Kisscut

Jeffrey said, "I never even suspected his mother."

"Why would you? There was no reason to."

"I didn't have a problem with Teddy Patterson as a suspect."

Sara sat back in the tub and let him talk.

Jeffrey told her, "The crime scene techs are still at Weaver's house, but preliminary results show printer's ink in the basement."

"For magazines?" Sara asked. "I thought they needed a big press."

"They're not exactly slick," Jeffrey said. He drank more wine. "All the articles are about how to meet the right kid."

Sara pressed her lips together.

"I'll tell you what, Sara, I wish to God I hadn't seen any of it."

She stroked his leg with her foot. "Have you found the carpeting from the house?"

"Brad and Frank are going to check the dump at daybreak. Based on what they sampled from the floor, the carpets are coated in fluids."

"Body fluids?" she asked. "They soaked through?"

He nodded, not liking how that sounded, either. "There's also a room in the basement that looks like it was used as a darkroom." He rested his glass on the rim of the tub. "My guess is they used the house to take the pictures, and printed up the magazines there."

"An explosion would have destroyed all of that evidence."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I still can't figure out why she didn't strip Je

"She didn't really need anything from Je

"I guess not," he agreed.

"Did you find any evidence in the room?"

"Nothing. The gasoline might have covered semen traces. I don't know how that works."

"But there was nothing obvious?"

"Nothing," he said. "None of the pictures was taken in there. Maybe it was the only room in the house that was clean." He rubbed his eyes, feeling incredibly tired. "I can't believe this was going on in town and nobody knew about it."

Sara picked up the bottle of wine and filled his glass. "Do you remember what she said to me?" she asked. "She asked if I had cut Je

Jeffrey thought about this for a second. "She could have."

"I keep playing that interview back in my mind, and when I get to that point, I see how Dottie changed. You know what I'm talking about? She was almost relieved."

"I guess," Jeffrey said, though he could not remember. The interview seemed like a lifetime away.

Sara said, "I called the hospital. Mark still hasn't regained consciousness."

"Do they have a prognosis?"

"It's hard to tell with ABIs," she said, then, "anoxic brain injuries." He nodded, and she continued, "There's a lot of swelling in his brain. They won't know how much damage was done until the swelling goes down. The longer it takes, the worse it will be."

"Does he have a chance of being normal?"

She shook her head. "No." She paused, as if to let this sink in. "He'll never be the same again. That is, if he wakes up. There's going to be some damage."

"He just seemed like this punk kid."

Sara finished the wine and set her glass on the floor. "You think Teddy Patterson beat him up before he came to the clinic?"

Jeffrey had forgotten that detail. "I guess it's possible. What about Lacey, though? Why was Mark chasing after her?"

"She could have been threatening to tell."

"We didn't find any pictures of Lacey. Wouldn't Teddy Patterson handle something like that anyway?"

"Possibly," she said. "Maybe he was in the black Thunderbird."

"He was probably at the hospital," Jeffrey pointed out. "I'll have Frank check, but I'm pretty sure."

"If Lacey is the mother of that baby, who do you think the father is?"

"I don't know," he answered, because none of it really made any sense. Jeffrey put his hand over his eyes, trying to understand this. Lately, it seemed like every case he dealt with had some kind of weird twist to it that took a part of him with it. He longed for a simple money-motive or jealous threat gone wrong. He figured that he could take just about anything but knowing a child was in jeopardy.

Sara must have sensed his anguish. She slid toward him, and Jeffrey moved over so that she could put her head on his chest.

"You still smell smoky," she told him.

"Explosions can do that."

She ran her fingers along his chest, but it seemed like she was doing this more to make sure he was really there than to arouse anything in him. She curled a piece of his hair around her finger, saying, "I want you to be careful tomorrow."

"I'm always careful."

Sara sat up a little so that she could look him in the eye. "More careful than usual," she said. "For me, okay?"

"Okay," he nodded, pushing her hair back behind her ear. "What's going on with us?" he asked.

"I du

"It feels good, whatever it is."

She smiled, touching her fingers to his lips. "Yeah."

He opened his mouth to say more, but his cell phone rang, spoiling the moment.

"It's two in the morning," Jeffrey said, as if this made any difference. The phone was on the closed toilet lid, and Sara picked it up and handed it to him. "Maybe it's Nick?"

He checked the caller I.D. "It's the station."

Paul Je

"Thank you for coming in," he said. "I was going to wait to call you, but I couldn't sleep. I had this feeling."

"It's all right," Jeffrey said, leading the man into his office.

"I know this is a shot in the dark. I just had this feeling," he repeated. "I took the first flight they had."

"I apologize for not returning your call," Jeffrey told him. "My secretary thought you were trying to sell me something."

Paul told him, "I work for a vinyl supply company up in Newark. I guess I should have made it clear why I was calling." He paused. "I've been looking for my daughter for so long, and I've been disappointed so many times." He held his hands up in a shrug. "Part of me couldn't believe they might be here, after all this time."

"I understand," Jeffrey told him, though he really had no idea what kind of pain this man had suffered over the last ten years. "Would you like some coffee?"

"No, no," Paul said, taking the seat Jeffrey indicated.

"We've got a fresh pot in the back," Jeffrey offered, walking around to the opposite side of the desk. He knew who this man was, and what he had to be told. Jeffrey wanted to keep some distance between them. He needed space.

"This is a picture of Wendy when she was three," Paul said, showing Jeffrey a photograph of a happy-looking child. Though it was taken several years ago, Jeffrey was still able to tell that the girl in the photograph had grown up to be Je

"Was this just before she disappeared?" Jeffrey asked, sliding the photo back across his desk.

The man nodded, showing Jeffrey another picture. "Wanda took her shortly after that."

Jeffrey studied the next photograph, though he knew from first glance that Wanda Je

Jeffrey asked, "Can you tell me when it was your wife and daughter disappeared?"

Paul shifted in his chair. "We were living in Canada while I went to graduate school," he said. "Vinyl siding wasn't how I pla

"What kind of allegations?"