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

Sara’s stomach clenched again. She was in Tommi Humphrey’s backyard, sitting across from Jeffrey. They were trying to walk the girl through her attack, and Tommi had said—

  I don’t know that person anymore. I don’t remember who she was.

  Sara was intimately familiar with that sensation. She could only vaguely recall the Sara who had gone to senior prom with Steve Mann, the Sara who had been ecstatic about getting accepted to medical school, the Sara who had confidently applied for a match at Grady Hospital. The memories felt like they belonged to someone else, an old friend who had slipped out of her life because they had so very little in common.

  She told Amanda, “All I can do is try. Tommi is under no obligation to speak to us.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Linton. I, too, am familiar with the laws of the United States.”

  Sara luxuriated in an eye-roll.

  “Let me know what you want to do about Van Dorne,” Amanda said. “I’ll update you as I have information on my end.”

  Sara hung up the phone, but she couldn’t summon the desire to jump back into work.

  Images of Tommi kept flashing into her mind. She squeezed her eyes closed, forcing them to clear away. What she really wanted to do was call Will and talk about how all of this was stirring up her own horrendous memories of rape. That conversation could’ve easily taken place twenty-four hours ago. Now, it felt like rubbing salt into a very raw wound.

  All she could do was concentrate on the job that was in front of her.

  Sara returned to her laptop and opened the Dougall County coroner’s report on Shay Carola Van Dorne. The man was a dentist in his real life, but his opening lines showed an interest in cartography.

  Van Dorne, a thirty-five-year-old Caucasian female, was found lying prone at the north-northwestern corner of the Upper Tallapoosa River sub-basin of the ACT River Basin, .32 miles off the Mill Road Parkway, at 33.731944, -84.92 and UTM 16S 692701 3734378.

  Sara clicked through pages of maps until she found the relevant passages.

  The kindergarten teacher was not known to be a hiker and was dressed in the clothes she normally wore to school. The victim apparently slipped, hit her head on a rock and succumbed to a subdural hematoma, a brain bleed that was generally associated with traumatic injury.

  This was where the dentist lost Sara. How the man had diagnosed the injury without X-rays or visualizing the brainpan was a medical miracle.

  He lost her again when she got to the summary description of injuries. The dentist had noted: Animal activity in sex organs as detailed in drawing.

  She clicked forward to find the sketch of the body. The eyes and mouth were X’d out. Two large circles were drawn around the breasts and pelvis with an arrow pointing to the words see photos.

  Sara found the jpegs in the main menu. The dentist won back a tiny bit of her respect when she saw that he had taken over one hundred photographs. Sara would’ve expected two dozen at best, the same number that was taken of Alexandra McAllister by the White County coroner. The Dougall County coroner had gone several steps further. She recognized the efforts of a man who was willing to invest tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of his time on a hobby that grossed him $1,200 a year.

  Sara tabbed through the photos. The body was indoors, on a stainless-steel gurney she assumed belonged to a local hospital or funeral home. The lighting was excellent. The camera was professional quality. The dentist had taken photos from every angle except the ones Sara needed. He’d either zoomed in too close or stood too far from the wounds. She couldn’t see the margins. There was no way to tell if the rips to the sinew were made by a predator or a scalpel. The photos of the sex organs were chaste, which wasn’t unusual considering the size of Dougall County. The dentist might have known Shay Van Dorne in the same way that Sara had known Tommi Humphrey.

  Sara paged through the rest of the photographs. One series captured hands and feet. Another series showed Shay’s open mouth.

  Ostensibly, the sequence was meant to confirm a lack of blockage or obstruction to the windpipe, but Sara suspected the dentist had wanted to document the single, upper right quadrant wisdom tooth in the mouth of a thirty-five-year-old woman. It was unusual that only three other wisdom teeth had been removed. Normally, they were pulled in pairs or all at once.

  She closed the jpegs.

