Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,129

before. “Lena?”

She heard him moving closer, heard knocking in quick staccato, then a pause, then more knocking.

Sara said, “It’s a false panel.”

More knocking came, then the sound of their footsteps on the attic stairs. The door burst open, light cutting through the darkness. Lena squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like needles were pressing into her eyeballs.

“Oh my God,” Sara gasped. Then, “Get some towels. Sheets. Anything.”

Lena slit her eyes open as Sara knelt in front of her. There was a coldness coming off Sara’s body, and she was wet.

“It’s okay,” Sara whispered, her hand on Lena’s forehead. “You’re going to be okay.”

Lena opened her eyes more, letting her pupils adjust to the light. She looked back at the door, searching for Jeb.

“He’s dead,” Sara said. “He can’t hurt you—” She stopped, but Lena knew what she was going to say. She heard the last word to Sara’s sentence in her mind if not her ears. He can’t hurt you anymore, she had started to say.

Lena allowed herself to look up at Sara. Something flashed in Sara’s eyes, and Lena knew that Sara somehow understood. Jeb was part of Lena now. He would be hurting her every day for the rest of her life.

Sunday

30

Jeffrey drove back from the hospital in Augusta feeling like a soldier 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 hear 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