Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter Read Free Book Online Page A

get out of the car, didn’t turn off the ignition. He just sat there, thinking about what little information he’d been given. Lena had been involved in an explosion. She was being treated at the hospital. She had been arrested.
    What has she done now?
    Those were Sara’s words—Sara, who couldn’t understand why Jeffrey had stood by Lena all these years, who didn’t know what it was like to grow up with no one rooting for you, no one thinking you’d end up doing anything but making your parents’ own stupid mistakes. If that were the case, Jeffrey would die a worthless drunk like his old man and Lena would—he didn’t know what would happen to Lena. Her only saving grace was that she had rejected Hank Norton as a role model. As for the rest of the people in Lena’s life, Jeffrey had only met one of them, an ex-boyfriend, ex-felon, ex-neo-Nazi whose sorry ass Jeffrey had happily hauled back to prison.
    “Hey,” Sara said, softly. “You okay?”
    “Yeah.” He turned to her. “Listen, I know how you feel about Lena, but—”
    “Keep it to myself?” she interrupted. He studied her face, trying to figure out if she was annoyed or angered by the request. Neither emotion seemed to register, and she actually managed a smile. “Let’s just get this over with and go home.”
    “Good plan.” He turned off the ignition and got out of the car. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted through the air, and Jeffrey could see a couple of paramedics leaning against an ambulance, shooting the shit as they waited for their next call. One of them tossed Jeffrey a wave and he nodded back as he walked around to open Sara’s door.
    Jeffrey warned, “I’m not sure how this is going to go.”
    “I can wait in the car,” she offered. “I don’t want to get in your way.”
    “You’re not going to get in my way,” he answered, though the thought had occurred to him. He opened the back door and took out his suit jacket. “You can examine her. Make sure she’s okay.”
    Sara hesitated. He knew what she was thinking, that she hadn’t felt much like a doctor lately, that with the lawsuit hanging over her head, she didn’t quite trust her instincts anymore. “I’m not really—”
    Jeffrey didn’t press her. “It’s okay,” he said. “Come on.”
    The glass doors slid open as they walked into the emergency department. Inside, the waiting room was empty but for an elderly man in a wheelchair and a younger woman sitting in a chair beside him. They were both wearing surgical masks, eyes trained on the television hanging from the ceiling. Jeffrey was reminded of the health warnings he’d been seeing on the news lately about yet another new strain of flu that was going to kill them all. The receptionist behind the front counter wasn’t wearing a mask, but he guessed from the sour look on her face as they approached that any germ floating around would be too frightened to go near her.
    He opened his mouth to speak, but the woman cut him off, slapping down a clipboard on the counter and saying, “Fill these out. Follow the yellow line to the business office to work out a payment plan, then come back here. We’re running about two hours behind right now, so if you’re not here for a good reason, you might as well go home and try to sleep it off.”
    Jeffrey pulled out his badge and placed it on the counter beside the clipboard. “I’m here to see Sheriff Valentine.”
    The woman ran her tongue along her bottom teeth, making it look as if she had a pinch of snuff there. Finally, she gave a noisy sigh, pulled back the clipboard, and turned toward her computer, where a couple of clicks brought up a hand of solitaire she’d obviously been playing.
    Jeffrey looked at Sara, as if she could decipher the goings-on of the hospital. She shrugged, and he was thinking they’d been given the brush-off when the receptionist heaved another heavy sigh, then said, “Follow the green line to the elevator, take it to the third floor,