  Sara returned to Faith’s documentation in the main menu. She found Gerald Caterino’s notes on his phone calls with Shay’s parents, Larry and Aimee Van Dorne. The couple had divorced after Shay died. Neither had remarried. Gerald had talked to them separately, one after the other.

  Larry reported nothing unusual in his daughter’s life, which wasn’t surprising. Sara had a very close relationship with her own father, but there were some things that she didn’t tell him because his inclination would be to immediately try to fix it.

  According to Aimee, Shay had been driving a neighbor’s child to a birthday party when she’d realized that her comb was missing from her purse. First, she had chalked it up to sticky fingers in the teacher’s lounge, but the fact of its disappearance had clearly troubled her. Shay had confessed to her mother she’d been feeling strange recently, as if someone was watching her. First at the grocery store, then outside work, then once when she was running on the treadmill at the gym. The mother had passed it off—what woman didn’t occasionally get that sensation?—but after her daughter had died, Aimee’s mind had immediately returned to the conversation.

  Sara made some notes: Found in woods. Suspected head injury (hammer?) Sexual mutilation (?) Ruled (staged as?) an accident. Missing comb. Possible stalking.

  Both parents felt there was something unusual about their daughter’s death. Shay was athletic, but not a hiker. She seldom went into the woods. She had left her phone and purse in the trunk of her yellow Fiat 500. Larry admitted that Shay might have been depressed. Aimee disagreed. Their daughter was part of a large social circle, a soprano in the church choir. She had unfinished lesson plans on her desk at home. Her new boyfriend had been at a conference in Atlanta, an hour and a half away.

  Sara checked the date of Gerald Caterino’s phone calls. Beckey’s father had waited exactly two weeks after the funeral to get in touch with them. Another three years had passed since then. Sara doubted that Larry and Aimee Van Dorne had moved on. It seemed impossible for any parent to truly recover from the death of a child.

  She walked herself through the steps of requesting an exhumation. This was not a conversation she could job out to Amanda. Sara would be the one to cut open their daughter’s body. She would be the one to ask the parents for permission. The discussion would not be easy. There could be religious barriers, but the emotional ones would be even more powerful. Many people considered exhumation to be a desecration. Sara could not disagree. She could reduce herself to tears if she thought about Jeffrey being pulled from the earth.

  Primarily, the Van Dornes would want to know what Sara expected to find. Sara wasn’t sure there was an easy way to answer them. Shay Van Dorne’s stomach contents would’ve been vacuumed out during embalming, so it was unlikely Sara would find blue Gatorade. A spinal cord puncture would be self-evident. There could still be signs of deliberate mutilation to her sex organs. During Alexandra McAllister’s autopsy, Sara had noted that the vaginal walls had been scraped with a sharp tool that had created striations in the tissue. Shay Van Dorne could evidence similar damage.

  Sara looked up from her laptop.

  Tommi Humphrey had been threatened with a knitting needle. They knew that the assailant learned from each attack. He had given up the hammer when he’d murdered Leslie Truong. Maybe he had found a different use for the knitting needle.

  She looked back down at her notes.

  Found in woods. Suspected head injury (hammer?) Sexual mutilation (?) Ruled (staged as?) an accident. Missing comb. Possible stalking.

  The burial vault offered them the possibility of linking Shay to the other crimes. Sara had overseen exhumations before. Emb
alming was only meant to last a few weeks. The body rapidly decayed once it was in the ground. In some of the cases involving sealed internment, the body had looked as pristine as the day it had gone into the ground. Once, the only evidence that time had passed was a growth of mold on the upper lip.

  Sara thought about Jeffrey again. There was no question that he had been brutally murdered. She had watched it happen with her own eyes. How would she feel if his cause of death had been undetermined?

  She picked up her phone and texted Amanda—

  I want to speak to the Van Dornes and give them as much information as possible, then let them decide how we proceed.

  Amanda quickly texted back—

  K.

  Will schedule meeting ASAP.

  Still need files from Brock.

  What about Humphrey?

  Sara put down her phone. She sat back in her chair. Procrastination was generally reserved for household chores, not work-related tasks. You couldn’t get through medical school by putting off all of the unpleasant things you had to do.

