Lena Adams.
Sara’s husband had trained Lena fresh out of the academy, had taken her under his wing and promoted her to detective.
And in return for Jeffrey Tolliver’s trust, Lena Adams had gotten him killed.
Nell sobbed, “Oh, God, Sara! Please!”
“Nell,” Sara managed, her breath catching around the word. “Tell me. Tell me what happened.”
The woman was too hysterical to comply. “Why didn’t I listen to you? Why didn’t I forbid it? Why didn’t I …” Her words dissolved into a heart-wrenching moan.
Sara forced air into her lungs. She could feel her chest shaking, her hands shaking. Her whole body vibrated with dread. “Nell, please. Just tell me what happened.”
3.
Will Trent stood in his boss’s office on the top floor of City Hall East, looking out at the city. Atlanta was just waking up, the sun sparkling between the skyscrapers, commuters in BMWs and Audis honking their horns. Across the street, dozens of men were lined up outside the Home Depot shopping center. Will watched as, one after another, trucks pulled up and taillights glowed red. Hands shot out, fingers pointed, and two, three, sometimes four men at a time would jump into the back of the truck to begin the day’s work.
Will could’ve had that life. There hadn’t been much career advice at the Atlanta Children’s Home. When Will turned eighteen, they’d given him a hundred dollars and a map to the homeless shelter. He’d spent the next several months jumping in and out of trucks, working construction or whatever jobs he could find. Will had been very lucky that the right kind of people had intervened. Otherwise, he never would’ve become an agent with the GBI. He wouldn’t have his house or his car or his life.
He wouldn’t have Sara.
Will turned away from the windows. He took in Amanda Wagner’s office, which hadn’t been altered much in the almost fifteen years that he’d worked for her. The location had moved a few times and the electronics had gotten sleeker as she worked her way up to deputy director of the GBI, but Amanda always decorated the same. Same photos on the wall. Same Oriental rug under her behemoth desk. Even her chair was the same squeaky old wood and leather contraption that looked like it belonged to George Bailey’s nemesis in It’s a Wonderful Life.
The flat-panel TV was one of her few concessions to modernity. Will found the remote and checked all the Atlanta news channels to see if they had picked up on what had happened in Macon last night. Less than a two-hour drive from the state capital, Macon was a fairly significant city, with more than 150,000 residents and a thriving university system. Because it was geographically at the heart of the state, the city served as a compromise for people who found Atlanta too busy and smaller towns too slow. In many ways, Macon was a better representation of Georgia than Atlanta. Art museums sat alongside junk stores. A handful of respected tech colleges were blocks away from expensive private schools that taught creationism. The visitors’ bureau touted both the Tubman African American Museum as well as Hay House, an eighteen-thousand-square-foot antebellum home built by the keeper of the Confederate treasury.
Apparently, the Atlanta news stations didn’t find Macon as interesting. Will turned off the television and put the remote back on Amanda’s desk. He should be careful what he wished for. It was probably just a matter of time before all the channels were filled with the gory details about the attack on Jared Long. The Atlanta news producers probably hadn’t yet gotten wind of the story. Sometimes it took a painfully long time for phone calls to be made, people to be told that their lives had been irrevocably changed.
Will had been sitting in his car outside of Grady Hospital when Sara’s call came through. He’d never been anyone’s first phone call before, but when something bad happened, Sara evidently thought of him. She was crying. She had to stop a few times before she could tell him the story, though she had no way of knowing that Will already knew. Could fill her in on some of the missing details.
Jared had been shot.
His life was hanging by a thread.
Lena was somehow involved.
Will had stared blankly out the windshield as he listened to Sara try to get the words out. His mind conjured up the image of Lena in that tiny bedroom. Half-naked. Covered in blood. Will had been panicked as he rushed down the hallway, careening off the walls. He felt as if he was watching a video moving in slow motion. Lena jammed her knee into the guy’s back, arced the hammer high above her head. The slow motion got even slower as the hammer dropped down the first time. The hallway got longer. Will could’ve been running up a mountain of sand. He was moving closer, yet somehow every step seemed to take him farther away.
