Indelible

3:31:01.

3:31:02.

"Like what?" Sara asked, and out of the corner of her eye, Lena saw Brad moving closer to the second gunman. He looked at the clock again, and she knew that he was thinking the same thing: they couldn't coordinate if they weren't looking at synchronized clocks. What if she moved too soon? What if she signaled Brad at the wrong moment, and they both ended up dead before the SWAT team arrived?

"No," Lena whispered, too late realizing she had said the word aloud.

Smith gave her a toothy smile. "She's figured it out," he said. "Ain't that right, darlin'?"

Lena gave a quick shake of her head, her hand moving behind her, feeling the outline of the knife in her pocket. She was overthinking this. What mattered was working in tandem with Brad. What mattered was the element of surprise.

Smith told Sara, "See, some folks here don't think I'm as stupid as you do."

"I don't think you're stupid," Sara said.

Lena glanced down at Smith's watch again. Thirty seconds left. Brad had moved closer to So

"I know what you think about me," Smith told Sara.

Lena moved as slowly as possible, her fingers dipping into her back pocket. Her heart shook in her chest. Brad's footsteps echoed against the tile as he paced back and forth at the front of the room.

"I think you're a very troubled young man," Sara told him. "I think you need help."

"You thought I was trash from the moment you laid eyes on me."

"That's not true."

"You did everything you could to try to destroy my life."

"I wanted to help you," Sara said. "I really did."

"You could've taken me in," Smith said. "I wrote you letters. I wrote him letters."

He had indicated Jeffrey, but Sara seemed not to notice. "We never got them," she replied, but Lena could barely hear her past the sound of blood rushing through her ears. Smith had indicated Jeffrey. He knew who Jeffrey was.

Lena gripped the knife, using her thumb to pry up the blade. She pressed the edge of the metal into her heel and heard the click as the blade popped into place.

She held her breath, waiting for Smith to notice, but he was too focused on Sara. How long had he known about Jeffrey? When had he figured out that it wasn't Matt lying on the floor in front of him, but the man he had sworn to kill?

Smith said, "I kept waiting for y'all to come. I kept waiting for y'all to take me away from her." His voice was like a child's. "Do you know the kinds of things she did to me? Do you know how she hurt me?"

In her head, Lena was screaming, "He knows it's Jeffrey," but she kept the words from coming out of her mouth. Whatever sick game Smith was playing had to go on just a little while longer. Just a few more seconds and it would be over.

Lena trained her eyes on his watch.

3:31:43.

"We couldn't help you," Sara told him. "Eric, Jeffrey is not your father."

Lena looked at Brad. He raised his eyebrows, as if to say, "Ready when you are."

Smith said, "You're a fucking liar."

"I'm not lying," Sara said, a certainty to her voice. "I'll tell you who your father is, but you have to let them go."

"Let them go?" Smith asked, taking the Sig Sauer out of his belt, still keeping his other hand resting on his thigh.

3:31:51.

Lena swallowed, though she had no spit left in her mouth. In her peripheral vision, she saw Brad nearing So

"Let who go?" Smith asked, taking his time, obviously enjoying the drama. He smiled down at Jeffrey. "You mean him? Matt?" He hit the t's hard, spit coming out of his mouth.

Sara hesitated a beat too long. "Yes."

"That's not Matt," Smith said, cocking the hammer. "That's Jeffrey."

"Now!" Lena screamed, lunging for Smith. She slammed the knife into his throat, feeling her fingers slide down the blade, sharp metal slicing open her skin.

Sara had jumped seconds after Lena, and she wrested the Sig away from Smith even as a gun went off at the front of the room. The three little girls started screaming as the glass entrance door exploded.

GBI agents swarmed into the station. Brad stood over So

"Get up," Sara told Lena, pushing her off Smith. Lena slipped in the blood as Sara turned him over onto his back.

"Get an ambulance," Sara said, putting both her hands to Smith's neck, trying to stop the blood. She was fighting a losing battle. Blood was everywhere, flooding out of Smith's carotid like a broken dam. Lena had never seen so much bleeding in her life. It was as if nothing could stop it.

"Help me," Smith said, an improbable request considering all he had done.

"You'll be okay," Sara soothed. "Just hold on."

"He killed people," Lena told her, thinking she must be crazy. "He tried to kill Jeffrey."

"Get an ambulance," Sara repeated. "Please," she begged, her fingers pressing into the gaping wound. "Please. He just needs somebody to help him."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Tuesday

Jeffrey slumped into the row of chairs opposite Hoss's office at the sheriff's station. After the last few days, he understood what people meant when they said they felt as if they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Jeffrey felt like he had two worlds, and neither one of them was a particularly civilized.

Sara sat down beside him, saying, "It'll be good to get back home after this."

"Yeah."

He had wanted to leave this town from the moment he got here, but now Jeffrey thought that everything he needed was right here with him. As always, Sara knew what he was thinking, and when she put her hand on his leg, he laced his fingers through hers, wondering how his life could be so fucked up yet feel so good as long as she was holding his hand.

"Did he say how long he would be?" Sara asked, meaning Hoss.

"I think part of him is still waiting for me to say this is some kind of joke."

"It'll be fine," she said, squeezing his hand.

Jeffrey glanced down the unlit corridor toward the jail, hoping that his emotions did not get the best of him. Sara was so good at being logical that it scared him sometimes. He had never met anyone so completely capable of taking care of anything that came along, and he wondered what kind of place he could have in her life.

Sara interrupted his thoughts, asking a question he had not yet let himself consider. "You think it changes anything because he's gay?"

He shrugged.

"Jeff?"

Jeffrey kissed her fingers, trying to change the subject. "You can't imagine how I felt when I saw you in that chair. The things that went through my mind."

She waited for his answer.

"I don't know how I feel about that," he said. "I want to kick his ass for what he did to you," he said, feeling livid all over again. "That kind of thing…" He shook his head, trying not to let it get to him. "I swear to God, if I ever see him again, there's going to be a reckoning for that."

"He was desperate," she said, though Jeffrey did not understand how she could make excuses for him. "Which is worse," she asked, "what he did to me or the fact that he's gay?"

He did not know how to answer the question. "All I know is that he lied to me all these years."

"Would you have wanted to have anything to do with him otherwise?"

"We'll never have a chance to find out, will we?"

Sara let his words hang in the air.

"When I saw Robert's jacket in Swan's closet…" He sat back in the chair, letting go of her hand as he crossed his arms over his chest. Jeffrey kept his own jacket in the back of his closet at home, and though he never wore it, he could not bring himself to donate it to charity or throw it away. He was worse than the Monday-morning quarterbacks at the hardware store, holding on to that jacket like he could hold on to his youth.