Indelible Page 5

  Lena studied the street, wondering how the hell all of this had started. Heartsdale was supposed to be a small, sleepy town. People came here to get away from this kind of violence. Jeffrey had told her a long time ago that the reason he had moved here from Birmingham was because he couldn’t take the big-city horrors anymore. From what Lena could see, it had followed him.

  She felt a shudder, like somebody had walked over her grave. There was a red X in the center of the map with two initials beside it. Lena’s eyes blurred and she could not read it. When she looked back up, everyone was staring at her. She shook her head, smiling like this was all a really bad joke. “No,” she said, seeing the initials stamped on her retinas, reading them clearly now even though she was no longer looking at the map. “No.”

  Frank turned his back to her, coughing into his handkerchief.

  Lena grabbed the black marker. “You made a mistake,” she said, yanking off the top. “He should be in black.” She started to draw over the red, but her hand was shaking too much.

  Nick took the marker from her hand. “He’s dead, Lena.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Jeffrey’s dead.”

  Chapter Three

  1991

  Sunday

  Tessa flounced back on the bed, her feet flopping into the air. “I can’t believe you’re going to Florida without me.”

  Sara responded with an absent “Hm” as she folded a T-shirt.

  “When’s the last time you went on a vacation?”

  “Don’t remember,” she said, but she did. The summer Sara graduated from high school, Eddie Linton had dragged his wife and two reluctant daughters on their last family vacation to Sea World. Sara had spent every summer since then either in classes or working in the hospital lab for credits so she could graduate early. Except for an occasional long weekend spent at her parents’ house, she had not gone on an actual vacation in what seemed like forever.

  “But this is a real vacation,” Tessa said. “With a man.”

  “Hm,” Sara repeated, folding a pair of shorts.

  “I hear he’s pretty hot.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Jill-June at the Shop-o-rama.”

  “She’s still working there?”

  “She’s the manager now.” Tessa snickered. “She’s dyed her hair this awful yellow.”

  “On purpose?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t think so, but it’s not like she doesn’t have access to two damn aisles of hair-care products.”

  Sara threw a pair of pants at her sister. “Help me fold some of these.”

  “I will if you tell me about Jeffrey.”

  “What’d Jill-June say?”

  “That he’s sex on a stick.”

  Sara smiled at the understatement.

  “And that he’s dated every woman in town worth dating.” Tessa paused, mid-fold. “There’s an obvious joke in there, but I’m gonna let it go because you’re my sister.”

  “Such a price to pay.” Sara threw a sock back into the laundry basket, recalling from the last time she’d washed clothes that it didn’t have a mate. She tried to change the subject, asking, “Why is it that you never lose the socks you want to lose?”

  “Is he good in bed?”

  “Tess!”

  “Do you want your underwear folded or not?”

  Sara smoothed out a shirt, not answering.

  “Y’all’ve been seeing each other for two months.”

  “Three.”

  Tessa tried again. “You have to be sleeping with him or he wouldn’t have invited you to the beach.”

  Sara shrugged off a response. The truth was that she had slept with Jeffrey on their first date. They hadn’t even made it out of her kitchen. Sara had been so ashamed the next morning that she sneaked out of her own house before the sun came up. If not for a robbery-homicide that forced them to work together three days later, she probably would never have spoken to Jeffrey Tolliver again.

  Tessa turned serious. “Was he your first time since…?”

  Sara gave her sister a sharp look, making it clear that topic was off-limits. “Tell me what else Jill-June said.”

  “Uh…” Tessa dragged it out, giving a sly smile. “That’s he’s got a great body.”

  “He’s a runner.”

  “Mmm,” Tessa approved. “That he’s tall.”

  “He’s three inches taller than me.”

  “Look at that grin,” Tessa laughed. “All right, all right, you don’t have to give me the speech about how horrible it was being six feet tall in the third grade.”

  “Five eleven.” Sara threw a dishrag at her sister’s head. “And it was ninth grade.”

