Finally, the inevitable.
Lucy’s tongue swelled in her mouth. Her vision blurred. It was useless. There was no air left for her lungs. No oxygen going to her brain. She felt herself start to give, her muscles releasing. The back of her head hit pavement. She stared up. The sky was impossibly black, pinholes of stars barely visible. The man stared down at her, the same concerned look in his eyes.
Only this time, he was smiling.
two
Present Day
MONDAY
Will Trent had never been alone in someone else’s home before unless that person was dead. As with many things in his life, he was aware that this was a trait he shared with a lot of serial killers. Fortunately, Will was an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, so the empty bathrooms he searched and the deserted bedrooms he tossed all fell under the category of intrusions for the greater good.
This revelation didn’t help ease his mind as he walked through Sara Linton’s apartment. Will had to keep telling himself he had a legitimate reason to be here. Sara had asked him to feed and walk the dogs while she worked an extra shift at the hospital. Barring that, they were hardly strangers. They’d known each other for almost a full year before they’d finally gotten together two weeks ago. Will had spent every night here since. Even before that, he’d met Sara’s parents. He’d dined at her family’s table. Given all of this familiarity, his feelings of trespass didn’t really add up.
Which still didn’t stop him from feeling like a stalker.
Maybe this came from the way Will felt being alone here. He was pretty sure that he was obsessed with Sara Linton. He wanted to know everything about her. And while he wasn’t seized by the urge to take off his clothes and roll around naked on her bed—at least, not without Sara there with him—he felt the compulsion to look at all the things on her shelves and in her drawers. He wanted to flip through the photo albums she kept in a box in her bedroom closet. He wanted to peruse her books and scroll through her iTunes collection.
Not that he would act on these impulses. Unlike most serial killers, Will was aware that any one of these things crossed the line into creepy. But the desire left him feeling unsettled all the same.
He looped the dogs’ leashes around the hook inside the hall closet. Sara’s two greyhounds were piled onto the living room couch. A ray of sun bleached their fawn-colored fur. The loft was a penthouse corner unit, which was one of the perks of being a pediatrician instead of a lowly civil servant. The L-shaped wall of windows gave a stellar view of downtown Atlanta. The Bank of America Plaza that looked like the builders had forgotten to remove the scaffolding up top. The steplike Georgia Pacific tower that was built over the movie theater where Gone with the Wind premiered. The tiny Equitable building sitting like a black granite paperweight beside the pencil cup of the Westin Peachtree Plaza.
Atlanta was a small town in the scheme of things—the population inside the city limits was slightly north of five hundred thousand. Bump that out to the metro area and it was closer to six million. The city was a Mecca on the Piedmont, the center of business in the Southeast. Over sixty languages were spoken here. There were more hotel rooms than residents, more office spaces than people. Three hundred murders a year. Eleven hundred reported rapes. Nearly thirteen thousand aggravated assault charges.
More like a small town with a chip on its shoulder.
Will made his way to the kitchen and picked up the water bowls from the floor. The thought of going home to his small house made him feel lonely, which was strange considering Will had grown up wanting to be nothing but alone. There was more to his life than Sara Linton. He was a grown man. He had a job. He had his own dog to look after. He had a home. He’d even been married before. Technically, he was still married, though that hadn’t mattered much until recently.
Will was eight years old when the cops dropped off Angie Polaski at the Atlanta Children’s Home. She was eleven, and a girl, which meant she stood a good chance of being adopted, but Angie was mouthy and wild and no one wanted her. No one wanted Will, either. He’d spent most of his early life being checked in and out of the children’s home like a dog-eared library book. Somehow, Angie made all of it more bearable. Except for the times when she was making it unbearable.
Their marriage had taken place two years ago. It had been perpetrated on a double dog dare, which might explain why neither of them took it very seriously. Angie had lasted less than a week. Two days after the civil ceremony, Will woke up to find her clothes gone, the house empty. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t hurt. Actually, he was enormously relieved that it had happened sooner rather than later. Angie disappeared on him all the time. Will knew that she would be back. She always came back.
