The Silent Wife: From the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping new crime thriller (Will Trent Series, Book 10)

by Karin Slaughter

  “Hold on a minute.” The practiced calm had left Ingle’s tone. “Why would anybody wanna paralyze this poor little girl?”

  Sara knew exactly why, because she had seen this kind of damage before. “So she couldn’t fight back while he raped her.”

  Grant County—Tuesday

  5

  Jeffrey walked down the main college drive toward the front gates. Rain blew sideways under his umbrella. The sky had broken open while he was in the dean’s office receiving a lecture on optics. Kevin Blake was a walking encyclopedia of corporate double-speak, whether he was taking a 10,000-foot view, steering the ship, thinking outside the box, or advocating a holistic approach.

  Translated into English, the dean wanted to release a rah-rah, go-team statement about moving past the tragic accident in the woods and helping the student body embark on a healing journey. Jeffrey had made it clear that he wasn’t yet prepared to make that journey. He had asked for the week. Blake had given him until the end of the day. There was not much else to say after that. Jeffrey’s choices were limited. He could walk in the rain to cool down or he could throw Blake out the window.

  Walking had narrowly won out, despite the deluge that had started pouring down while they were back in the woods waiting for the ambulance. Now, Jeffrey was halfway to the gates and his socks were already soaked through. The heavy police-issue umbrella was wearing a divot into his shoulder. He gripped tight to the handle. Four hours had passed since that moment in the woods, and his hands still could not shake the jarring memory of bone breaking inside the girl’s chest. Jeffrey wasn’t used to taking orders, but everything Sara had told him to do, everything they had done together, had saved a life.

  Whether that lifespan was counted down in hours, days or decades remained to be seen.

  The girl’s name was Rebecca “Beckey” Caterino. She was nineteen years old. She was the single child of a widowed father. She was majoring in Environmental Chemistry. She might never wake up from surgery after what was to all appearances a tragic accident.

  The accident part was the source of Jeffrey’s disagreement with Blake. No matter Sara’s SLFs, TBIs or BLTs, Jeffrey wasn’t right with the girl landing on her back. Add to that the troubling phone call he had gotten from Caterino’s father. The man had arrived at the hospital within thirty minutes of his daughter. He had relayed some medical information that Jeffrey needed Sara to interpret. The upshot was that there was no way Beckey Caterino had managed to turn herself over in the woods. Either she had fallen on her back or someone had put her there.

  Jeffrey couldn’t quite articulate why he believed the latter was a possibility. None of the evidence pointed to foul play. But he had done this job long enough to know that sometimes your gut could see better than your eyes.

  He ran through the timeline he’d put together. Caterino’s roommates said she left around five. The 911 call had come in an hour later. The student was a frequent runner. Jeffrey had looked up the stats. A woman in Caterino’s age group could generally do a twelve-minute mile. Assuming she ran straight to IHOP and didn’t take a detour or stop, the mile and a half run would’ve taken eighteen minutes.

  That left forty-two minutes for something bad to happen.

  If Caterino had been targeted, then the next step would be determining who would want to hurt her. Was there an old boyfriend who was angry with her for cutting things off? Or was the opposite scenario the case, where an old boyfriend had a new girlfriend who wanted to erase the past? Did Caterino argue with a roommate? Was there an academic rival? Was there an obsessed professor who didn’t like being told no?

  Jeffrey had sent Frank to feel out Chuck Gaines, the walking joke of a campus chief of security. Matt Hogan was interviewing everyone in Caterino’s dorm. Brad Stephens was checking on Leslie Truong, the woman who had found Caterino in the woods. Lena was talking to Dr. Sibyl Adams. By coincidence, Lena’s sister was one of Caterino’s professors. Sibyl had offered to come in early that morning to go over Caterino’s Organic Chemistry paper.

  Jeffrey wasn’t sure the girl would be capable of delivering anything anytime soon. Sara had directed the ambulance to take Caterino to the closest trauma center, which was in Macon. The Heartsdale Medical Center was barely equipped to handle scrapes and bruises. When Jeffrey had asked Sara for a prognosis, she had been almost non-responsive. She was furious with Lena for not finding a pulse, focusing all her anger onto the young cop in a way that should’ve brought Jeffrey relief.

