Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

Or both Jeffrey and Sara were paranoid as hell.

'They're not following,' he told her, though she had seen as much in the mirror on the visor.

She pressed her lips together, stared out the window.

He asked, 'Are you all right?'

'Why did we come here?'

'What?'

'Why did we come here?' She was speaking in a regular tone of voice now, but he could tell he was still not off the hook. 'Why did we have to come to this place?'

'I told you. I wanted to talk to Al Pfeiffer.'

'To accomplish what?'

'To see why he left town.'

'He left town because someone tried to kill him and his entire family.'

Suddenly, Jeffrey found himself longing for her silence. 'This is my job, Sara. I talk to people who don't want to talk to me.'

'As far as I can recall, you've never been shot at by one of them before.'

He let his lack of response concede the point.

She asked, 'What does any of this have to do with Lena?'

I don't know.'

'How does this help find out who was in the Escalade or why they were killed?'

'I don't know that, either.'

'Well,' she said, rolling down the window a few inches, letting in some air. 'You don't seem to know a lot of things.'

Now the silence came. Jeffrey gladly welcomed it, staring ahead at the empty highway, counting off the mile markers. He found it difficult to swallow as he thought about the gravel spraying up, the gunshot ringing in his ears. Why had he slowed down the car? What primal instinct had made him take his foot off the gas, to push back at the man who had nearly pushed him into oblivion?

Pfeiffer had been carrying a Remington Wingmaster, the kind of shotgun used by most law enforcement officers. Jeffrey had lied when he'd told Sara that they were out of range when he took his foot off the gas. If Pfeiffer was a good shot, and his nearly fifty years toting a badge indicated he probably was, the man could have taken out Sara or Jeffrey with a twitch of his finger.

He had to get Sara out of here. She was right that he was like Lena, but they were alike because they were both cops. There were certain people in this world that you couldn't show your weak side to. As far as Jeffrey was concerned, Sara was his weak side. Her safety had been the first thought that came to his mind when he'd seen that shotgun. He had locked the doors because he didn't want her running to the house and getting her head blown off. He could not worry about his own safety so long as she was in jeopardy, and the only way to remedy the problem was to send Sara back to Grant County.

But, then, why had Jeffrey slowed the car? Why had he kept Sara in range of the shotgun just to prove a point? He could have gotten her killed.

At least half an hour of driving passed before his chest stopped feeling like a rubber band was around his heart, and it took another half hour for him to realize that the reason his hands were sticking to the wheel was because the side of his left palm had been ripped open on the gravel driveway.

Jeffrey coasted into the first gas station he saw.

Sara looked at the gas gauge on the dash as if to check up on him. That hadn't been why he'd stopped, but the needle was halfway down to the E, so Jeffrey decided he might as well fill up the tank. If Sara noticed the blood on his hands and the steering wheel, she didn't say anything.

Jeffrey's gun and holster were still tucked under his seat and he clipped them onto his belt as he got out of the car. He fumbled with the gas cap, fingers stiff from being wrapped around the steering wheel, and managed to get the nozzle in the tank before walking to the little convenience store. When he opened the glass door, he had to duck at the last minute to avoid a cowbell hanging from the jamb.

'Sorry about that,' the clerk apologized, though the smirk on his face said watching unsuspecting customers get smacked in the head was one of his favorite pastimes. 'Gotta move that thing one day.'

Jeffrey glared at the young man as he made his way to the back of the store. Inside the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror, saw his hair was damp with sweat, that dirt had splattered his shirt when the gravel scattered. His hands were a mess and he used a paper towel to turn on the faucet so he wouldn't leave blood all over the fixture. The cold water stung like hellfire, but he kept his hands under the stream, trying to clean the debris out of his wounds.

'Jesus,' he muttered, glancing into the mirror again. He shook his head, trying to think through what had happened. His intention had been to talk to Pfeiffer cop to cop, have a little off-the-record conversation about the situation in Elawah so that Jeffrey could figure out what exactly Lena had gotten herself into. Was he dealing with skinheads? Would Jake Valentine be any help? Could anybody left in the sheriff's department be trusted?

Pfeiffer had been firebombed out of town, so Jeffrey doubted seriously that the man wielded any true power. Smug attitude aside, the ex-sheriff had obviously been terrified to find Jeffrey at his front door. A cop was only afraid of another cop for one reason: corruption. The question was, who was crooked in Elawah's sheriff's department? Jeffrey wouldn't put Jake Valentine at the top of his list, but you never knew. And of course there was always Deputy Donald Cook, who Nick had easily pegged for taking something under the table. Cook certainly wasn't happy with his job. He'd made no attempt to hide the fact that he thought his boss was an idiot.

But all of this kept bringing him back to Sara's big question: what did any of it have to do with Lena?

Nothing. It was all a bunch of loose threads that may or may not tie together. Skinheads trafficked meth, Hank Norton used meth. Ethan Green was a skinhead, the thug in the white sedan was a skinhead. Al Pfeiffer was terrified of cops, Lena had escaped from the cops.

Someone had died in Lena 's presence. There had to be something out there that Jeffrey was missing, some piece of information that would pull it all together. There had to be a reason Lena had left that hospital without talking to him first. She could be ball-breakingly stubborn about so many things, but she was not stupid. There had to be a logical explanation.

Using one of the flimsy paper towels from the dispenser, Jeffrey washed his face as best he could, patting his neck and chest to clean off the dried blood. His hand was still throbbing, but he tried to ignore it as he walked back through the store.

'What's the damage?' Jeffrey asked, pulling out his county credit card.

'Sorry.' The clerk pointed to a sign behind him that said, 'In God we trust. All others pay cash.'

'Right.' Fortunately, Jeffrey had dropped by a cash machine before heading out of Grant County yesterday afternoon. He pointed to the first-aid packets behind the clerk. 'Give me a couple packs of those aspirin, too.'

'Thirty-eight fifty-three,' the clerk told him, tossing the aspirin on the counter and taking the bills Jeffrey handed him. 'Bad day?'

Jeffrey ripped open the pack with his teeth. 'What do you think?'

The clerk bristled. 'No need to take it out on me, buddy.' He rang the sale and handed Jeffrey the change. 'You take care, now.'

'You, too,' Jeffrey managed, ducking past the cowbell as he left the store.

In the car, Sara kept her own counsel. Jeffrey pulled back onto the road and followed the signs back to the highway.

The sun was finally setting as he managed to get to the interstate. The aspirin hadn't even touched his headache. Sara must have been exhausted. By the time they crossed into Elawah County, her head was tilted to her shoulder, and she was making that soft, clicking noise she always made when she slept.

Jeffrey took the unopened bottle of water she'd bought him at the rest stop and drank it down. There was some wisdom to the adage that you should be careful what you wish for. This morning, he'd been thinking it would be nice to see a flash of Sara's anger. Now, all that he could think was that it was a hell of a lot easier to love her when she was sleeping.