Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

Finished, Lena pressed her palm flat against the stack of letters, fingers splayed out, as if she could divine their true meaning.

How had she been so blind?

Al Pfeiffer lived as far from Elawah County as you could get and still be in the state of Georgia. Dug Rut was a border town on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, which meant that the trip would take Jeffrey and Sara into a primitive wetland known mostly for its alligators and mosquitoes, both of which could kill a man. In high school, Jeffrey and two of his friends had planned to take a few weeks during their summer vacation and explore the swamp, but that was the same year that Deliverance came out, and even though the movie was filmed in the north Georgia mountains, it was enough to turn any man off the idea of canoeing.

Still, Jeffrey remembered a little bit about the wetlands from his reading. He knew that the headwaters of the Suwannee and the Saint Marys rivers were located in the swamp, each eventually draining to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, respectively. Hundreds of endangered birds and mammals resided in the protected wildlife refuge and the plant life was of the sort you would expect to see in a science-fiction film. The place was as cut off as it was remote, and families tended to live and die there without seeing the rest of the world. Back in the early 1900s, there were folks living in the swamp who still had not yet heard that the Civil War was over. Not much changed in their lives when they got the news.

The ride down was a quiet one. Sara hadn't had much to say when Jeffrey got back to the motel. Oddly, she had cleaned the bathroom, something she seldom did at home unless she was pissed at Jeffrey or knew that her mother was coming over. She had actually seemed proud about bringing a shine to the crappy fixtures. For Jeffrey's part, he had stared at the tub while he was taking a leak, fighting the urge to redirect the stream and mess up Sara's handiwork. If he'd wanted a wife who took pleasure out of cleaning a toilet, he would've married his high school sweetheart back in Alabama.

Sara had listened politely as Jeffrey had relayed the details he'd gotten from Nick about the Brotherhood, the meth business running up the eastern seaboard, the possibility that Elawah might be a stop along the cartel's railroad. She'd nodded, but not offered her opinion on anything. She hadn't asked him what he'd hoped to accomplish by talking to Al Pfeiffer or how any of this tied in to Lena. Part of him had hoped she would. Jeffrey wasn't sure how to answer those questions himself. Talking it out with Sara might have helped him understand.

Two hours into the trip, Jeffrey wasn't even sure he was still in Georgia. Kudzu and knotty pines gave way to sand and palm trees. When he rolled down his window, he caught a whiff of the briny coast mixing with the pungent odor of shit that told him he was downwind from a paper company. An hour later, he followed a back route cutting into the state, toward the little bit of Georgia that fingered into Florida along the Saint Marys. By then, he could barely see the road. The car's windshield was caked with all manner of streaks from the bugs that had flown into the glass, some of them as big as his fist.

Jeffrey was about to pull over and look at the map Nick had given him when he noticed all the usual signs that indicated you were getting close to the border between two southern states: hot boiled peanuts, fresh produce, fireworks, totally topless/ XXX-rated girls. Sara said she needed to use the restroom, so he pulled over at the rest stop on the Florida side. Jeffrey got out of the car to check his bearings, then got back in the car because in the full heat of the sun, it was almost too painful to be outside. He tried to think back to when he was a kid and the first week of November meant wearing a jacket and hoping it would snow so you wouldn't have to go to school.

In the car, Jeffrey turned on the ignition and ratcheted up the air-conditioning, letting the cold, artificial breeze blow on his face. He spread the map on his lap again and traced his route, squinting to read Nick's handwriting where the GBI agent had noted streets and landmarks that the original cartographer had either failed to notice or considered inconsequential. Still, Nick had never been to visit Al Pfeiffer and the map only gave detailed directions to Dug Rut, not to Pfeiffer's house. There was just the street address to go by: 8 West Road Six. It was a good start, but Jeffrey would need better directions than that.

Sara got back into the car. She handed him a bottle of water.

'Thanks.'

'You're welcome.'

He stared at her, trying to think of something to say.

She indicated the map. 'Do you know where you're going?'

'I'll need to stop at a gas station closer in to town and see if they can give me better directions.'

'Okay.' She slipped on her seat belt, clicked it into the buckle.

Jeffrey waited, but she didn't say anything else. He gave her the map. She folded it up as he reversed the car out of the space.

Jeffrey merged back onto the highway and followed the signs to Dug Rut. Less than a mile off the main road, he understood where the town had gotten its name. The land was obviously part of the canal system they'd built in the early 1900s in an attempt to drain the swamp. New York 's Central Park had suffered this same fate, but the Okefeno-kee had proved to be too difficult to destroy. The handful of swamps left in America were probably some of the few remaining places on the continent where a man could live wholly sustained by the land, whether it was for food, shelter, medicine, or some of the cleanest drinking water on earth. Jeffrey wondered how long it would be before they were all completely destroyed.

Downtown Dug Rut wasn't much to write home about. There was a bar and a post office, but not much more than that. The tiny strip of storefronts lining Main Street were all closed. The owners hadn't even bothered to put rental signs in the windows. There was something sad about the place, and as Jeffrey coasted through a stop sign, he was starting to give up hope of finding a gas station.

He did a U-turn in the middle of the street and turned back toward the post office. Sara didn't move to get out when he parked in front of the building, so he nudged her, saying, 'You don't think I'm going to ask for directions, do you? They'll take away my man card.'

She gave him a tight smile and got out of the car.

Jeffrey watched her make her way toward the building. Her jeans were baggy in the back, and he realized that she had lost more weight. He didn't like it. Sara had always been lean, but she was too thin now. When he made love to her, he could feel her ribs scraping against his chest. Her hips were disappearing, the curve of her waist cinching too tight. From the back, she could almost pass for a teenage boy.

Jeffrey took a deep breath and let it go slowly. Eight years ago, Sara had come home from work early to find Jeffrey in their bed with another woman. Not just in bed, but in action. The look on Sara's face – the betrayal, the hurt, the anger – had been the biggest wake-up call of his life, and Jeffrey had used every tactic he could think of to try and win her back. Just getting her to talk to him had been the biggest hurdle. Once she could speak to him without clenching her jaw, he had worked on getting her into bed. It hadn't been nearly as easy as the first time, but Jeffrey found that waking up with Sara next to him was even more rewarding. Six months ago, he had practically begged her to marry him. Hell, the truth was that he bad begged her, even getting down on both knees at one point. Sara had taken her own sweet time, but finally she had said yes.