  For once, he was not the one on the receiving end of Sara’s sharp tongue.

  Jeffrey stepped aside so that a car could pass. He walked through the open gates of the university. Main Street stretched out ahead of him. The rain was hitting the ground so hard that it bounced two feet off the asphalt. The police station was on his left. Up the hill on his right, the Heartsdale Children’s Clinic sat like a monument to bad 1950s architecture.

  High Penitentiary was the best way to describe the bricked-up style. There was nothing on the outside that would indicate children were welcome. The windows were narrow. The plastic overhang turned any natural light a sallow brown. A glass-brick octagon swelled out like a boil on the end. This was the waiting room. During the summer, the temperature inside could soar into the nineties. Dr. Barney, the owner of the clinic, insisted the heat helped patients sweat out whatever was ailing them. Sara vehemently disagreed, but Dr. Barney had been her own pediatrician before he’d become her boss. She had a difficult time openly challenging him.

  The man had no idea how lucky he was.

  Jeffrey climbed the steep slope of the drive. Sara’s silver Z4 turbo was in the lot on the side of the building. She had it parked at a showroom angle that looked not just directly at the police station, but at the front doors, because castrating Jeffrey with a knife could only happen once, but she could slap him in the face with her $80,000 convertible every single time he left work.

  Speaking of castration, Tessa Linton was standing beneath the narrow overhang outside the side door to the clinic. She was dressed in cut-off jean shorts and a tight long-sleeved shirt with the Linton and Daughters Plumbing logo across her ample chest. As usual, Tessa’s long, strawberry blonde hair was spiraled onto the top of her head. Jeffrey tried a smile. When that didn’t work, he offered her the benefit of his umbrella.

  He said, “Long time.”

  Tessa stared blankly into the street.

  Of all the people in town, Jeffrey had assumed that Tessa would be the most understanding about his transgression. She was not a woman without a past. She was not a woman without a present, either. The streets of Grant County were lined with hearts that Tessa Linton had broken. The two of them had clocked each other as kindred spirits the first time Sara had brought Jeffrey home to meet her family. Tessa had teasingly warned him about breaking her big sister’s heart. Jeffrey had teased back that it’s not cheating if it’s a different woman every time. They had joked like that for years. Then Sara had caught Jeffrey in the act. Then Tessa had slashed the tires on his Mustang.

  Jeffrey asked, “Is Sara okay? We had a rough morning.”

  “My father is on his way to pick me up.”

  Jeffrey warily eyed the street. He offered Tessa his umbrella. “You can just leave it by the door.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest.

  Jeffrey watched sheets of rain pound the parking lot. Water cascaded from the slim overhang. The minute Tessa stepped out, she would be drenched. Jeffrey should’ve left her to the elements, but chivalry won out. And he doubted the umbrella would be here when he got back.

  Tessa asked, “How’s the old Colton place working out for you?”

  Jeffrey was going to ask her how she knew he’d bought a house, but then he realized the entire town knew. “It’s got good bones. I’m going to remodel the kitchen. Throw some paint on the walls.”

  She was smiling now. “Does the toilet still flush?”

  Jeffrey got a sinking feeling. He hadn’t been able to hire a p
rofessional inspector. No one would return his calls. Eddie Linton had put out a plumber’s omerta on him.

  Tessa said, “That old clay sewage pipe is full of tree roots. You’re going to be shitting in a bucket this time next month.”

  Jeffrey could barely afford the mortgage. His savings had been wiped out by the down payment. “Come on, Tess. Help me out here.”

  “You want my help?” She stepped off the curb. Her father’s van was in the street. “Buy a metal bucket. Plastic absorbs the smell.”

  Jeffrey struggled to close the umbrella as Eddie pulled into the parking lot. He knew the man kept a .380 Ruger in the glovebox.

  The van swerved wildly in front of the building.

