Will got to the end of the street, but there was no Mini. He turned down the next street, and nearly smacked into the skier. She made a motion with her hand, indicating he should roll down the window.
He put on a pleasant smile. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Right there,” she said, pointing to the cottage on the corner. This particular model had a lawn jockey outside, its white face freshly painted. Two large cardboard boxes were by the mailbox, each labeled in black marker. “I guess you’re not taking those back in this tiny car of yours.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Judith said her son was going to bring the truck later on today.” She glanced up at the sky. “Better not be too late.”
“I’m sure it won’t be long,” Will told the skier. She didn’t seem as keen to continue the conversation this time. She tossed him a wave as she continued her walk down the street.
Will looked at the boxes in front of Judith and Henry Coldfield’s house, reminded of the trash Jacquelyn Zabel had set outside her mother’s place. Though the cardboard boxes and black trash bags Jackie had put on the curb weren’t meant to be trash. Charlie Reed had said he’d shooed off a Goodwill truck just before Will and Faith had arrived. Had he meant Goodwill specifically, or was he using the word as a catchall, the way people always called plastic bandages Band-Aids and tissues Kleenexes?
All along, they had been looking for a physical link between the women, one thing that tied them all together. Had Will just stumbled onto it?
The front door to the house opened and Judith came out, walking cautiously as she tried to navigate her way down the two porch stairs with a large box in her hands. Will got out of the car and rushed over, catching the box before she dropped it.
“Thank you,” she told him. She was out of breath, her cheeks flushed. “I’ve been trying to get this stuff out all morning and Henry’s been no help whatsoever.” She walked toward the curb. “Just put it here by the others. Tom’s supposed to be by later to pick them up.”
Will set the box down on the ground. “How long have you volunteered at the shelter?”
“Oh …” She seemed to think about it as she walked back toward the house. “I don’t know. Since we moved here. I guess that’s a couple of years now. Goodness, how time flies.”
“Faith and I saw a brochure the other day when we were at the shelter. It had a list of corporate sponsors on it.”
“They want to get their money’s worth. They’re not being charitable because it’s the right thing to do. It’s public relations for them.”
“There was a logo for a bank on the one we saw.” Even now, he recalled the image of the four-point deer at the bottom of the pamphlet.
“Oh, yes. Buckhead Holdings. They donate the most money, which, between you and me, isn’t nearly enough.”
Will felt a bead of sweat roll down his back. Olivia Tanner was the community relations director for Buckhead Holdings. “What about a law firm?” he asked. “Does anyone do pro bono work for the shelter?”
Judith opened the front door. “There are a couple of firms who help out. We’re a women’s only shelter, you know. Lots of the women need help filing divorce papers, getting restraining orders. Some of them are in trouble with the law. It’s all very sad.”
“Bandle and Brinks?” Will asked, giving her the name of Anna Lindsey’s law firm.
“Yes,” Judith said, smiling. “They help out quite a lot.”
“Do you know a woman named Anna Lindsey?”
She shook her head as she went into the house. “Was she staying in the shelter? I’m ashamed to say there are so many that I often don’t have the time to speak to them individually.”
Will followed her inside, glancing around. The layout was exactly as he would have guessed from the street. There was a large living room that looked onto a screen porch and the lake. The kitchen was on the side of the house that had the garage, and the other side held the bedrooms. All the doors leading off the hallway were closed. The startling thing was that it looked as if an Easter egg had exploded inside the house. Decorations were everywhere. There were bunnies in pastel suits sitting on every available surface. Baskets with plastic eggs lying in silky green grass were scattered along the floor.
Will said, “Easter.”
Judith beamed. “It’s my second favorite time of the year.”
Will loosened his tie, feeling a sweat come all over him. “Why is that?”
“The Resurrection. The rebirth of our Lord. The cleansing of all our sins. Forgiveness is a powerful, transformative gift. I see that at the shelter every day. Those poor, broken women. They want redemption. They don’t realize it’s not something that can just be given. Forgiveness has to be earned.”
“Do they all earn it?”
“Considering your job, I think you know the answer to that better than I do.”
“Some women aren’t worthy?”
She stopped smiling. “People like to think that we’ve moved on from biblical times, but we still live in a society where women are cast out, don’t we?”
“Like trash?”
“That’s a bit harsh, but we all make our choices.”
Will felt more beads of sweat roll down his back. “Have you always loved Easter?”
She straightened a bow tie on one of the rabbits. “I suppose part of it’s because Henry’s work only gave him off Easter and Christmas. It was always such a special time for us. Don’t you love being with family?”
He asked, “Is Henry home?”
“Not at the moment.” She turned her watch around on her wrist. “He’s always late. He loses track of time so easily. We were supposed to go to the community center after Tom picked up the kids.”
“Does Henry work at the shelter?”
“Oh, no.” She gave a small laugh as she walked into her kitchen. “Henry’s much too busy enjoying his retirement. Tom’s good about helping out, though. He complains, but he’s a good boy.”
Will remembered Tom had been trying to fix a lawnmower when they’d found him at the charity shop. “Does he mostly work in the store?”
