By way of greeting, Chuck said, “Shockrete.”
Faith asked, “Sorry?”
“Your gray powder is Shockrete. It’s a high-density concrete that’s reinforced with titanium fibers.”
“What’s it used for?”
“Retaining walls, wine cellars, skateboard parks, swimming pools.” He glanced around. “Tunnels.”
“Like this one?”
“This baby’s old,” he said, patting the low ceiling. “Besides, I found granite in the mix.”
“Like Stone Mountain?” she asked, referencing a mountain that was several miles outside the city.
“That particular granite is known for its clusters of tourmaline, which aren’t common to other granites. I’m no igneous petrologist, but my guess is that it’s our trusty three-hundred-million-year-old Atlanta bedrock.”
She tried to put him back on point. “So it came from a tunnel in the city?”
“I’d say a construction site.”
“What kind?”
“Any kind, really. Shockrete’s sprayed on the walls, the ceiling, to hold back soil.”
“Would it be used in water main construction, fixing lines under the road?”
“Almost exclusively. As a matter of fact—”
There was more, but Faith was running too fast to hear him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Will repeated his question. “What does the concrete powder look like?”
“Like you’d expect,” Petty answered, indicating the glass door Will had just walked through.
He could see it now. Light gray footprints across the blue carpet. Will glanced around the room, the furiously working copiers, the empty storefront. Anyone who had been in the Copy Right or the parking lot could have tracked through the concrete dust and deposited it anywhere, but only one of them was holding a knife that matched the one used to kill Kayla Alexander and Adam Humphrey.
He asked Petty, “Are you the only one here?”
The man nodded, chewing another bite of steak. “Warren should be back soon. He’s out making a delivery.”
“He has a van?”
“Nah, it’s just down the street. We walk over the deliveries sometimes. It kind of breaks the monotony.”
Outside, the jackhammer kicked in, the vibrations so hard that Will could feel the floor shaking under his feet.
Will raised his voice, asking, “Do you ever make deliveries?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“What?” Will asked, though he had heard the man well enough. “I can’t hear you over the jackhammer.”
“I said sometimes.”
Will shook his head, pretending he still couldn’t hear. This wasn’t going to be like Evan Bernard. Will would not leave this building without a suspect in handcuffs and a solid case to back the arrest. Petty had the knife, he had the opportunity and he certainly had the motive—what better way to end his illustrious career at the Copy Right than to retire with a million dollars cold hard cash in his pocket? Having Emma Campano in the process would be icing on the cake.
Was that enough, though? Was this pathetic pothead the kind of man who could beat a girl to death and take another away for his own pleasure? Faith had said she’d be the ruler of the world if she could spot a killer from a hundred paces. Was Lionel Petty someone who hid murder in his heart, or was he just caught up in something bad—the wrong place at the wrong time?
Either way, Will wanted to get Petty away from the exit and in an enclosed space where he could talk to him. He especially wanted him to put down the knife.
He told the man, “I still can’t hear you.”
Petty cupped his hands to his mouth, making a joke of it. “Sometimes I make deliveries!”
Will knew the office was in back of the room. He guessed that all the paperwork would be kept there. He yelled to Petty, “I need to see who you deliver to.”
Petty nodded, dropping the knife and standing up. He started to leave, then changed his mind. Will reached around to his paddle holster as Petty’s fingers moved toward the knife, but the man only scooped up a handful of French fries. He ate them as he led Will to the back of the store. At the door to the office, he pulled out a ring of keys.
Will asked, “Does Warren always leave those with you?”
“Never, man.” He jammed a key into the lock, pushed open the door and sat down in front of the desk. The noise was somewhat buffered in the small room, and Petty spoke in a normal tone. “Warren forgot his keys last night. I don’t know what’s up with him. He keeps forgetting things.” He opened a desk drawer and started to riffle the files. “It’s hilarious, because he really hates to fuck up.”
