Indelible

The phone started ringing again. Wagner had probably freaked when they carried Matt outside.

"There are supplies in the ambulance," Molly said. "Let Matt go and I'll stay here and suture you."

"Got a couple of heroes here," Smith said to his partner, and Lena realized he meant her as well.

Lena was kneeling by Marla, and Smith practically swaggered as he walked toward them. Without a word, he jerked up one of the girls by her wrist and yanked her toward the front of the room. She yelled, but he must have twisted her arm enough to shut her up. He took the crying child with him and talked to his partner. Lena was still on her knees, and she turned to watch them, putting her feet behind her. Slowly, she moved her hand to her ankle, feeling the pocketknife. She felt someone's hand over her's, but dared not turn around. Brad was to her right, so she knew it wasn't him. The children were too frightened to move. Marla. It must have been Marla whose fingers worked so deftly with the tape and removed the pocketknife.

Smith said, "We got a doctor, couple of paramedics. Why not?"

His partner gave a wary shake of his head, but seemed resigned to whatever Smith had pla

Smith walked back to Lena, dragging the girl. "Go get your case out of the ambulance."

"What?" she said, not understanding.

He looked at his watch, which was the kind she had seen in magazines, advertising the fact that Navy SEALs used the same brand. He said, "Get your case and get back here." He pressed the Sig to the little girl's head. "You've got thirty seconds."

"I don't -"

"Twenty-nine."

"Fuck," Lena cursed. She scrambled to stand and bolted toward the door, her heart lurching in her chest. At the ambulance, she threw open the back doors, looking for anything that resembled a case.

"Officer?" a man called. She knew it was one of the cops by the cruisers but she did not have time. "Officer?"

"It's okay!" she yelled, panic filling her voice. "It's okay!" There was a long plastic case strapped into the side of the ambulance. She had been on accident scenes enough to know this was the first thing the EMTs brought with them. Her fingers fumbled with the buckle and she said, "Fuck-fuck-fuck," trying to remember how long she had been out of the building.

The man kept pushing. "Do you need help?"

"Shut up!" she screamed, throwing open the case. There were all kinds of drugs and boxes. She hoped it had everything they would need. At the last minute, she grabbed another bag and the defibrillator.

She ran through the front door, startling the second shooter. He reared up but did not pull the trigger on her. Lena rushed to the back, where Smith still had the gun pressed to the little girl's head. He was looking at his watch, smiling, and she felt such seething hatred for him that she dropped the gear and reached for the little girl, snatching her away.

The muzzle of Smith's gun caught Lena in the forehead, stu

He said, "I knew you would try to be a hero."

"No," Lena said, the pressure from his boot pushing the life out of her.

Smith pressed harder. "You want to be a hero?"

"No," she said. "Please." She tried to pry up his boot but that just made him press harder. "Please," she repeated, thinking about the child inside her, wondering what this was doing.

Smith exhaled sharply, like he was disappointed. "All right," he said, removing his foot. "Let that be a lesson."

Brad helped Lena stand. She found that her knees were weak and she felt sick all over. Had the pressure done something? Had Smith broken her inside?

Smith used his foot to push the plastic case toward Sara. "This should be enough to do it," he said. "Field surgery, just like on TV."

Sara shook her head. "It's too dangerous. There's no way -"

"Sure there's a way."

"He should be in an operating room."

"This'll have to do."

"He could die."

Smith indicated his gun. "He might die anyway."

"What do you have against…" Sara stopped, obviously trying to control her emotions. They seemed to get the better of her, though, and she demanded, "What do you have against us? What did we do to you?"

"It's not you," Smith told her. He picked up the phone, shouting, "What the fuck do you want?"

"Then Jeffrey," Sara said, her voice catching again. Smith would not look at her, so she addressed her words to the second gunman. "What did Jeffrey ever do to you?"

The second shooter turned toward Sara, his rifle still aimed at the door.

"Shut the fuck up," Smith barked into the phone. "We're just go

Sara would not let go. "What?" she demanded. "What's the point? Why are you doing this?" she begged, sounding desperate. "Why?"

The second shooter kept staring at her, and Smith put the phone to his chest, waiting to see if his partner would answer. The young man had a quiet voice, but it carried when he answered, "Because Jeffrey's his father."

Sara looked as if she had seen a ghost. Her lips trembled when she asked, "Jared?"

Chapter Seventeen

Monday

Sara counted off the rings on the phone, waiting for her parents' answering machine to pick up. Eddie hated answering machines, but he had gotten one when Sara came back from Atlanta just to help her feel safer. After the sixth ring, the machine whirred on, her father's voice gruff as he asked the caller to leave a message.

Sara waited for the beep, then said, "Mama, it's me -"

"Sara?" Cathy said. "Hold on." Sara waited while her mother went to turn off the machine, which was upstairs in her parents' bedroom. There were only two telephones in the house: the one in the kitchen that had a fifty-foot cord and the one in the master bedroom that had become off-limits to Sara and Tessa as soon as they had reached dating age.

Sara let her gaze fall to the skeleton on the table where just this morning Luke Swan had lain. Hoss had brought three cardboard boxes to transport the bones, and though Sara had been shocked by his lackadaisical attitude, she was not in a position to question the man's methods. She had painstakingly put the skeleton together, trying to find clues that would help identify her. The whole process had taken hours, but she was finally certain about one thing: the girl had, in fact, been murdered.

Cathy came back on the line. "You okay?" she asked. "Is something wrong? Where are you?"

"I'm fine, Mama."

"I was out buying sprinkles for cupcakes."

Sara felt a tinge of guilt. Her mother only made cupcakes when she was trying to cheer Sara up.

Cathy continued, "Your daddy got called away to the Chorskes' again. Little Jack flushed a handful of crayons down the toilet."

"Again?"

"Again," she echoed. "You wa

"I'm sorry," Sara told her. "I'm still in Sylacauga."

"Oh." The word managed to convey disappointment as well as disapproval.

"There was a problem," Sara began, wondering whether or not to tell her mother what had happened. This morning, she had told Cathy about Robert and the shooting, but left out her suspicions about who had pulled the trigger. Now Sara realized as she talked that she could not hold back, and told her mother everything, from the sear mark to Reggie's warning to her worries about whatever Jeffrey had put in his pocket.

"Was it a bracelet or something?" Cathy asked.

"I don't know," Sara said. "It looked like a gold chain."