Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,3
water, trying to wake up. A glance back at the mirror showed nothing had improved, but a wet spot from the water was just below the neckline of her shirt.
“Great,” Sara mumbled.
She dried her hands on her pants as she walked toward the stalls. After seeing the contents of the toilet, she moved to the next stall, the handicap stall, and opened the door.
“Oh,” Sara breathed, stepping back quickly, only stopping when the sink basin pressed against the back of her legs. She put her hands behind her, bracing herself on the counter. A metallic taste came to her mouth, and Sara forced herself to take in gulps of air so that she wouldn’t pass out. She dropped her head down, closing her eyes, counting out a full five seconds before she looked up again.
Sibyl Adams, a professor at the college, sat on the toilet. Her head was tilted back against the tiled wall, her eyes closed. Her pants were pulled down around her ankles, legs splayed wide open. She had been stabbed in the abdomen. Blood filled the toilet between her legs, dripping onto the tiled floor.
Sara forced herself to move into the stall, crouching in front of the young woman. Sibyl’s shirt was pulled up, and Sara could see a large vertical cut down her abdomen, bisecting her navel and stopping at the pubic bone. Another cut, much deeper, slashed horizontally under her breasts. This was the source of most of the blood, and it still dripped in a steady stream down the body. Sara put her hand to the wound, trying to halt the bleeding, but blood seeped between her fingers as if she were squeezing a sponge.
Sara wiped her hands on the front of her shirt, then tilted Sibyl’s head forward. A small moan escaped from the woman’s lips, but Sara could not tell if this was a simple release of air from a corpse or the plea of a living woman. “Sibyl?” Sara whispered, barely able to manage the word. Fear sat in the back of her throat like a summer cold.
“Sibyl?” she repeated, using her thumb to press open Sibyl’s eyelid. The woman’s skin was hot to the touch, as if she had been out in the sun too long. A large bruise covered the right side of her face. Sara could see the impression of a fist under the eye. Bone moved under Sara’s hand when she touched the bruise, clicking like two marbles rubbing together.
Sara’s hand shook as she pressed her fingers against Sibyl’s carotid artery. A fluttering rose against her fingertips, but Sara wasn’t sure if it was the tremor in her own hands or life that she was feeling. Sara closed her eyes, concentrating, trying to separate the two sensations.
Without warning, the body jerked violently, pitching forward and slamming Sara onto the floor. Blood spread out around both of them, and Sara instinctively clawed to get out from under the convulsing woman. With her feet and hands she groped for some kind of purchase on the slick bathroom floor. Finally, Sara managed to slide out from underneath her. She turned Sibyl over, cradling her head, trying to help her through the convulsions. Suddenly, the jerking stopped. Sara put her ear to Sibyl’s mouth, trying to make out breathing sounds. There were none.
Sitting up on her knees, Sara started compressions, trying to push life back into Sibyl’s heart. Sara pinched the younger woman’s nose, breathing air into her mouth. Sibyl’s chest rose briefly, but nothing more. Sara tried again, gagging as blood coughed up into her mouth. She spit several times to clear her mouth, prepared to continue, but she could tell it was too late. Sibyl’s eyes rolled back into her head and her breath hissed out with a low shudder. A trickle of urine came from between her legs.
She was dead.
2
Grant County was named for the good Grant, not Ulysses, but Lemuel Pratt Grant, a railroad builder who in the mid-1800s extended the Atlanta line deep into South Georgia and to the sea. It was on Grant’s rails that trains carted cotton and other commodities all across Georgia. This rail line had put cities like Heartsdale, Madison, and Avondale on the map, and there were more than a few Georgia towns named after the man. At the start of the Civil War, Colonel Grant also developed a defense plan should Atlanta ever come under siege; unfortunately, he was better with railroad lines than front lines.