Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

vulture on her shoulder had temporarily left its perch. She felt more like herself.
    Maybe it wasn’t entirely the scenery that had brought her this sense of calm. While Nell was shopping for cleaning supplies, Sara had frantically poured her heart out in a long email to her sister. Tessa’s response had been just as long, but instead of filling the message with clichés about soldiering on or enjoying sweet revenge, she’d made lists: Ten things she loved about Will Trent. Three of the stupidest jokes their father had ever told. Eight new words that Tessa had said around Izzie, Sara’s niece, that would probably end up sending Tessa to hell. Six reasons no one would ever be able to make biscuits as good as their grandmother’s. Five things that their mother did that they both swore they would never, ever do, but that they were now doing almost every single day of their lives.
    The only direct acknowledgment to Sara’s situation came in the postscript:
    Please don’t start listening to Dolly Parton again.
    Nell said, “I do that all the time.”
    Sara was pulled from her thoughts. “What’s that?”
    “Remember something about Jeffrey and smile.” Nell smiled, too. “He loved being in the woods. Used to go hiking all the time when he was in high school.”
    Sara opened her mouth to correct her, then thought better of it.
    “It’s all right,” Nell said. “You save whatever story you just thought of for Jared when he wakes up. We’ll all smile about it then.”
    Sara nodded. This was a familiar refrain that Nell had started the minute they’d left the hospital. She needed to get some clean pajamas for when Jared woke up. She needed to make sure the house was clean for when Jared woke up. Sara didn’t begrudge Nell the goal. She could tell it was the only thing keeping her going.
    Nell’s cell phone beeped. She was using the GPS to find Lena and Jared’s house. “I guess it’s down here,” she murmured, taking a lazy, right-hand turn.
    Sara pressed her lips together. Nell drove like an old woman, never exceeding the speed limit, slowing to let over every car that even looked as if it might want to merge. Occasionally, she would stop the truck in order to read a sign or remark on a pedestrian. She was still stuck in small-town time, where rushing was considered rude and you didn’t beep your horn unless a dog was in the road.
    Nell took in the houses lining the street. “Not too bad,” she commented, which was the most positive thing she’d said about Macon since they got into the truck. “I guess they got all the plans from the same magazine.”
    Sara followed her gaze. There was a uniformity to the subdivision, but the houses weren’t overbuilt for the lots or stuffed withextra bedrooms that no one would ever use. People kept their lawns tended. There were minivans in the driveways. American flags hung from porch posts. The street looked exactly like the kind where you’d expect to find two police officers living.
    Nell didn’t need her GPS anymore. She parked near a white GBI crime scene van. Charlie Reed stood at the open back doors. A younger man handed him plastic crates that Charlie packed carefully into the cargo area. Sara recognized the sealed evidence bags from her medical examiner days. The past started to creep up again, especially when she noticed the two cops standing around a cruiser parked at the end of the street.
    “Well,” Nell said. She was looking up at the house with some trepidation.
    Sara guessed the woman had been expecting something closer to a witch’s cottage, not the quaint, single-story clapboard house at the top of a steep hill. The structure was shotgun style, deeper than it was wide, with the front door planted squarely in the middle. Instead of an American flag on the front porch, there was an orange and blue banner with the logo of Auburn University.
    Nell seemed to approve of the flag. She said, “At least he’s still standing where he’s from.”
    Sara made some mumbling noises that might be interpreted as encouragement. Maybe it wasn’t Nell, but Sara who was having a hard time thinking about Lena living in this house. The lawn was a dark carpet of green. There were some leggy petunias planted around the mailbox. Monkey grass splashed over the front walk. The front door was painted red. More petunias spilled from wooden planters on the porch. Sara couldn’t imagine Lena tending flowers, let alone sitting down and taking notes from a book on