The dogs ran to greet him as he got out of the car. Sara had dressed them both in black fleece jackets to fight the cold. Will petted the excited animals as much as he could without falling over backward.
Sara clicked her tongue and they stopped accosting him. She asked, “I take it Frank wasn’t much help?”
Will shook his head, feeling a lump come into his throat. He used to be good at hiding his thoughts, but somehow Sara had cracked the code. “I don’t think he has long.”
“I heard.” She was obviously conflicted about the impending death of her longtime family friend. “I’m sorry that he’s sick, but I don’t know how I feel about him as a person after all of this.”
“Maybe he could’ve stopped it-for Jason, at least.” Will added, “Then again, people don’t see what they don’t want to see.”
“Denial doesn’t hold up as a good excuse. Darla could’ve killed me. She would’ve killed me if the bank hadn’t given out.”
Will didn’t look up because he didn’t want Sara to know what he was thinking. Instead, he leaned down to scratch Bob’s ear. “Frank’s ex-wife is with him. At least he’s not going to die alone.”
“Small comfort.”
“I think it is,” he countered. “Some people don’t get that. Some people just-” Will stopped himself before he started to sound like a blubbering child. “Anyway, I don’t think I’m ever going to find out what really happened this week.”
“Do you need to?”
“I don’t guess so. Nothing will bring Tommy back, but at least his name is clear. Darla’s not going to hurt anyone else. Frank’s in his own prison.”
“And Lena gets away clean yet again.”
She didn’t sound as bitter as she had before. “We’ll see.”
Sara laughed. “You want to make a bet?”
Will tried to think of a clever wager, something that involved him taking her to dinner when they got back to Atlanta, but he was too slow.
She said, “Brock called this morning. He found Lena’s Toyota key in Darla’s front pocket. I guess she was planning on taking Lena ’s car and leaving town.”
He remembered the Celica’s sliced tires. Someone at the station had given Lena a parting gift. “Darla must’ve seen you get out of your car and decided to upgrade her ride.” Will had always known that the killer was good at improvising. “Did Hare say what made him check the files for Tommy’s name?”
“He’d seen Tommy in the clinic a couple of times. It’s not unusual for kids that age to still go to their pediatrician, but Tommy was there a lot, at least once a week. Hare got curious after the suicide and checked the paperwork for Tommy’s name.” Sara pulled the leash as Billy tried to pee on the side of Will’s car. “He confirmed what Darla said. He was going to the ethics committee to report the protocol breach.”
“That’s good, right? He was doing the right thing.”
“I suppose, but he’s not going to stop running trials.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Let me correct that: he’s going to stop running trials out of my building, but he’s still going to keep running them.”
“Did you find out what he was testing?”
“An antidepressant. They’re going to try again next spring with a different dosage.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“It’s a billion-dollar business. One in every ten Americans is on antidepressants, even though placebo studies show a lot of them get absolutely no benefits whatsoever.” She nodded back at the house. “Hare’s inside, which is why I took the dogs for a two-hour walk in the freezing cold.”
“Your folks aren’t mad at him?”
She sighed heavily. “Oh, my mother will forgive him anything.”
“I guess that’s what families do.”
She seemed to think about what he said. “Yeah, they do.”
“I talked to Faith this morning.” She’d sent so many baby pictures to Will’s phone that the memory was almost full. “I’ve never heard her happy before. It’s weird.”
“Having a baby changes you,” Sara told him. “Obviously, that’s not something I’ve learned from personal experience, but I can see it with my sister.”
Bob leaned against his leg. Will reached down and scratched him. “I guess I-”
“I was raped.”
Will kept his mouth closed because he didn’t know what to say.
“In college,” she continued. “That’s why I can’t have children.” He’d never noticed how green her eyes were, almost emerald. “It took years for me to tell my husband. I was ashamed. I wanted to think it was behind me. That I was strong enough to get past it.”
“I don’t think anyone could ever say you’re not strong.”
“Well. I’ve had my bad days.” She let out Billy’s leash as he sniffed around the mailbox. They both stared at the dog as if he was far more fascinating than reality dictated.
Will cleared his throat. The moment was too awkward. It was also cold outside, and he guessed Sara didn’t want to stand in front of her parents’ house all day watching him struggle to come up with something meaningful to say. “I should start packing my stuff.”
“Why?”
“Well…” Will was tongue-tied, and painfully stupid. “The holiday. Your family. I’m sure you want to be with them.”
“My mother’s cooked enough for fifty. She’d be crushed if you didn’t stay.”
He couldn’t tell if the offer was genuine or if she was just being polite. “My front yard’s kind of a mess.”
“I’ll help you when we get back to Atlanta.” She smiled mischievously. “I’ll even show you how to use a backhoe.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“Will, it’s not imposing.” She took his hand. He looked down, tracing his thumb along her fingers. Her skin was soft. He caught the scent of her soap. Just being close to her like this made him feel warm, like that empty place in his soul might have the chance of being filled one day. He opened his mouth to tell her that he wanted to stay, that he wanted nothing more than to get two thousand more questions from her mother and watch her sister’s sly smile as she glanced back and forth between them.
And then his cell phone chirped in his pocket.
She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that?”
“Probably another baby picture from Faith.”
She gave him that same flirty smile. “Let me see.”
Will felt incapable of denying Sara any request. He used his free hand to find his phone. He’d seen Emma Lee Mitchell from every conceivable angle, and he was sure she was a sweet baby, but at the moment she looked like an angry red raisin in a pink knit hat.
Sara flipped open the phone. Her smile quickly faded. “It’s a text.” She showed him the phone, then seemed to realize herself. She turned it back and read aloud, “‘Diedre finally died. Come home.’”
Will felt a sudden pang of grief. “Angie’s mother.” He looked down at her hand. She was still holding his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Will hadn’t cried since he was sixteen, but he felt tears threatening to come. He struggled to speak. “She’s been on life support since I was a kid. I guess she finally…” His throat was so tight he could barely swallow. Angie claimed to hate her mother, but she had visited her at least once a month for the last twenty years. Will had gone with her many times. The experience was awful, heart wrenching. He had held Angie so many times while she sobbed. It was the only time she let her guard down. The only time she surrendered herself to Will.
He suddenly understood Lionel Harris’s words about the power of a shared history.
“Sara-”
She squeezed his hand. “You should go home.”
Will struggled to find the right words. He was torn between wanting to be with Sara and needing to be with Angie.
Sara leaned in close, pressing her lips to his cheek. The wind draped her hair across his face. She put her mouth to his ear and told him, “Go home to your wife.”
So he did.