Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,18

throwing him away had seemed like heresy. Lena leaned against the door, getting a mental flash of Sibyl as a child, standing with the Pooh bear. Lena closed her eyes, letting the memory overwhelm her. There wasn’t much Lena wanted to remember about her childhood, but a particular day stuck out. A few months after the accident that had blinded Sibyl, they were in the backyard, Lena pushing her sister on the swing. Sibyl held Pooh tight to her chest, her head thrown back as she felt the breeze, a huge smile on her face as she relished this simple pleasure. There was such a trust there, Sibyl getting on the swing, trusting Lena not to push her too hard or too high. Lena had felt a responsibility. Her chest swelled from it, and she kept pushing Sibyl until her arms had ached.

Lena rubbed her eyes, shutting the bedroom door. She went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Other than Sibyl’s usual vitamins and herbs, the cabinet was empty. Lena opened the closet, rummaging past the toilet paper and tampons, hair gel and hand towels. What she was looking for, Lena did not know. Sibyl didn’t hide things. She would be the last person to be able to find them if she did.

“Sibby,” Lena breathed, turning back to the mirror on the medicine cabinet. Seeing Sibyl, not herself. Lena spoke to her reflection, whispering, “Tell me something. Please.”

She closed her eyes, trying to navigate the space as Sibyl would. The room was small, and Lena could touch both walls with her hands as she stood in the center. She opened her eyes with a weary sigh. There was nothing there.

Back in the living room, Nan Thomas sat on the couch. She held Sibyl’s diary in her lap, not looking up when Lena came in. “I read the last few days’ worth of stuff,” she said, her tone flat. “Nothing out of place. She was worried about a kid at school who was flunking.”

“A guy?”

Nan shook her head. “Female. A freshman.”

Lena leaned her hand against the wall. “Did you have any workmen in or out in the last month?”

“No.”

“Same mailman delivering to the house? No UPS or FedEx?”

“Nobody new. This is Grant County, Lee.”

Lena bristled at the familiar name. She tried to bite back her anger. “She didn’t say she felt like she was being followed or anything?”

“No, not at all. She was perfectly normal.” Nan clutched the papers to her chest. “Her classes were fine. We were fine.” A slight smile came to her lips. “We were supposed to take a day trip to Eufalla this weekend.”

Lena took her car keys out of her pocket. “Right,” she quipped. “I guess if anything comes up you should call me.”

“Lee—”

Lena held up her hand. “Don’t.”

Nan acknowledged the warning with a frown. “I’ll call you if I think of anything.”

By midnight, Lena was finishing off her third bottle of Rolling Rock, driving across the Grant County line outside of Madison. She contemplated throwing the empty out the car window but stopped herself at the last minute. She laughed at her twisted sense of morality; she would drive under the influence but she would not litter. The line had to be drawn somewhere.

Angela Norton, Lena’s mother, grew up watching her brother Hank dig himself deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit of alcohol and drug abuse. Hank had told Lena that her mother had been adamantly against alcohol. When Angela married Calvin Adams, her only rule of the house was that he not go out drinking with his fellow policemen. Cal was known to slip out now and then, but for the most part, he honored his wife’s wishes. Three months into his marriage, he was making a routine traffic stop along a dirt road outside of Reece, Georgia, when the driver pulled a gun on him. Shot twice in the head, Calvin Adams died before his body hit the ground.

At twenty-three, Angela was hardly prepared to be a widow. When she passed out at her husband’s funeral, her family chalked it up to nerves. Four weeks of morning sickness later, a doctor finally gave her the diagnosis. She was pregnant.

As her condition progressed, Angela became more despondent. She wasn’t a happy woman to begin with. Life in Reece was not easy, and the Norton family had seen its share of hardship. Hank Norton was known for his volatile temper and was considered to be the kind of mean drunk you didn’t