Instead of saying hello, Sara asked, “Brunswick?”
Will guessed the cloaking app had done its job. “Not exactly.” He tried to identify the background noise, which sounded more like a bar than a hospital. “Where are you?”
“Where am I?” Her drawl was more pronounced, which tended to happen when she got away from the city. “I am drinking a glass of scotch at the hotel bar of the Macon Days Inn.”
Will immediately thought of all the scumbugs who were probably trying to hit on her. He worked to keep his cool. “Yeah?”
“Yep.” She hit the p hard at the end. Will thought about the shape of her mouth. The bowtie of her lips. And then he imagined some idiot in a gold necklace sidling up to her and asking if she wanted a refill.
He said, “That’s not like you to be in a bar.”
“No,” Sara agreed. “But I’m doing a lot of things today that aren’t like me.”
Will couldn’t decipher her tone. She didn’t sound drunk, which was a relief. He’d never known Sara to be a drinker.
He offered, “I could probably get there around midnight, one at the latest.”
“No, sweetheart. I don’t want you anywhere near here.”
Will felt a jolt of fear. Sara usually called him sweetheart when he was being dense. Had she figured out he was in Macon? Will ran through the possibilities, trying to find an area of weakness. Faith wouldn’t tell—at least not without giving Will a warning. Denise Branson knew better, and even if she didn’t, she had no idea who Sara was. Lena had promised to keep quiet, but what kind of idiot trusted a woman who killed a man with a hammer, then lied about what came next?
“Will?”
He swallowed back his paranoia. One thing he knew about Sara was that she didn’t play games. If his cover was blown, she’d be demanding an explanation, not listening to piano music in a bar.
He asked, “How’s Jared doing?”
“Not good.” She paused to take a drink. Will heard the glass hit the bar when she finished. “One of his surgical incisions turned septic. He went into shock. They’ve got a guy from the CDC running the case. He knows what he’s doing, but—” She stopped. “Lena was pregnant. She lost the baby ten days ago.”
He still couldn’t decipher the edge in her tone. Sara couldn’t have children, but that didn’t have anything to do with Lena. Will asked, “Does Faith know?”
“She was there. I basically lost my shit in front of her.”
Will looked at his bike. He should turn around right now and go see her. The Days Inn was just off the interstate, less than half an hour away.
Sara said, “Faith was very nice about it. I guess if you’re going to lose your shit, she’s a good person to do it around.”
“Yeah.” Will heard a semi barreling down the road, the lights slicing through the dusk. The noise of the engine vibrated the air, cut out whatever Sara was saying.
He asked, “What?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He heard the tinkle of ice cubes, her throat work as she swallowed. “Are you sitting on the side of the road?”
“I wanted to check on you. You were pretty upset this morning.”
“Well, I’m pretty upset tonight,” she quipped. “You know, my daddy told me a long time ago that wanting revenge is like sipping poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“I don’t know.” She paused again. “I feel like I’ve trespassed. Like I’ve stolen something from Lena. Something private that didn’t belong to me.” She gave a harsh laugh. “My pound of flesh isn’t nearly as filling as I thought it’d be.”
Will stared at the mailboxes. Numbers had been spray-painted on the doors in various colors by different hands. Someone had drawn a daisy on one box. Another had the Georgia Bulldogs logo.
Sara said, “I miss you.”
Will had seen her less than twelve hours ago, but hearing the words made him realize that he ached for her. He tried to think of a way out of this mess. He should tell her that he was sorry for keeping secrets. That he was sorry he wasn’t there right now. That he was a coward and a liar and he didn’t deserve Sara but he was pretty sure he would fade away to nothing without her.
“Anyway.” Abruptly, her tone changed. “Since one scotch is clearly my limit, I should go back to the hospital and sit with Nell. I told her that Lena lost the baby. She already knew. I guess Lena told her. I don’t know. She’s not talking much. Of course, neither am I—at least not to Nell.” Sara gave a stilted laugh. “I’m sorry I’m rambling. I’m just tired. I’ve been up since this time yesterday. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t.”
“Are you going home tonight?” Will started to make plans. He’d finish with Cayla, then jump on his bike and head straight to Atlanta.
Sara quashed the idea. “I already booked a room for the night. The dogs will be fine, and I shouldn’t be driving long distances right now.”
“I could come get you.” He tried not to beg. “Let me come get you.”
“No.” There was no equivocation in her voice. “I don’t want you here, Will. I want you separate from this.”
He felt trapped by his own lies. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry.” She paused again as if she needed to catch her breath. “I want you to keep doing whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re doing it, and then when it’s over I want you to come back home to me and for us to have dinner and talk and laugh and then I want you to take me into the bedroom and—”
Another truck roared by, but Will heard every single pornographic detail she whispered into the phone. Sara asked, “Can you do that?”
Will’s tongue felt too thick for his mouth. He cleared his throat. “I can do all of that.”
“Good, because that’s what I need, Will. I need you to make me feel like I’m firmly planted in my life again. The life I have with you.”
The piano music had stopped. Ice hit a glass.
Someone laughed. She said, “What we have is good, right?”
“Yes.” At least on that point, he could give her a straight answer. “It’s really good.”
“That’s what I think, too.”
“Sara—” Will heard the desperation in his voice, but he couldn’t think of anything to say but her name.
“I need to go.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Just think about later, all right? Us at home, and what you want to eat for dinner, or maybe we’ll go to a movie, or walk the dogs. Just live our lives. That’s what I’m thinking about right now. That’s what’s getting me through this.”
“We’ll do it. We’ll do all of it.” He waited for her to say something else, but she ended the call.
Will stared down at the phone as if he could make Sara get back on the line. Not that he had any words of great comfort. If anything, Will had been too quiet on the call. He realized that now. He’d forced Sara to do most of the talking when it was obvious that she was waiting for Will to say something—anything—that would somehow bring her some peace.