Skin Privilege

'I don't know that I can do that,' he admitted, stroking her arm again. 'We still don't know who the victim is. If Lena had stuck around, we probably could've found a lawyer to get her out by now.'

'Don't mention lawyers,' she begged.

'We never did talk about that,' he said. 'How the deposition went. What the strategy is.'

'It's okay,' she said, but her voice caught in her throat. There hadn't been a message from Buddy Conford on the answering machine, either. This meant that Global Medical Indemnity was still trying to decide whether or not Sara's medical judgment was worth fighting for or to capitulate to Jimmy's grieving parents.

For once in her life, she willingly changed the subject back to Lena. 'I'm just glad it wasn't Hank in that car.'

'You and me both,' he said, knowing better than anyone how easy it would be for the local cops to up Lena's charges to murder if the victim had been her uncle. I still don't know how Jake thinks he's going to make a case without an ID. There has to be a motive. If he can't prove a connection between Lena and the victim, then game over.'

'Not knowing the victim's name doesn't negate the fact that she's dead.' Sara smoothed down the hairs on his chest so they wouldn't tickle her nose. 'And Lena was at the scene. She had her foot on the gas can.'

'They probably won't be able to get her prints off the can.'

'That doesn't offer a resounding proof of innocence.'

'They don't have a statement from her. She didn't say a word to anyone.'

Sara thought to ask why he was giving Lena the benefit of the doubt when he would most certainly take her actions as an admission of guilt from anyone else, but she was too tired for the argument that would follow.

Jeffrey said, 'I wish we could find Hank. He's got to know something.'

'You're sure he's not at home? Hiding, maybe?'

'As far as I could tell, no one was there.' He added, 'Valentine has a car right across the street. I'm sure he knocked on the door when Lena went missing.'

'Maybe you need to knock hard enough to open the door.'

He laughed in surprise. 'I think being married to a cop is finally starting to rub off on you.'

'Then listen to me. I'm worried that Lena has done something to jeopardize Hank.'

Jeffrey took his time responding. 'Has it occurred to you that it could be the other way around?' She didn't answer, and he continued, 'Hank's probably back on drugs. Maybe he pissed off his dealer. Maybe Lena came down to take care of things, only the dealer didn't want to be taken care of.'

She looked up at him, resting her chin on her hand. 'Go on.'

'These guys don't like being fucked with,' Jeffrey continued. 'And they're not afraid of cops.'

For the first time since they'd gotten here, Sara was finally hearing something logical. She could easily imagine Lena pissing off the wrong people, damn the consequences. The same pattern she had established with Ethan Green – provoking her skinhead lover until he retaliated with force – could be playing out again in Elawah County.

Jeffrey told Sara, 'You didn't see Pfeiffer up close. He was terrified. Maybe he thought they had sent me to finish the job.' He hesitated, as if he hadn't quite worked out the next bit. 'It could be that the reason Lena didn't want to talk to me the other night was because she didn't want to expose me to these people.'

Sara put her head back down on Jeffrey's chest. She could not give the woman the benefit of the doubt, but she didn't want the ensuing argument that might come if she voiced her opinion. 'Do you think the man we saw at the hospital could have been Hank's dealer?'

'Jake said the guy was a dealer.'

'He also said that the guy was there to visit one of his boys in the hospital,' Sara pointed out. 'Jake had plenty of opportunity to tell you then and there that the man was supplying Hank and that Lena had gotten in the way.'

'I wasn't exactly high on his list at the moment,' Jeffrey reminded her. 'To his thinking, you and I had just helped Lena escape from custody.'

Sara didn't want to dwell on that point. 'Do you think Hank might have helped her?'

He shrugged. 'To get out of town, she would need a car, clothes, money. Lena could do that on her own or she could find help.'

'I don't know if I buy Hank being capable of coordinating all that.'

'He's an old man,' Jeffrey allowed. 'Then again, you don't get track marks on your arms like that from going to Sunday school.'

He had a point. Actually, he had a lot of good points. She wondered why he hadn't been thinking like this yesterday. It would have saved both of them a hell of a lot of trouble, not to mention nearly eight hundred miles on her ear.

She asked, 'So, what's on the agenda for tomorrow?'

'Maybe knock real hard on Hank's door.' He chuckled, obviously still pleased that Sara had come up with the idea. 'Failing any response, I guess I'll find out a little more about Jake Valentine. I've got some contacts at the sheriff's academy over in Tifton. Hopefully, they can give me a better idea of the kind of cop he is. Then, I'm going to call Nick and get him to run a deep background check on Jake.'

'You can't get Frank to do that from the station?'

'The GBI can go deeper than a look-see,' he said, using the slang for the routine checks he could run at the police station. 'It takes several days to pull a complete profile.'

'Jake can't have a record or he wouldn't have made it through the Public Safety screening.'

'I'm going to cross-reference him for known associates.'

'Surely, they would've flagged his file if he was a known associate of a criminal.'

'Depends on how he's known.'

'And if he has some connections near your connections, and they find out you've been digging around about him?'

'I imagine he won't be too surprised to hear the news.'

She reached for his hand, her fingers brushing his skin until they touched a sloppily applied Band-Aid. She curled her hand around his. 'Do you think Jake is part of any of this?'

'Jake grew up here. He was only a deputy for a couple of years before he moved up. I think he knows everything that's going on in this town. Whether he's involved in it or just standing on the outside looking in is the question.'

'When did you come up with all of this?'

She expected him to make a joke about his stunning brilliance or remarkable sleuthing abilities. Instead, he surprised her.

'That woman,' he began, and she understood he meant the charred body they had worked on all day. 'There's somebody out there who's missing her. They're either too scared to ask the sheriff for help, or they know that it's useless, that Jake can't or won't help them.' She could hear the indignation in his voice. 'If you can't trust the police to take care of you, to do their jobs the right way, then what's the point?' He paused, but she knew he wasn't expecting an answer. 'It's not right, Sara. It's just not right.'

Twenty-four hours ago, she had wanted to kill him, but now all that she could think was that she had never loved him so much as she did right now.

'Can you imagine how you'd feel if something like this happened in Grant County?'

Sara could not imagine such a violation. The first time she had met Jeffrey had been on the Grant County High School football field. She was team doctor, watching the game from the sidelines. Sara had turned around for some reason, looking up into the stands. That was when she'd seen Jeffrey with Clem Waters, the mayor. He loomed over the man, making Clem look like a dwarf. There was something about Jeffrey's presence that made it difficult for Sara to breathe. She had never told him this before, but her heart had stopped at the sight of him. When she saw him walk down onto the field, her knees had actually felt weak. If a player hadn't managed at that very moment to get the crap knocked out of him, she would have made an absolute fool of herself. As it was, she had only been a partial fool.