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

  Except for Lena Adams. Nothing they had found would contradict Lena’s testimony detailing how the child porn was found on Nesbitt’s laptop. Yet again, she had managed to walk away unscathed.

  Only this time, she was walking away with a baby in her arms.

  Sara didn’t need another thing to be outraged about. She changed the subject, asking Faith, “How is Gina Vogel doing?”

  “Maybe okay? She said something about moving to Beijing, then she said she could never leave Atlanta.” Faith shrugged. “One minute she’s crying, the next minute she’s laughing, then it’s back to crying again. I think she’s going to get through this, but what do I know?”

  Sara didn’t know, either. She had somehow found her way back. She didn’t know how or why. Some people just got lucky.

  “Daryl Nesbitt’s in the hospital. His leg is septic.” Faith didn’t seem bothered by the man’s condition. “The doctors are saying it’s not looking good. They’re going to have to take more of his leg.”

  Sara knew that this would be the beginning of the end for Daryl Nesbitt. The intellectual part of her wanted to rail against the unusually cruel system, but the baser part of her nature was glad that Daryl would be gone. Losing Jeffrey had taught her that sometimes justice needed a nudge.

  She asked Faith, “What about Nesbitt’s offer to trade intel on the illegal phones being smuggled into the prison?”

  “Now that he knows he’s not getting the pedophile charge off his sheet, he doesn’t give a shit about the phones.”

  “Con’s gonna con,” Sara said, anticipating Faith’s views on the matter.

  “At least Gerald Caterino got something out of it.” She shrugged. “He won’t let us test Heath’s DNA against Brock’s. But last I heard, the kid’s been enrolled in elementary school. That’s something, right?”

  “It’s something.” Sara wondered if Caterino was trying to maintain plausible deniability. One day, Heath would ask about the circumstances of his birth. It was easier to lie if you never looked for the truth.

  She told Faith, “I heard Miranda Newberry copped a plea.”

  “She’ll be out in eighteen months.” Faith sounded bitterly disappointed. Gerald Caterino was not Miranda’s only victim. She had bilked dozens of grieving parents and spouses out of tens of thousands of dollars.

  Sara said, “She did some solid detective work. Almost every name on that spreadsheet checked out.”

  “If she wanted to be a detective, she should’ve gone to the police academy or gotten her PI license.” Faith had paid her dues. She had very little tolerance for people who didn’t. “You know what they say. ‘When you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite.’”

  “Jane Austen?”

  “Mo’Nique.” Faith pushed herself out of the chair. “I’m out of here, friend. Please stop looking at that video.”

  Sara forced a smile onto her lips until Faith was gone.

  She opened her laptop. She played the video again.

  Brock laid the white ribbon across the green binders.

  Sara had no idea why she so clearly remembered losing the hair tie. The fight with Tessa had been one of many. Sara’s hair had always been long. Over the years, she had lost hundreds of ties and bands. She’d had no idea that Brock had stolen this particular ribbon. And she had been so certain when she walked into Brock’s office inside the AllCare warehouse that he would not hurt her.

  Now, she wondered.

  Her cell phone chimed. Will had sent a car emoji. She texted back a running woman and a man behind a desk, letting him know that she would meet him in his office.

  Sara stuck her laptop into her briefcase. The brown paper bag inside the outer pocket crumpled. She had to take out everything and readjust it. She found her purse on the couch. She checked to make sure she had her keys and locked her office door.

  She dialed Tessa’s phone number as she walked down the stairs.

  Tessa answered, “What’s up, Swimfan?”

  Sara indulged her with a laugh. Her little sister was never going to let her forget the night Sara had spent chasing Will around town like a crazy person. “I was thinking about something.”

  “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  Sara rolled her eyes. She pushed open the door to the morgue. “When I got hurt in Atlanta, I went back home. And then when I got hurt at home, I went back to Atlanta.”

  Tessa gave a dramatic sigh. “I’ve forgotten how to extrapolate.”

  “You were hurt, and now you’re home, and I need to support that.”

  “Took you long enough.”

  “Thank you for your graciousness.” Sara turned off the lights in the hall. “I called around and got a couple of recommendations for some really good midwives. They’re always looking for apprentices. I’ll email you the details when I get home.”

  Tessa’s huffing sound signified she would not be that easily placated. “How are things with Will?”

  Sara glanced behind her. She could see the tiny office in the back of the morgue where she’d rubbed lotion into Will’s skin. “You were right. I fixed it with a hand job.”

  “Well done.” Tessa said. “I’m still mad at you.”

  Sara looked at her phone. Tessa had hung up on her again.

  She channeled her inner potty mouth as she walked toward the main building. She loved her little sister, but she was such a little sister.

  Sara climbed another set of stairs, because her life at the GBI was a never-ending stack of Legos. She shifted her briefcase, adjusted her purse. She felt a passing nervousness at the thought of seeing Will. He had been so patient with her since Brock’s suicide. Sara’s tossing and turning was keeping him awake at night. He wouldn’t let her sleep on the couch. Will had spent his childhood dealing with trauma. He knew that sometimes, all you could do was listen.