Only, this time, for the first time, something had happened while Angie was away. There was Sara. There was the way she breathed in Will’s ear. There was the way she traced her fingers down his spine. There was her taste. Her smell. There were all these things Will had never even noticed with Angie.
He clicked his tongue as he put down the water bowls. The dogs stayed on the couch, unimpressed.
Will’s Glock was on the counter beside his suit jacket. He clipped the holster onto his belt. He checked the time on the stove as he pulled on his jacket. Sara’s shift ended in five minutes, which meant it was at least ten minutes past time for Will to leave. She would probably call him when she got home. He would tell her he was doing paperwork or about to get on the treadmill or some other lie that made it clear he hadn’t been sitting around waiting for her to call, and then he would run back over here like Julie Andrews prancing up that hill in The Sound of Music.
He was heading to the front door when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Will recognized his boss’s number. For a split second, he considered sending the call to voicemail, but he knew from experience that Amanda would not be easily deterred.
He answered, “Trent.”
“Where are you?”
For some reason, he found the question intrusive. “Why?”
Amanda gave a weary sigh. He could hear noises on her end—the low murmur of a crowd, a repetitive clicking sound. “Just answer me, Will.”
“I’m at Sara’s.” She didn’t respond, so he asked, “Do you need me?”
“No, I most certainly do not. You’re still on airport duty until further notice. Do you understand me? Nothing else.”
He stared at the phone for a moment, then put it back to his ear. “All right.”
Abruptly, she ended the call. Will had the distinct feeling she would’ve slammed down the receiver if such a thing were possible on a cell phone.
Instead of leaving, he stood in the foyer, trying to figure out what had just happened. Will replayed the conversation in his head. No obvious explanation jumped out. Will was used to his boss being obtuse. Anger was hardly a new emotion. But while Amanda had certainly hung up on him before, Will couldn’t fathom why she cared where he was at the moment. Actually, he was surprised that she was even talking to him. He hadn’t heard her voice in two weeks.
Deputy Director Amanda Wagner was an old-timer, from that group of cops who easily bent the rules to make a case but stuck to the manual when it came to the dress code. The GBI required all non-undercover agents to keep their hair half an inch off their collar. Two weeks ago, Amanda had actually slapped a ruler to the back of Will’s neck, and when he hadn’t taken the hint, she’d transferred him to airport duty, which required Will to hang out in various men’s toilets, waiting for someone to sexually proposition him.
Will’s mistake was mentioning the ruler to Sara. He’d told her the story as a sort of joke as well as an explanation for why he needed to run up the street to the barbershop before they went to dinner. Sara hadn’t told Will not to get his hair cut. She was so much smarter than that. She’d told him she liked his hair the length that it was. She’d told him that it looked good on him. She’d stroked the back of his neck while she said this. And then she had suggested that inste
ad of going to the barber, they go into the bedroom and do something so filthy that Will had experienced a few seconds of hysterical blindness.
Which was why he was looking at spending the rest of his career doing a Mr. Bojangles under the bathroom stall of every men’s toilet in the busiest passenger airport in the world.
But it didn’t explain why Amanda had felt the need to locate Will on this particular day at this particular time.
Or the sound of people gathered in the background. Or the familiar clicking noise.
Will went back into the living room. The dogs shifted on the couch, but Will didn’t sit down. He picked up the remote and turned on the television. A basketball game was on. He flipped to the local station. Monica Pearson, the Channel 2 anchor, was sitting behind her news desk. She was doing a story on the Beltline, the new transportation system that was hated by everyone in Atlanta except for the politicians. Will’s finger was on the power button when the story changed. Breaking news. The image of a young woman appeared over Pearson’s shoulder. Will turned up the volume as the story was tossed to a live news conference.
