The Last Widow: The latest new 2019 crime thriller from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author

by Karin Slaughter

  “Gentlemen. Let’s clear the room.”

  She could hear them lift Michelle from the bed.

  Dash said, “Put her next door. Make sure she’s handcuffed. We don’t want any more sudden acts of mayhem.”

  Mayhem?

  Sara wiped her face. Michelle’s arms flopped to the side as she was carried out. Her eyes were closed. There was something like peace in her expression.

  “Dr. Earnshaw?” Dash asked. “Can you enlighten me?”

  Sara studied his face for guile. Did he really not know that Carter had raped Michelle?

  She said, “He—”

  She felt Vale’s hand on her shoulder. The sudden violence had pierced the fog of the muscle relaxer. His eyes were opened, filled with fear.

  Dash waited another moment, then asked, “Dr. Earnshaw?”

  Sara shook off Vale’s hand. “He raped her. Repeatedly. He threatened to rape me.”

  Dash’s jaw tightened. His expression began to change. Sara watched the slow transformation from amicable to enraged.

  He looked at Vale, not Sara, and asked, “Is this true?”

  Vale shook his head wildly.

  “Soldier, is this true?”

  Vale kept shaking his head.

  Dash turned away from him. He rubbed his jaw with his fingers.

  Then he turned around and shot Vale twice in the chest.

  Sara jumped. She had been close enough to feel the heat of the bullets whizzing past her face.

  Dash returned the gun to his holster. He told Sara, “I hope, Doctor, you don’t think that we are the sort of animals who use rape as a weapon of war.”

  Sara said nothing. They had bombed a hospital and kidnapped two women. Pretending to hold themselves above the pettiness of rape was laughable.

  Beau grabbed the handle of Will’s folding knife and pulled it out of Carter’s belly. He wiped the blade with cotton gauze. He folded the knife and stuck it into his own pocket. Then he started to pack up the medical kit. He put the used items in a pile on the table. He took out a card to start an inventory.

  Or to make sure Sara hadn’t taken anything.

  Dash patted Vale’s pockets. He found some cash, but nothing else. He did the same pat-down on Carter. This time, he found a cell phone. Not a flip phone, but an iPhone.

  The screen was cracked.

  “Unfortunate.” Dash went to the door. He asked the sentry, “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “No, sir. None of us do. Your orders were to leave anything identifiable at the Camp.”

  The Camp?

  “Thank you.” Dash closed the door. He sat on the bed beside Carter. He tried one-handed to press Carter’s finger to the home button on the phone.

  Beau said, “Won’t work when they’re dead. You need a capacitance signal in your skin to activate the ring. Gotta have a heartbeat to make that happen.”

  “Is that so?” Dash held up the phone. He stared at it as if he could divine a way into the contents. “We don’t want to be using any of your devices, do we?”

  “No, sir, we don’t.” Beau’s tone implied he was taking a position.

  So maybe he wasn’t as aligned with the group as the others. A former recruit? A hired gun? A medic who charged by the injury?

  Dash tossed Carter’s phone onto the bedside table. He rubbed his jaw again. He turned to Sara.

  “Doctor, if I could have your attention?” He pointed to the front and back of the room. “I’ve got your exits blocked. I can handcuff you to the bed, or you can believe me.”

  Sara swallowed so hard that her throat made a sound. “I believe you.”

  Dash left, but the tension did not leave with him.

  Beau was clearly angry. He yanked on the zips to his field kit. He collected the trash into a pile—the bloody gauze, the scissors, even the water bottles. He used an alcohol swab to wipe down the field medical kit. Sara bit her lip so that she would not smile. Carter’s blood would be embedded in the seams, the teeth of the zippers. Beau’s sentimental attachment would put him in the middle of a double homicide.

  Sara looked at the television. She read the scroll at the bottom of the screen.

  … two Dekalb Co. police officers, one Fulton Co. sheriff’s deputy and two security guards among murdered … Official Statement: “GBI will put on active duty ATL agents to assist local and state law enforcement …”

  Sara’s heart flipped inside her chest. Her eyes followed the text before it disappeared from the screen.

  … will put on active duty ATL agents to assist local and state law enforcement …

  She kept her eyes on the television as the program went into a commercial break. Sara tried to do a reality check. Amanda would’ve been responsible for writing the official statement. Was Sara reading too much into the stilted language? Was she so desperate for news that she was making crazy leaps?