  So why was Sara resorting to it now?

  She opened the browser on her laptop and typed in Thomasina Tommi Jane Humphrey.

  The girl was not on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram. She was not in the GBI database or White Pages or on the Grant Tech message board. A general search returned several Scottish and a few Welsh Humphreys, but nothing in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee or South Carolina.

  Considering what had happened to Tommi, it made sense that she would keep a low profile.

  Sara ran through the same searches with Delilah Humphrey and Adam Humphrey.

  The Grant Observer returned one relevant item: Four years ago, Adam Humphrey had been crushed to death when the car he was working on slipped from the jack. He was listed as survived by his wife and daughter. His viewing had been scheduled at the Brock Family Funeral Home. Donations to Planned Parenthood were encouraged in lieu of flowers.

  Sara studied the photograph of a round-faced, smiling man. She had met Adam Humphrey twice. The first time, the father was bundling his broken child into the back of his van to drive her to Atlanta. The last time was that awful day in the Humphreys’ back yard. Adam had threatened a police officer with violence in order to protect his daughter.

  Sara closed the browser. She considered her options. She could honestly tell Amanda that she had made a good-faith effort, but they would both know that wasn’t technically the truth.

  There was a better resource than the internet for Grant County connections. Sara’s mother had gone to church with the Humphreys. If Cathy didn’t know where they were, she would know someone who knew someone. But her mother would ask Sara how she was doing. Sara could lie, but Cathy would hear that something was wrong in her voice. Then there would be a discussion, possibly an argument, because Cathy was not a fan of Will’s and Sara was in such a mood right now that she would scratch out the eyes of anyone who dared say anything against him.

  Marla Simms from the police station would be a good fallback, but Sara was loath to do anything else that put her in close proximity to memories of Jeffrey. It was hard to move forward when you kept looking back over your shoulder.

  Sara ended up with her elbows on her desk and her head in her hands.

  Last night came back to her like a tidal wave crashing against the shore. She still felt punch-drunk from lack of sleep. No amount of make-up could hide the swelling in her eyes. Will had smiled at her as he’d left the briefing room, but Sara knew what a real smile looked like on his handsome face and the one he had given her was not that smile. She hated this feeling of distance between them. Her body ached like she was coming down with the flu.

  Her phone beeped. Sara scrambled to see if Will had texted. He had not. Amanda sent another series of quick-fire missives:

  Lab lost Truong lab results.

  Nick can’t locate copies.

  Get originals from Brock ASAP.

  Call ASAP when you speak to Humphrey.

  Amanda was a fan of the ASAPs.

  Instead of texting back, Sara opened the Find My app, because it wasn’t stalking if you truly loved the person.

  Will’s last location was still showing him at Lena’s address.

  Sara dropped the phone back on her desk.

  Last night, she had been annoyed when she’d realized that Will’s phone was turned off. That it was still off this morning felt devastating. She was desperate to see his pin moving on the map. Her brain told her he was probably still inside the building. He would’ve stopped by the vending machine for a sticky bun before going to Faith’s office. Sara had forgotten to put a Band-Aid on his hand. The damn thing was still bleeding. Too much time had passed for sutures. She should write a script for antibiotics. She should find him right now and—

  And what?

  Sara was seized by the desire to leave before she did something incredibly stupid. Which, considering what she had done the night before, was a very low bar. She grabbed her purse on the way out of her office. She responded to Amanda’s texts as she walked toward the parking lot.

  Going to see Brock in person. Still searching for Humphrey’s contact info. When I get updates, will notify you ASAP.

  The first part of the text was easy. Brock had moved to Atlanta when his mother had needed more care than he could give her. He’d sold the family business and used the proceeds to put her in one of the best assisted-living homes in the state. Brock’s work was a twenty-minute drive south from GBI headquarters. Sara caught up with him a couple of times a year for lunch or dinner. He would be eager to help, especially when he found out which cases she was working on.