“Lord, no, he hates working in the store.”
“So, what does he do?”
She picked up a sponge and wiped the counter. “A little bit of everything.”
“Like what?”
She stopped wiping. “If a woman needs legal help, he tracks down one of the lawyers, or if one of the kids makes a spill, he grabs a mop.” She smiled proudly. “I told you, he’s a good boy.”
“Sounds like it,” Will agreed. “What else does he do?”
“Oh, this and that.” She paused, thinking it through. “He coordinates the donations. He’s very good on the phone. If it sounds like he’s talking to someone who might give a bit more, he’ll drive the truck over to pick up their stuff, and nine times out of ten, he comes back with a nice check in addition. I think he likes getting out and talking to people. All he does at the airport is stare at blips on a screen all day. Would you like some iced water? Lemonade?”
“No, thank you,” he answered. “What about Jacquelyn Zabel? Have you heard her name before?”
“That strikes a bell, but I’m not sure why. It’s a very unusual name.”
“How about Pauline McGhee? Or maybe Pauline Seward?”
She smiled, putting her hand over her mouth. “No.”
Will forced himself to slow things down. The first rule of interviewing was to be calm, because it was hard to spot whether or not someone else was tense when you were tense yourself. Judith had gone still when he’d asked the last question, so he repeated it. “Pauline McGhee or Pauline Seward?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“How often does Tom pick up donations?”
Judith’s voice took on a falsely cheerful tone. “You know, I’m not sure. I’ve got my calendar in here somewhere. I usually mark the dates.” She opened one of the kitchen drawers and started to rummage around. She was visibly nervous, and he knew she
had opened the drawer to give herself something to do other than look him in the eye. She chattered on, telling Will, “Tom is so good about giving his time. He’s very involved in the youth group at his church. The whole family volunteers at the soup kitchen once a month.”
Will didn’t let her get sidetracked. “Does he go out alone to pick up donations?”
“Unless there’s a couch or something large.” She closed the drawer and opened another. “I have no idea where my calendar is. All those years I wanted my husband home with me, and now he drives me crazy putting things up where they don’t belong.”
Will glanced out the front window, wondering what was keeping Faith. “The children are here?”
She opened another drawer. “Napping in the back.”
“Tom said he would meet me here. Why didn’t he tell us he was at the crime scene where your car hit Anna Lindsey?”
“What?” She looked momentarily confused, but told him, “Well, I called Tom to come see Henry. I thought he was having a heart attack, that Tom would want to be there, that—”
“But Tom didn’t tell us he was there,” Will repeated. “And neither did you.”
“It didn’t …” She waved her hand, dismissing it. “He wanted to be with his father.”
“These women who were abducted were cautious women. They wouldn’t open the door to just anybody. It would have to have been someone they trusted. Somebody they knew was coming.”
She stopped looking for the calendar. Her face showed her thoughts as clear as a picture: She knew something was horribly wrong.
Will asked, “Where is your son, Mrs. Coldfield?”
Tears welled into her eyes. “Why are you asking all these questions about Tom?”
“He was supposed to meet me here.”
Her voice was almost a whisper. “He said he had to go home. I don’t understand …”
Will realized something then—something Faith had said on the phone. She’d already talked to Tom Coldfield. The reason she wasn’t here yet was because Tom had sent her to the wrong house.
Will made his voice deadly serious. “Mrs. Coldfield, I need to know where Tom is right now.”
She put her hand to her mouth, tears spilling from her eyes.
There was a phone on the wall. Will snatched the receiver off the hook. He dialed in Faith’s cell phone number, but his finger didn’t make it to the last digit. There was a searing pain in his back, the worst muscle spasm he’d ever had in his life. Will put his hand to his shoulder, his fingers feeling for a knot, but all he felt was cold, sharp metal. He looked down to find the bloody tip of what had to be a very large knife sticking out of his chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
—
Faith sat outside Thomas Coldfield’s house, her cell phone to her ear as she listened to Will’s cell ring. He’d said he was two minutes away, but it was looking more like ten. The call went to voicemail. Will was probably lost, driving around in circles, looking for her car because he was too pigheaded to ask for help. If she was in a better mood, she’d go out and look for him, but she was scared of what she’d say to her partner if she had him alone.
Every time she thought about Will lying to her, going to talk to Jake Berman behind her back, she had to squeeze the steering wheel to keep from punching a hole into the dashboard of the car. They couldn’t go on like this—not with Faith being a liability. If he thought she couldn’t handle herself in the field, then there was no reason for them to be together anymore. She could put up with a lot of Will’s crazy shit, but she had to have his trust or this would never work out. It wasn’t as if Will didn’t have his own liabilities. For instance, not knowing the difference between something as freaking simple as left and right.
Faith checked the time again. She would give Will another five minutes before going into the house.
The doctor hadn’t given her good news, though Faith had foolishly been expecting it. From the minute she’d made the appointment with Delia Wallace, her health had improved dramatically. She hadn’t woken up in a cold sweat this morning. Her blood sugar was high, but not off the chart. Her mind felt sharp, focused. And then Delia Wallace had sent it all crashing down.
