Karin Slaughter - A Faint Cold Fear

“No.”

“I’m pregnant!” Tessa squeaked.

“That’s not my fault.”

Tessa went back to scraping her cup. To add to the annoyance, she started scratching the bottom of her foot on the dashboard’s burled wood inlay.

A full minute passed before Sara felt an older sister’s guilt hit her like a sledgehammer. She tried to fight it by eating more ice cream, but it stuck in her throat.

“Here, you big baby.” Sara handed over her cup.

“Thank you,” Tessa answered sweetly. “Maybe we can get some more for later?” she suggested. “Only, can you go back in and get it? I don’t want them to think I’m a pig, and”—she smiled sweetly, batting her eyelids—“I might have ticked off the kid behind the counter.”

“I can’t imagine how.”

Tessa blinked innocently. “Some people are just sensitive.”

Sara opened the door, glad for a reason to get out of the car. She was three feet away when Tessa rolled down the window.

“I know,” Sara said. “Extra chocolate.”

“Yeah, but hold up.” Tessa paused to lick ice cream off the side of her cell phone before she handed it out the window. “It’s Jeffrey.”

Sara pulled up onto a gravel embankment between a police cruiser and Jeffrey’s car, frowning as she heard stones kicking up against the side of her car. The only reason Sara had traded in her two-seater convertible for the larger model was to accommodate a child’s car seat. Between Tessa and the elements, the BMW was going to be trashed before the baby came.

“This it?” Tessa asked.

“Yep.” Sara yanked up the parking brake and looked out at the dry river basin in front of them. Georgia had been suffering from a drought since the mid-1990s, and the huge river that had once slithered through the forest like a fat, lazy snake had shriveled to little more than a trickling stream. A cracked, dry carcass was all that remained, and the concrete bridge thirty feet overhead seemed out of place, though Sara could remember when people had fished from it.

“Is that the body?” Tessa asked, pointing to a group of men standing in a semicircle.

“Probably,” Sara answered, wondering if they were on college property. Grant County comprised three cities: Heartsdale, Madison, and Avondale. Heartsdale, which housed the Grant Institute of Technology, was the jewel of the county, and any crime that happened inside its city limits was considered that much more horrible. A crime on college property would be a nightmare.

“What happened?” Tessa asked eagerly, though she had never been interested in this side of Sara’s job before.

“That’s what I’m supposed to find out,” Sara reminded her, reaching over to the glove box for her stethoscope. The clearance was tight, and Sara’s hand rested on the back of Tessa’s stomach. She let it stay there for a moment.

“Oh, Sissy,” Tessa breathed, grabbing Sara’s hand. “I love you so much.”

Sara laughed at the sudden tears in Tessa’s eyes, but for some reason she could feel herself tearing up as well. “I love you, too, Tessie.” She squeezed her sister’s hand, saying, “Stay in the car. This won’t take long.”

Jeffrey was walking to meet Sara as she shut the car door. His dark hair was combed back neatly, still a little wet at the nape. He was dressed in a charcoal gray suit, perfectly pressed and tailored, with a gold police badge tucked into the breast pocket.

Sara was in sweatpants that had seen better days and a T-shirt that had given up on being white sometime during the Reagan administration. She wore sneakers with no socks, the laces loosely tied so she could slip in and out of them with as little effort as possible.

“You didn’t have to dress up,” Jeffrey joked, but she could hear the tension in his voice.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure, but I think there’s something hinky—” He stopped, looking back at the car. “You brought Tess?”

“It was on the way, and she wanted to come. . . .” Sara let her voice trail off, because there really was no explanation, other than that Sara’s goal in life at the moment was to keep Tessa happy—or, at the very least, to keep her from whining.

Jeffrey recognized the situation. “I guess arguing with her wasn’t worth it?”

“She promised to stay in the car,” Sara said, just as she heard the car door slam closed behind her. She tucked her hands into her hips as she turned around, but Tessa was already waving her off.

“I’ve gotta go,” Tessa said, pointing toward a line of trees in the distance.

Jeffrey asked, “She’s gonna walk home?”

“She’s going to the bathroom,” Sara explained, watching Tessa head up the hill toward the forest.

They both watched Tessa navigate the steep slope, her hands hooked under her belly as if she were carrying a basket. Jeffrey asked, “Are you gonna be mad at me if I laugh when she rolls back down that hill?”

Sara laughed with him instead of answering his question.

He asked, “You think she’ll be okay up there?”

“She’ll be fine,” Sara told him. “It won’t kill her to get some exercise.”

“Are you sure?” Jeffrey pressed, concerned.

“She’s fine,” Sara reassured, knowing that Jeffrey had never been around a pregnant woman for any length of time in his life. He was probably scared Tessa would go into labor before she got to the trees at the top of the hill. They should all be so lucky.

Sara started to walk toward the scene but stopped when he did not follow. She turned around, waiting for what she knew was coming.

He said, “You left pretty early this morning.”

“I figured you needed the sleep.” She walked back and took a pair of latex gloves out of his coat pocket, asking, “What’s hinky?”

“I wasn’t that tired,” he said, in the same suggestive tone he would have used this morning if she’d stuck around.

She fidgeted with the gloves, trying to think of something to say. “I had to let the dogs out.”

“You could start bringing them.”

Sara gave the police cruiser a pointed look. “Is that new?” she asked, feigning curiosity. Grant County was a small place. Sara had heard about the new patrol car before it was even parked in front of the station.

He said, “Got it a couple of days ago.”

“Lettering looks good,” she said, keeping her tone casual.

“How about that,” he said, an annoying phrase he had lately picked up when he did not know what else to say.

Sara did not let him get away with it. “She did a really nice job.”

Jeffrey kept his gaze steady, as if he had nothing to hide. Sara would have been impressed had he not used the exact same expression the last time he’d assured her he was not cheating.

She gave a tight smile, repeating, “What’s hinky?”

He let out a short, irritated breath. “You’ll see,” he told her, heading toward the river.

Sara walked at her normal pace, but Jeffrey slowed enough for her to catch up with him. She could see that he was angry, but Sara had never let Jeffrey’s moods intimidate her.

She asked, “Is it a student?”

“Probably,” he said, his tone still clipped. “We checked his pockets. There wasn’t any ID on him, but this side of the river is college land.”

“Great,” Sara mumbled, wondering how long it would be before Chuck Gaines, the new head of security at the college, showed up and started questioning everything they did. Chuck was easy to dismiss as a nuisance, but Jeffrey’s prime directive as chief of police for Grant County was to keep the college happy. Chuck knew this better than anyone, and he exploited his advantage whenever he could.

Sara noticed a very attractive blonde sitting on a cluster of rocks. Beside her was Brad Stephens, a young patrolman who had been a patient of Sara’s a long time ago.