Kisscut

"We've got some time before they show up," Jeffrey said, closing the phone.

"Great," Lena mumbled, thinking between the heat and the odor in the house, they might asphyxiate before reinforcements came.

"Why didn't she strip this room, too?" Jeffrey asked.

Lena shrugged. "Maybe it was too hard for her to come in here after Je

"I guess," he mumbled, wiping something out of his eyes. "But why go to the trouble to strip the house if they thought the bomb would burn it down?"

"Arson inspectors can find just about anything," Lena told him. "You can watch the Discovery cha

"It's like she hated her," Jeffrey said, not letting it go. "I can understand not stripping the room, but this…"-he indicated the gas tanks-"this doesn't make sense."

Lena thought about Mark, and how he might have purposefully rigged the bomb not to explode.

"Who would do this?" he asked. "Grace? Dottie? Was it Mark? None of this makes any sense."

To give herself something to do, she looked around the room. A set of cat figurines was on the dresser alongside some makeup that could only belong to a little girl.

"Maybe she didn't want to be reminded of Je

"Maybe Dottie was abducted," Jeffrey guessed.

"By whom?" Lena asked. "That doesn't jibe. And if she was, how did Lacey's coat get in here? Are you saying that whoever snatched Lacey came after Dottie, too? Then took the time to strip and clean the house?"

Jeffrey asked, "You think Dottie planted the bomb?"

Lena shrugged, even though she was sure in her heart that Mark had planted the bomb. The paint on his clothes, the chemical smell on his body, all pointed to him at the very least being in this house during the last few days. There was no telling what he had been doing.

Jeffrey was obviously thinking the same things as Lena. He said, "Mark had paint on his clothes. We can have the lab check it against the paint on the walls."

"It looked fresh," Lena reluctantly provided.

"Why would Dottie Weaver strip the house this way? Why would she leave without at least burying her daughter?"

Lena wondered again if he'd hit his head. He was repeating the same questions over and over again, as if she might suddenly come up with the answer. She was about to ask him if he wanted to sit down when he turned around and looked at the bed in the middle of the room as if it might start talking to him. After a couple of moments of this, he took his foot and kicked the mattress over.

"What's that?" Lena asked, but she could see well enough for herself. About twenty cheap-looking magazines had been stowed between the mattress and the boxspring. All of them had children on the covers doing the kinds of things that children should never be made to do. They all had the same title, too, Child-Lovers in a fancy script with a familiar heart drawing inserted where the "o" in lover should be.

Lena put her hand on the wall, trying to steady herself.

"You okay?" Jeffrey asked, cupping her elbow as if she might faint.

"The design."

"It's the same one Mark has on his hand," he said, pushing through the stack of magazines. He mumbled, "I used to hide shit under my bed, too."

"Why would Mark do that?" Lena asked, not able to move past this point. "Why would he put that on his hand?"

Jeffrey turned back to the bed. "Maybe it's his way of saying he likes younger girls. Maybe that's how those guys operate so they know each other," he suggested, picking up one of the magazines. He leafed through it, then picked up another. His jaw worked as he stopped on a particular page.

"What?" Lena asked, looking over his shoulder. A picture of Mark, probably taken a few years ago, served as the centerfold.

Lena picked up a magazine and skimmed through it until she found another picture of Mark. Je

Jeffrey examined the magazines, his jaw clenched so tight she had trouble understanding him when he spoke. "These aren't exactly sophisticated. I guess a small press could handle it."

"Probably," she agreed.

"Christ," Jeffrey hissed, scowling at the magazine he was holding. '"This guy has on his wedding ring." The disgust in his voice would have peeled paint off the walls. "That's Je

Lena looked at the photograph. Je

She said, "That's disgusting."

"Here's the same ring in another one," Jeffrey said, but he didn't show her the photo. He continued to flip the pages. "And another one."

Lena asked, "Are you sure it's the same-?"

"Fucking pervert," Jeffrey yelled, then twisted the magazine in his hands and threw it against the wall. "What the fuck is happening here?" he screamed. She could see a vein in his neck throbbing. "How many kids were involved in this thing?"

Lena tucked her hands into her pockets, letting him get it out.

Jeffrey turned, looking out the window at the backyard.

His voice was softer, but she could still hear the anger when he asked, "Do you recognize any of the other kids?"

Lena picked up a magazine, but he stopped her. "I don't want you looking at this shit," he said. "We'll get Nick's people on it." He put his hand to his forehead, like a bad headache was about to strike. "How many kids are involved in this thing?" he repeated. "How many Grant kids were wrapped up in this?"

She didn't have the answer, but he knew that.

He flipped open his phone again. "I'm going to get Nick here to look at this," he said. "I want you to go to the hospital and try to get something out of Grace Patterson."

She shook her head, not understanding.

"She's co

Lena nodded, thinking she had never seen him this angry, not even at her.

He dialed another number into the phone. While he was waiting for someone to answer, he instructed Lena, "I want you to confront Grace on what you know. I want you to tell her exactly what Mark told you, and I want you to find out what the fuck has been going on."

"Do you think she'll tell me anything?"

"Her daughter is missing," he reminded her. "We found her coat here."

Lena looked down at her hands. "Considering what she was doing to Mark, do you think she cares?"

He flipped the phone closed again, looking her in the eye. "Tell you the truth, Lena, I don't know what the hell to think about anybody involved in this case."

He was about to open his phone again when it rang. Before he answered it, he gave Lena his keys and nodded toward the door, telling her, "Go."