What he saw made him sit down.
Amanda Wagner stood at a wooden podium. A handful of microphones were in front of her. She was waiting for silence. Will heard the familiar sounds: cameras clicking over the low murmur of the crowd.
He’d seen his boss do hundreds of news conferences. Usually, Will was in the back of the room, trying to stay off camera, while Amanda basked in the glow of undivided attention. She loved being in charge. She lived to control the slow trickle of information that fed the media. Except for now. Will studied her face as the camera closed in. She looked tired. More than that—she looked worried.
She said, “The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released an Alert Bulletin on Ashleigh Renee Snyder. The nineteen-year-old female was reported missing at approximately three-fifteen this afternoon.” Amanda paused, giving the newspaper journalists time to scribble down the description. “Ashleigh lives in the Techwood area and is a sophomore at the Georgia Institute of Technology.”
Amanda said more, but Will tuned out the words. He watched her mouth move. He saw her point to different reporters. Their questions were long. Her answers were brief. She didn’t put up with much. There was none of her usual bantering back and forth. Finally, Amanda left the podium. Monica Pearson returned. The photo of the missing girl was back over her shoulder. Blonde, pretty, thin.
Familiar.
Will took his phone out of his pocket. He touched his thumb to the speed dial for Amanda, but didn’t press the number.
By state law, the GBI had to be asked by the local police before they could take over a case. One of the rare exceptions was with kidnappings, where timing was critical and abductors could quickly cross county and state lines. An Alert Bulletin would mobilize all of the GBI field offices. Agents would be called back in. Any collected evidence would be given top priority at the labs. All the agency’s resources would be directed toward this one case.
Every resource but Will.
He probably shouldn’t read anything into this. It was just another way Amanda had found to punish him. She was still mad about Will’s hair. She was petty enough to make a point of keeping him off a case. That was all it was. Will had worked kidnappings before. They were awful cases. They seldom ended well. Still, every cop wanted to work one. The ticking clock. The tension. The chase. The adrenaline jolt was part of the reason they joined in the first place.
And Amanda was punishing Will by keeping him off the case.
Techwood.
A student.
Will turned off the TV. He felt a drop of sweat slide down his back. His mind couldn’t settle on any one particular thought. Finally, he shook his head to clear it. That was when he noticed the time on the cable box. Sara’s shift had ended twelve minutes ago.
“Crap.” Will had to move the dogs before he could stand up. He headed to the front door. Abel Conford, Sara’s neighbor, was in the hallway waiting for the elevator.
“Good after—”
Will ducked into the stairwell. He took the steps two at a time, eager to leave so Sara wouldn’t think he’d been mooning over her. She lived a few blocks from the hospital. She would be here any minute.
She was actually already here.
Will saw her sitting in her BMW as soon as he opened the lobby door. For a foolish split second, he considered darting into the trees. Then he realized that Sara had already seen his car. His ’79 Porsche was parked nose-out beside her brand-new SUV. Will couldn’t open his door without hitting Sara’s.
He muttered under his breath as he plastered a smile onto his face. Sara didn’t return it. She was just sitting there gripping the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. He walked toward the car. The sun was bright enough to turn her windshield into a mirror, so he didn’t notice until he was right up on her that she had tears in her eyes.
Instantly, his issue with Amanda ceased to matter. Will pulled the handle on the door. Sara unlocked it from the inside.
He asked, “You okay?”
“Yep.” She turned around to face him, propping her feet on the running board. “Bad day at work.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really, but thank you.” She traced her fingers along the side of his face, tucked his hair behind his ear.
Will leaned in closer. All he could do was look at her. Sara’s auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The sunlight brought out the intense green of her eyes. She was wearing her hospital scrubs. There were a few drops of dried blood on the sleeve. She had a series of numbers scribbled on the back of her hand. Blue ink on milky white skin. All the patient charts at Grady were on digital tablets. Sara used the back of her hand to calculate dosages for patients. Knowing this last week would’ve saved Will two sleepless nights of insane jealousy, but he wasn’t one to quibble.