Sara had ordered some kind of test at the hospital that showed Faith’s blood sugar pattern over the last few weeks. The results had not been good. Faith was going to have to meet with a dietitian. Dr. Wallace had told her she was going to have to plan out every meal, every snack and every single moment of her life until she died—which she might do prematurely anyway, because her blood sugar was fluctuating so wildly that Dr. Wallace had told Faith the best thing she could do was take a couple of weeks off from work and focus on educating herself about the care and maintenance of a diabetic.
She loved when doctors said things like that, as if taking two weeks off from work was something that could be achieved with the snap of a finger. Maybe Faith could go to Hawaii or Fiji. She could call up Oprah Winfrey and ask for the name of her personal chef.
Fortunately, there was some good news with the bad. Faith had seen her baby. Well, not really seen it—the child was little more than a speck right now—but she had listened to his heartbeat, watched the ultrasound and seen the gentle up and down of the tiny blob inside her, and even though Delia Wallace had insisted that it wasn’t quite time for such things, Faith would have sworn that she saw a tiny little hand.
Faith dialed in Will’s cell phone number again. It rang over into voicemail almost immediately. She wondered if his phone had finally given up the ghost. Why he would not get a new one was beyond her. Maybe there was some sort of emotional attachment he had to the thing.
Either way, he was holding her up. She opened the door and got out of the car. Tom Coldfield lived only ten minutes from where his parents had met with their unfortunate accident. His house was in the middle of nowhere, the closest neighbor barely within walking distance. The home itself had that boxlike feel of modern suburban architecture. Faith preferred her own ranch house, with its sloping floorboards and hideous fake paneling in the family room.
Every year when she got her tax rebate, she told herself she was going to have something done to the paneling, and every year Jeremy magically managed to need something around the same time as the check came in. Once, she thought she was going to get away clean, but the little scamp had broken his arm while trying to prove to his friends that he could jump his skateboard off the roof of the house and onto a mattress they had found in the woods.
She put her hand to her stomach. That paneling was going to be up until she died.
Faith fished in her purse for her ID as she walked to the front door. She was wearing heels and one of her nicest dresses, because for some reason this morning it had seemed important to look respectable in front of Delia Wallace—a silly affectation, since Faith had spent their entire time together in a thin paper gown.
She turned around, looking out into the empty street. Still no sign of her partner. She didn’t understand what was taking him so long. Tom had told Faith on the phone that he’d already given Will directions to his house. Even taking into account the left/right thing, Will was good at finding his way. He should be here by now. Regardless, he should definitely be answering his phone. Maybe Angie had called again. The way Faith was feeling toward Will right now, she hoped his wife was being every bit her pleasant self.
Faith rang the doorbell and waited much too long for the door to be answered, considering she had been parked in the driveway for nearly a quarter of an hour.
“Hi.” The woman who came to the door was thin and angular, but not pretty by any stretch. She gave Faith an awkward, forced smile. Her blonde hair was lank across her forehead, the dark roots growing in. She had that run-down look you get when you have small children.
“I’m Special Agent Faith Mitchell,” Faith said, holding up her badge.
“Darla Coldfield.” The woman’s voice was one of those breathy whispers that implied delicacy. She picked at the collar o
f the purple blouse she was wearing. Faith could see the edge was worn, threads sticking up where she had picked open the seam.
“Tom said he’d meet me here.”
“He should be home any second.” The woman seemed to realize she was blocking the doorway. She stepped aside. “Won’t you come in?”
Faith walked into the foyer, which was lined with black and white tile. She saw that the tile went all the way through to the back of the house, into the kitchen and family room. Even the dining room and study on either side of the front door were tiled.
Still, she made the perfunctory noise about the woman having a lovely home, her own footsteps echoing in her ears as they made their way to the family room. The furnishings were more masculine than Faith would have guessed. There was a brown leather couch and matching recliner. The rug on the floor was black with not a speck of dirt or fuzz showing. There were no toys, which was odd considering the Coldfields had two children. Maybe they weren’t allowed in the room. She wondered where they spent their time. The part of the house she had seen was hot and uncomfortable even though it was cool outside. Faith felt her skin on the edge of breaking into a sweat. Sun was streaming through the windows, yet every light in the place was on.
Darla asked, “Would you like some tea?”
Faith was looking at her watch again, wondering about Will. “Sure.”
“Sweet? Unsweet?”
Faith’s answer was not as automatic as it should have been. “Unsweet. Have you lived here long?”
“Eight years.”
The place looked about as lived-in as a vacant warehouse. “You have two kids?”
“A boy and a girl.” She smiled uncertainly. “Do you have a partner?”
The question seemed strange, given the conversation. “I have a son.”
She smiled, putting her hand to her mouth. She had probably picked up the gesture from her mother-in-law. “No, I meant someone you work with.”
“Yes.” Faith looked at the family photos on the mantel. They were taken from the same series as the one Judith Coldfield had shown them at the shelter. “Maybe you could call Tom and see what’s keeping him?”
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