Will stood in the doorway, feeling the breeze of the air-conditioning freeze the sweat on his back, gluing his shirt and vest together. He leaned into the door frame, reaching his hand around to his back, finding his gun snugly tucked into the paddle holster.
Petty mumbled to himself as he searched the files. “Sorry, man, Warren has his own system for filing things.”
“Take your time,” Will said. He looked at the CDs lining the walls, the way the colored jewel cases were stacked together in their own particular order. It reminded him of his own CD collection at home, the way he identified certain albums not by their words, but by their colors, their recording logos, their artwork.
Will felt a prickling sensation work its way up his spine. “What about the customer files on the shelves? Does Warren have a system for those, too?”
“The CDs?” Petty laughed. “Shit, man, I can’t even begin to tell you how he’s got those filed. I’m not even allowed to touch them.”
“But Warren knows where everything is, right?”
“He can find it with his eyes closed.”
Will doubted that. Warren would need to see the colors, the patterns, before he could find the disc he needed. “Were you working here the day Emma was abducted?”
“I was off, man. Total headache.”
“Is Warren left-handed?”
Petty held up his hand in response. Will couldn’t tell which one it was; discerning between left and right was something his brain could not easily manage.
“Here we go,” Petty said, pulling out a file. “Ignore the typos. Warren’s such a freaktard. He’s, like, incapable of spelling anything, but he won’t admit it.”
“What do you mean?” Will asked, though he already knew the answer. Warren color-coded the CDs, relying on visual cues to help him find the right file. The evidence had been staring Will in the face the first time he’d come into the manager’s office to look at the security tape. Warren used the color-coding system for the same reason as Will: he could not read.
Petty said, “Warren’s all right most of the time, but the dude won’t admit he’s wrong about anything. It’s like working in the fucking White House around here.”
“I meant the typos. You said he can’t spell. What do you mean?”
Petty shrugged, handing him a sheet of paper. “Like that, man. I mean, it’s like he’s in kindergarten, right?”
Will glanced down at the sheet. His stomach roiled. He couldn’t see anything but lines.
“Wait till you see this.” Petty opened another drawer, and between the hanging files, Will saw several knives like the one Petty had been gripping.
“Where did you get those?”
Petty leaned down, stretching his hand to the back of the drawer. “Uh, the cafeteria down the street. Are you going to report us?”
“Warren steals them, too?”
“We both do, man. The Steakery only gives you those cheap-ass plastic knives.” He sat up, holding a book in his lap. “I’ll take ’em back, dude. I know it’s stealing.”
Will motioned toward the book. “Let me have that.”
Petty handed it over. “Pathetic, man. He’s always acting like he’s perfect, right, that he’s some kind of mental genius, and then he sneaks in with this? Classic Warren. What a loser.”
Will stared
at the front cover. He couldn’t read the title, but he instantly recognized the multicolored triangles and squares. Evan Bernard had shown him a similar book this morning. It was the same kind that Emma Campano used.
“Open it up,” Petty said. “ ‘See spot run.’ ‘See Jill wet her pants.’ I mean, it’s, like, a book for retarded one-year-olds. Cracks me up, man.”
Will didn’t open the book. “Where did he get this?”
Petty shrugged, leaning back in the chair. “I go through his stuff sometimes when I get bored. I found it shoved in the back of the drawer about a week, two weeks ago.” He didn’t seem ashamed of the habit, but he offered another piece of information to redeem himself. “Warren’s got these weekly reports that he’s supposed to send to corporate. I go through his computer and make it look less like a moron did it.”
“He doesn’t use spell-check?”
“Dude, spell-check is not Warren’s friend.”
There was no computer on his desk. “Where’s his computer?”
“He used to keep it here, but lately he’s been carrying it with him in his briefcase.” He pumped his fist up and down suggestively. “Probably trolling porn on the wireless we pick up from the coffee shop.”
“What kind of computer is it?”
“Mac. Pretty sweet.”
