“Me?” Amanda’s mind couldn’t handle these sudden shifts. “Alone?”
“I told Cindy I’d go to the Five and check the license box for Lucy’s ID.”
“That’s very convenient.”
“Bubba Keller is one of your father’s poker buddies, right?”
Amanda wondered if she was making an allusion to the Klan. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Keller runs the jail.”
“And?”
“And, if you go to the jail and ask to speak with Juice, it’s no big deal. If you go to the jail with me and ask to speak to Juice, it gets back to your father.”
Amanda didn’t know what to say. She felt caught out, as if Evelyn was suddenly privy to all the lies Amanda had told Duke over the last week.
“It’s all right,” Evelyn said. “We all have to answer to someone.”
Evelyn didn’t seem to have to answer to anybody. Amanda said, “Let me get this straight: you want me to waltz into the jail and ask to speak to a prisoner who’s just been arrested for murder?”
Evelyn shrugged. “Why not?”
fifteen
Present Day
SUZANNA FORD
Zanna woke with a start. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t see. Her throat ached. She could barely swallow. She turned her head back and forth. A pillow cupped her head. She was lying down. She was in bed.
She tried to say “help,” but her lips would not move. The word got trapped in her mouth. She tried again.
“Help …”
She coughed. Her throat was bone dry. Her eyes throbbed in her head. Every movement sent pain shooting through her body. She was blindfolded. She didn’t know where she was. All she remembered was the man.
The man.
His weight shifted on the bed as he stood up. They weren’t in the hotel room anymore. The low rumble of traffic weaving through downtown had been replaced by two noises. The first one was a hum, like the white-noise machine they bought her grandmother for Christmas one year. It kept up a steady hushing sound.
Hush, little baby … don’t say a word …
The other noise was harder to place. It was so familiar, but every time she thought she had it pinned down, it would change. A whistling sound. Not like a train. Like air sucking through a tunnel. An underwater tunnel. A pneumatic tube.
There was no regularity to it. It only served to make her feel more out of body. More out of place. She didn’t even know if she was still in Atlanta. Or Georgia. Or America. She had no idea how long she’d been out. She had no sense of time or place. She knew nothing but the fear of anticipation.
The man started mumbling again. There was the sound of a faucet turning on. The splash of water in a metal bowl.
Zanna’s teeth started chattering. She wanted meth. She needed meth. Her body was starting to convulse. She was going to lose it. She was going to start screaming. Maybe she should scream. Maybe she should shout so loud that he had to kill her, because she had no doubt that’s what this man was going to do. It was only a matter of the hell he would put her through first.
Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. The Night Stalker. The Green River Killer.
Zanna had read every book Ann Rule had ever written, and when there wasn’t a book, there was a TV movie or an Internet site or a Dateline or a 20/20 or a 48 Hours, and she remembered every lurid detail about every sadistic freak who had ever kidnapped a woman for his own demonic pleasure.
And this man was a demon. There was no arguing with that. Zanna’s parents had given up on church when she was a kid, but she had lived in Roswell long enough to recognize a stray verse, the cadence of scripture. The man mumbled prayers and he beseeched God for His forgiveness, but Zanna knew that no one was listening except the Devil himself.
The water turned off. Two footsteps, and he was back on the bed. She felt the weight of him as he sat down beside her. More water dripping. Loud drops into the bowl.
Suzanna flinched as the warm, wet rag washed along her skin.
sixteen
Present Day
TUESDAY
Sara’s knees protested as she worked her way around the living room, dipping a washcloth into the bowl of vinegar and hot water, then washing down the baseboards section by maddening section.
Some women sat around watching TV when they were upset. Others went shopping or gorged themselves on chocolate. It was Sara’s lot in life that she cleaned. She blamed her mother. Cathy Linton’s response to any ailment was generally hard labor.
“Ugh.” Sara sat back on her heels. She wasn’t used to cleaning her own apartment. She was dripping sweat despite the low temperature on her thermostat. The climate was not being appreciated by anyone. Her greyhounds were huddled on the couch as if they were in the middle of an arctic winter.
Technically, Sara was supposed to be at work right now, but there was an unspoken rule in the ER that any person could leave if three really horrendous things happened to them during one shift. Today, Sara had been kicked in the leg by a homeless man, narrowly avoided being punched in the face by the mother of a boy who was so high he’d defecated on himself, and had her hand vomited on by one of the new interns. All before lunchtime.
If Sara’s supervisor hadn’t told her to leave, she was fairly certain she would’ve quit. Which was probably why Grady had the rule in the first place.
She finished the last section of baseboard and stood up. Her knees were wobbly from being bent for so long. Sara stretched out her hamstrings before she walked toward the kitchen with the rag and bowl. She dumped the vinegar solution down the drain, washed her hands, then picked up a dry rag and a can of Pledge to begin the next phase.
Sara looked at the clock on the microwave. Will still had not called. She imagined he was sitting on a toilet at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport waiting for a business traveler to tap his foot under the stall. Which meant there was plenty of time for him to dial her phone number. Maybe he was sending a message. Maybe he was trying to tell her that what they had was over.