  Tessa folded the rag, sighing. “He has dreamy blue eyes.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s incredibly charming and has very nice manners.”

  “Both true.”

  “Extremely good sense of humor.”

  “Also true.”

  “He always pays with correct change.”

  Sara laughed as she pushed more clothes toward her sister. “Talk and fold.”

  Tessa picked the lint off a pair of black slacks. “She says he used to be a football player.”

  “Really?” Sara asked, because Jeffrey had never told her this. As a matter of fact, he had told her very little about himself. His general dislike of talking about the past was one of the things she enjoyed about him.

  “I hope he’s worth it,” Tessa said. “Is Daddy talking to you yet?”

  “Nope,” she answered, trying to sound as if she did not care. Though her parents had never met Jeffrey, like everyone else in town they had already formed their own opinions.

  Tessa pressed on. “Tell me some more. What do you know about him that Jill-June doesn’t?”

  “Not much,” Sara admitted.

  “Come on.” Tessa obviously thought she was teasing. “Just tell me what he’s like.”

  From the hallway, Cathy Linton said, “Too old for her, for a start.”

  Tessa rolled her eyes as their mother walked into the room.

  Sara said, “You’d never guess this was my house.”

  “You don’t want people walking in, don’t leave your front door unlocked.” Cathy kissed Sara’s cheek as she handed her a green Tupperware bowl and a grease-stained paper bag. “I brought this over for your drive down.”

  “Biscuits!” Tessa reached for the bag but Sara slapped her away.

  “Your father made cornbread, but he wouldn’t let me bring it.” Cathy gave her a pointed look. “Said he didn’t slave over a hot stove just to feed your fancy man.”

  Her words hung in the air like a black cloud, and even Tessa knew better than to laugh. Sara picked up a pair of jeans to fold.

  “Give me those.” Cathy snatched the jeans away from her. “Like this,” she said, tucking the cuffs under her chin and magically working the jeans into a perfect square, all in under two seconds. She surveyed the mountain of laundry on Sara’s bed. “Did you just wash this today?”

  “I haven’t had—”

  “There’s no excuse for not doing laundry when you live alone.”

  “I have two jobs.”

  “Well, I had two children and a plumber and I managed to get things done.”

  Sara looked to Tessa for help, but her sister was matching up a pair of socks with the kind of focus that could split an atom.

  Cathy continued, “You just put your dirty clothes right in the washer, then every other day or so you run a load, and you don’t ever have to deal with this again.” She snapped open one of the shirts Sara had already folded. Her mouth turned down in disapproval. “Why didn’t you use a fabric softener? I left you that coupon on the counter last week.”

  Sara gave up, kneeling down on the floor in front of a stack of books, trying to figure out which ones to take to the beach.

  “From what I’ve heard,” Tessa volunteered helpfully, “you won’t have much time for reading.”

  Sara was hopin
g the same thing, but she didn’t want it announced in front of her mother.

  “A man like that…” Cathy said. She took her time before adding, “Sara, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you are in way over your head.”

  Sara turned around. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mother.”

  Cathy’s frown deepened. “Are you planning on wearing a bra with that shirt? I can see both your—”

  “All right.” Sara untucked her shirt as she stood.

  Her mother added, “And those shorts don’t fit. Have you lost weight?”

  Sara looked at herself in the mirror. She had spent nearly an hour choosing an outfit that looked both flattering and like she had not spent an hour picking it out. “They’re supposed to be baggy,” she said, tugging at the seat. “It’s the style.”

  “Oh, Lord’s sake, Sara. Have you seen your ass lately? I sure haven’t.” Tessa cackled, and Cathy moderated her tone if not her words. “Honey, there’s just your shoulder blades and the backs of your calves. ‘Baggy’ wasn’t meant for women like you.”

