Indelible (8 page)

“You're kidding?” he asked, giving her an uneasy look.

“He wasn't born with that falsetto.”

“I thought he was just joking around.”

“He was,” Sara said. “Is. I mean, he just does that to annoy me. Everyone. He likes to annoy people.”

“He played football in high school.”

“Only straight people can play football?”

“Well . . . no,” he said, but he did not seem certain.

They both stared at the road again. Sara could think of nothing to say. She knew hardly anything about the man beside her. In the three months they had dated, she had heard nothing about Jeffrey's family or his past. She knew he had been born in Alabama, but he was vague with the details. When they weren't in bed, Jeffrey mostly talked about cases he had worked in Birmingham or things that were happening in Grant. Now that she thought about it, when they were together it was Sara who did most
of the talking. He seldom volunteered any personal information about himself, and if she pushed him too far with questions, his response was to either shut down completely or run his hand up and down her thigh until she forgot what she was saying.

She chanced a look at him. His dark hair was getting long in the back, which was a little dangerous considering the Grant County school system routinely sent boys home from class if their hair touched the back of their collars. As usual, his face was clean-shaven and smooth. He was wearing a pair of worn jeans and a black Harley Davidson T-shirt. His tennis shoes looked high-tech, with extra padding in the sole and black waffle treads for running. The muscles in his legs were well defined under the denim, and though his shirt was not tight enough to show the firm abs underneath, Sara was more than familiar with them.

Sara stared down at her legs, wishing she had worn something different. She had changed into an ocean blue wraparound skirt, but her white calves were the color of fat on uncooked bacon against the dark floor mat. Despite the air conditioning, she was sweating under the cotton shirt she wore, and if Sara could have waved a magic wand to stop time, she would have stripped off her constricting bra and thrown it out the window.

“So,” Jeffrey said.

“So,” she returned, trying to think of something to restart the conversation. All she could come up with was, “You're a universal donor.”

“Huh?”

“A universal donor,” she repeated. “You can do
nate blood to anyone.” Grasping another straw, she added, “Of course, you can't accept from anyone. You can only accept from other O negatives.”

He gave her a strange look. “I'll keep that in mind.”

“Your blood has antigens that—”

“I'll donate some as soon as we get back.”

The conversation was lagging again, and she asked, “Do you want some chicken?”

“Is that what I keep smelling?”

Sara leaned over the backseat and rummaged around for the plastic bowl her mother had packed. “I think there's some biscuits if Tess didn't steal them.”

“That'd be nice,” he said, tickling the back of her thigh. “Too bad we don't have some tea.”

She tried to ignore his hand. “We could stop for some.”

“Maybe.”

He pinched her leg and she slapped at his hand, saying, “Hey.”

He laughed good-naturedly at the rebuke. “Do you mind if we take a detour?”

“Sure,” she said, finding the Tupperware under a pillow. She dropped back into the seat as he passed a Winnebago. “Where to?”

“Sylacauga.”

Sara stopped in the middle of removing the plastic lid. “Silla-what?”

“Sylacauga,” he repeated. “My hometown.”

10:15
A.M.

“M
att?” Someone said, more like a stutter. “M-a-a-a-a-att.”

His ears held on to the echo, stretching the “a” even more.

“M-a-a-a-a-a-a-att.”

He tried to move but his muscles would not respond. Inexplicably, his fingers ached. They were cold. Everything was cold.

“Matt,” Sara said, her voice suddenly sharp as a tack. “Matt, wake up.” She put her hands on either side of his face. “Matt.”

He forced open his eyes, his vision blurring, then doubling. He saw two Saras looming over him. Two Marlas. Two kids he had never met before in his life. They were all huge, like giant versions of themselves. The ceiling tiles above their heads were even larger, like flying saucers with mammoth fluorescent lights.

He tried to sit up.

“Matt, no.” Sara stopped him. “Don't.”

He put his hand to his head, feeling like his brain was in a vise. His right shoulder burned as if someone was grinding a hot poker into the flesh. He moved his left hand to touch it, but Sara stopped him.

“Matt,” she said. “Don't.”

He felt around his mouth with his tongue, trying to find the blood he could taste in the back of his throat.

She pushed back his hair and he saw a glint of gold on her finger. She was wearing his Auburn football ring. Why was she wearing his ring?

“Matt?”

He blinked, hearing a distant ringing in his ears. Jeffrey squeezed his eyes shut, trying to orient himself. The ringing came from the phone on Marla's desk. The blood he tasted was from a cut somewhere on his head.

“Matt?” Sara repeated. “Can you hear me?”

He said, “Why are you—”

She put a bottle of water to his lips. “Drink this. You need water.”

Jeffrey drank, feeling the cool liquid opening up his parched throat. Water pooled down his neck as Sara tilted the bottle too far to keep up with his swallowing.

“Okay,” he said, pushing away her hand.

He squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to clear them. When he opened them, the two Marlas melded into one. Her cheeks were sunken, her eye bruised and bleeding. There was actually a pair of kids, but their expressions were identical. A third was leaning
against Sara, the young girl's breathing more like gasps as she tried to control her fear.

Jeffrey turned back to Sara. He had never seen her so frightened. She met his gaze pupil to pupil, staring a hole into him like she was trying to force a thought into his brain. Slowly, he nodded his understanding. He was supposed to be Matt.

She still asked, “Okay?”

“Yeah.” He looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. They were on the floor in the back of the squad room, the area cleared out around them. Brad was stacking filing cabinets in front of the fire door. Jeffrey's office window and door were similarly barricaded. Bodies were scattered around with the debris. Burrows, Robinson, Morgan. Morgan had five kids at home. Burrows was an avid animal lover fostering a pair of rescued greyhounds. Robinson . . . Robinson was new. Jeffrey could not even remember the man's first name, though he had hired him less than a week ago.

Jeffrey's vision blurred and he closed his eyes as the vertigo brought on a wave of nausea.

“Breathe,” Sara coaxed, smoothing back his hair. His head was in her lap and, judging by the blood on her skirt, had been for a while. He tried to move, but found that his feet were tied together with his own belt.

Suddenly, a man stood over them, pointing a shotgun at Marla while keeping a military-issue Sig Sauer trained on Brad. He had two more guns holstered to his chest along with a full complement of ammunition.

Smith. Jeffrey remembered he had given his
name as Smith. He remembered it all now: Sara screaming his name, Matt's head exploding against the front door, the ensuing gun battle, the deaths. Sam. The new patrolman's first name was Sam.

The killer gave Jeffrey a cold look of appraisal. “Sit up.”

Sara said, “He needs to go to the hospital.” She did not wait for a response. “The children are in shock. They all need to go to the hospital.”

Smith cocked his head like he had heard something. He turned toward the lobby, where another man rested an assault rifle on the front counter, pointing it toward the front entrance. He was similarly dressed with a dark coat and Kevlar vest. A black ball cap was pulled low on his head, casting his face in shadow. The man did not look Smith's way, but he gave a curt nod.

Sara took advantage of the brief exchange, whispering something to Jeffrey that sounded like “Stall it.”

Smith turned back to Jeffrey. “Sit up.” He kicked Jeffrey's feet, and the movement jarred his shoulder enough to make him yell from the pain.

“He needs to go to the hospital,” Sara repeated.

“Hey,” Brad said, like a child trying to get between his arguing parents. “I need a hand over here with this one.”

Smith pointed the shotgun in Sara's face. “Help him.”

Sara stayed where she was. “Matt needs medical attention,” she said, keeping her hand on Jeffrey's good shoulder. Her words came out in a rushed panic. “The pulse in his arm is thready. The bullet probably
nicked the artery. He lost consciousness for God knows how long. His head wound needs to be assessed.”

“You don't seem too worried about me,” Smith said, indicating a piece of white cloth tied tightly around his left arm. A circle of dark blood spotted the center.

“You both seem capable of taking care of yourselves,” she told him, then looked past his shoulder to his partner in the front lobby.

“Damn right,” Smith said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Jeffrey tried to get a good look at the second man's face, but the overhead light was so bright that he could not keep his eyes open.

Brad stumbled and dropped a filing cabinet. With lightning speed, Smith and the second gunman turned around, both ready to shoot.

Brad held up his hands. “Sorry,” he said. “I just—”

The second shooter turned back to the front door as Smith walked over to Brad. Sara kept her eyes on the second man as she slipped her hand under Jeffrey's back. Wallet. She had said “Wallet.”

He raised himself up to help her, biting through the pain in his shoulder, and she took out his wallet just as Smith swung around on them. He stared, his eyes darting to each person in the group, some sort of sixth sense igniting his suspicion. The children were so frightened that they were hardly moving, and Marla seemed to be in her own world as she stared blindly at the floor.

Brad said, “Maybe you can—”

Smith held out his hand, cutting him off. The room was silent, but the gunman could obviously
hear something they could not. Or maybe, Jeffrey reasoned, he was just a paranoid fuck hopped up on cocaine or meth. Why the hell would someone do something like this? What could they possibly gain?

Smith walked backward, both guns trained on Brad. He stopped in front of the bathroom door, looking at his partner and getting a quick nod in return. The two men worked together like a precision instrument. Even without the military gear, it was obvious that they had either trained or been in combat together.

The bathroom door opened soundlessly as Smith went in, gun raised. Jeffrey counted off the seconds, staring at the door as it slowly closed. Suddenly, they heard a woman's scream and a single gunshot. Less than a minute later, Smith came out of the bathroom holding up a police-issue gun belt like it was a trophy.

Smith told his partner, “She was hiding under the sink.”