But Sara didn’t know any of that. She just knew that Jared had been shot. That yet again, Lena Adams had been standing by while another good man had been targeted. It had happened to Sara’s husband five years ago and now it had happened to her husband’s son.
It wasn’t a stretch for Sara to think it might happen to Will, too.
The frustrating part was that Will had specifically gone to the hospital this morning to come clean. He was going to tell Sara that he’d lied to her about his undercover assignment because he didn’t want to worry her, and then he’d had to lie about where he was working so she wouldn’t figure it out, and then he’d had to lie again and again until he’d realized that it would’ve been easier just to tell her the truth in the first place.
But then Will had seen her standing at the nurses’ station and lost his nerve. Actually, he’d lost his breath. This was nothing new. Lately, every time he saw Sara Linton, Will literally felt like she had taken his breath away. That couldn’t be good for his brain. He’d been oxygen-deprived. Obviously, that was why instead of confessing, he’d ended up on his knees kissing her like they were never going to see each other again.
Which might end up being the case. Will was painfully aware of the tenuous hold he had on the situation.
On Sara.
“You’re late,” Amanda Wagner said, scrolling through her BlackBerry as she entered her office.
Will didn’t address the comment, which was automatic, something she generally said in lieu of hello. He told her, “I sent my report an hour ago.”
“I’ve read it.” Amanda’s thumbs started working as she stood in the middle of the room responding to an email. She was dressed in a red suit, the skirt hitting just below her knee, white blouse neatly tucked into the waist. Her salt-and-pepper hair was in its usual helmet. Her nails were trimmed, the clear polish gleaming.
She looked well rested, though Will knew Amanda hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. The Macon chief of police. The director of the GBI. The GBI crime scene unit. The GBI medical examiner. The GBI crime lab. They each had to be read in or sent out or relayed orders. And yet Amanda had managed to call Will back three more times before the sun came up. He could tell she was worried by the calmness of her tone, the way she spoke to him as if he’d gotten a flat tire on the side of the highway instead of walked into a bloodbath. Usually, Amanda took a certain joy in making Will miserable, but last night was different.
It was also fleeting.
“So.” She finished the email and moved on to another. “Quite a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Wilbur.”
He wasn’t sure which mess she was talking about.
“I don’t have to tell you that we’re not out on the limb anymore; we’re on the thin part of the branch. The twig.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Whoever these men are, they don’t mind going after cops.” Amanda glanced up at him. “Try not to get yourself killed, won’t you? I don’t have the patience to break in someone new.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned her attention back to her email. “Where’s Faith?”
Faith Mitchell, Will’s partner. “You said meet at seven-thirty.” He checked his watch. “She’s got six minutes.”
“How wonderful. You’ve learned to tell time.” Amanda continued reading as she went to her desk, sat in her
chair. The old cushion made a sound like a pig snort. “I looped the director in on your midnight escapades. He’s keeping a close eye on this.”
Will didn’t know how he was expected to respond to this information, so he took his seat, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Just recently, Will had come to accept that Amanda Wagner was the closest thing he would ever have to a mother—that is, if your mother was the type to lock you in a refrigerator or strap you into the back seat of her car and roll you into a lake.
She put down her BlackBerry and took off her reading glasses. “Anything you need to tell me?”
“No, ma’am.”
Uncharacteristically, Amanda didn’t press. She turned on her computer, waited for it to boot. Will guessed Amanda was in her mid to late sixties, but there really was no way of knowing her exact age. She was still in good shape, still capable of running circles around men half her age—or Will’s age, to be exact. And yet watching her try to work a computer mouse was like watching a cat try to pick up a pebble.
She slapped the mouse against the desk, mumbling, “What is wrong with this thing?”