Or maybe Sara was reading too much into his silence. She had never been good at playing games in relationships. She preferred to be direct. Which was at the very root of their problems.
What she desperately needed was a second opinion. Cathy Linton was at home, but Sara had a feeling her mother’s reaction would be similar to the one she had the time Sara was ill from eating an entire package of Oreos. Sure, she’d held back Sara’s hair and patted her back, but not without first demanding, “What the hell did you think would happen?”
Which was exactly what Sara kept asking herself. The worst part was that she was turning into one of those annoying people who got so caught up whining about a bad situation that they forgot they were actually capable of doing something about it.
Sara cleared off the mantel for dusting. She gently held the small cherrywood box that had belonged to her grandmother. The hinge was coming apart. Sara carefully opened the lid. Two wedding rings rested on the satin pillow.
Her husband had been a cop, which was basically where the similarity between Jeffrey and Will ended. Or maybe not. They were both funny. They had the same strong, moral character that Sara had always been attracted to. They were both drawn to duty. They were drawn to Sara.
That was one thing about Jeffrey that was completely different from Will. He had made no equivocations about wanting Sara. It was clear from the beginning that he was going to have her. He’d strayed once, but Jeffrey had dragged himself through broken glass to win her back. Not that Sara expected the same kind of dramatic gestures from Will, but she needed a stronger sign of commitment than just showing up in her bed every night.
Sara had fallen in love with her husband because of his beautiful handwriting. She’d seen his notes written in the margin of a book. The script was soft and flowing, unexpected for someone whose work required him to carry a gun and occasionally use his fists. Sara had never seen Will’s handwriting, except for his signature, which wa
s little more than a scrawl. He left her Post-it notes with smiley faces on them. A few times, he’d sent her a text with the same. Sara knew Will read the occasional book, but mostly stuck with audio recordings. As with many things, his dyslexia wasn’t something they talked about.
Could she love this man? Could she see herself being part of his life—or, at least the part of his life that he allowed her to see?
Sara wasn’t sure.
She closed the box and returned it to its proper place on the mantel.
Maybe Will didn’t want her. Maybe he was just having fun. He still kept his wedding ring in the front pocket of his pants. Sara had been pleased when he’d shown up with his finger bare, but she wasn’t stupid. Neither was Will, which was why it was puzzling that he kept the ring in an area where her hands usually ended up.
Sara hadn’t realized she was falling in love with Jeffrey when she’d opened that book and seen his writing. It was only later when she looked back that she realized what was happening. There were memories of Will that gave her heart that familiar tug. Watching him wash dishes at her mother’s kitchen sink. The way he listened so intently when she talked about her family. The look on his face the first time he’d really made love to her.
Sara leaned her head against the mantel. Given enough idleness and time, she could talk herself into either loving or hating the man. Which was why she wished he would just bite the bullet and call her.
The phone rang. Sara jumped. She felt her heart thumping as she walked toward the phone, which was equal parts stupid and foolish. She’d gone to medical school, for the love of God. She shouldn’t be so easily swayed by coincidence. “Hello?”
“How is my favorite student?” Pete Hanson asked. He was one of the top ME’s in the state. Sara had taken several courses from him when she was medical examiner for Grant County. “I hear you’re playing hooky from school.”
“Mental health day,” she admitted, trying to hide her disappointment that it wasn’t Will on the other end of the line. Then, because Pete never just called her out of the blue, she asked, “Is something wrong?”
“I have some news, my dear. It’s fairly private, so I’d prefer to deliver it in person.”
Sara glanced around the apartment, which was upside down. Pillows on the floor. Rugs rolled up. Dog toys scattered around. Enough fur to build a new greyhound. “Are you at City Hall East?”
“As always.”
“I’m on my way.”
Sara ended the call and tossed the receiver onto the couch. She checked her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was frizzed with sweat. Her skin was blotchy. She was wearing jeans that were torn at the knees and a Lady Rebels T-shirt that had looked great back when she was in high school. Will worked in the same building as Pete, but he was on the Southside all day, so there was no chance of running into him. Sara grabbed her keys and left the apartment. She took the steps down to the lobby, and didn’t stop until she saw her car.
There was another note tucked under the windshield wiper. Angie Trent had changed things up. Along with the familiar “Whore,” the woman had kissed the white notebook paper with her heavily lipsticked mouth.
Sara folded the note in two as she got into her car. She rolled down the window and tossed the paper into the trashcan by the automatic gate. Sara supposed Angie parked on the street and walked under the gate to put these notes on her car. Up until a few years ago, Angie had been a cop. Apparently, she had been one of the best undercover agents that the Vice Squad had ever had. Like many former police officers, she didn’t worry about petty crimes such as trespassing and terroristic threats.
A horn beeped behind her. Sara hadn’t noticed the gate go up. She waved her hand in apology, pulling out into the street. If thinking about Will was a futile endeavor, thinking about his wife was a lesson in self-hatred. There was a reason Angie had so easily passed for a high-class call girl. She was tall and curvy and had that secret pheromone that let every interested man—or woman, if the stories were true—know that she was available. Which was why Will was going to be wearing a condom until his final blood test came back.
That was, if they lasted that long.
