Blindsighted

In Heartsdale, a small town in Georgia's Grant County, pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton has just learned that a young patient has leukemia when she discovers college professor Sibyl Adams gravely injured in the restroom of a local diner. Sibyl, who is blind, dies despite Sara's attempt to resuscitate her. Sara's ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, begins investigating with the local police. The victim is the twin sister of detective Lena Adams, whose grief and determination to find the killer create immediate conflict with Jeffrey and Sara. Sibyl's partner, Nan Thomas, also struggles with the loss. The crime scene and postmortem examination disclose carefully inflicted cross-shaped wounds and sexual violence.

Further testing establishes that Sibyl ingested belladonna, a poisonous plant capable of causing hallucinations, dilated pupils and loss of coherent perception. Sibyl regularly drank tea at the diner, but the box of tea recovered there tests negative, leaving the means of drugging her uncertain. Sara's findings also include a bite impression, signs of possible left-handedness and indications that the attacker used a condom. Jeffrey investigates diner employees, possible sex offenders and people at Sibyl's college, while confronting prejudice among his own detectives. Lena repeatedly exceeds her assignment because she cannot remain apart from her sister's case. Although she clashes with Nan and with their uncle Hank Norton, whose earlier drunken driving blinded Sibyl when the twins were children, Lena remains unable to grieve openly.

A second investigation begins when college student Julia Matthews disappears. Julia's controlling former boyfriend, Ryan Gordon, initially provides evasive answers, then admits that he saw a tall, dark-clothed man carrying her away from the college library area. He cannot identify the man. Soon afterward, Julia is left alive on the hood of Sara's car with severe injuries and signs of a similarly staged sexual assault. Sara restores Julia's heartbeat during an emergency operation, but Julia remains frightened and disoriented by belladonna. Interviewed at the hospital by Lena, Julia describes a stranger injecting her near the college, a dark room with metallic dripping water, restraint and an attacker who repeatedly professed love. When distressed about the assault and her family's reaction, Julia takes Lena's holstered gun and dies by suicide. Her death is not another killing directly carried out by the attacker.

Julia's autopsy provides important evidence: Sara finds belladonna berries, an inserted handcuff key and material that may allow DNA comparison. Sara suspects that the attacker may have left the key to be found and that its sharp edge may have damaged a condom. The repeated religious imagery and injuries disturb Sara for personal reasons. Twelve years earlier, while working as a resident at Atlanta's Grady Hospital, she was raped and stabbed by hospital janitor Jack Allen Wright, who used handcuffs, tape and language drawn from the crucifixion. A subsequent ectopic pregnancy and surgery left her unable to have children. Since then, she has received one disturbing biblical postcard each year. Sara gives Jeffrey a transcript of Wright's trial, finally disclosing details she had concealed during their marriage. Rather than immediately support her, Jeffrey travels to Atlanta to investigate Wright, deepening Sara's sense of abandonment.

Jeffrey finds Grant County newspapers and a bookmark for the local paper in Wright's home, but it is Jeffrey who searches the computer for recent coverage and Sara's name. These discoveries do not establish Wright's involvement, and Wright's monitored employment and parole history still require verification. Wright tells investigators that he did not scratch a misogynistic insult into Sara's car before her assault twelve years earlier. Jeffrey subsequently finds the same word in Julia's recovered book and learns it appeared on Sibyl's classroom board. When Lena goes missing, the word is also carved into a cabinet at her home. Jeffrey fears the attacker has abducted Lena and asks Wright's parole officer, Mary Ann Moon, to search old hospital records for people who could have encountered Sara. The repeated insult and Julia's account connect the crimes, but they do not yet establish the attacker's identity.

Lena is being held captive, drugged and sexually assaulted in a concealed, darkened room. Her perceptions of intimacy and flight are distorted by the drugs, echoing Julia's earlier account. The perpetrator is eventually revealed to be Jeb McGuire, Heartsdale's pharmacist, with whom Sara has recently resumed dating. Jeb explains that he gave Sibyl an apparent herbal remedy and arranged the attack near Sara's scheduled diner visit because he wanted Sara to have a chance to save her. He continues to blame Sara for Sibyl's death. As he prepares to meet Sara for lunch, Jeb leaves Lena severely injured and restrained.

During lunch at Sara's lake house, Jeb shows her a photograph of his sister Sally, who died at thirteen. Sara recognizes Sally as a girl she treated at Grady shortly before Wright attacked her. Sally had suffered catastrophic injuries from an unsafe abortion, and Jeb now admits that he sexually abused her and performed the procedure. His resentment of Sara for failing to save Sally developed into an effort to reenact that loss through other women. Jeb confirms that Wright, not he, raped Sara twelve years earlier, but says that Wright's attack and Sara's trial helped inspire his subsequent crimes. When Sara recognizes the danger and tries to summon Jeffrey, Jeb threatens her with a knife. Sara escapes through a window into the lake. Jeb follows in her boat and crashes into submerged rocks. Unable to swim, he admits taking Lena but withholds her location. Sara attempts to rescue him as he sinks, putting herself in danger, and Jeffrey reaches the lake in time to save Sara. Jeb dies.

Sara and Jeffrey search Jeb's house and find Lena alive in a concealed attic, pinned to the floor and deeply traumatized. At the hospital, Lena is expected to recover physically, but she is withdrawn and her psychological recovery is uncertain. Records later connect Jeb to an internship in Grady's pharmacy during Sara's residency, and investigators examine whether other unsolved assaults may be linked to him; those additional cases are not resolved. Sara plans to resign as coroner, seeking distance from the investigative work and the painful entanglement with Jeffrey. He apologizes for failing to respond when she disclosed her assault and asks for another chance. Sara finds the wedding ring she once claimed to have discarded and reluctantly agrees that Jeffrey can bring dinner the following evening. Their future remains unsettled. The novel closes with the perpetrator dead, Lena rescued, and the long-term effects of violence on both women unresolved.