The second man shrugged, like it was none of his concern, and Jeffrey felt his heart sink at the thought of another one of his officers shot dead by these animals. She must have been hiding under the sink cabinet all this time, hoping to God they would not find her.

Smith threw the gun belt toward the lobby before going back to Jeffrey. “Sit up,” he said, and when Jeffrey did not move fast enough, he grabbed him up by his collar.

Jeffrey felt his stomach pitch as his brain tried to adjust to the sudden change. Sara sat up too, putting
her hand on the back of his neck, coaching, “Breathe through it. Don't get sick.”

He tried to do as he was told, but the grits he'd had for breakfast would not obey. They came up in a hot rush of bile.

“Jesus fuck,” Smith stepped back quickly to avoid the splatter. “What'd you have for breakfast, man?”

Jeffrey gave him another clue, throwing up the rest of the grits. He felt Sara's hand at the back of his neck, the metal of his Auburn class ring pressing into his skin. Why had she taken his ring?

Smith said, “Give me your wallet.”

Jeffrey wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It's in my coat,” he said, saying a small prayer of thanks that he had been too pissed at Sara in the interrogation room to stop and put his jacket back on.

“Where is it?” Smith challenged. “Where's your coat?”

Jeffrey inhaled deeply, trying to quell the squall building in his stomach.

Smith kicked Jeffrey's feet. “Where's your coat?” he repeated.

“In my car.”

Smith grabbed Jeffrey's collar and jerked him up to standing. Jeffrey screamed from the pain, fireworks detonating behind his eyelids. He pressed his face to the wall as he tried not to slide back to the floor. The muscles in his shoulder were throbbing with every beat of his heart, and his knees were so weak they started to buckle.

“You're okay,” Sara told him, gripping him under his arm. Her strength was surprising, and he loved
her more in that moment than he had in his entire life. “Keep breathing,” she told him, rubbing his back in a soothing, circular motion. “You're okay.”

“Move.” Smith pushed her away. He tucked the shotgun into his belt and gave Jeffrey an expert pat-down. The man knew the correct way to frisk a suspect, and he did not go lightly near Jeffrey's shoulder.

“All right.” Smith backed up and Jeffrey struggled to face him, leaning against the wall so he would not collapse. The phone started ringing again, the metallic clang grating on every nerve in his body.

“Y'okay, Matt?” Smith hit the
t
's hard, like he was testing them. Jeffrey did not know if it was paranoia or panic, but he got the feeling Smith knew exactly who he was looking at, and that it was not Matt Hogan.

“He's not,” Sara said. “The bullet's probably pressed against the artery. If you keep pushing him, it might dislodge. He could bleed to death.”

“My heart's breaking,” Smith said, glancing over at Brad to check his work.

The phone continued to ring in the background, and Sara said, “Why don't you pick that up and tell them you're sending out the children?”

Smith cocked his head to the side as if he was considering her suggestion. “Why don't you wrap your lips around my dick and suck it?”

Sara ignored the remark, telling him, “You need to show them good faith by letting the children go.”

“I don't
need
to do anything.”

Brad added, “She's right. You're not a baby killer.”

“No,” Smith said, taking the shotgun out of his belt and pointing it at Brad's chest. “I'm just a cop killer.”

He let this sink in, the phone's insistent ringing punctuating the tension.

Sara told him, “The sooner you make your demands, the sooner we can all get out of here.”

“Maybe I don't want to get out of here, Dr. Linton.”

Jeffrey clenched his jaw, thinking there was something too familiar about the way the man had said Sara's name.

Smith noticed his reaction. “You don't like that, boy?” he asked, standing a few inches from Jeffrey's face. “Dr. Linton and me, we go way back. Don't we, Sara?”

Sara stared at the young man, looking unsure of herself. “How long has it been?”

Smith gave her a crooked smile. “A while, don't you think?”

Sara tried to hide her uncertainty, but to Jeffrey it was clear as day that she had no idea who the boy was. “You tell me.”

They held each other's gaze, tension held between them like a tight wire. Smith gave a suggestive flick with his tongue and Sara looked away. Had Jeffrey been able, he would have jumped the man and beaten him dead.

Again, Smith picked up on this. He asked Jeffrey, “Are you gonna be a problem for me, Matt?”

Jeffrey stood as straight as he could with his ankles belted together. He shot the other man a look of pure hatred. Smith returned it in kind.

Brad spoke up, breaking the tension. “Keep me,” he volunteered.

Smith kept his face turned toward Jeffrey, though his gaze slid slowly toward Brad.

Brad said, “Let them go and keep me.”

Smith laughed at the suggestion, and in the lobby his partner joined in.

“Then keep me,” Sara said, and they both stopped laughing.

Jeffrey told her, “No.”

She ignored him, addressing Smith. “You've already killed Jeffrey.” Her voice caught on his name, but she said the rest clearly enough. “You don't want Brad or Matt. You certainly don't want an old woman and three 10-year-olds. Let them go. Let them all go and keep me.”