  Jeffrey dropped the umbrella. He yanked open the door. Inside, he almost slammed into Nelly Morgan.

  “Hm.” The clinic’s office manager tutted at him before turning on her heel and walking away. Jeffrey suppressed a sarcastic remark. Nelly was immune to sarcasm.

  Dr. Barney was not. He told Jeffrey, “Looking good, son,” as he pointedly closed an exam-room door behind him.

  Jeffrey studied his reflection in the mirror over the hall sink. The rain had done its work. His shirt was soaked through. The back of his hair stuck up like a duck’s butt.

  “What are you doing here?” Molly Stoddard, Sara’s nurse, looked the least happy to see him.

  Jeffrey smoothed down his hair. “I need to talk to Sara.”

  “Need or want?” Molly looked at her watch, though she was one of those women who always knew what time it was. “She’s got back-to-back patients. You’ll have to—”

  “Molly.” Sara’s office door slid open. “Go ahead and start Jimmy Powell’s nebulizer. I’ll be right in.”

  Molly got in another unhappy glower before shuffling down the hallway.

  Sara asked Jeffrey, “How is the girl?”

  “In surgery. She—”

  Sara disappeared into her office.

  Jeffrey debated whether or not to follow. He smoothed down his hair again. He passed a disapproving mother in the hall. Her toddler was frowning up at him, too. Jeffrey needed a diagram like the kind that were printed at the front of Russian novels to figure out how people related back to Sara and to what degree they hated him.

  He found her sitting behind her desk, pen in hand, filling out a prescription. Sara’s office was the same size as Dr. Barney’s, but she had made it feel smaller by taping pictures of her patients on the walls. There had to be more than one hundred. Soon, there wouldn’t be a bare section of wood paneling. Most of the images were school photos. There were some candids with cats, dogs, and the occasional gerbil. The chaotic decorating style extended around the room. Her in-basket was overflowing. Textbooks were laid out on the floor. Charts were piled into the two chairs and on top of filing cabinets that contained even more charts. If Jeffrey didn’t know better, he would’ve assumed she’d been robbed.

  He scooped up a stack of folders so he could sit down. “I ran into Tess outside.”

  “Close the door.” She waited for him to stand again, close the door, and sit back down before asking, “Are you finally going to get rid of Lena?”

  Jeffrey had his own question ready. “How long did it take you to find a pulse?”

  “At least I checked.”

  “Lena checked when she arrived on scene. I saw it written in her notes.”

  “Was it in the same color ink?” Sara waved off a response. “Tell me what the hospital said. How is the girl doing?”

  Jeffrey let her biting tone hang between them. Over the last year, he had become intimately familiar with the two different Saras. The one in public was tragically silent, ever-respectful. The one in private ripped a knot in his ass every chance she got.

  Jeffrey dropped the stack of charts onto an already teetering pile. “The girl’s name is Rebecca Caterino. She goes by Beckey. The hospital can’t release her information—”

  “But?”

  “But.” He paused to slow her down. “I spoke with her father. The neurosurgeon is going to perform a—”

  “Craniotomy to release the pressure inside of her skull?” Sara asked, “What about the material in her throat?”

  “The pulmonologist said it looked like—”

  “Undigested pastry?”

  Jeffrey gripped the arms of the chair. “Are you going to finish all of my …”

  Sara didn’t play along. “Why are you here, Jeffrey?”

  He had to wade through his irritation to remember. “Did you notice that her legs were paralyzed?”

  “Paralyzed?” Sara was paying attention now. “Explain.”

  “The surgeon told Beckey’s father that her spinal column was ruptured.”

  “The vertebral column or spinal cord?”

  Jeffrey took his time retrieving his notebook from his pocket, flipping to the right page. “During the evaluation, her feet and legs did not respond to stimuli. An MRI revealed a small puncture on the left side of her spinal cord.”

  “Puncture?” Sara leaned over her desk. “Be more specific. Was the skin punctured, too?”

  “That’s all I’ve got.” Jeffrey closed his notebook. “The father was understandably upset. The surgeons weren’t offering much information. You know how it is at the beginning of these things. They don’t know what they don’t know.”