City Hall East was less than a mile from Sara’s apartment. Housed in the old Sears department store building on Ponce de Leon Avenue, the space was as sprawling as it was dilapidated. The metal windows and cracked brickwork had been pristine at one time, but the city hadn’t the money to maintain such a vast structure. It was one of the largest buildings by volume in the southeastern United States, which only partially explained why half the complex stood vacant.
Will’s office was on one of the upper floors that had been taken over by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The fact that Sara had never seen his office was one of the many things she tried to push from her mind as she navigated the large loop down to the underground parking lot.
Despite the mild climate, the parking garage was not as cool as it should’ve been, considering it was belowground. The morgue was even more subterranean, but like the garage, was mildly warmer than expected. There must’ve been something wrong with the air circulation, or maybe the building was so old that it was doing its best to force the inhabitants to let it go.
Sara took the cracked concrete stairs down to the basement. She could smell the familiar odors of the morgue, the caustic products that were used to clean the floors and the chemicals used to disinfect the bodies. Back in Grant County, Sara had taken the part-time job of medical examiner to help buy out her retiring partner at the children’s clinic. The work in the morgue was sometimes tedious, but generally a lot more fascinating than the tummy aches and sniffles she treated at the clinic. That Grady Hospital was only marginally more challenging was yet another thought she pushed from her mind.
Pete Hanson’s office was adjacent to the morgue. Sara could see him through the open door. He was bent over his desk, which was piled high with papers. His filing system wasn’t one Sara would’ve chosen, but many times, she’d seen Pete pluck exactly what he needed from a random pile.
She knocked on the door as she walked into the office. Her hand stopped midair. He’d lost weight recently. Too much weight.
“Sara.” He smiled at her, showing yellow teeth. Pete was an aging hippie who refused to give up his long braided hair, even though there was considerably less of it. He favored loud Hawaiian shirts and liked to listen to the Grateful Dead while he performed procedures. As medical examiners went, he was fairly typical, which was to say the bottled specimen of an eighteen-year-old victim’s heart that he kept on a shelf above his desk was only in aid of his favorite joke.
She set it up for him. “How are you doing, Pete?”
Instead of telling her that he had the heart of an eighteen-year-old, Pete frowned. “Thanks for coming by, Sara.” He indicated an empty chair. Pete had obviously prepared for her. The papers and charts that were normally piled on the chair had been placed on the floor.
Sara sat down. “What’s wrong?”
He turned back to his computer and tapped the space bar on his keyboard. A digital radiograph was on the screen. The frontal chest X-ray showed a large white mass in the middle portion of the left lung. Sara looked at the file name at the top. Peter Wayne Hanson.
“SCLC,” he told her. Small-cell lung cancer, the deadliest kind.
Sara felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “The new protocol—”
“Doesn’t work for me.” He clicked the file closed. “It’s already metastasized to my brain and liver.”
Sara delivered bad news to her patients on a daily basis. She seldom found herself on the other end. “Oh, Pete, I’m so sorry.”
“Well, it’s not the best way to go, but it beats slipping in the tub.” He sat back in his chair. She saw it clearly now—the gauntness in his cheeks, the sallow look in his eyes. He indicated the jar on the shelf. “So much for my eighteen-year-old heart.”
Sara laughed at the inappropriate humor. Pete was a great doctor, but his be
st trait was his generosity. He was the most patient and giving teacher Sara had ever had. He was delighted when a student managed to pick up on a detail he’d missed—a rare trait among physicians.
He said, “At the very least, it’s given me a wonderful excuse to take up smoking again.” He mimicked puffing a cigarette. “Unfiltered Camels. My second wife hated them. You’ve met Deena, right?”
“I only know her by reputation.” Dr. Coolidge ran the forensics lab at GBI headquarters. “Do you have any plans?”
“You mean a bucket list?” He shook his head. “I’ve seen the world—at least the parts of it I want to see. I’d rather make myself as useful as I can with what little time I have left. Maybe plant some trees at my farm that my great-grandchildren will climb on. Spend time with my friends. I hope that includes you.”
Sara willed herself not to tear up. She looked down at the cracked tile floor. There was so much asbestos in the building, she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Pete’s cancer was down to more than cigarettes. She glanced at the pile of papers by the chair. A manila envelope was on top of the pile, faded red tape sealing it closed. The evidence was old. Deep creases maintained the accordion fold of the envelope. The areas that weren’t yellowed with age were smeared black.
Pete followed her gaze. “Old case.”
Sara noted the date, which was over thirty years ago. “Very old case.”
“We were lucky they found it in evidence, though I’m not sure if we’ll need it after all.” He picked up the envelope and put it on his desk. The black dust transferred to his fingers. “The city used to purge closed cases every five years. We did some crazy stuff back then.”
Sara could tell the case meant something to him. She knew the feeling. There were still victims she’d worked on back in Grant County that would haunt her memories until the day she died.
Pete asked, “How are things at Grady?”
“Oh, you know.” Sara didn’t know what to say. She was called “bitch” so often that she turned her head whenever anyone yelled the word. “Swimming pools and movie stars.”
The Will Trent Series 7-Book Bundle Page 230
