A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter

shoulder.
    He was a couple of feet in front of her, and she stared at his wide back, willing all her hatred into him.
    'Come on, Adams,' Chuck said. 'Walk it off.'
    'It's fine.'
    'Yeah,' Chuck said, slowing down. He gave her a wet smile. 'So… guess the chief don't want you back anytime soon.'
    'You either,' she reminded him.
    Chuck snorted, as if she'd made a joke instead of pointed out the truth. Lena had never met anyone who was so good at ignoring the obvious.
    Chuck said, 'He just don't like me because I dated his girlfriend back in high school.'
    'You dated Sara Linton?' Lena asked, thinking that was about as likely as Chuck's dating the queen of England.
    Chuck shrugged casually. 'Long time ago. You friends with her or something?'
    'Yeah,' Lena lied. Sara was far from a close friend.
    'She never mentioned it.'
    'Sore spot for her,' Chuck covered. 'I left her for another girl.'
    'Right,' Lena said, thinking this was typical Chuck.
    He thought that everything that came out of his mouth was believed, and he labored under the false impression that he was well respected on campus, even though it was common knowledge that the only reason Chuck had gotten his job was his daddy had made a phone call to Kevin Blake, the dean of Grant Tech.
    Albert Gaines, president of the Grant Trust and Loan, had a lot of pull in town, especially with the college.
    When Chuck had moved back home after eight years in the army, he walked right into the job as director of campus security with no questions asked.
    Answering to a man like Chuck was a bitter pill Lena had to swallow every day. She had not been presented with a lot of choices after resigning her badge. At thirty-four, Lena didn't know anything other than being a cop. She'd entered the academy right out of high school and never looked back. The only things she was qualified for were flipping burgers or cleaning houses, neither of which appealed.
    In the days after Lena left the force, she'd considered going somewhere far away, maybe visiting Mexico and finding her grandmother's people or volunteering somewhere overseas, but then reality caught up with her, and she realized that the bank did not care if Lena needed a change of scenery they still expected her mortgage and car payments every month. Even with the paltry disability payments she received from the police department and what little money she'd managed to make from selling her house, things were tight.
    The college job offered free campus housing and health benefits in lieu of a living wage. Granted, the housing sucked and the health insurance had a deductible so high Lena panicked if she so much as sneezed, but it was a steady job and meant she did not have to move in with her uncle Hank. Moving back to Reece, where Hank had raised Lena and Sibyl, her twin sister, would have been too easy. It would've been too easy to take up space at the bar Hank owned and drink away her nightmares. It would have been too easy to hide from the rest of the world, until thirty years had passed and she was still holding down a barstool, the scars on her hands the only reminder of why she'd started drinking in the first place.
    Lena had been raped a little over a year ago; not just raped but kidnapped, held in her abductor's home for days. Her memories from that time were scattered because she was drugged during most of the attack, her mind sent to a safer place while her body was brutalized. Scars on her hands and feet served as a permanent reminder that she'd been nailed spread-eagle to the floor to keep her open to her attacker at all times. Her hands still ached on cold days, but the pain could not match the fear she'd experienced watching the long nails being hammered into her flesh.
    Before setting his sights on Lena, this same animal had killed Sibyl, Lena's sister, and the fact that he was gone now offered no comfort. He still showed up in Lena's dreams, giving her such vivid nightmares that she sometimes woke in a cold sweat, clutching