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"Eye for an eye." He pointed to the pizza. "Mind if I—"
He had finished half the pie. "Go ahead."
"It's been a long day."
Sara laughed at the understatement. He laughed, too.
She pointed to his hand. "Do you want me to take care of that?"
He glanced at the wounds as if he'd just realized something was wrong. "What can you do?"
"You've waited too long for stitches." She stood up to get her first aid kit from the kitchen. "I can clean it. You need to start some antibiotics so it doesn't get infected."
"What about rabies?"
"Rabies?" She tied up her hair with a band she found in the kitchen drawer, then hooked her reading glasses on her shirt collar. "The human mouth is pretty dirty, but it's very rare—"
"I mean from rats," Will said. "There were some rats in the cave where Anna and Jackie were kept." He scratched his right arm again, and she realized now why he had been doing it. "You can get rabies from rats, right?"
Sara froze, her hand reaching up to take a stainless steel bowl from the cabinet. "Did they bite you?"
"No, they ran up my arms."
"Rats ran up your arms?"
"Just two. Maybe three."
"Two or three rats ran up your arms?"
"It's really calming the way you keep repeating everything I say, but in a louder voice."
She laughed at the comment, but still asked, "Were they acting erratic? Did they try to attack you?"
"Not really. They just wanted to get out. I think they were as scared of me as I was of them." He shrugged. "Well, one of them stayed down. He was eyeballing me, you know, kind of watching what I was doing. He never came near me, though."
She put on her reading glasses and sat beside him. "Roll up your sleeves."
He took off his jacket and rolled up the shirtsleeve on his left arm, though he had been scratching his right. Sara didn't argue. She looked at the scratches on his forearm. They weren't even deep enough to bleed. He was probably remembering it a lot worse than it actually was. "I think you'll be fine."
"You're sure? Maybe that's why I went a little crazy today."
She could tell he was only half kidding. "Tell Faith to call me if you start foaming at the mouth."
"Don't be surprised if you hear from her tomorrow."
She rested the stainless steel bowl in her lap, then put his left hand in the bowl. "This might sting," she warned, pouring peroxide over the open wounds. Will didn't flinch, and she took his lack of reaction as an opportunity to do a more thorough job.
She tried to take his mind off what she was doing, and, frankly, her own curiosity was raised. "What about your father?"
"There were extenuating circumstances," was all he offered. "Don't worry. Orphanages aren't as bad as Dickens would lead you to believe." He changed the subject, asking, "Do you come from a big family?"
"Just me and my younger sister."
"Pete said your dad's a plumber."
"He is. My sister worked in the business with him for a while, but now she's a missionary."
"That's nice. You both take care of people."
Sara tried to think of another question, something to say that would make him open up, but nothing would come to mind. She had no idea how to talk to someone who didn't have a family. What stories of sibling tyranny or parental angst could you share?
Will seemed equally at a loss for words, or maybe he was just choosing to be silent. Either way, he didn't speak until she was doing her best to cover the broken skin by crisscrossing several Band-Aids over his knuckles.
He said, "You're a good doctor."
"You should see me with splinters."
He looked at his hand. Flexed his fingers.
She said, "You're left-handed."
He asked, "Is that a bad thing?"
"I hope not." She held up her left hand, which she'd been using to clean his wounds. "My mother says it means you're smarter than everybody else." She started cleaning up the mess. "Speaking of my mother, I called her about the question you had—the apostle who replaced Judas? His name was Matthias." She laughed, joking, "I'm pretty sure if you meet anyone by that name, you've probably found your killer."
He laughed, too. "I'll put out an APB."
"Last seen wearing a robe and sandals."
He shook his head, still smiling. "Don't make light of it. That's the best lead I've heard all day."
"Anna's not talking?"
"I haven't talked to Faith since . . ." He waved his injured hand. "She would've called if anything came up."
"She's not what I thought," Sara told him. "Anna. I know this is odd to say, but she's very dispassionate. Unemotional."
"She's been through a lot."
"I know what you mean, but it's beyond that." Sara shook her head. "Or maybe it's my ego. Doctors aren't used to being talked to as if they're servants."
"What did she say to you?"
"When I brought her baby to her—Balthazar—I don't know, it was weird. I wasn't expecting a medal by any means, but I thought she would at least thank me. She just told me that I could go away."
Will rolled down his shirtsleeve. "None of these women have been particularly likable."
"Faith said there might be an anorexia connection."
"There might be. I don't know a lot about it. Are anorexics generally horrible people?"
"No, of course not. Everyone is different. Faith asked me about the same thing this afternoon. I told her that it takes a very driven personality to starve yourself like that, but it doesn't follow that they're unkind." Sara thought about it. "Your killer probably didn't choose these women because they're anorexic. He chooses them because they're awful people."
"If they're awful people, then he'd have to know them. He'd have to have contact with them."
"Are you finding any connections other than the anorexia?"
"All of the mare unmarried. Two of them have kids. One of them hates kids. One of them wanted a kid, but maybe not." He added, "Banker, lawyer, real estate broker and interior designer."
"What kind of lawyer?"
"Corporate attorney."
"Not real estate closings?"
He shook his head. "The banker didn't work mortgages, either. She was in charge of community relations—doing fundraisers, making sure the president of the bank had his picture in the paper beside kids with cancer. That sort of thing."
"They're not in a support group?"
"There's a chat room, but we can't get into it without a password." He rubbed his eyes with his hands. "It just goes in circles."
"You look tired. Maybe a good night's sleep will help you figure it out."
"Yeah, I should go." But he didn't. He just sat there looking at her.
Sara felt the noise drain from the room, and the air got stuffy, almost hard to breathe. She was acutely aware of the pressure against her skin from the gold band around her fourth finger, and she realized that her thigh was brushing his.
