“You don’t know who she really is. You’re too young to understand what she’s capable of.”
“I’m not too young to know I love her.”
His words were like a punch to her chest. “She killed him,” Sara whispered. “You don’t know what she took from me. From you.”
“I know more than you think.”
“No, you don’t.”
Jared’s voice turned sharp. “He was doing his job, and he pissed off the wrong people, and nobody could’ve stopped him. Not you, not Lena, not me, not anybody. He made his own decisions. He was his own man. And he was stubborn as hell. Once he made up his mind, there was no talking him out of doing exactly what he wanted to do.”
Sara didn’t realize she was backing up until she felt Will behind her. She gripped his arm, forcing herself not to falter. “She’s twisted the story to fool you into feeling sorry for her.”
“That’s not how it is.”
“She’s a master at manipulating people. You can’t see that now, but it’s true.”
“Stop saying that.” Jared tried to take her hand. “I love her. And Jeffrey loved her, too.”
Sara couldn’t speak to him anymore. She couldn’t be here. She turned into Will, burying her head in his chest. “Get me out of here. Please, just take me home.”
Jared said, “You can’t leave. I need your help.”
Will kept his arm around Sara as he guided her across the street.
Jared jogged to keep up. “You’ve gotta help me find her. I don’t know where she is.”
Will’s voice was hard. “You need to move on, son.”
“Somebody sliced her tires. She’s not answering her cell phone.”
Will kept his arm around Sara, helping her up the hill. She looked down at the grass on the front lawn. The roots had been washed out. Clumps of mud slipped beneath her shoes.
Jared said, “She called me on her cell at six o’clock. She said she’d be home in an hour.” He tried to block their path, but Will swept him away with one hand. “She quit her job!” he screamed. “She told me she quit!”
They had reached the clinic parking lot. Will opened the car door and helped Sara inside.
Jared slammed his hand on the hood. “Come on! She’s missing! Something’s wrong!” He rushed around the car and got on his knees in front of the open door. His hands pressed together as if in prayer. “Please, Aunt Sara. Please. You’ve got to help me find her. Something’s wrong. I know something’s wrong.”
There was so much anguish in his face that Sara felt herself falter. She looked at Will, saw the concern in his expression.
His voice was low, steady, when he told her, “She hasn’t checked in with me.”
Jared was crying. “Please, just check the clinic for me. I know her hand was hurting her this morning. Maybe she went for help. Maybe she fell down or she’s sick or-”
Sara closed her eyes for a moment, trying to separate her emotions. She wanted so badly to leave, to never hear the name Lena Adams again as long as she lived.
Will said, “Sara.” Not a question, more like an admission of guilt.
“Go,” she told him. There was no use fighting it.
Will cupped his hand to her face so she would look at him. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m just going to check the clinic for him.”
Sara didn’t respond. He closed the car door and she leaned back in the seat. The engine was off now, but the moon was so bright in the sky that she didn’t need the headlights to see the two men at the front door of the clinic. Lena didn’t even have to be present to control the men in her life. She was like a succubus, her siren song clouding their logic.
Will glanced at Sara as he turned the key in the lock. She studied Jared with some detachment. He was thinner than his father. His shoulders hadn’t filled out. His hair was longer than Jeffrey had kept it, more the length he’d worn in high school. An image flashed in her head: Lena ’s hand gripping Jared’s hair. She had taken everything now. Her path of destruction had ripped through every part of Jeffrey’s legacy.
Sara turned her head as the two men went inside the clinic. She couldn’t look at Jared anymore. It hurt too much. It hurt too much to even be here. She slid over the console and got behind the steering wheel. She pressed the button to start the engine. Nothing happened. Will had taken the key with him.
Sara got out of the car, leaving the door open. She looked up at the full moon. The glow was remarkably bright, illuminating the ground in front of her. She remembered a Civil War letter Jeffrey had read to her a long time ago. It was written by a lonely wife to her soldier husband. She was wondering whether or not the same moon was shining down on her lover.
Sara walked to the back of the clinic. There was a sign with Hare’s name on it, but her anger about the drug study had long dissipated. She couldn’t dredge up any sympathy for Allison Spooner or Jason Howell or even poor Tommy Braham, who had somehow gotten caught in the middle of it. All of her emotions had dwindled to a dull ache. Even her hatred for Lena was gone. Trying to stop her was tilting at windmills. There was nothing Sara could do to stop her. If the world fell down, Lena would still be standing. She would outlive them all.
The yard behind the clinic was a mud pit. Elliot hadn’t bothered to keep up anything. The picnic tables were gone, the swing set dismantled. The wildflowers Sara had planted with her mother were long dead. She stood on the bank of the stream. It was a river now, the shush of churning waters drowning out all sound. The big maple that had given so much shade over the years had fallen into the current. Its canopy barely touched the opposite side of the shore. As Sara watched, chunks of earth fell into the water and were quickly whisked away. Her father had taken her fishing on these shores. There was a field of large rocks a half mile down where catfish swam in and out of the eddies. Tessa had loved climbing on top of the granite to lie in the sun. Some of the boulders were as high as ten feet tall. Sara guessed they were underwater now. Everything in this town, no matter how strong, eventually got washed away.
Sara heard a branch snap behind her. She turned around. A woman in a pink nurse’s uniform stood a few feet away. She was out of breath. Her makeup was smeared, mascara ringing dark circles under her eyes. The plastic red nails on her fingers were chipped and broken.
“Darla,” Sara realized. She hadn’t seen Frank’s oldest daughter in years. “Are you all right?”
Darla seemed reticent. She glanced over her shoulder. “You heard about Daddy, I guess.”
“Is he still refusing to go to the hospital?”
She nodded, again looking behind her. “Maybe you could help me work on him, get him to let them run some tests.”
“I’m probably not the best person for that job right now.”
“He piss you off?”
“No, I just-” Sara felt logic start to intrude. It was almost three in the morning. There was no conceivable reason for Darla to be here. “What’s going on?”
“My car broke down.” Darla glanced over her shoulder for a third time. She wasn’t looking at the clinic. She was looking at the police station. “Can you give me a lift to Daddy’s?”
Sara felt her body reacting to a danger she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Her heart was pounding. Her mouth was spitless. This wasn’t right. None of this was right.
Darla indicated Sara should walk ahead of her to the parking lot. Her tone turned hard. “Let’s go.”
Sara put her hand to the back of her neck, thinking about Allison Spooner at the lake, the way her head had been held down while the knife sliced into her throat. “What have you done?”
“I just need to get out of here, all right?”
“Why?”
Darla’s tone turned even harsher. “Just give me the key to your car, Sara. I don’t have time for this.”
“What did you do to those kids?”
“The same thing I’m going to do to you if you don’t give me that fucking key.” There was a glint of light at Darla’s waist, then a knife was in her hand. The blade was about three and a half inches long. The tip was sharpened to a menacing point. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just give me the key.”