“I know,” Sara said. “Extra chocolate.”
“Yeah, but hold up.” Tessa paused to lick ice cream off the side of her cell phone before she handed it out the window. “It’s Jeffrey.”
Sara pulled up onto a gravel embankment between a police cruiser and Jeffrey’s car, frowning as she heard stones kicking up against the side of her car. The only reason Sara had traded in her two-seater convertible for the larger model was to accommodate a child’s car seat. Between Tessa and the elements, the BMW was going to be trashed before the baby came.
“This it?” Tessa asked.
“Yep.” Sara yanked up the parking brake and looked out at the dry river basin in front of them. Georgia had been suffering from a drought since the mid-1990s, and the huge river that had once slithered through the forest like a fat, lazy snake had shriveled to little more than a trickling stream. A cracked, dry carcass was all that remained, and the concrete bridge thirty feet overhead seemed out of place, though Sara could remember when people had fished from it.
“Is that the body?” Tessa asked, pointing to a group of men standing in a semicircle.
“Probably,” Sara answered, wondering if they were on college property. Grant County comprised three cities: Heartsdale, Madison, and Avondale. Heartsdale, which housed the Grant Institute of Technology, was the jewel of the county, and any crime that happened inside its city limits was considered that much more horrible. A crime on college property would be a nightmare.
“What happened?” Tessa asked eagerly, though she had never been interested in this side of Sara’s job before.
“That’s what I’m supposed to find out,” Sara reminded her, reaching over to the glove box for her stethoscope. The clearance was tight, and Sara’s hand rested on the back of Tessa’s stomach. She let it stay there for a moment.
“Oh, Sissy,” Tessa breathed, grabbing Sara’s hand. “I love you so much.”
Sara laughed at the sudden tears in Tessa’s eyes, but for some reason she could feel herself tearing up as well. “I love you, too, Tessie.” She squeezed her sister’s hand, saying, “Stay in the car. This won’t take long.”
Jeffrey was walking to meet Sara as she shut the car door. His dark hair was combed back neatly, still a little wet at the nape. He was dressed in a charcoal gray suit, perfectly pressed and tailored, with a gold police badge tucked into the breast pocket.
Sara was in sweatpants that had seen better days and a T-shirt that had given up on being white sometime during the Reagan administration. She wore sneakers with no socks, the laces loosely tied so she could slip in and out of them with as little effort as possible.