  The hallway was dark when Sara opened the door. Amanda and Faith had already left for the day. Only Will’s office light cut a white triangle across the hall carpet. Sara could hear Bruce Springsteen playing on his computer.

  I’m on Fire.

  Sara reached back and pulled out the tie so that her hair fell around her shoulders.

  She waited for Will to notice her in his doorway.

  He smiled. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Sara sat on the loveseat in the corner. She let her briefcase and purse fall to the floor. She patted the cushion next to her. “Come here. I’ve got something to show you.”

  He gave her a curious look, but he sat beside her.

  Sara took in a calming breath. She had silently rehearsed this moment for days, but now that the time was actually here, she had butterflies.

  Will asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “No, my love.”

  She pulled the brown paper bag out of her briefcase. She opened the top and placed it on the couch between them.

  Will laughed. He recognized the McDonald’s logo. He leaned over, peering into the bag. “That’s a Big Mac.”

  Sara waited.

  He took the box out of the bag. His smile faltered. “Something is in here, but it’s not the weight of a Big Mac.”

  “Later, we are going to discuss how you know the weight of a Big Mac.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But did you throw it away in the regular trash or the dead people trash?”

  “Babe, let the hamburger go.”

  He still looked disappointed, but she thought that would change soon.

  Will flicked open the box.

  He looked down at the blue Tiffany ring cushion Sara had placed on a bed of black tissue paper.

  The titanium and platinum wedding band was dark on the outside, light on the inside. Will never wore jewelry. His wedding band from his first marriage had been purchased from a pawnshop. By Will. Angie had never given him anything.

  He stared at the ring, but he didn’t speak.

  Sara went through a series of silent rapprochements, because the band was probably too thick or he didn’t like the color or he’d
changed his mind.

  She had to ask him, “Did you change your mind?”

  He carefully placed the box on the couch between them.

  He said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about my job. Not the money, which isn’t much, but how I do my actual job.”

  She pressed together her lips.

  “What I do is, I try to put myself in the bad guy’s shoes. That’s how I figure them out.”

  She could feel her throat tightening. He was completely ignoring the ring.

  Will said, “I can imagine murderers and thieves and wife beaters and rapists. I can even understand Brock in a certain way. I’m really good at imagining a lot of things, but I cannot imagine what I would do if you died.”

  Sara felt tears sting her eyes. The thought of losing Will was as unbearable as the thought of Will having to go through the hell she had endured when Jeffrey died.

  He said, “I saw you on that Grant County tape from eight years ago, and I didn’t recognize you.”

  She wiped her eyes. Eight years felt like a lifetime ago.

  “In the children’s home, the way we got through it was, whatever bad thing happened to you, you just told yourself that it happened to someone else. That you weren’t that person. You split yourself off, and the new person was the one who could keep going.”

  Sara kept her mouth closed. He so rarely talked about his childhood that she didn’t want to give him a reason to stop.

  Will looked down at the wedding band.

  She had spent too much money. He didn’t like the color. The metal was too heavy.

  He said, “You know my mother was a prostitute.”

  He was trying to talk her out of it. “Baby, you know that doesn’t matter to me.”

  His face was still turned toward the ring. “When I got her belongings, she had all this cheap costume jewelry.”

  Sara bit her tongue. The ring had not been cheap.

  “Necklaces and bracelets and—what do you call that ugly thing Amanda wears on her jackets?”

  “A brooch.”

  “A brooch,” he said. “The necklaces were so old that the strings disintegrated. All of the silver bracelets had turned black. There were at least twenty of them. I guess she stacked them all together. What are those silver bracelets called?”

  “Bangles.”

  “Bangles.” He finally looked up from the ring. He rested his hand along the back of the couch. His fingers played with the ends of her hair. “What’s the kind of necklace that’s tight, like a dog collar?”

  “A choker,” she said. “Do you want me to pull up some photos on my laptop?”

  He gently tugged at her hair. She realized he was teasing her.

  He said, “You’re so beautiful.”

  Her heart skipped. There was a dreaminess to his smile. Sara had been swept off her feet before, but Will was the only man she had ever met who could make her weak in the knees.

  He said, “Your eyes are such a specific color of green, almost like they’re not real.”

  Will stroked her hair behind her ear. She tried not to purr like a cat.

  “When I met you, I kept thinking I’d seen that color somewhere before. It drove me crazy trying to remember where.” His hand fell away, resting on the back of the couch again. “I’ve been looking at rings for months. Princess cuts and marquis and cushion, and then I went through this whole panic where I thought I had to spend eighty grand.”

  “Will, you don’t—”

  He reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small, silver ring. It was cheap costume jewelry. The metal was dented. The green stone was scratched down the side.

  The color was almost identical to her eyes.

  He said, “This was my mother’s.”

  Sara’s hands had gone to her mouth. He had kept the ring in his pocket. He had been waiting for the right time.

  He asked, “So?”

  “Yes, my love. I would be delighted to marry you.”

  Sara didn’t need to hear the question.

