phone calls, he wouldn't answer the door. He just kept telling me to leave him alone and let him do what he wanted to do.'
Lena was familiar with the refrain. 'That's when you started writing him the letters?'
'Yes.' She paused, lost in her own thoughts. 'It was awkward at first, but then when he didn't write back it was almost freeing. I just wrote whatever I wanted. I've never done that before, just said what was on my mind.'
'You talk a lot about Sibyl, what it was like when you were together.' Some of the passages had been so hard to read that Lena had found herself staring out the window, lost in another time. Charlotte had managed to capture the essence of Sibyl: her good nature, her loving kindness. Even after Lena had finished reading the letters, the feelings had stuck with her, so that it was almost like Sibyl was alive again.
Charlotte said, 'Hank is the only one who knew about her. Us. What we felt for each other, that it was love and not something grotesque.' She leaned her back against the window, arms crossed low over her waist. 'But you know what? A long time ago, he asked me what would've happened if Sibyl and I had made it work. I could have transferred to Georgia Tech, you know. They wouldn't have offered me a full ride like they did with Sibby but I was already in college, doing pretty well, making the honor roll. I was miserable living with my folks and having to drive back and forth to Milledgeville. I could've transferred and gotten a job in Atlanta or got student loans or something to make it happen, but I didn't.'
'Why not?'
'I guess it scared me. Everything scared me back then. Atlanta 's so big, so anonymous. I felt safe here. And it would've killed my parents.'
'It was easier for us to leave home than it was for you,' Lena tried. 'Your folks were-'
'My folks would've never talked to me again if I'd followed her to Atlanta. They caught us together once. Did you know that?' Lena shook her head, shocked that Sibyl had never told her. 'It was fall break of my sophomore year and Sibby was about to go off to Tech. My parents were supposed to be visiting my aunt Jeannie for the day but they got into a fight. They were always fighting back then. This was around the time mother found out he'd been screwing Mrs. Ford from the church for about the last five years.' She laughed at the irony. 'So, they came back early and found us… Well, you can imagine how they found us. They called Hank at the bar and made him come over right then to confront us. He was furious – but at them, not Sibyl. He said we were both adults and that it was none of their damn business.'
' 'Let he who is without sin…' ' Lena quoted.
It was one of Hank's favorite verses. He was always throwing it out right before he told you that what you were doing was wrong.
Charlotte said, 'Y'all were so lucky to have him.'
Lena laughed. 'Are you kidding me? I would've killed for your parents when I was growing up.'
'You can have them.'
'Okay,' Lena allowed. 'What they did then was bad, but they never accidentally locked you out of the house all night or forgot to feed you or left you alone with strangers and they sure as hell never got so drunk they ran over you with their car and-'
'What?'
'You know what Hank did.'
Charlotte looked confused. 'What did he do?'
'He blinded her. He took away Sibyl's sight. How can you-'
' Lena, that wasn't Hank.'
Lena felt her heart stop mid-beat. 'What are you talking about?'
Charlotte stood in front of her, still confused by Lena 's reaction. 'I was there that day.'
'No, you weren't.'
'You and me and Sibby were playing in the front yard with an old tennis ball I'd stolen from my brother. You threw the ball over Sibyl's head and she ran into the driveway and-'
'No,' Lena insisted. 'You weren't there.' Even as she said the words, she could picture the day: throwing the ball over Sibyl's head, making her chase after it. And there was Charlotte Warren on the other side of the driveway, scooping up the ball and tossing it back to Lena. 'No.' Lena shook her head as if she could clear the memory. 'You weren't there.'
'I was, Lee. I saw the car backing up. I yelled, but she didn't stop. The bumper hit Sibyl's head. I saw her collapse in the driveway.' As she spoke, Lena saw it happening again. Sibyl running into the driveway, Charlotte screaming. 'There was just this thin line of blood.' Charlotte traced her finger along her own temple, down her jaw, exactly where the blood had been on Sibyl. 'You started sobbing, you were hysterical, and Hank came running out of the house and your mother just-'
'My mother?' Lena felt light-headed. She leaned back against the desk. 'What are you talking about? My mother was there? She was there when Sibyl…?'
'Lee,' Charlotte began, putting her hand on Lena 's shoulder. 'It wasn't Hank. Your mother was driving the car. She's the one who blinded Sibyl.'
WEDNESDAY EVENING
ELEVEN
Sara lay in bed, trying not to think about what was living in the mattress underneath, her body. The autopsy had taken ten brutal hours, and when they had finally gotten back to the motel, she had nearly cried at the sight of the filthy room. Sara knew there was a maid around here somewhere. Earlier this morning, she had seen the woman pushing around a large cart with all sorts of cleaners and a vacuum. Except for the bed being made, nothing else in the room had been touched. Sara hadn't exactly been expecting a thank-you note for scrubbing the bathroom, but the woman could have at least vacuumed the rug. The green M amp;M she had seen under the table yesterday morning was still nestled in the shag carpet.
Sara closed her eyes and listened to Jeffrey humming in the shower, the water slapping against the plastic tub. She had cleaned the cut on his hand using some disinfectant they'd found in the morgue, but he would have to bandage it on his own when he got out of the shower. She was too tired to do it herself, and frankly, part of her could not let go of her anger from yesterday afternoon. They had spent the entire day together, yet neither one of them had been willing to break the ice and talk about what had happened.
Jeffrey seemed fine with this, which only served to annoy Sara more. The situation made her feel like the prototypical bitchy sit-com wife who was always harping on her poor, misunderstood husband. She had always supported Jeffrey, even when she'd thought he was wrong, and it was unfair of him to let her be cast in the role of shrew.
On top of that, Sara still had a bad feeling about Elawah and whatever Lena had drawn them into. The autopsy she had performed that day only served to heighten that sense of dread. Over the years, Grant County had seen its share of violent deaths but Sara was hard-pressed to think of a more awful way to die than being burned alive. She was usually adept at separating the victim from the crime. If you were going to cut into a dead body, you couldn't think of it as a person anymore. You had to look at it as parts of a