“Does he have a car?”
“He hoofs it.”
“He lives close by?”
“Not far. He takes MARTA.” Petty finally got suspicious. “Why are you asking all these questions about Warren, man?”
Will thumbed through the book. The pages fell open to the center where someone had used a plastic laminated card to mark the page. Will looked at the card, saw Adam Humphrey’s picture.
There was a buzzing sound. Petty turned around in the chair to squint up at the security cameras. He pressed a button on the desk, saying, “Speak of the devil.”
Will watched the monitor as Warren Grier opened the glass door out in the parking deck.
“Stay here,” he told Petty. “Lock the door and call 9-1-1. Tell them that an officer needs immediate assistance.” Petty sat frozen in his chair, and Will told him, “I’m not fooling around, Lionel. Do it.”
Will pulled the door closed behind him. The jackhammer had stopped, but the copiers were still running, the clack of papers humming in his ears. Will was at the counter by the time Warren made his way to the front. The man was wearing his blue Copy Right shirt and carrying a beat-up brown briefcase in his hand.
He was understandably alarmed to see Will standing behind the counter. Warren asked, “Where’s Petty?”
“Bathroom,” Will told him. Warren was on the other side of the counter, just a few feet away. Will could have reached out and grabbed him by the collar, yanked him over the counter without missing a beat. “I told him I’d catch the phones for him.”
Warren glanced down at Petty’s lunch, the knife. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m here to show you guys some photos.” Will reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the yearbook pages, hoping the fact that his heart was about to beat out of his chest was not as evident as it felt. He fanned out the photos so that Kayla was in front, half of Evan Bernard’s face obscured behind her. “Do you mind taking a look at these for me?”
Slowly, Warren put his briefcase on the floor. He stared at the pictures a good while before he took them. “I’ve seen this girl on the news,” he said, his tone of voice a few octaves higher than normal. “She’s the one who was stabbed, right?”
“Beaten,” Will corrected, leaning down on the counter so he could get closer to Warren. “Someone beat her to death with his fists.”
There was a slight tremble to the young man’s hand, a nervousness that Will shared. The photo of Bernard was still visible, and Warren moved his fingers to cover it with Kayla’s image. “I thought she was stabbed.”
“No,” Will said. “The boy was stabbed—just once in the chest. His lung collapsed.”
“The mother didn’t kill him?”
“No,” Will lied. “He died from the knife wound. We got the coroner’s report this morning.” He added, “It’s sad, really. I think he just got in the way. I think whoever killed him was just trying to keep him away from Emma.”
Warren kept staring at the photo of Kayla Alexander.
“Kayla wasn’t raped,” Will told him, trying to imagine Warren Grier in a fury, straddling Kayla Alexander, plunging the knife into her chest over and over again. Adam Humphrey would have been next, a single stab wound to the chest. And then Emma … what had he done to Emma?
Will said, “We don’t think the killer is that kind of person.”
“You don’t?”
“No,” Will said. “We think whoever killed Kayla just got angry. Maybe she said something to him, goaded him into it. She wasn’t a very nice person.”
“I … uh …” He still stared at the photo. “I could guess that from looking at her.”
“She could be very cruel.”
He nodded.
“The other man,” Will began, fanning out the pictures so that Evan Bernard was fully visible. “We’ve arrested him for raping Kayla.”
Warren did not respond.
“His sperm was inside her. He must have had sex with her right before she went to see Emma Campano.”
Warren kept his eyes on the photos.
“We just want her back, Warren. We just want to return Emma to her family.”
He licked his lips, but said nothing.
“Her mother looks just like her. Have you seen her picture on the news?”
Warren nodded again.
“Abigail,” Will provided. “In the pictures they’re showing, she’s beautiful, don’t you think? Just like Emma.”
His shoulders went up slowly in a shrug.
