“The world is a dangerous place.”
“This seems like a very safe neighborhood.” Faith paused. “It makes me wonder what you’re protecting.”
He shrugged defensively. “It’s not against the law to have security cameras and a gate.”
“It’s not,” Faith agreed. “But I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with your little boy. He’s really smart. He’s hitting a lot of benchmarks ahead of time. Has your pediatrician told you that? He’s almost like an eight-year-old.”
“He’ll be seven at Christmas.”
“Right,” she said. “His birthday is about thirty-nine weeks after Beckey was attacked.”
Gerald could only hold her gaze for a few seconds before he looked down at the floor.
“Here’s what I think,” Faith said. “I think that five years ago, Daryl Nesbitt wrote to you from prison.”
The muscles along Gerald’s throat tightened.
“I think you saw that letter, and you realized that Daryl Nesbitt licked the flap to seal the envelope. His saliva was on the back of the stamp.” Faith tried to be as gentle as she could. “Did you test Daryl Nesbitt’s DNA from the envelope, Mr. Caterino?”
Gerald kept his head bent, his chin touching his chest. Tears splattered onto the carpet.
“You know what would scare me, Mr. Caterino? What would make me put up security cameras and gates and fences and sleep with a gun by my bed?”
He took in a deep breath, but still kept his eyes on the floor.
“The thing that would keep me up at night,” Faith said. “Was worrying that the man who attacked my daughter would find out that, nine months later, she gave birth to his son.”
9
Sara looked at the clock on the stove.
7:42 p.m.
Time had slipped away from her while she was taking care of Alexandra McAllister. First, there were the logistics of getting Ezra Ingle to change the official cause of death. Then Amanda had started working with the sheriff’s office to put through the formal requests to allow the GBI to take over. Next, Sara had to transport the body to GBI headquarters so she could perform the autopsy. Then she was dictating her report and signing off on all the evidence and lab orders and forensics. Then a junior medical examiner had asked her to review the autopsy records on Jesus Vasquez, the murdered inmate from the prison riot. Then Sara had sat at her desk for God only knew how long trying to bring some clarity to her endlessly troubling day.
Sara hadn’t registered how late it was until she’d walked out of the building and looked up into the black, moonless sky.
She stood up from the kitchen barstool. The dogs looked up from the couch as she started to pace. Sara felt useless. Tessa was on her way from Grant County with Jeffrey’s files. She’d hit the tail end of rush-hour traffic. There was nothing Sara could do right now but wait. The dogs had been fed and walked. She had straightened up the apartment. She had fixed herself a dinner that she could barely eat. She had turned on the TV, then turned it off. She had done the same with the radio. She was so antsy that her skin itched.
She scooped her phone off the counter. She re-read her last texts to Will: A telephone with a question mark. Then a dinner plate with a question mark. Then a single question mark.
He had not written back.
Sara told herself the obvious—Will had lost track of time, too. They were handling a murder now. Possibly multiple murders. Lena had probably flipped everything upside down the way that Lena always did. Sara shouldn’t read too much into his silence. Nor should she read anything into the fact that Will had obviously turned off his phone. Sara had tapped the Find My app half a dozen times trying to locate him on the map, and each time, all she’d gotten was Lena’s address and the number of minutes, then hours, that had passed since Will had been there.
Sara heard a banging at the door.
“Sissy?” Tessa’s knock sounded more like a kick. “Hurry up.”
Sara found Tessa juggling three file boxes. She’d left shoe scuffs on the bottom of the door.
“Don’t help, I’ve got it.” Tessa dumped everything onto the dining room table. Thankfully, Jeffrey had strapped down the lids. “You wouldn’t believe that traffic. I got a blister on my palm from pounding on the horn. And now I’m dying of thirst.”
Sara gathered from her tone that she didn’t want water. She hesitated before opening the bottom cabinet. Will had a thing about Sara drinking, as if one glass of Merlot was going to turn her into Judy Garland.