She asked, “Were the dogs okay?”
“They did all the things dogs are supposed to do.”
“Thank you for taking care of them.” Sara rested her hands on his shoulders. Will felt a familiar stirring. It was like there was an invisible string between them. The slightest tug and he was incapacitated.
She stroked the back of his neck. “Tell me about your day.”
“Boring and sad,” he answered, which was mostly true. “Some old guy told me I have a nice package.”
She gave a sly smile. “Can’t arrest him for being honest.”
“He was pleasuring himself when he said it.”
“That sounds like something fun to try.”
Will felt the string go taut. He kissed her. Sara’s lips were soft. They tasted like peppermint from the lip balm she used. Her fingernails scratched into his hair. He leaned in closer. And then everything stopped when the front door to the building banged open. Abel Conford gave them a scowl as he stomped toward his Mercedes.
Will had to clear his throat before he could ask Sara, “Are you sure you don’t want some time to yourself?”
She adjusted the knot in his tie. “I want to go for a walk with you, and then I want to eat an entire pizza with you, and then I want to spend the rest of the night with you.”
Will looked down at his watch. “I think I can fit that in.”
Sara slid out of the car and locked the door. Will tucked the key fob into his pocket. The plastic hit the familiar cold metal of his wedding ring. Will had taken off the ring two weeks ago, but for reasons he couldn’t begin to decipher, that was as far as he’d gotten.
Sara took his hand as they walked down the sidewalk. Atlanta was at its most spectacular in late March, and today was no exception. A light breeze cooled the air. Every yard was packed with flowers. The oppressive heat of the summer months seemed like an old wives’ tale. The sun cut through the swaying trees, lighting up Sara’s face. Her tears had dried, but Will could see that she was still troubled about what had happened at the hospital.
He asked, “Sure you’re okay?�
�
Instead of answering, Sara wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She was a few inches shorter than Will, which meant she fit like a puzzle piece under his arm. He felt her hand slip up under his suit jacket. She hooked her thumb over the top of his belt, just shy of his Glock. They passed the usual foot traffic in the neighborhood—joggers, occasional couples, men pushing baby strollers. Women walking dogs. Most of them were on their cell phones, even the runners.
Sara finally spoke. “I lied to you.”
He glanced down at her. “About what?”
“I didn’t pull an extra shift at the hospital. I stayed around because …” Her voice trailed off. She looked out into the street. “Because no one else was there.”
Will didn’t know what else to say but, “Okay.”
Her shoulders went up as she took a deep breath. “An eight-year-old boy was brought in around lunchtime.” Sara was the pediatric attending in Grady’s ER. She saw a lot of kids in bad shape. “He OD’d on his grandmother’s blood pressure meds. He took half her ninety-day supply. It was hopeless.”
Will kept silent, giving her time.
“His heart rate was less than forty when they brought him in. We lavaged him. We ran through the glucagon. Maxed out on dopamine, epinephrine.” Her voice got softer with each word. “There was nothing else I could do. I called the cardiologist to put in a pacemaker, but …” Sara shook her head again. “We had to let him go. We ended up shipping him to the ICU.”
Will saw a black Monte Carlo coasting down the street. The windows were down. Rap music shook the air.
Sara said, “I couldn’t leave him alone.”
His attention moved away from the car. “Weren’t the nurses there?”
“The ward was already packed.” Again, she shook her head. “His grandmother wouldn’t come to the hospital. Mom’s in jail. Dad’s unknown. No other relatives. He wasn’t conscious. He didn’t even know I was there.” She paused a moment. “It took him four hours to die. His hands were already cold when we moved him upstairs.” She stared down at the sidewalk. “Jacob. His name was Jacob.”
The Will Trent Series 7-Book Bundle Page 208