Will knew better than to offer his help. He brushed a speck of dirt off the knee of his trousers. It made him think about Sara. She was probably in her car by now, heading down to Macon. The drive was about an hour and a half. Will should’ve offered to take her. He could’ve confessed the whole sordid truth along the way.
And then Sara would’ve given him a choice: walk back to Atlanta or walk the rest of the way to Macon.
Amanda said, “You’re brooding.”
Will considered the description. “Don’t you need the moors for that?”
“Clever.” Amanda sat back in her chair, giving Will her full attention. “You investigated Lena Adams last year?”
“A year and a half ago,” Will corrected. “Faith helped me. Lena’s partner was stabbed. He practically bled out in the street. And then she arrested the suspect and he died in her custody.”
“Reckless endangerment, negligence?”
“Yes,” Will answered. “She was formally reprimanded, but she left Grant County a week later and joined the Macon force. They didn’t seem to mind the taint.”
Amanda picked at the stem of her glasses. Her voice got softer. “She was Jeffrey Tolliver’s partner when he was murdered—what?—five, six years ago?”
Will stared out the window. He could feel her eyes lasering the side of his face.
She said, “There’s an Eric Clapton song about telling the truth. Something about how the whole show is passing you by. Look into your heart. Et cetera.”
Will cleared his throat. “It makes me very uncomfortable to think about you listening to Eric Clapton.”
Amanda’s sigh held a tinge of sadness that he didn’t want to dwell on. “How exactly do you think this is going to end?”
He indicated the gray clouds that were suddenly crowding the sun. “I think it’s going to rain.”
“There’s definitely a storm coming.” Her tone quickly changed. “Ah, Major Branson. Thank you for making the drive.”
Will stood as a woman wearing a dark blue police uniform came into the office. Ribbons and commendations filled her chest. A heavy-looking leather briefcase was in her hand. She was short and stocky, with her curly black hair shaved close to her head. She seemed about as happy to be here as Will.
Amanda made the introductions. “Special Agent Trent, this is Major Branson with the Macon Police Department. Denise is our liaison on the Jared Long shooting.”
Will felt his bowels loosen. “I’m doing the investigation?”
A smile teased at Amanda’s lips before she said, “No, Faith will take the lead.”
“Already got it figured out?” Branson’s temper sounded poised to uncoil. “I’m gonna be honest with you, Deputy Director. I’m not real happy with the idea of your people stomping around my patch like you own the place.”
Amanda’s tone stayed light. “Yet your chief sent you two hours north expressly to turn over all of your files.”
“An hour and a half,” Branson corrected. “And I may work for the man, but I don’t always agree with him.”
“Fair enough.” Amanda indicated the chair in front of her desk. “Why don’t we get our little pissing contest out of the way while Agent Trent fetches us some coffee?”
Branson sat, her briefcase clutched in her lap. Without looking at Will, she said, “Black, two sugars.”
Amanda smiled her cat’s smile. “Just black for me.”
Will wasn’t happy to be the designated fetcher, but he knew better than to linger. Outside the office, Caroline, Amanda’s secretary, was sitting at her desk. She smiled at Will. “Cream. Two Sweet’N Lows.”
Will saluted at her request as he walked into the hallway. His shoes sank into the padded carpet on the floor. He felt the chill of air-conditioning. City Hall East was housed in an old Sears building that had been built in the 1920s. When the city took over back in the nineties, only the important parts had been renovated, namely the executive suites. Three stories down in Will’s shoebox of an office, the air was stale and likely toxic. The windows were rusted closed. The cracked asbestos tiles on the floor were scuffed red from the Georgia clay that had traveled in on nearly a hundred years of wingtips.
It wasn’t just the air that was better on the top floor. The kitchen was a showplace, with dark cherry cabinets and stainless steel appliances. The coffeemaker looked like something a Transformer would shake off its leg. Will guessed the machine was the fancy kind that required pods. He checked the cabinets and found two boxes. He assumed Amanda drank the pink and orange Dunkin’ Donuts high-test. The other box contained purple and yellow pods with flowers and vanilla beans emblazoned on the foil. Will took out three hazelnuts and shut the cabinet door.