“Scotch.” Tessa reached past her and grabbed the bottle. “Pour me a small one, like what you’d give to a baby. I’ve got to drive back tonight. What’s with the paper towel?”
“Don’t ask.” Will dried paper towels to reuse them, because her smart, sexy boyfriend had apparently grown up during the Depression. “Why do you have to drive back tonight?”
“I’ve got a nine a.m. interview with that midwife I told you about. She’s taking on an intern. Fingers crossed it turns out to be me.” Tessa found two glasses in the cabinet. “Lemuel called right when I was hitting downtown. Like I wasn’t murdery enough from traffic.”
Sara poured the drinks. She gave herself a double. Tessa’s husband was still in South Africa with their daughter. “How’s Izzie?”
“Amazing, as always.” Tessa sipped from the glass. “Lem got the divorce papers. He’s taking it better than I thought he would.”
Sara led her back to the table so they could sit down. “Did you want him to take it badly?”
“I’m just tired.” She slumped into a chair beside Sara. “It’s exhausting being married when you don’t want to be married. And he’s such a pompous ass sometimes.”
Sara quietly objected to the sometimes.
“I know you never saw what I saw in him,” Tessa said. “Let’s just say he’s like Taco Bell. You’ve got to pay for the extra meat.”
Sara raised her glass in a toast.
“Where’s Will?”
“Working.” Sara let herself look at the boxes. Jeffrey’s boxes. His familiar script flowed across the labels. She wanted to reach out and touch the words. “Will asked me to marry him.”
Tessa coughed on her drink.
Sara confessed, “Six weeks ago.”
“You’ve talked to me how many times since then?”
Sara talked to her sister at least once a day, sometimes more. But she had never talked about this. “Do you think it didn’t work out with Jeffrey the first time because I didn’t pay enough attention to him?”
“I’m not even sure what that means.”
“It means I was always at Mom and Dad’s, or doing something with you, or—”
“Marriage isn’t rumspringa. You don’t have to leave your family.” She put down her glass and held Sara’s hand. “Sissy, remember I was there? I’m the one who followed his sorry ass around town and broke into his computer and bribed motel clerks because you were going crazy from all of the bullshit lies about how it was just one woman, hardly more than that one time, when we both knew it was more like five women and fifty different times.”
Sara remembered the feeling of disconnection between what Jeffrey repeatedly promised her and how he behaved. But for Tessa playing detective, she probably would’ve never learned the truth.
She told her sister, “I know.”
“Jeffrey cheated because all he could think about was what he was missing, not what he had.” She squeezed Sara’s hand. “He changed for you. He worked really hard to be the kind of man you deserved. The first time was hell on earth, but it made the second time that much sweeter.”
Sara nodded, because everything she said was the truth. “When Will asked me, he didn’t really ask me. But in his defense, it was a strange conversation. I started talking about remodeling his house, putting on a second floor.”
“That’s a great idea. You could do everything exactly the way you want.”
“That’s what I told him,” Sara said. “And then Will said, ‘We should get married in a church. It’ll make your mother happy.’”
“What the hell does Mama have to do with it?” Tessa scowled. “Does he want Daddy to play Lohengrin on the piccolo?”
Sara shook her head. “I don’t know what he wants.”
“So, that’s the real problem. You’re not talking to him about something that’s really important. You’re pretending it didn’t happen.”
Sara didn’t know what she was doing anymore. “I don’t want to be the one who has to bring it up. I’m always the one pushing things. I want Will to push back for once. But then I think, maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe he feels like he dodged a bullet.”
“That’s bullshit. You know how he feels about you.” Tessa finished her drink. “You’re not bringing it up because you don’t want to talk about it. Which is fine. But do him the courtesy of letting him know you’re not ready.”
“I want him to do me the courtesy.”
“Spit in one hand, want in the other. See which fills up the fastest.”