  “They know more than they let on,” Sara said. “Did you get the location of the puncture?”

  He went back to his notes. “Below C5.”

  “No ventilator, then. Small mercy.” Sara sat back in her chair. He could tell she was running through the possibilities. “Okay, spinal cord injuries. The majority are a result of physical trauma. Sports injuries. Car accidents. Gunshot and knife wounds. Accidents, too, but not generally trip-and-falls. You’d need a tremendous amount of force to rupture the spinal cord. Or a vertebra could fracture and puncture it? Or maybe she landed on something sharp? Did you find anything at the scene that could cause a penetrating wound?”

  “By the time I talked to the father, our scene was washed away by the rain.”

  “You didn’t think to cover it with a tent?”

  “For what?” Jeffrey asked, because this was the crux of the problem. “Why would I take extra steps for what looked like an accident? Did you see something that made you think otherwise?”

  She shook her head. “You’re right.”

  Jeffrey cupped his hand to his ear, as if he couldn’t hear her.

  She gave a reluctant smile. He hated the way he felt when he got a positive reaction out of her, as if he was in junior high school trying to impress a cheerleader.

  He said, “This case feels hinky, right? It’s not just me?”

  She shook her head, but he could tell she shared his trepidation. “I want to see the MRI. The puncture is strange. It could change everything. Or it could be explained. I need more information.”

  “I do, too.” Jeffrey felt some of the pressure start to lift off his chest. One of the things he missed most about Sara was being able to talk out what was bothering him. “Kevin Blake is pushing me to make a statement today. He wants to calm fears. Part of me thinks he’s right. Another part of me thinks that we’re missing something. Then I ask myself, ‘What could that something be?’ There’s no physical evidence that asks a question that an investigation can answer.”

  “I doubt the girl will be able to help,” Sara said. “Even if she survives the surgery, even if she’s able to communicate, post-traumatic amnesia will probably render her useless as a witness.”

  “I’m going to talk to Leslie Truong. She’s the one who found Caterino. Maybe she remembered something.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jeffrey studied Sara’s face. She looked like she had more to say. “What is it?”

  “We’re just talking here, right?”

  “Right.”

  Sara tapped her pen against the desk like a metronome. “You should ask for a pelvic exam.”

  “You thi
nk she was raped?” Jeffrey was puzzled by the leap. “We’re talking about a good kid here. You saw how she was dressed. She wasn’t even wearing make-up. She’d spent the entire night before at the library. She’s not the kind of party girl you’d expect to get assaulted.”

  The pen had stopped tapping. “Are you telling me there’s such a thing as a rape-able woman?”

  “No, that’s crazy.” She was purposefully misunderstanding him. “I’m saying look at the evidence. Caterino wasn’t bound. She wasn’t showing signs of bruising. Her clothes were still on. Nothing looked disturbed. It was broad daylight in the woods about two hundred yards from a packed street.”

  “And she was at the library last night instead of a bar. And she wasn’t dressed like she was asking for it.”

  “Stop putting words in my mouth. Nobody asks for that,” he said. “All right, maybe I was clumsy, but it’s true that she’s not in a high-risk category. She’s a good student. She’s not into the drug scene. She’s like you, always has her nose in a book. I mean, for chrissakes, she was out running at the crack of dawn, not hanging out in an alley trying to score benzos.”

  Sara pressed her lips together. She took a deep breath. He watched her nostrils flare. “You know what, Jeffrey? This isn’t my job anymore.”

  “What job?”

  “I’m not the person you talk through cases with. I’m not your hinky whisperer. I’m not going to tell you how to neutralize Kevin Blake. It’s no longer my job to be the emotional scaffolding that holds up your life.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t have to listen to you, or worry about you, or help you, or even look at you.” Sara jabbed her finger into the desk. “Your mother’s birthday is tomorrow. Did you remember?”

  “Shit,” he hissed.

  “The florist closes at four and they don’t do same-day delivery, so unless you want her sobbing on the phone, you’d better call them right now before you forget.”