  The Tommi part of the text filled Sara with apprehension. She was still incredibly conflicted about reaching out to the girl.

  Girl.

  Tommi Humphrey would be thirty years old now, nearly a decade out from the brutal rape that had almost taken her life. Sara wanted to imagine Tommi as healed, possibly married, maybe adopting a child or perhaps, if fate worked in her favor, of being able to give birth to a child on her own.

  The prospect of finding out that none of these things was true felt overwhelming. Especially the last piece. Sara’s own rape had robbed her of the ability to carry a child. She did not want to look at Tommi Humphrey and see her own unspeakable loss reflected back at her.

  Sara looked up at the sky. Rain was in the forecast, which felt about right. She let out a long breath when she saw Will’s car parked in his usual space beside her own. She touched the hood as she walked by. She climbed behind the wheel of her Porsche Cayenne. Her BMW X5 had been totaled a few months ago. She had bought the Porsche because Will loved Porsches, the same way she had bought a Z4 to piss off Jeffrey.

  It seemed Sara’s feminism came to a screeching halt inside of car dealerships.

  She pressed the ignition. The engine growled to life. She looked over at Will’s car, then she admonished herself for being so emotional. Will would eventually forgive her. Things would go back to normal. Intellectually, Sara knew this, but she still fought the urge to run back into the building like a forlorn lover.

  Or a batshit crazy one.

  She dialed her parents’ phone number as she was pulling out of the parking space. Sara instantly visualized her mother cooking in the kitchen, her father reading aloud from the newspaper. The phone on the wall had a cord that had been overstretched from Sara and Tessa pulling it out onto the deck so they could have some privacy.

  “I’m not talking to you,” Tessa said by way of a hello. “What do you want?”

  Sara felt her eyes threatening to roll. She really hated caller ID. “I was calling Mom. I need to get in touch with Tommi Humphrey.”

  “Delilah moved somewhere out of state after Adam died. No idea where Tommi is.”

  “Does Mama have Delilah’s number?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “That’s what I was trying to—” Sara stopped herself. “Tess, I need a pass. I’m full u
p with people being mad at me right now.”

  “I thought you were perfect,” Tessa quipped. “Who else could possibly be mad at you?”

  Unexpectedly, Sara felt tears edge into the corners of her eyes.

  Tessa gave a put-upon sigh. “All right, you’ve got your pass. What’s wrong?”

  Sara wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Will and I got into a fight.”

  “About?”

  Sara took a shaky breath. “I mentally cheated with Jeffrey all day, and then when I realized Will knew exactly what I was doing, I made it worse and he walked out on me.”

  “Wait, Will walked out on you?” Surprise had drained the bitchiness out of Tessa’s tone. “And then what?”

  “I left him one voicemail.”

  “If you’re gonna nut up, don’t leave a record.” Tessa was quoting advice from their mother. “And then?”

  “And then—” Sara had given Will last night’s highlights. Only her sister could have the humiliating details. “I waited for him to come back, and when he didn’t come back, I drove to his house. Then I drove back to my apartment, but he still wasn’t there. So I drove to the YMCA, then to Wendy’s and McDonald’s and Dairy Queen and the gas station where he buys burritos. Then I drove to Buckhead to see if he was at Amanda’s. Then I drove back to his house in case I missed him. Then I drove back to my apartment.”

  “But you didn’t stay at your apartment?”

  “No, I did not.” Sara wiped her eyes again. “I drove to Faith’s, and his car was in the driveway and they were playing Grand Theft Auto on the couch like nothing happened. So I drove back home. Then I waited for him some more. Then I drove to his house and waited for him to come home to get ready for work. But he didn’t come home. So I went back to my place and slapped on some make-up and drove to work and found him in his office and threw myself at his feet and begged him to forgive me, and I think he’s going to but until he does, I feel like a ball of rubber bands is stuck inside my chest.”

  Tessa was quiet for a few moments.

  Sara gripped the steering wheel. She had to remind herself why she was in the car, where she was going.