Kisscut

"Looking for this?" Lena whispered, holding up the device.

Grace's eyes flashed, then darted toward Teddy.

"You want to wake him up so he can hear what I have to say?" Lena asked, still keeping her voice low. "I talked to Mark, Grace. You want Teddy to know just how much you love your little boy?"

She swallowed, but that was all.

"You can talk," Lena said. She had heard Grace ask for ice chips only a few hours before. "I know you can talk."

Slowly, Grace reached up to the mask covering her nose and mouth. She pulled it to the side, panting with the effort. "Give…" she said. "Pump…"

Lena tested the weight of the button in her hand. It had felt so much heavier when she had used it for her own pain relief.

She asked, "Hurts, huh?"

Grace nodded, her face contorted in pain.

"You want to trade?" Lena asked, wagging the device like a piece of candy.

Grace had the audacity to smile, and something in her eyes seemed to say that she had underestimated Lena.

"Yeah?" Lena prompted. "Tell me where Lacey is and I'll let you drug yourself to hell and back."

Grace still smiled, but there was a hardness to her eyes now. She turned her head away from Lena to stare back up at the ceiling. Lena could see that the woman's hand shook as she placed it over her chest. The doctor had ordered more powerful narcotics on standby. Why Grace had not called for them earlier was a mystery. It wasn't as if the woman had a chance of getting out of this bed.

Lena said, "I know you want it, Grace. I know you need it."

Grace turned back to her. She inhaled sharply, then breathed out a labored, "No."

Lena stood, clenching her fist around the device. She still kept her voice down so as not to wake Teddy. "I know you raped Mark."

Grace's smile widened, as if this was a fond memory. She closed her eyes, and Lena was under the impression she was recalling a shared moment with her son.

"Tell me about Je

"She was…" Grace began, still staring at the ceiling, tears streaming from her eyes. The tears were part of her medical condition, a sign of the physical pain she was in, not an indication that she felt any grief.

The mask was still pushed to the side, and Grace put her hand on it to move it back, but not before saying, "Such… a… sweet…"

Her voice trailed off, and Lena stood there, waiting for her to finish the sentence. When nothing came, she prompted, "Sweet what?"

Grace gave an almost angelic smile behind the mask. "Sweet… fuck."

"You bitch," Lena whispered, grabbing the pillow at Grace's side. She moved the mask off the woman's face and pressed the pillow down over her. Grace did not struggle under Lena, who was keeping her eye on Teddy as she tried to smother his wife. Grace's legs twitched slightly, and Lena stopped-made herself stop-pulling back the pillow. She fumbled, putting the mask back onto Grace's face, making sure she got the oxygen. What seemed like minutes but could have only been seconds passed before Grace opened her eyes again. She seemed surprised, then angry. Lena knew that killing her would have been a mercy. Grace Patterson only had a few hours at most left in this world. Lena would not hasten them.

Grace was panting angrily as she glared at Lena. Her mouth worked, and she whispered, "Coward."

Mark had called Lena this before, and maybe it was true, but not for the reason Grace was thinking.

Lena countered, "Not as cowardly as raping a child."

Grace shook her head, either denying that Mark was a child or that what she had done to him was rape.

"He tried to kill himself," Lena told her. "Did you know that?"

She could tell from Grace's reaction that she did not.

"Hanged himself in his closet, right after he told me you'd fucked him," she clarified. "He didn't want to live anymore, knowing what you'd done to him."

Grace stared back at the ceiling. The tears still came, but Lena could not tell if they were from grief or pain.

"He's in a coma. Probably won't wake up."

Grace whispered something, but Lena could not make out what she was saying. Lena leaned down, putting her ear close to the woman's mouth, her hand on the side of the bed. Without warning, Grace reached out, grabbing Lena 's hand. The woman was weak from the labor of dying, and Lena was able to pull her hand away, but not before she felt Grace's thumb brush across the scar on Lena 's hand. The touch was tender, almost sexual, and Lena could see the charge Grace got out of it.

"You sick bitch," Lena said, rubbing her hand as if she could wipe off the sensation. "You're going to rot in hell."

It seemed to take all of her energy, but the mother said in one smooth line, "I'll see you there."

Lena backed away until she was standing against the wall, feeling an eerie sense of déjà vu. Mark and Je

Lena stood there for a moment, watching Grace Patterson, then checking on Teddy. He was still sound asleep. She checked her watch. There were three more hours until sunrise, when the nurse would be back to check on Grace. Lena clipped the morphine button to the railing, well out of Grace's reach. She sat down in the chair, ignoring her own shaking hands as she waited for Grace Patterson to die.

Chapter Seventeen

Jeffrey was sweating under his bulletproof vest. The August heat combined with the weight of the Teflon vest would have felled an elephant by now. He had lost enough water from sweating to make the back of his throat feel like it had been rubbed with sandpaper.

"Good times," Nick said, using his handkerchief to wipe the back of his neck.

Jeffrey bit back a cutting remark, asking instead, "What time is it?"

Nick checked his watch. "Ten after," he said. "Don't sweat it, Chief. Criminals got their own sense of time."

"Yeah," Joe Stewart piped up. He was Nick's perp who had flipped, and from the way he was acting, Jeffrey imagined Nick had let the man do a little blow to keep the edge off. He was as wired as a Las Vegas street corner.

Jeffrey said, "You're sure you don't know anything about a missing girl?"

"How young is she?" Joe licked his lips. "You gotta picture of her?"

"Sit down," Nick ordered, kicking at Joe's shins with his pointy cowboy boots. Nick had gone all out for the part of a pedophile, and was wearing a pressed black shirt tucked into the tightest pair of blue jeans Jeffrey had ever seen on a man. Nick had even taken off his gold necklace and trimmed his beard for the occasion. Jeffrey imagined Nick lived for this kind of action. Truthfully, so did every cop Jeffrey knew, including himself.

"I tole you to sit," Nick reminded Joe.

Joe slumped on the bed, scratching his arms as he mumbled something under his breath. He was a ski

Jeffrey looked at Nick. "Did you have to get him pumped up like this?"

"You want him pissing in his pants?" Nick asked.

"Wouldn't be much of a difference." Jeffrey pointed out. Joe smelled almost as bad as the musty thirty-dollar-a-night hotel room they were standing in.

Jeffrey asked, "Are you sure the air conditioner isn't working?"

"We turn it on, we won't be able to pick up the audio," Nick reminded him. "Settle down, Chief. It'll be over soon."

"What about Atlanta?" Jeffrey asked.

Nick's eyes darted to Joe. The post office box in Grant that Dottie had used for the credit card was a dummy drop. A forwarding address had been given so that all mail sent to Grant would automatically be forwarded on to a different post office box in Atlanta. Jeffrey had asked Nick to set up a surveillance, hoping Dottie would show up.