Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

trained straight ahead. She moved her hand to her stomach, pressed the palm flat.
    Again, Sara struggled against the instinct to offer comfort, to spin the situation in a more positive light. In the end, she couldn’t summon the energy. Somewhere in the pit of her chest, there was the capacity to feel compassion for this woman. Sara felt it stir occasionally, like a car engine trying to start on a cold day. It would rev and rev, but eventually, it always sputtered out and died.
    Again, Sara tried to leave. “I should—”
    “I never realized they were so small.” Lena’s features softened as she watched the newborn in front of her. “It must be scary to know how fragile they are.” Her breath fogged the glass. She seemed to be waiting for a response.
    “You learn what to do.” Sara had grown up around babies. She couldn’t imagine a life without them.
    Lena said, “I’ve never held a baby before.”
    “You don’t have cousins?”
    “No. And I never babysat or anything.” She gave a low laugh. “I wasn’t the kind of teenager people trusted with their kids.”
    Sara could imagine.
    Lena stuttered out a long sigh. “I didn’t think it was possible to love something that needed me so much.”
    “I’m sorry,” Sara said. “For what it’s worth.”
    “For what it’s worth,” Lena repeated. “Nell doesn’t hate me so much anymore.”
    Sara had felt the change, too, but she wasn’t sure it would last.
    Lena said, “It was better when she hated me. I knew how to deal with that. We both did.” She turned her head to look at Sara. “It’s like she thinks losing the baby makes me a better person.”
    Sara weighed the words, trying to decipher her motivations. Lena wanted something. She always wanted something.
    “Thank you, Sara.” Lena turned back to the window. “I knew I could depend on you to not feel sorry for me.”
    Sara needed to leave. She couldn’t muster her old hatred right now, but she knew she could be persuaded. “I should check on Possum.”
    “It kills him every time he sees you.”
    Sara couldn’t argue with that. “Still—”
    “Did you get my letter?”
    The letter.
    Four years ago, Sara had opened her mailbox to find a handwritten letter from Lena. Sara had shoved the sealed envelope intoher purse. She was late for work. She didn’t want to read it. Neither, apparently, did she want to throw it away. For almost a year, the letter had traveled around with Sara. To work, to the store, to dinner, back home. She moved it when she switched purses. She saw it every time she pulled out her wallet or searched for her keys.
    Lena was studying her. “You read it.”
    Sara didn’t want to admit it, but she said, “Eventually.”
    “I was wrong.”
    “Really?” Sara asked. The letter was three pages from a legal pad. Three tedious, tearstained pages filled with excuses and lies and blame shifting. “Which part were you wrong about?”
    “All of it.” She leaned her shoulder against the glass. “I knew Jeffrey would come save me. And I knew that I was putting his life in danger.”
    Sara felt her face start to flush. Her heart was a bird trapped in a cage. She had waited so long to hear this admission, this validation, and now all she could think was that Lena was working an angle.
    Lena said, “You can’t light a match, then act surprised when your house burns down.”
    Sara worked to keep her tone even. “You tried to warn him.” At least Lena had said as much in the letter. She’d devoted four lengthy paragraphs to her regret that Jeffrey simply would not take her sound advice. “You said you told him to stay away.”
    “I knew he wouldn’t.” Lena stared openly at Sara. “I should be dead now, not him.”
    Sara didn’t buy the sudden conversion. She tried to trick Lena, quoting the words Jared had told Nell. “He knew the risks when he put on the badge.”
    “You think Will feels the same way when he goes to work?”
    From nowhere, Sara was seized by the impulse to slap Will’s name out of her mouth. He’d investigated Lena almost two years ago when she’d let a suspect die in custody and stood by as anothercop was stabbed nearly to death. Sara had been more disappointed than Will that he couldn’t make the case stick.
    She told Lena, “The only thing you know about Will Trent is that he almost sent you to prison.”
    “Almost.” Lena’s lips teased into a smile. The mask was starting to fall. “You know what I remember about my time with