  She was not going to screw it up this time.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Dear Reader—

  Here is your big, gigantic warning that this letter is filled with SPOILERS, so please be advised if you continue before reading The Silent Wife, the story will be completely ruined and you will have no one to blame but yourself. I mean it! Don’t tell me you read this note and the story was ruined because I will show you this paragraph and yell very theatrically BE IT ON YOUR HEAD.

  Now that that’s out of the way, I want to thank you for reading my books, whether you are a new reader or whether you’ve been reading from the beginning. If you are in the latter category and you are wondering how many years have passed since Blindsighted, the number you are looking for is nineteen.

  I know what you are thinking—“I read Blindsighted when my first child was born and now she’s pregnant with her first!”

  Reader, these are heart-warming stories that I do not want to hear.

  When I started thinking about the idea for The Silent Wife, I knew I wanted to go back to Grant County, but I also knew after nineteen years (and sixteen books) of putting Sara in the most heinous situations imaginable, I could not bring myself to make her forty years old. In fact, in the current Will Trent books, only five years has elapsed between Jeffrey’s death and the current stories, which worked out fine in the Will Trent world, but presented an issue when I was structuring the latest story, mainly because of the massive technology gap between the two series. In 2001, Yahoo! and BlackBerrys were cutting edge. Facebook, Google and iPhones were either not yet invented or in the nascent stages. I remember using an America Online CD as a coaster beside my tube computer monitor while I wrote the book. For the love of God, my laptop weighed almost as much as my cat.

  Given these challenges, I decided to take advantage of the fact that my books are fiction. Instead of nineteen years elapsing between Blindsighted and The Silent Wife, the number is eight. (Weirdly, that is exactly how much I have aged in the physical world.) In Grant County, Sara now drives a Z4 instead of a Z3. Lena has a BlackBerry. Marla Simms still uses an IBM Selectric, but that was considered dinosaurish even in 2001. If you are wondering where Gina Vogel’s vexation comes from, now you know.

  I hope you will forgive my quantum leap. I so enjoyed being with Jeffrey again, especially at a point in his relationship with Sara that I’ve never written about before. But I was also reminded of how much I love Will, and how when I chose to end Jeffrey’s story, I told myself that the best way to honor him was to make Will earn it. If you’ve been paying attention, Will has certainly earned it. For me, the line that summed up the two great loves of Sara’s life comes early on in The Silent Wife, when she thinks, “With Jeffrey, Sara had known that there were dozens, possibly hundreds of other women who could love him just as intensely as she did. With Will, Sara was keenly aware that she was the only woman on earth who could love him the way that he deserved to be loved.”

  I bet you guys didn’t notice that I’ve been secretly writing love stories.

  Really gritty, violent love stories, but still.

  At the very beginning of my career those nineteen long years ago (or eight, in Karin Years) I made the decision that what I was writing about would matter from one book to the next. That’s why I decided to let go of Jeffrey. That’s why I decided to write frankly about violence against women. I felt it was important to openly describe what that violence actually looks like, and to explore the long-lasting effects of trauma in as realistic a way as possible. If I’ve done anything with these two series, I hope that people will look at them as an honest telling of stories we do not often hear about survivors, fighters, mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, friends and rogues.

  And to answer the question that I hope you are asking, there are going to be more Sara and Will stories. I look forward to the journey ahead.

  Karin Slaughter

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Enjoyed The Silent Wife? Make sure
you’ve read Karin Slaughter’s previous books:

  Three …

  A woman is abducted in front of her child.

  Two …

  A month later, a second is taken in explosive circumstances.

  One …

  But the web is bigger and darker than anyone could imagine.

  The clock is ticking to uncover the truth.

  Click here to order a copy of The Last Widow.

  A terrifying act of violence …

  It takes a split second for your life to change forever. And for Andrea Oliver that split second is a mass shooting in her local mall.

  A woman whose life is built on a lie …

  But this shocking act is only the start. Because then, as the bodies fall around them, Andy’s mother Laura takes a step forward into the line of fire.

  A fight for survival …

  Hours later, Laura is in hospital, her face splashed over the newspapers. But the danger has only just begun. Now Andy must embark on a desperate race against time to uncover the secrets of her mother’s past before any more blood is shed …

  Click here to order a copy of Pieces of Her.

  One ran. One stayed. But who is … the good daughter?

  Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn’s childhoods were destroyed by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father – a notorious defence attorney – devastated. And it left the family consumed by secrets from that shocking night.

  Twenty-eight years later, Charlie has followed in her father’s footsteps to become a lawyer. But when violence comes to their home town again, the case triggers memories she’s desperately tried to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime which destroyed her family won’t stay buried for ever …

  Click here to order a copy of The Good Daughter.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First thanks always go to Kate Elton and Victoria Sanders, who’ve been with me from the beginning. Next I’d like to thank my HarperCollins GPP peeps both at home and abroad (and they are mostly broads) including but not limited to all the names I used as victims in this novel. You’re welcome! I’d also like to extend heartfelt thanks to Hilary Zaitz Michael at WME and at VSA, Diane Dickensheid, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, and Jessica Spivey.