'Whoa,' Sara said, backing up.
Jenny blinked, recognizing her pediatrician. She mumbled a soft, 'Sorry,' averting her eyes.
'It's okay,' Sara returned, thinking to start a conversation; the girl seemed troubled. 'How about you?' Sara asked. 'Are you okay?'
'Yes, ma'am,' Jenny said, clutching the bag to her chest.
Before Sara could say anything else, Jenny walked away.
Sara watched the teenager retreat into a crowd of kids near the video game room. The light from the screens gave Jenny's body a green cast as she disappeared into the corner. Sara sensed something was wrong, but it wasn't like she could chase the girl down and demand to know what was going on. At that age, everything was a drama. Knowing teenage girls, there was probably a boy involved.
The lights came up as the ballad ended, and another old rock song blared over the speakers, the bass resonating in Sara's chest. She watched the skaters in the rink pick up the tempo, wondering if she had ever been that agile. While Skatie's had changed ownership several times since Sara was a teenager, it was still the hot spot for Grant County 's teens. Sara had spent many a weekend night in the back of this very building, necking with Steve Mann, her first serious boyfriend. Their relationship had not been so much passionate as an alliance, both of them united in one cause: to get out of Grant. Steve's father had been struck down by a heart attack their senior year and Steve had been running the family hardware store ever since. Now he was married with kids. Sara had escaped to Atlanta, but returned a few years later.
And here she was tonight, back at Skatie's, necking with Jeffrey Tolliver. Or at least trying to.
Sara shrugged it off as she turned toward the bathroom. She put her hand on the doorknob, then jerked it back as she felt something sticky. The light was still low in this part of the rink, and Sara had to hold her hand close to her face in order to see what was on it. She caught the scent before she recognized the texture. She looked down at her shirt where Jenny Weaver's backpack had brushed against her.
A narrow streak of blood arced across her chest.
Chapter Two
Jeffrey tried not to rip the pay phone off the wall, but that was exactly what his hands were itching to do. He took a calming breath, dialed the number to the station, and patiently waited through the rings.
Maria Simms, his secretary and the station's part-time dispatcher, answered, 'Good evening, Grant County Police Department, could you hold please?' then clicked him onto hold without waiting for an answer.
He took another deep breath, trying not to let his irritation get the best of him. Jeffrey thought about Sara back in the skating rink, probably talking herself out of their date tonight. Every step he took toward her, Sara took two steps back. He understood her reasons, but that did not mean he had to like them.
Jeffrey leaned against the wall, feeling the sweat start to drip down his back. August was coming on full force, making the record-breaking highs Georgia had seen in June and July look like winter weather. Some days, going outside, he felt as if he was breathing through a wet washrag. He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt to let some air in.
A short bark of laughter came from the front of the building, and Jeffrey peered around the corner, to get a clear view of the parking lot. There was a small group of boys hanging out beside a beat-up old Camaro, passing a cigarette between them. The pay phone was to the side of the building, so Jeffrey was shadowed by the bright green-and-yellow canopy. He thought he caught a whiff of pot, but wasn't sure. The kids had the stance of boys up to no good. Jeffrey recognized this not just because he was a cop but because he had hung out with a similar group at that age.
He was debating whether or not to approach them when Maria clicked onto the line.
'Good evening, Grant County Police Department, thanks for holding. Can I help you?'
'Maria, it's Jeffrey.'
'Oh, hey, Chief,' she said. 'Sorry to bother you. It was a false alarm down at one of the stores.'
'Which one?' he asked, remembering the earful he had just gotten from Betty Reynolds, who owned the five-and-dime downtown.
'Cleaners,' she said. 'Old man Burgess accidentally set it off.'
Jeffrey wondered at Maria, who was well into her seventies, calling Bill Burgess an old man, but he let that slide. He asked, 'Anything else?'
'There was something at the diner Brad called in, but they didn't find anything.'
'What'd he call in?'
'Just said he thought he saw something, is all. You know how Brad is, calls in his own shadow.' She gave a small chuckle. Brad was somewhat of a mascot around the station house, a twenty-one-year-old man whose round face and wispy blond hair made him look more like a boy. It was a joke among the senior squad to steal Brad's hat and hide it around various landmarks in town. Jeffrey had seen it resting on top of the statue of General Lee in front of the high school just last week.
Jeffrey thought of Sara. 'Frank is in charge tonight. Don't page me unless someone's dead.'
'Two birds with one stone,' Maria chuckled again. 'The coroner and the chief in one call.'
He tried to remind himself that he had moved from Birmingham to Grant because he wanted to be in a small town where everyone knew their neighbor. Everyone knowing his own personal business was one of the few tradeoffs. Jeffrey was about to say something innocuous to Maria, but stopped when he heard a loud shriek from the parking lot.
He leaned around the corner to take a look just as a girl's voice yelled, 'Fuck you, you fucking bastard.'
Maria said, 'Chief?'
'Hold on,' he whispered, feeling his gut clench at the anger in the girl's voice. He knew from experience that a ticked-off young girl was the worst thing to have to deal with in a parking lot on a Saturday night. Boys he could handle, it was all a pissing contest and, for the most part, any young man wanted to be stopped from getting into an actual fight. Young girls tended to take a lot to get riled up and a hell of a lot more to get calmed back down. An angry teenage girl was something to fear, especially when she had a gun in her hand.
'I'm going to kill you, you fucking bastard,' she yelled at one of the boys. His friends quickly peeled off into a semicircle, and the young man stood alone, the gun pointed at his chest. The girl was no more than four feet away from her target, and as Jeffrey watched, she took a step closer, narrowing the gap.
'Shit,' Jeffrey hissed, then, remembering he had the phone in his hand, he ordered, 'Get Frank and Matt over to Skatie's right now.'
'They're over in Madison.'
' Lena and Brad, then,' he said. 'Silent approach. There's a girl with a gun in the front parking lot.'
Jeffrey slipped the phone back into its cradle, feeling his body tense.