After a few false starts, he figured out how to load a pod. Another minute passed before he managed to pry open the lid of the water tank and fill it to the line. He took three mugs off the hooks and waited for the water to boil.
Out of habit, Will opened the refrigerator door. There were a couple of paper bags in the fridge, but no old takeout containers or rotting food that smelled like it belonged in the morgue. Before Will started dating Sara, everything he ate was an on-the-go type of meal, whether it was a bowl of cereal he downed while standing over the sink or the hot dogs he bought at the gas station on his way home.
Now when Will went home, that usually meant Sara’s apartment and something for dinner that didn’t roll under a heat lamp all day.
Or it meant that for the time being.
Finally, the red light flashed on the coffee machine. Will pressed down the handle on the pod and watched the hot liquid squirt out. The smell reminded him of the cloying perfume some women wear in an attempt to hide the odor of cigarettes.
He refilled the water tank for another round. The hazelnut scent wafted into his nostrils as he stirred powdered creamer into the first mug. Will had never liked the taste of coffee, but he made Sara’s for her every morning. She liked it strong with no fancy flavoring. He’d started to associate the smell with her.
Will put down the spoon and stared at the machine.
There was no use fighting it anymore. He gave in completely to thinking about Sara, letting his mind consider all the things he was going to lose. Feeling her long auburn hair tickle his face. Tracing his lips along the freckles at the small of her back. Watching her chest blush bright red when he touched her. Then there was the way she would sometimes kiss him, showing him with her mouth what she wanted him to do.
“Will?”
He looked up, surprised to find Faith Mitchell standing in the doorway.
She asked, “What’s wrong? You look sick.”
The red light was flashing. Will loaded another pod. “You want one?”
“If I have any more caffeine today, my head will explode.”
“Emma keep you up?”
Emma was Faith’s ten-month-old daughter. Will knew the
baby was with her father this week, but he listened to Faith like it was the first time he was hearing the news.
“Anyway.” Faith rounded out the litany of complaints about her baby’s daddy by asking, “What do you think about coincidences?”
Will recognized a trick question when he heard one.
She said, “Like, you’re working an undercover case one minute and the next minute you’re sucked into another Lena Adams shit-storm.” She held out her hands in an open shrug. “Coincidence?”
“We always knew it was possible I’d run into her.”
“We did?” She raised her voice high on the last word, like she was questioning a toddler.
Will turned his attention back to the coffee machine. He slowed down his movements, feigning uncertainty so that Faith would take over.
Instead of taking the bait, she told him, “Sara called me about fifteen minutes ago.”
Will concentrated on filling the water tank precisely to the mark.
“She knows the state investigates officer-involved fatalities.”
He loaded up the next pod.
“She wanted to know what was going on with Jared.” Faith paused a moment, then added, “She didn’t want to bother you with it, but we both know she’s terrified of you getting mixed up with Lena, so …” Faith shrugged. “I told her I’d look into it.”
Will cleared his throat. “That should be easy. Amanda’s putting you in charge of the investigation.”
“Well, great, but I didn’t know that when I told Sara. I was lying to her. Just like I was lying when I agreed that it’s a good thing you’re working undercover God-knows-where and you’re not going to get sucked into this, because I’m not sure if you know this, but Sara is terrified of you being around Lena.”
Will checked the kitchen drawers for sweeteners. He found two pink packets and tore off the tops.
Faith said, “You know Sara thinks Lena’s responsible for her husband’s murder. I pretty much agree with her, by the way.”
Will tapped the sweetener into the mug.
“She’s also going to think it’s Lena’s fault that Jared was shot, which, considering her history, is a real possibility.” Faith paused again. “Actually, it’s a pattern now. I saw it back when you were investigating Lena Adams a year and a half ago. People who get close to her end up dead. Sara’s right to be scared. Jared’s just the latest casualty.”
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