, eating a hamburger. She did not look pleased.

“Sorry I’m late,” Sara offered, walking toward her sister. She tried a smile, but Tessa did not respond in kind.

“You said two. It’s nearly two-thirty.”

“I had paperwork,” Sara explained, tucking her briefcase into the booth. Tessa was a plumber, like their father. While clogged drains were no laughing matter, very seldom did Linton and Daughters get the kind of emergency phone calls that Sara did on a daily basis. Her family could not grasp what a busy day was like for Sara and were constantly irritated by her lateness.

“I called the morgue at two,” Tessa informed her, nibbling a french fry. “You weren’t there.”

Sara sat down with a groan, running her fingers through her hair. “I dropped back by the clinic and Mama called and the time got away from me.” She stopped, saying what she always said. “I’m sorry. I should have called.” When Tessa did not respond, Sara continued, “You can keep being mad at me for the rest of lunch or you can drop it and I’ll buy you a slice of chocolate cream pie.”

“Red velvet,” Tessa countered.

“Deal,” Sara returned, feeling an inordinate sense of relief. It was bad enough having her mother mad at her.

“Speaking of calls,” Tessa began, and Sara knew where she was going even before she asked the question. “Hear from Jeffrey?”

Sara raised up, tucking her hand into her front pocket. She pulled out two five-dollar bills. “He called before I left the clinic.”

Tessa barked a laugh that filled the restaurant. “What did he say?”

“I cut him off before he could say anything,” Sara answered, handing her sister the money.

Tessa tucked the fives into the back pocket of her blue jeans. “So, Mama called? She was pretty pissed at you.”

“I’m pretty pissed at me, too,” Sara said. After being divorced for two years, she still could not let go of her ex-husband. Sara vacillated between hating Jeffrey Tolliver and hating herself because of this. She wanted just one day to go by without thinking about him, without having him in her life. Yesterday, much like today, had not been that day.

Easter Sunday was important to her mother. While Sara was not particularly religious, putting on panty hose one Sunday out of the year was a small price to pay for Cathy Linton’s happiness. Sara had not planned on Jeffrey being at church. She had caught him out of the corner of her eye just after the first hymn. He was sitting three rows behind and to the right of her, and they seemed to notice each other at the same time. Sara had forced herself to look away first.

Sitting there in church, staring at the preacher without hearing a word the man was saying, Sara had felt Jeffrey’s gaze on the back of her neck. There was a heat from the intensity of his stare that caused a warm flush to come over her. Despite the fact that she was sitting in church with her mother on one side of her and Tessa and her father on the other,