“She doesn’t look like that now, though.” Will felt the tension between them almost as if another person was standing there. “She can’t sleep. She can’t eat. She cries all the time. When she realized that Emma was missing, she had to be sedated. We had to call in a doctor to help her.”
Warren spoke so quietly that Will had to strain to hear. “What about Kayla? Is her mom upset?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “Not as much, though. She understood that her daughter was not a very nice person. I think she’s relieved.”
“What about the guy’s parents?”
“They’re from Oregon. They flew down last night to collect his body.”
“Did they take it back?”
“Yes,” Will lied. “They took him back home to bury him.”
Warren surprised him. “I didn’t have parents.”
Will forced a smile, conscious that there was a twitch to his lip. “Everybody has parents.”
“Mine left me,” Warren said. “I don’t have anybody.”
“Everybody has somebody,” Will said.
Without warning, Warren dropped to the floor. Will leaned over the counter, trying to stop him, but he wasn’t fast enough. Warren was on his back, flat to the ground. He held a short-nosed revolver in his hands. The muzzle was a few inches from Will’s face.
“Don’t do this,” Will said.
“Hands where I can see them,” Warren ordered, wriggling to stand. “I’ve never used a gun before, but I don’t think it matters when you’re this close.”
Slowly, Will straightened up, keeping his hands in the air. “Tell me what happened, Warren.”
“You’re never going to find her.”
“Did you kill her?”
“I love her,” Warren said, taking a step back, keeping the gun trained on Will’s chest. “That’s what you don’t understand. I took her because I love her.”
“Evan just wanted the money, didn’t he? He pushed you to take Emma so he could cash in. You never wanted to do it. It was all his idea.”
Warren did not answer. He took another step toward the hall that led to the parking garage.
“Emma wasn’t his type, right?
He likes girls like Kayla, the ones who fight back.”
Warren kept inching toward the exit.
Will’s words came out in a rush. “I grew up in care, too, Warren. I know what it’s like on visiting days. Sitting there, waiting for someone to pick you. It’s not about having a place to live, it’s about having someone there who looks at you and really sees you and wants you to belong to them. I know you felt like that when you saw Emma, that you wanted to—”
Warren put his finger to his lips, the way you would quiet a child. He took another step, then another, and he was gone.
Will vaulted the counter. As he reached the hallway, he saw Warren shouldering open the back door. He pursued the man, bursting through the exit, rounding into the parking lot in time to see Warren slam into a bright red Mini.
Will jogged toward the car as Faith got out. Warren was obviously dazed, but adrenaline kicked in as he realized Will was closing in. He stepped on the bumper and jumped clear of the car, making a break for the street.
“It’s him!” Will screamed at Faith, bolting over the Mini. He ran out into the street, furiously searching for any sign of Warren. He spotted the man almost a block down the road and gave chase, his arms pumping, his legs screaming.
The afternoon heat was intense, nearly suffocating him as he ran after the younger man. Will gulped hot air and exhaust into his lungs. Sweat poured into his eyes. Will saw a red blur in his periphery and realized that Faith was in her car, driving against traffic. The Mini bumped furiously up and down as it careened over metal plates in the road.
Warren saw Faith, too. He veered off the main road, going down one of the side streets that led into Ansley Park. The younger man was fast, but Will’s stride was twice his. He managed to close the gap between them as he took the turn down the side road. Even when Warren ran into the woods, Will was able to make up time. He had always been a marathoner, not a sprinter. Long distances were his passion, endurance the only thing he could offer to any competition.
Warren was obviously the opposite. As he maneuvered through the thick woods, he started to lag, and the space between the two men got shorter and shorter. The man kept looking over his shoulder, his mouth gaping open as he gasped for breath. Will was inches from him, close enough to reach out and grab the collar of his shirt. Warren knew this, could obviously feel the heat on the back of his neck. He did the only thing he could. He stopped short and Will was going so fast that he practically flipped over Warren’s head as they both slammed into the ground.
The Will Trent Series 7-Book Bundle Page 73
