'I got caught up in Alabama for a while,' he told her. 'I talked to Lena. She told me about Lacey. You didn't get a look at who was in the car?'
'No,' Sara answered. 'Did you talk to her parents?'
'Frank's with them now. They don't know anybody who drives a car like that.'
'What has Mark said?'
'He won't talk to anybody,' Jeffrey told her. 'Not even Lena.'
'Who would want to kidnap her?'
'I don't know,' Jeffrey said. 'We've put out an A.P.B. all over the state. I want to talk to Mark and see if we can find anything out.'
'I feel like we're missing something big here,' she said. 'Something right under our noses.'
'Yeah.' He was quiet, and she could hear the engine rev in his car as he accelerated. He said, 'Tell me what happened today. Beginning to end.'
Sara took a deep breath, then told him. The part Jeffrey seemed to focus on most was Mark hitting her, probably because it was the only thing he knew he could take care of.
'What did he hit you with?' he asked, his tone sharp.
'His ring,' she said, then amended, 'His fist, really, but his ring did most of the damage. He wasn't really hitting hard. He just wanted me to turn him loose.' She put her fingers to the bandage. 'It's not bad.'
' Lena wrote him up on assault?'
'Probably,' Sara answered, letting him know he should drop it.
He got the hint. 'Did it look like Lacey knew the people in the car?'
'It was so far away, Jeffrey. I don't know. I wouldn't have even known it was her except for the bright-yellow coat she was wearing.'
' Lena knew the car. Some of the kids from school had seen Jenny Weaver get into it.'
Sara played with the cord of the phone as he told her what Lena had learned at the high school. When he was fin-ished, all she could say was, 'That doesn't sound like the Jenny I knew.'
'I'm beginning to think nobody really knew her.'
She said what had been nagging in the back of her mind all along. 'Do you think Mark and Lacey are the parents?' she asked. 'I mean, I know that's why you wanted the sample on Mark, but it never occurred to me that…'
'I know,' he said. She could tell from the quick way he answered her that Jeffrey had been thinking about this for a while. 'I think it's possible.'
She asked, 'What was your reading on Teddy Patterson?'
'Possible there, too.'
'I doubt he'll submit to a test without an order.'
'You got that right.'
Sara sighed, wondering how all of this fit together. 'Maybe Jenny found out and was jealous?'
'Could be,' he said, and she could tell he was concentrating on something else.
'Jeff…' Sara began, not knowing how to broach the subject without making him angry. 'Mark was cut across his abdomen. It wasn't bad, but I think someone probably tried to hurt him.'
'Good.'
'No,' she stopped him. 'He's a kid. Promise me you won't forget that.'
'A kid who may have raped his sister and pimped out her friend,' he said. 'A kid who punched you in the face.'
'Forget about me,' Sara told him. 'I mean it, Jeffrey. Don't make it about me.'
He said something under his breath.
'Jeff?'
He asked, 'You didn't get any more information out of her?'
'She seemed disoriented, and terrified.'
'Do you think she's seriously ill?'
'I don't know if it's fear or shock or if she's recovering from giving birth. I didn't get to spend much time with her. I…'
'What?'
'I feel responsible for not looking out for her. She was in my clinic. If I'd been able to keep her there-'
'She ran away, Sara. You did what you could do.'
She pressed her lips together. 'I wish that made me feel better.'
'I wish it did, too,' he said. 'I wish I could tell you how to get rid of the guilt, because I sure as hell don't know.'
Sara felt tears well into her eyes. She put her hand to her mouth so that Jeffrey could not hear her cry.
'Sara?'
She cleared her throat, wiping under her eyes with her free hand. She sniffed, because her nose was running. 'Yes?'
Jeffrey said, 'Was there anything else Lacey said? Maybe something about Mark, why he was after her?'
Sara bristled, because asking her the same questions over again wouldn't get them any closer to finding Lacey Patterson. 'Stop questioning me. I've had a bad enough day without getting the third degree from you.'
He was silent, and she could hear the engine accelerate again.
Sara closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall, waiting for him to speak.
'I just…' He stopped, then, 'I gotta tell you, the idea of somebody hurting you really pisses me off.'
She laughed. 'Me, too.'
'Are you all right?' he asked again.
'Yeah,' she said, though she was feeling very unsettled. The clinic had always been a safe place for Sara, and she did not like the fact that her work at the morgue had some-how seeped into her private practice. She felt vulnerable, and she did not like that.
'Nick called,' she told Jeffrey, then explained to him what Nick had said.
'Purity?' Jeffrey repeated. 'That's what Jenny said.'
'Right,' Sara agreed. 'I think it all goes back to sex. She wanted to be clean again, right?'
'Right.'
'So what made her feel unclean?'
'Banging all those guys at the party might have done it.'
'She was drunk,' Sara reminded him, feeling anger stirring deep inside of her.
'They say she wasn't too drunk to know what she was doing.'