  Sara took a deep breath, bracing herself against the dresser. “Excuse me,” she said as politely as possible, and went into the bathroom, taking great pains not to slam the door behind her. She closed the toilet lid and sat down, dropping her head into her hands. She could hear her mother outside complaining about static cling, and asking again why she bothered to leave coupons if Sara wasn’t going to use them.

  Sara slid back her hands to cover her ears, and her mother’s complaining subsided to a tolerable hum, slightly less annoying than a hot needle in her ear. From the moment Sara had started dating Jeffrey, Cathy had been riding her about one thing or another. There was nothing Sara could do right, from her posture at the dinner table to the way she parked her car in the driveway. Part of Sara wanted to confront Cathy on her hypercriticism, but another part—the more compassionate part—understood that this was the way her mother coped with her fears.

  Sara looked at her watch, praying that Jeffrey would show up on time and take her away from all of this. He was seldom late, which was one of the many things she liked about him. For all of Cathy’s talk about what a cad Jeffrey Tolliver was, he carried a handkerchief in his back pocket and always opened the door for her. When Sara got up from the table at a restaurant, he stood, too. He helped her with her coat and carried her briefcase when they walked down the street. As if all of this was not enough, he was so good in bed that their first time together she had nearly cracked her back molars clamping her teeth together so that she would not scream his name.

  “Sara?” Cathy knocked on the door, her voice filled with concern. “Are you okay, honey?”

  Sara flushed the toilet and ran water in the sink. She opened the door to find her sister and mother both staring at her with the same worried expression.

  Cathy held up a red blouse. “I don’t think this is a good color for you.”

  “Thanks.” Sara took the shirt and tossed it into the laundry basket. She knelt back down by the books, wondering if she should take the literary authors to impress Jeffrey or the more commercial ones that she knew she would enjoy.

  “I don’t even know why you’re going to the beach,” Cathy said. “All you’ve ever done is burn. Do you have enough sunscreen?”

  Without turning around, Sara held up the neon green bottle of Tropical Sunblock.

  “You know how easily you freckle. And your legs are so white. I don’t know that I’d wear shorts with legs like that.”

  Tessa chuckled. “What was that girl’s name in Gidget who wore the big hat on the beach?”

  Sara gave her sister a “you’re not helping” look. Tessa pointed to the bag of biscuits, then to her mouth, indicating her silence could be bought.

  “Larue,” Sara told her, moving the bag farther away.

  “Tessie,” Cathy said. “Run fetch me the ironing board.” She asked Sara, “You do have an iron?”

  Sara felt the heat from her mother’s stare. “In the pantry.”

  Cathy clicked her tongue as Tessa left. She asked Sara, “When did you wash these?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “If you’d ironed them then—”

  “Yes, and if I didn’t wear clothes at all, I’d never have to worry about it.”

  “That’s the same thing you told me when you were six.”

  Sara waited.

  “If I’d left it up to you, you’d’ve gone to school naked.”

  Sara absently thumbed through a book, not seeing the pages. Behind her, she could hear her mother snapping out shirts and refolding them.

  Cathy said, “If this was Tessa, I wouldn’t be worried at all. As a matter of fact,” she gave a low laugh, smoothing out another shirt, “I’d be worried about Jeffrey.”

  Sara put a paperback with a bloody knife slash down the cover in the “take” pile.

  “Jeffrey Tolliver is the sort of man who has had a lot of experience. A lot more than you, and I see that smile on your lips, young lady. You’d best realize I’m not just talking about the stuff going on between the sheets.”

  Sara picked up another paperback. “I really don’t want to have this conversation with my mother.”

  “Your mother is probably the only woman on earth who will tell you this,” Cathy said. She sat on the bed and waited for Sara to turn around. “Men like Jeffrey only want one thing.” Sara opened her mouth, but her mother wasn’t finished. “It’s okay if you give them that thing as long as you get something back out of it.”

  “Mother.”

