Blindsighted

"Oh," she said, trying to act surprised. "Let me go change. I'll be right back."

Sara returned the smile he gave her, her lips trembling as she did so. She forced herself to move, walking down the hall slowly so as not to raise the alarm. Inside her room, she snatched up the phone, glancing out the bank of windows, surprised to see the bright sunlight pouring in. It was so incongruous with the terror she felt. Sara dialed Jeffrey's number, but there were no corresponding beeps when she pressed the buttons. She stared at the phone, willing it to work.

"You took it off the hook," Jeb said. "Remember?"

Sara jumped up from her bed. "I was just calling my dad. He's coming by in a few minutes."

Jeb stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. "I thought you said you were going by their house later."

"That's right," Sara answered, backing toward the other side of the room. This put the bed between them, but Sara was trapped, her back to the window. "He's coming to get me."

"You think so?" Jeb asked. He was smiling the same way he always did, a lopsided half grin that you would find on a child. There was something so casual about him, something so nonthreatening, that Sara wondered for half a second if she had drawn the wrong conclusion. A glance clown at his hand snapped her out of it. He was holding a long boning knife at his side.

"What gave it away?" he asked. "The vinegar, wasn't it? I had a bear of a time getting it in through the cork. Thank God for cardiac syringes."

Sara put her hand behind her, feeling the cold glass of the window under her palm. "You left them for me," she said, going through the last few days in her mind. Jeb had known about her lunch with Tessa. Jeb had known she was at the hospital the night Jeffrey was shot. "That's why Sibyl was in the bathroom. That's why Julia was on my car. You wanted me to save them."

He smiled, nodding slowly. There was a sadness around his eyes, as ü he regretted that the game was over. "I wanted to give you that opportunity."

"Is that why you showed me her picture?" she asked. "To see if I would remember her?"

"I'm surprised you did."

"Why?" Sara asked. "Do you think I could forget something like that? She was a baby."

He shrugged.

"Did you do that to her?" Sara asked, recalling the brutality of the home abortion. Derrick Lange, her supervisor, had guessed a clothes hanger had been used.

She said, "Were you the one who did it?"

"How did you know?" Jeb asked, a defensive edge to his tone. "Did she tell you?"

There was something more to what he was saying, a more sinister secret behind his words. When Sara spoke, she knew the answer before she even finished her sentence. Taking into account what she had seen Jeb was capable of, it made perfect sense.

She asked, "You raped your sister, didn't you?"

"I loved my sister," he countered, the defensive tone still there.

"She was just a child."

"She came to me," he said, as if this was some kind of excuse. "She wanted to be with me."

"She was thirteen years old."

" 'If a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, and see her nakedness and she see his nakedness, it is a wicked thing.' " His smile seemed to say he was pleased with himself. "Just call me wicked."

"She was your sister."

"We are all God's children, are we not? We share the same parents."

"Can you quote a verse to justify rape? Can you quote a verse to justify murder?"

"The good thing about the Bible, Sara, is that it's open to interpretation. God gives us signs, opportunities, and we either follow them or we don't. We can choose what happens to us that way. We don't like to think about it, but we are the captains of our own destinies. We make the decisions that direct the course of our lives." He stared at her, not speaking for a few beats. "I would have thought you learned that lesson twelve years ago."

Sara felt the earth shift under her feet as a thought came to her. "Was it you? In the bathroom?"

"Lord, no," Jeb said, waving this off. "That was Jack Wright. He beat me to it, I guess. Gave me a good idea, though." Jeb leaned against the door jamb, the same pleased smile twisting his lips. "We're both men of faith, you see. We both let the Spirit guide us."

"The only thing you both are is animals."

"I guess I owe him for bringing us together," Jeb said. "What he did for you has served as an example for me, Sara. I want to thank you for that. On behalf of the many women who have come since then, and I do mean come in the biblical sense, I offer a sincere thank-you."

"Oh, God," Sara breathed, putting her hand to her mouth. She had seen what he had done to his sister, to Sibyl Adams, and to Julia Matthews. To think that this had all started when Jack Wright had attacked her made Sara's stomach turn. "You monster," she hissed. "You murderer."

He straightened, his expression suddenly changed by rage. Jeb went from being a quiet, unassuming pharmacist to the man who had raped and killed at least two women. Anger radiated from his posture. "You let her die. You killed her."

"She was dead before she got to me," Sara countered, trying to keep her voice steady. "She lost too much blood."

"That's not true."

"You didn't get it all out," she said. "She was rotting from the inside."

"You're lying."

Sara shook her head. She moved her hand behind her, looking for the lock on the window. "You killed her."

"That's not true," he repeated, though she could tell from the change in his voice that part of him believed her.

Sara found the lock, tried to twist it open. It wouldn't budge. "Sibyl died because of you, too."

"She was fine when I left her."

"She had a heart attack," Sara told him, pressing against the lock. "She died from an overdose. She had a seizure, just like your sister."

His voice was frighteningly loud in the bedroom, and the glass behind Sara shook when he yelled, "That is not true."

Sara gave up on the lock as he took a step toward her. He still held the knife down at his side, but the threat was there. "I wonder if your cunt's still as sweet as it was for Jack," he mumbled. "I remember sitting through your trial, listening to the details. I wanted to take notes, but I found after the first day that I didn't need to." He reached into his back pocket, taking out a pair of handcuffs. "You still got that key I left for you?"

She stopped him with her words. "I won't go through this again," she said with conviction. "You'll have to kill me first."

He looked down at the floor, his shoulders relaxed. She felt a brief moment of relief until he looked back up at her. There was a smile at his lips when he said, "What makes you think it matters to me if you're dead or not?"

"You go

He was so shocked that he dropped the handcuffs on the floor. "What?" he whispered.

"You didn't sodomize her."

She could see a bead of sweat roll down the side of his head as he asked, "Who?"

"Sibyl," Sara provided. "How else could shit get inside her vagina?"

"That's disgusting."

"Is it?" Sara asked. "Did you bite her while you fucked the hole in her belly?"

He shook his head vehemently side to side. "I didn't do that."

"Your teeth marks are on her shoulder, Jeb."

"They are not."

"I saw them," Sara countered. "I saw everything you did to them. I saw how you hurt all of them."

"They weren't hurting," he insisted. "They didn't hurt at all."

Sara walked toward him until she was standing with her knees against the bed. He stood on the other side, watching her, a stricken look on his face. "They suffered, Jeb. Both of them suffered, just like your sister. Just like Sally."

"I never hurt them like that," he whispered. "I never hurt them. You're the one who let them die."