Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,64

it was too late. It was time to stop, time to let go.

Sara narrowed her eyes at him. She turned to Ellen. “I’m going to crack her chest.”

Hare shook his head, saying, “Sara, we don’t have the capabilities here.”

Sara ignored him. She felt down the woman’s ribs, cringing as she made contact with the one she had broken. When Sara’s fingers reached the bottom of the diaphragm, she took a scalpel and sliced a six-inch opening into the upper abdomen. She slipped her hand into the incision, reaching under the rib cage and into the woman’s chest.

She kept her eyes closed, blocking out the hospital as she massaged the woman’s heart. The monitor showed false hope as Sara squeezed, manually circulating the woman’s blood. A tingling came to her fingers, and in her ears she could hear a slight piercing tone. Nothing else mattered as she waited for the heart to respond. It was like squeezing a small balloon filled with warm water. Only this balloon was life.

Sara stopped. She counted to five seconds, eight, then up to twelve, before being rewarded with spontaneous beeps from the heart monitor.

Hare asked, “Is that her or you?”

“Her,” Sara offered, letting her hand slip out. “Start a lidocaine drip.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lena muttered, hand to her own chest. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

Sara snapped off her gloves, not answering.

The room was quiet but for the beeps of the heart monitor and the in and out of the ventilator.

“So,” Sara said. “We’ll do a darkfield for syphilis and a gram stain for gonorrhea.” Sara felt her face flush over this. “I’m sure a condom was used, but make a note to follow up in a few days for pregnancy.” Sara was conscious of a waver in her voice that she hoped Ellen and Lena did not pick up. Hare was another matter. She could hear what he was thinking without even looking at him.

He seemed to sense her nervousness and tried to make light of it. “Good God, Sara. That’s the sloppiest incision I’ve ever seen.”

Sara licked her lips, willing her own heart to calm. “I was trying not to upstage you.”

“Prima donna,” Hare offered, wiping perspiration from his forehead with a pad of surgical gauze. “Jesus Christ.” He laughed uncomfortably.

“We don’t see much of this around here,” Ellen said as she packed surgical towels into the incision to control the bleeding until it was closed. “I can call Larry Headley over in Augusta. He lives about fifteen minutes from here.”

“I would appreciate that,” Sara said, taking another pair of gloves from the box on the wall.

“You okay?” Hare asked, his tone casual. His eyes showed his concern.

“Fine,” Sara answered, checking the IV. She told Lena, “I guess you can find Frank?”

Lena had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’ll go see.” She left the room, her head down.

Sara waited until she was gone, then asked Hare, “Can you take a look at her hands?”

Hare was silent as he examined the woman’s palms, feeling the bone structure. After a few minutes, he said, “This is interesting.”

Sara asked, “What’s that?”

“Missed all the bones,” Hare answered, rotating the wrist. When he got to the shoulder, he stopped. “Dislocated,” he said.

Sara crossed her arms, suddenly cold. “From trying to get away?”

Hare frowned. “Do you realize how much force it would take to dislocate your shoulder blade?” He shook his head, unable to accept it. “You’d pass out from the pain before you’d—”

“Do you realize how terrifying it is to be raped?” Sara’s gaze bored right into him.

Pain registered in his expression. “I’m sorry, honey. Are you okay?”

Tears stung the back of her eyes, and Sara had to fight to keep her voice even. “Check her hips, please. I want you to do a full report.”

He did as he was told, giving Sara a curt nod after the examination. “I’m thinking there’s some ligature damage in the hip, here. I need to do this when she’s awake; it’s fairly subjective.”

Sara asked, “Can you tell anything else?”

“All the bones in her hands and feet were missed. Her feet were speared between the second and third cuneiforms and the navicular. That’s very precise. Whoever did it knew what he was doing.” He paused, looking down at the floor to regain his composure. “I don’t see why someone would do this.”

“Look at this,” Sara said, pointing to the skin around the woman’s ankles. They both had angry black bruises around their circumference. “Obviously there was a secondary restraint to hold the