Kisscut

Jeffrey felt himself tearing up again, and tried to collect himself. All he could think of was Lacey Patterson's school picture on the flier in his desk drawer. He thought about what Je

"You did your job," Paul told Jeffrey, as if reading his mind. "You did what you had to do to protect that boy."

Jeffrey had not helped the girl he knew as Je

Paul said, "So much came out after she left town." He looked down at his hands. "She did some baby-sitting on the weekends. Those children were abused, too."

Jeffrey sat up, trying not to let his own grief overshadow Paul's. He asked, "Was a warrant ever issued?"

"No," he said, then gave an ironic smile. "A couple of days later, they issued a warrant to arrest the other woman, but she had left town, too."

Jeffrey felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he thought about Lacey Patterson. "What was her name?"

"Markson," Paul said, wiping his nose again. "Grace Markson."

Chapter Sixteen

Lena sat beside Grace Patterson's bed, listening to the slow beeps of the heart monitor beside her. The blind was drawn on the window overlooking the hospital parking lot, but there wasn't much to see at this hour, anyway. Teddy Patterson sat across the bed from Lena in a tall recliner, his head leaned back, his mouth opened as he snored, seeming not to have a care in the world. He had laughed in Lena 's face when she suggested Grace had anything to do with what had happened to their children. Patterson was a con, and he had an i

Lena looked at Grace Patterson, watching her sleep, wondering at the power the woman seemed to have over her family. She had refused to be put on a ventilator, but a mask gave her oxygen to help her breathe. Pillows were propped around and under her body to keep her comfortable, but there was no mistaking that the woman was dying an extraordinarily painful death. In the few days since Lena had seen her, Grace Patterson had declined rapidly. Maybe it was being in the hospital that had done it to her, but Grace looked as much on her deathbed as she was. Her skin was sallow, her cheeks sunken. Her eyes were rheumy and constantly wept what on a normal person would have been tears.

Lena shifted in her chair, trying to get into a more comfortable position. Her tailbone felt as if it had been beaten with a bat, and her hands and feet were aching like they had after the attack. She had figured out an hour before that this was because she kept clenching her fists and curling her toes. Her body was tight with tension, and just being in the room with the Pattersons made her stomach clench like the rest of her body. She wanted to throttle them both, to remind them that every second ticking by could mean something horrible for Lacey.

Maybe they were being quiet because Lena was in the room. Teddy wasn't exactly acting the part of the grieving husband, as far as Lena could tell. He had watched television while his wife slept, laughing at sitcoms, then narrating for no one in particular the events unfolding during an action movie.

"He's go

Teddy had fallen asleep during the news and seemed to be a heavy sleeper. Even when the nurse had come in to check Grace's stats, he had not stirred.

All this left Lena with was time to stare at Grace Patterson and think about what had happened in the last few days. Mark was at a different hospital than his mother because the ambulance crew had taken him to the closest emergency room. There was no telling what was going to happen to him, but none of his doctors seemed to think he would ever recover from what he had done to himself.

Lena thought about Mark, who was just like any other boy, just wanting love, wanting his mother's attention, and taking it any way he could. She also remembered herself at that age, and how fucked up she had been. Everything had been so emotional, and she had been desperate for anyone but Hank's approval. She had de

Lena was fifteen when she first started sleeping with Russ Fleming, and while her body had been ready for the physical side of the relationship, emotionally, she had been a wreck. Russ was twenty-two, something Hank had a really big problem with, but Lena had thought she loved him, and Russ had played her like a pro. Anything he wanted, she gave him. He was a moody asshole, and Lena reacted to him like a thermometer, trying to soothe him one minute and seduce him the next. Her days were constant ups and downs, depending on how Russ was treating her, and if she wasn't crying in her room, she was sitting on the front porch, hands between her knees as she nervously waited for him to show up. She had been so young and so stupid, and Russ had given her what she thought was love.

Looking back now, Lena knew that he was just a paranoid pothead, getting his rocks off screwing a teenage girl, but at the time Lena had thought he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. It was amazing how stupid kids could be, and how desperate they were for love and attention. Mark must have been such an easy target for his mother. He must have felt like an open wound, convinced that only his mother could heal him. And now everything that he had survived had made him want to die. Lena understood the dichotomy all too well.

Grace took a sharp breath, waking up. Her eyes slowly opened. She stared for a while at the ceiling, as if her brain was trying to work out where she was and what was happening. Lena wanted to remind her, to tell her that she was dying, but Grace seemed to make that co

The stiff pillowcase crackled as Grace turned her head toward Lena. Her eyes traveled down as far as they could go, past the blood pressure monitor on her arm to the I.V., which she followed to the self-administering morphine pump beside the bed. Lena had had one of these when she was in the hospital. The patient could control the release of morphine by pressing a button attached to the pump. The machine wouldn't let you kill yourself by holding the button down, but it did give the patient some sense of control over her own pain management.

Without being aware of what she was doing, Lena reached over and took the button away from Grace before the woman could press it. Lena had not been alone with Grace since she'd gotten here. Teddy seemed a sound enough sleeper for her to take advantage of the moment.