Karin Slaughter - Broken

Will glanced at Sara as he turned the key in the lock. She studied Jared with some detachment. He was thinner than his father. His shoulders hadn’t filled out. His hair was longer than Jeffrey had kept it, more the length he’d worn in high school. An image flashed in her head: Lena’s hand gripping Jared’s hair. She had taken everything now. Her path of destruction had ripped through every part of Jeffrey’s legacy.

Sara turned her head as the two men went inside the clinic. She couldn’t look at Jared anymore. It hurt too much. It hurt too much to even be here. She slid over the console and got behind the steering wheel. She pressed the button to start the engine. Nothing happened. Will had taken the key with him.

Sara got out of the car, leaving the door open. She looked up at the full moon. The glow was remarkably bright, illuminating the ground in front of her. She remembered a Civil War letter Jeffrey had read to her a long time ago. It was written by a lonely wife to her soldier husband. She was wondering whether or not the same moon was shining down on her lover.

Sara walked to the back of the clinic. There was a sign with Hare’s name on it, but her anger about the drug study had long dissipated. She couldn’t dredge up any sympathy for Allison Spooner or Jason Howell or even poor Tommy Braham, who had somehow gotten caught in the middle of it. All of her emotions had dwindled to a dull ache. Even her hatred for Lena was gone. Trying to stop her was tilting at windmills. There was nothing Sara could do to stop her. If the world fell down, Lena would still be standing. She would outlive them all.

The yard behind the clinic was a mud pit. Elliot hadn’t bothered to keep up anything. The picnic tables were gone, the swing set dismantled. The wildflowers Sara had planted with her mother were long dead. She stood on the bank of the stream. It was a river now, the shush of churning waters drowning out all sound. The big maple that had given so much shade over the years had fallen into the current. Its canopy barely touched the opposite side of the shore. As Sara watched, chunks of earth fell into the water and were quickly whisked away. Her father had taken her fishing on these shores. There was a field of large rocks a half mile down where catfish swam in and out of the eddies. Tessa had loved climbing on top of the granite to lie in the sun. Some of the boulders were as high as ten feet tall. Sara guessed they were underwater now. Everything in this town, no matter how strong, eventually got washed away.

Sara heard a branch snap behind her. She turned around. A woman in a pink nurse’s uniform stood a few feet away. She was out of breath. Her makeup was smeared, mascara ringing dark circles under her eyes. The plastic red nails on her fingers were chipped and broken.

“Darla,” Sara realized. She hadn’t seen Frank’s oldest daughter in years. “Are you all right?”

Darla seemed reticent. She glanced over her shoulder. “You heard about Daddy, I guess.”

“Is he still refusing to go to the hospital?”

She nodded, again looking behind her. “Maybe you could help me work on him, get him to let them run some tests.”

“I’m probably not the best person for that job right now.”

“He piss you off?”

“No, I just—” Sara felt logic start to intrude. It was almost three in the morning. There was no conceivable reason for Darla to be here. “What’s going on?”

“My car broke down.” Darla glanced over her shoulder for a third time. She wasn’t looking at the clinic. She was looking at the police station. “Can you give me a lift to Daddy’s?”

Sara felt her body reacting to a danger she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Her heart was pounding. Her mouth was spitless. This wasn’t right. None of this was right.

Darla indicated Sara should walk ahead of her to the parking lot. Her tone turned hard. “Let’s go.”

Sara put her hand to the back of her neck, thinking about Allison Spooner at the lake, the way her head had been held down while the knife sliced into her throat. “What have you done?”

“I just need to get out of here, all right?”

“Why?”

Darla’s tone turned even harsher. “Just give me the key to your car, Sara. I don’t have time for this.”

“What did you do to those kids?”

“The same thing I’m going to do to you if you don’t give me that fucking key.” There was a glint of light at Darla’s waist, then a knife was in her hand. The blade was about three and a half inches long. The tip was sharpened to a menacing point. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just give me the key.”

Sara took another step back. Her foot sank into the sandy shore. Panic gripped her throat like a hand. She had seen what Darla could do with the knife. She knew the woman had no qualms about killing.

“Give me the key.”

Sara heard the roar of the river swelling behind her. Where was Will? What was taking so long? She looked left and right, trying to decide whether to run.

“Don’t,” the woman said, guessing her thoughts. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want the key.”

Sara could barely speak. “I don’t have it.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Darla checked the station again. She hadn’t once looked at the clinic. Either she had already taken care of Will and Jared or she didn’t know they were still inside. “Don’t be stupid, honey. You’ve seen what I can do.”

Sara’s voice shook as she asked, “What happens if I give it to you?”

Darla stepped forward, closing the space between them. The blade was steady in her hand. She was less than three feet away now. Within striking distance. “Then you can walk home to your mama and daddy and I’ll be gone.”

Sara felt a momentary sense of relief before the truth hit her. It couldn’t work that way. They both knew Sara wouldn’t go home. She’d cross the street to the police station and tell them everything that had happened. Darla wouldn’t make it to the city limits before every squad car in the county surrounded her.

The woman repeated, “Give me the key.” Without warning, she slashed the blade through the air. The metal made a whistling sound as it passed in front of Sara’s face. “Now, dammit.”

“Okay! Okay!” Sara put her trembling hand in her pocket, but her eyes were on the knife. “I’ll give you the key if you tell me why you killed them.”

Darla stared at her in cold appraisal. “They were blackmailing me.”

Sara took a small step back. “The study?”

Her arm relaxed, but the blade was still close. “Students kept dropping out, not showing up when they were supposed to. I got Jason to double up his blood work and do an extra journal. He pulled Allison into it, then they got Tommy involved. We were gonna split the money fifty-fifty. Then they got greedy and decided they wanted all of it.”

Sara could not take her eyes off the knife. “You were trying to frame Jason for killing Allison.”

“You always were smart.”

“Did Hare know?”

“Why do you think I’m leaving town? He found Tommy’s paperwork. Said he was going to report it to the ethics panel.” For the first time, she showed remorse. “I didn’t mean for Tommy to get hurt. He didn’t know anything about it. I couldn’t have them looking too hard at the case reports.”

“Tommy doubled up on his pills,” Sara guessed. “He was enrolled twice, so he took twice the dose. That’s why his moods were altered. That’s why he killed himself, isn’t it?”

“I’m done fucking around with you.” She straightened her arm. The knife was a few inches from Sara’s throat. “Give me the key.”

Sara allowed herself a glance back at the clinic. The door was still closed. “I don’t have it.”