  “Some women can have sex without being in love.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m serious, baby. Listen to me. You’re not that kind of woman.” She tucked back Sara’s hair. “You’re not the kind of girl who has flings. You’ve never been that kind of girl.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You’ve only had two boyfriends your whole life. How many girlfriends has Jeffrey had? How many women has he slept with?”

  “I would guess quite a few.”

  “And you’re just another one on his list. That’s why your father is mad about—”

  “Don’t y’all think it would be nice to actually bother to meet him before you jump to all these conclusions?” Sara asked, too late remembering that Jeffrey was on his way here now. She chanced a look at her alarm clock. In about ten minutes, her mother would be able to see for herself that she was exactly right. If Jill-June Mallard could pick up on it, Cathy Linton would know it the moment Jeffrey entered the room.

  Cathy persisted. “You’re just not a ‘fling’ kind of girl, honey.”

  “Maybe I am now. Maybe I became that sort of person in Atlanta.”

  “Well.” Cathy picked up a pair of underwear to fold, her brows furrowed. “These are too delicate for the machine,” she chastised. “If you wash them by hand and dry them on the line, they won’t get torn like this.”

  Sara gave her a tight smile. “They’re not torn.”

  Cathy raised an eyebrow, showing a spark of appreciation. Still, she asked, “How many men have you been with?”

  Sara looked at her watch, whispering, “Please.”

  Cathy ignored her. “I know about Steve Mann. Good Lord, the whole town knew after Mac Anders caught you two behind the Chilidog.”

  Sara stared at the floor, willing herself not to spontaneously combust from embarrassment.

  Cathy continued. “Mason James.”

  “Mama.”

  “That’s two men.”

  “You’re forgetting the last one,” Sara reminded her, feeling a tinge of regret as she saw her mother’s expression darken.

  Cathy folded Sara’s pajama bottoms. She asked very softly, “Does Jeffrey know you were raped?”

  Sara moderated her tone, trying to be gentle. “It hasn’t exactly come up in our conversations.”

  “What did you tell him when he asked why you left Atlanta?”

  “Nothing,” she said, leavi
ng out the fact that Jeffrey had not pressed for details.

  Cathy smoothed the pajamas. She turned around for something else to put to order, but she had already folded or refolded everything on the bed. “You should never be ashamed about what happened to you, Sara.”

  Sara shrugged noncommittally as she stood to get her suitcase. She wasn’t ashamed, exactly, just sick to death of people treating her differently because of it—especially her mother. Sara could take the concerned looks and the awkward pauses from the handful of people who knew why she had really moved back to Grant County, but her strained relationship with her mother was almost too much to bear.

  Sara opened the case and started to pack. “I’ll tell him when it’s time. If it’s ever time.” She shrugged again. “Maybe it’ll never be time.”

  “You can’t expect to have a solid relationship if it’s founded on secrets.”

  “It’s not a secret,” she countered. “It’s just private. It’s something that happened to me, and I’m tired of…” She did not finish the sentence, because talking about the rape with her mother was not a conversation she was ready to have. “Can you hand me that cotton top?”

  Cathy gave the shirt a look of disapproval before handing it over. “I’ve seen too many women fight to get to where you are and give it all up in a minute for some man that ends up leaving them in a couple of years anyway.”

  “I’m not going to give up my career for Jeffrey.” She gave a rueful laugh. “And it’s not like I can get pregnant and stay home raising babies.”

  Cathy absorbed the remark with little more than a frown. “It’s not that, Sara.”

  “Then what is it, Mama? What is it you’re so worried about? What could any man possibly do to me that’s worse than what’s already happened?”

  Cathy looked down at her hands. She never cried, but she could go silent in a way that broke Sara’s heart.

  Sara sat on the bed beside her mother. “I’m sorry,” she said, thinking that she had never been so sick of having to apologize to people in her life. She felt such guilt for bringing this on her otherwise perfect family that sometimes Sara felt like it would be better for her to just go away and leave them to heal on their own.