Karin Slaughter - Faithless

“I don’t need your help,” he told her.

“I know.” She rubbed his neck with the paper towel, scrubbing at the dried blood. He looked at the top of her head as she cleaned him. Blood had dried in a trail down to his sternum, and she wiped this up before tossing the towel into the trash can.

She picked up the bottle of lotion she always kept by the sink and pumped some into the palm of her hand. “Your skin’s dry.”

Her hands were cold when she touched him and he made a noise that sounded like a yelp.

“Sorry,” she apologized, rubbing her hands together to warm them. She tentatively placed her fingers on his chest. “Okay?”

He nodded, feeling better and wishing that she wasn’t the reason why. It was the same old back-and-forth, and he was letting himself get pulled back in.

She continued to rub in the lotion in small circles, working her way out. She softened her touch, lingering around the pink scar on his shoulder. The wound had not completely healed yet, and he felt little electric tingles in the damaged skin.

“I didn’t think you would make it,” she said, and he knew she was thinking back to the day he had been shot. “I put my hands inside of you, but I didn’t know if I could stop the bleeding.”

“You saved my life.”

“I could have lost you.”

She kissed the scar, murmuring something he couldn’t hear. She kept kissing him, her eyes closing. He felt his own eyes close as she kissed a slow pattern across his chest. After a while, she started to work her way down, unzipping his jeans. Jeffrey leaned back against the sink as she knelt in front of him. Her tongue was warm and firm as it traced the length of him, and he braced his hands on the countertop to keep his knees from buckling.

His whole body shook from wanting her, but he forced himself to put his hands on her shoulders and pull her back to standing. “No,” he told her, thinking he’d rather die than risk giving her some awful disease. “No,” he repeated, even though he wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her.

She reached down, using her hand where her mouth had been. Jeffrey gasped as she cupped him with her other hand. He tried to hold back, but looking at her face only made it harder. Her eyes were barely open, a rush of red pinking her cheeks. She kept her mouth inches from his, teasing him with the promise of a kiss. He could feel her breath as she spoke, but again could not hear what she was saying. She started kissing him in earnest, her tongue so soft and gentle he could barely breathe. Her hands worked in tandem, and he nearly lost his restraint when she took his bottom lip between her teeth.

“Sara,” he moaned.

She kissed his face, his neck, his mouth, and he finally heard what she was saying. “I love you,” she whispered, stroking him until he could no longer hold back. “I love you.”

Lena heard Jeffrey yelling through his clo sed office door as soon as she walked into the squad room. She lingered near the coffee machine by his office, but couldn’t make anything out.

Frank joined her, holding out his mug for a top-up even though it was already full.

She asked, “What’s going on?”

“Marty Lam,” Frank said, shrugging. “Was he supposed to be sitting on that house last night?”

“For Chip Donner?” Lena asked. Jeffrey had ordered a cruiser to wait outside Donner’s house in case he showed up. “Yeah. Why?”

“Chief drove by on his way in this morning and nobody was there.”

They both paused, trying to make out Jeffrey’s words as his tone rose.

Frank said, “Chief is pretty pissed.”

“You think?” Lena asked, her sarcasm thicker than the coffee.

“Watch it,” Frank said. He had always thought that the almost thirty years he had on her should afford him some kind of deference.

Lena changed the subject. “You get that credit report back on the family?”

“Yeah,” he said. “From what I could tell, the farm’s running in the black.”

“By a lot?”

“Not much,” he said. “I’m trying to get a copy of their tax returns. It’s not gonna be easy. The farm’s privately held.”

Lena stifled a yawn. She had slept about ten seconds last night. “What’d the shelters say about them?”

“That we should all thank God every day there are people like that on the planet,” Frank said, but he didn’t look ready to bow his head.

Jeffrey’s door banged open, and Marty Lam walked out like an inmate doing the death row shuffle. He had his hat in his hands and his eyes on the floor.

“Frank,” Jeffrey said, walking over. She could tell he was still angry, and could only imagine the reaming he had given Marty. The fact that he had a bruise under his eye the color of a ripe pomegranate probably hadn’t done much to improve his disposition.

He asked Frank, “Did you get in touch with that jewelry supply company?”

“Got the list of customers who bought cyanide right here,” Frank said, taking a sheet of paper out of his pocket. “They sold the salts to two stores up in Macon, one down along Seventy-five. There’s a metal plater over in Augusta, too. Took three bottles so far this year.”

“I know it’s a pain in the ass, but I want you to check them out personally. See if there’s any Jesus stuff around that might connect them to the church or to Abby. I’m going to talk to the family later on today and try to find out if she ever left town on her own.” He told Lena, “We didn’t get prints on the bottle of cyanide from Dale Stanley’s.”

“None?” she asked.

“Dale always used gloves when he handled it,” Jeffrey said. “Could be that’s the reason.”

“Could be someone wiped it down.”

He told her, “I want you to go talk to O’Ryan. Buddy Conford called a few minutes ago. He’s representing her.”

She felt her nose wrinkle at the lawyer’s name. “Who hired him?”

“Fuck if I know.”

Lena asked, “He doesn’t mind if we talk to her?”

Jeffrey was obviously not interested in being questioned. “Did I get it backward just then? You’re my boss now?” He didn’t let her answer. “Just get her in the fucking room before he shows up.”

“Yes, sir,” Lena said, knowing better than to push him. Frank raised his eyebrows as Lena left and she shrugged, not knowing what to say. There was no deciphering Jeffrey’s mood over the last few days.

She pushed open the fire door to the back part of the station. Marty Lam was at the water fountain, not drinking, and she nodded at him as she passed by. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She knew the feeling.

Lena punched the code into the lockbox outside the holding cells and took out the keys. Patty O’Ryan was curled up on her bunk, her knees almost touching her chin. Even though she was still dressed, or rather half-dressed, in her stripper’s outfit from last night, she looked about twelve when she slept, an innocent tossed around by a cruel world.

“O’Ryan!” Lena yelled, shaking the locked cell door. Metal banged against metal, and the girl was so startled she fell onto the floor.

“Rise and shine,” Lena sang.

“Shut up, you stupid bitch,” O’Ryan barked back, no longer looking twelve or innocent. She put her hands to her ears as Lena shook the door again for good measure. The girl was obviously hungover; the question was from what.

“Get up,” Lena told her. “Turn around, put your hands behind your back.”

She knew the drill, and barely flinched when Lena put the cuffs around her wrists. They were so thin and bony that Lena had to ratchet the locking teeth to the last notch. Girls like O’Ryan rarely ended up murdered. They were survivors. People like Abigail Bennett were the ones who needed to be looking over their shoulders.