Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

Finally, the reason for his visit. 'That so?'

'He's gonna look at the body from the Escalade, let us know what he thinks happened.'

'Sounds like a good plan.'

'You mentioned before about your wife…' Valentine's voice trailed off. When he saw that Jeffrey wasn't going to help him, he added, 'It just sounded to me like she's got a lot of experience.'

Jeffrey could not believe what he was hearing. 'She does.'

'I'd be real grateful if you could have her come over, maybe look at the body, tell us what she sees.'

Jeffrey tried to see the angles, to figure out why Valentine would make such a request. Nothing came to mind, and the beer wasn't helping. 'I thought you said your guy was good.'

'Oh, he is, but something like this… look, we'd pay her. We've still got some money left in the budget. Just tell me what her rate is.'

Jeffrey knocked back the rest of the beer and immediately wished he had another, then he thought of his father and wished he hadn't drunk anything at all.

Valentine took his silence the wrong way. 'I can get cash if-'

'Are they paying you off?'

'What's that?'

Jeffrey pressed his empty bottle into the man's chest. 'Something's going on in your town and you're either a part of it or you're taking money to look the other way.'

Valentine gave a forced laugh. 'You sure those are my only options?'

Jeffrey warned him, 'Listen, Barney Fife, I'm going to find out what's going on here one way or another, and I don't care whose toes I have to step on to do it.'

'You gonna punch me again?'

Jeffrey thought back to Sara slapping him, how powerless she must have felt locked in the car. 'I might.'

Valentine leaned down to put Jeffrey's bottle in the cooler. When he straightened, he gave Jeffrey a lazy, half-smile like they were old friends. 'You should come to my house for supper sometime.'

Jeffrey walked back down the tunnel toward the parking lot. 'Why would I want to do that?'

Valentine matched his stride. 'I'll show you around, point out the little projects I've been working on.' He flashed his goofy grin. 'I'm a lot handier than I look.'

'You going somewhere with this?'

'We're trying to build a deck out back. Every payday, we buy a couple of pieces of cedar for it. The wife figures it'll take a year before we've got everything we need, but we're real patient people. We're not like some folks who can just throw money around, raising mansions out of swampland. We just take our time and do it the right way.'

He was talking about Al Pfeiffer. Jeffrey wondered if Valentine knew his old boss had been paid a visit today. Pfeiffer probably still had ties to the community, maybe came back to see friends. People would know where he was living. They would keep in touch.

Jeffrey was in front of the room. He pointed to the door. 'This is my stop.'

Valentine tipped his hat. 'You enjoy your evening, Chief. Let me know what your wife says.'

Jeffrey watched the man put the cooler in the passenger seat of his black truck, then walk around to the driver's side. He opened the door and tossed Jeffrey a wave before getting in. Once the truck pulled away, Jeffrey could see the desk clerk peering out the window. He felt the kid's eyes on him as he knocked on the door.

Sara wasn't exactly smiling when she opened the door, but she hadn't called him a stupid asshole in at least four hours, so maybe his luck had turned.

The room was as dank as it was depressing; exactly as Jeffrey had remembered it from the night before. Sara had already removed the dark, multi-patterned coverlet off the bed. He wondered how much DNA had been transferred in the process.

She asked, 'What did our new best friend want?'

For you to do the autopsy on the body.'

'Why would he want that?'

'Good question,' he replied, sitting on the bed. He thought better of it and lay down on his side, bunching the pillows up under his head, kicking off his shoes. 'Add that to the long list of things I don't know.'

She walked to the door and checked the lock, then turned out the lights. In the dark, the mattress shifted as she got into bed. Like Jeffrey, she didn't bother to take off her clothes. He waited for her to curl up beside him, but she didn't.

Sara had once told him that even when they were divorced, she'd still had nightmares about getting a phone call in the middle of the night. It was something even cops couldn't joke about, that fateful call that told your wife or girlfriend or lover that your number had finally come up. Some coked-out idiot or stupid drunk had pulled a knife, squeezed the trigger, and there was nothing your loved ones could do but pick up the phone, wait for the words.

She must have been thinking about that today when Al Pfeiffer pulled the trigger. She must have been terrified that she was going to be trapped in the car, unable to help him, watching him die.

'Jeff?' He wasn't sure what he expected Sara to say to him, but as usual, she managed to come up with something he could have never anticipated. 'I was thinking about fixing the patio – maybe replacing some of those broken stones, making the wall a little higher so people can sit on it without their knees going up around their ears.' She paused. 'What do you think?'

He rolled over onto his back. A thin stream of light was coming in through the curtains and he could just make out her profile. 'I think the last time you messed with concrete, we had to borrow your dad's jackhammer.'

'The bag said it was self-leveling.'

He smiled at the familiar excuse.

'I want to do the autopsy.'

Jeffrey didn't know what to say. His initial response was to say no, but that was only because Jake Valentine had asked her to do it. 'I don't know that it'll get us out of here any sooner.'

Her silence told him she wasn't going to be easily swayed. Jeffrey tried to frame his next words carefully, offering, 'I can ask Frank to drive down here and pick you up after you're finished.'

'No,' she told him. 'I'm not going to leave you.'

'What if I want you to?'

The phone started to ring before she could answer. Jeffrey leaned over her and picked up the receiver.

'Hello?'

'Why are you still there?'

Jeffrey sat up so fast that he jerked the phone off the bedside table. ' Lena?'

'You can't be there,' she said, her voice a raspy whisper. 'Why are you still there?'

'Where are you?' he asked. 'Let me come get you.'

She started crying, sobs choking her words. 'Why…?' she cried. 'Why didn't they kill me instead?'

'Who?' he demanded, confused. 'Who are you talking about?'

'Just go,' she begged. 'You have to go before they-'

'Who's they, Lena? Who's after you?' All he heard was the staccato of her breath. ' Lena?' He pressed the phone to his ear. ' Lena? Are you there? Where are you? Let me come get you.'

The line went dead.

Sara used her thumb to trace the pattern of dried blood on the BMW's steering wheel as she followed Jake Valentine's cruiser through downtown Reece. Shock or trauma or a combination of the two had managed to knock her out last night. She had slept more deeply than she had in months. Had Jake Valentine not banged on their door at seven-thirty this morning, she would probably still be in bed.

Up ahead in Valentine's car, she could see Jeffrey having an animated conversation with the sheriff. Sara hoped to God he was managing to get some information out of the man. Common sense told her this would not be the case. Jeffrey hadn't told Valentine about Lena 's phone call last night because he knew the man would trace the number. For his part, Valentine wasn't offering any updates on the manhunt. This morning, when he'd seen the cuts on Jeffrey's face and hands in the daylight, all he'd said was, 'Hate to see the other guy.'