Karin Slaughter: Faithless

“I-”

“You what?”

“I-”

“Come on, Terri. Don’t let go. Don’t give up now.” Lena heard the cruiser screech to a halt in the drive. “Tell me what you did.”

“I…” Terri began. “I… got…”

“What did you get?” Lena felt hot tears on her cheeks as Terri’s grip slackened around her own. “Don’t let go, Terri. Tell me what you got.”

Her lip curled, a spasm almost, as if she wanted to smile but no longer knew how.

“What did you get, Terri? What did you get?”

“I… got…” She coughed out another spray of blood. “… away.”

“That’s it,” Jeffrey said as Tim gasped, taking his first breath of air. “That’s great, Tim. Just breathe.”

A stream of blood flowed from the corner of Terri’s mouth, forming a solid line down her cheek like a child’s bright crayon trailing across a page. What was left of her jaw went slack. Her eyes were glassy.

She was gone.

Lena left the police station around nine that evening, feeling like she hadn’t been home in weeks. Her body felt weak, every muscle sore as if she’d run a thousand miles. Her ear was still numb from the shot they had given her at the hospital so they could suture up the damage Paul’s bullet had done. Her hair would cover the missing bit, but Lena knew that every time she looked in a mirror, every time she touched the scar, she would remember Terri Stanley, the look on her face, that almost-smile as she slipped away.

Even though there wasn’t a visible sign of it, Lena felt like she still had some of Terri’s blood on her- in her hair, under her fingernails. No matter what she did, she could still smell it, taste it, feel it. It was heavy, like guilt, and tasted of bitter defeat. She had not helped the woman. She had done nothing to protect her. Terri had been right- they were both drowning in the same ocean.

Her cell phone rang as she turned into her neighborhood, and Lena checked the caller ID, praying like hell Jeffrey didn’t need her back at the station. She squinted at the number, not recognizing it. Lena let the phone ring a few more times before it suddenly came to her. Lu Mitchell’s number. She had almost forgotten it after all these years.

She nearly dropped the phone trying to open it, then cursed as she put it up to her injured ear. Lena switched it around, saying, “Hello?” There was no response, and her heart dropped, thinking the call had gone to her voice mail.

She was about to end the connection when Greg said, “Lee?”

“Yeah,” she said, trying not to sound breathless. “Hey. How’s it going?”

“I heard on the news about the woman,” he said. “Were you there?”

“Yeah,” she told him, wondering how long it had been since someone asked her about work. Ethan was too self-centered and Nan was too squeamish.

“Are you okay?”

“I watched her die,” Lena told him. “I just held her hand and watched her die.”

She heard his breathing over the line and thought about Terri, the way her last breaths had sounded.

He told her, “It’s good that she had you there.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“No,” he disagreed. “It’s good that she had someone with her.”

Before she could stop herself, she said, “I’m not a very good person, Greg.”

Again, all she could hear was his breathing.

“I’ve made some really bad mistakes.”

“Everybody has.”

“Not like me,” she said. “Not the ones I have.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She wanted more than anything else to talk about it, to tell him everything that had happened, to shock him with the ugly details. She couldn’t, though. She needed him too badly, needed to know he was just down the street, holding his mama’s yarn while Lu knitted him another ugly scarf.

“So,” Greg said, and Lena strained to fill the silence.

“I’m enjoying the CD.”

His tone went up. “You got it?”

“Yeah,” she told him, forcing some cheer into her voice. “I really like that second song.”

“It’s called ‘Oldest Story in the World.’ ”

“I’d know that if you’d written down the titles.”

“That’s why you go out and buy the CD for yourself, you goof.” She had forgotten what it was like to be teased, and Lena felt some of the weight that had been on her chest start to lighten.

He continued, “The liner notes are great. Lots of pictures of the girls. Ann looks so damn hot.” He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I wouldn’t kick Nancy out of bed, either, but you know I like dark-haired women.”

“Yeah.” She felt herself smiling, too, and wished that they could talk like this forever, that she wouldn’t have to think about Terri dying in front of her, or of Terri’s children being abandoned by the one person in the world who could protect them. Now all they would have was Dale- Dale and the fear of being killed like their mama.

She forced this out of her brain, saying, “The twelfth song is good, too.”

“That’s ‘Down the Nile,’ ” he told her. “Since when do you like ballads?”

“Since…” She didn’t know since when. “I don’t know. I just like it.” She had pulled into the driveway behind Nan’s Toyota.

“‘Move On’ is cool,” Greg was saying, but she didn’t really follow. The porch light had turned on. Ethan’s bike was leaning against the front stairs.

“Lee?”

Her smile was gone. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathed, her mind reeling. What was Ethan doing in the house? What was he doing with Nan?

“Lee?”

She swallowed hard, making herself speak. “I need to go, Greg. Okay?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” she lied, feeling like her heart might explode in her chest. “Everything’s fine. I just can’t talk now.” She hung up before he could respond, dropping the phone in the seat beside her, opening the door with a hand that refused to be steady.

Lena wasn’t sure how she made it up the steps, but she found herself with her hand on the doorknob, her palms slick and sweaty. She took a breath, opening the door.

“Hi!” Nan popped up from the chair where she had been sitting, moving behind it as if she needed a shield. Her eyes were wide, her voice unnaturally high. “We were just waiting for you. Oh, my God! Your ear!” She put her hand to her mouth.

“It’s better than it looks.”

Ethan was on the couch, his arm across the back, his legs open in a hostile stance that managed to take up the entire room. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. The threat of him seeped out of every pore.

“Are you okay?” Nan insisted. “ Lena? What happened?”

Lena said, “There was a situation,” keeping her eyes on Ethan.

“They didn’t say much of anything on the news,” Nan said. She was edging toward the kitchen, almost giddy from stress. Ethan stayed where he was, his jaw in a tight line, his muscles flexed. Lena saw his book bag beside his feet and wondered what he had in there. Something heavy, probably. Something to beat her with.

Nan offered, “Would you like some tea?”

“That’s okay,” Lena told her, then said to Ethan, “Let’s go to my room.”

“We could play some cards, Lee.” Nan ’s voice wavered. She was obviously alarmed, and she stood her ground. “Why don’t we all play some cards?”

“That’s okay,” Lena answered, knowing she had to do everything in her power to keep Nan out of harm’s way. Lena had brought this on herself, but Nan would not be hurt because of it. She owed that to Sibyl. She owed that to herself.

Nan tried, “Lee?”

“It’s okay, Nan.” Again, she told Ethan, “Let’s go to my room.”