  Will put on active duty. ATL. Agents assisting local and state law enforcement.

  Tears welled into Sara’s eyes. She wanted so badly to believe that Amanda had written the statement specifically for her, because what the statement could be saying filled her with relief.

  Will was classified as active duty.

  ATL was the common abbreviation for Atlanta, but it was also police slang for Attempt to Locate.

  Will was all right. He was looking for Sara. Local and state law enforcement was looking for her.

  Beau said, “Dash is suspicious.”

  Sara wiped away her tears.

  He said, “The news hasn’t mentioned Michelle. They just keep saying local doctor missing.”

  Sara tried to get her shit together. She knew GBI protocol was to withhold names. “You say missing like I walked out of the house and got lost. I was abducted. Michelle was abducted. We’ve both been kidnapped. We are being held against our will and forced to do things we do not want to do.”

  His jaw tightened down. “It’s making him suspicious, is all I’m saying.”

  “Your friends set off two bombs on a university campus. Eighteen people are dead, almost fifty more are wounded. Three cops were murdered. Two security guards. That field kit and your training tell me you’re ex-military, but you’re helping a group of mass murderers. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Beau angrily shoved trash into a plastic bag.

  Sara’s eyes tracked the news scroll. She wanted to see the information again, the confirmation that Will was okay. He had survived. He was looking for her.

  The time was in the right-hand corner.

  4:52 p.m.

  Just over two and a half hours since Sara had sent Faith that useless message.

  Three hours since she’d had her mouth pressed to Will’s in the shed.

  Beau said, “Don’t be stupid in here, okay? Dash is fine until he ain’t fine, and you don’t wanna ever see that happen.”

  Sara kept her eyes on the TV. The scroll was repeating.

  Official Statement: “GBI will put on active duty ATL agents to assist local and state law enforcement …”

  Beau finally left, slamming the door closed behind him.

  Sara stood up. She walked to the window at the front of the room. The curtains were drawn. She could see the large shadow of the sentry outside.

  She listened, holding her breath so that she could make out any sound. She picked up the low tones of Dash talking to Beau. They were close, but not too close.

  Sara got down on her knees, keeping herself low.

  She lifted Carter’s iPhone from the nightstand.

  Beau was right that the fingerprint ID required a capacitance signal. The human body was basically an electrical capacitator. Positively charged protons and negatively charged neurons created conductivity; a battery of sorts. This was why you got a shock when you dragged wool socks across the carpet, then touched another person. The low current of electricity in the body was also what activated the fingerprint reader on older iPhones.

  When you died, that charge dissipated, but not as rapidly as B
eau thought. It took about two hours before the skin desiccated. That was the real reason that Carter’s finger could not unlock the phone:

  He was dehydrated.

  Unlike Vale, Carter had not been given an IV bag of saline. The heat and trauma had caused him to sweat for hours. Dehydration had flattened out the ridges of his fingerprints. The reader was detecting a capacitance signal, but it wasn’t recognizing the fingerprint.

  Sara lifted Carter’s right hand.

  A sudden revulsion sent a shudder through her body.

  Sara put the man’s index finger in her mouth.

  She gagged, but she kept her lips closed tight, trying to generate enough saliva to rehydrate the skin.

  Hepatitis B. Hepatitis C. HIV.

  There was no telling what diseases the man carried.

  Sara held the finger in her mouth, sucking to move the saliva around. Her eyes went from the door to the clock on the television, then back again. She did this until a full minute had passed.

  Her hands shook as she pressed Carter’s finger to the home button.

  The screen was cracked. He could’ve programmed his thumb or a different finger into the reader. The door could open and Dash would see what she was doing and shoot her twice in the chest the same as he had with Vale.

  None of that happened.

  The screen unlocked.

  Sara didn’t have time to celebrate. She tapped the telephone icon. No luck. The crack in the screen radiated up from the bottom. The glass wasn’t recognizing her touch. She touched the text icon. The keyboard slid up. The cracked glass made most of the letters unusable. Through fits and starts, she was able to enter Will’s phone number.

  Sara never texted him words. She sent him sound files or emojis to save him the trouble of reading.

  She pressed the microphone icon. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a sob came out.

  Will—

  She sent the sound file anyway. Her heart pounded like a metronome until the blue status bar indicated it had been sent.

  She pressed the microphone again. She opened her mouth, but to say what?

  The name of the bar across the street. Beau. Dash. Carter. Vale. The box truck. The fact that they were a group. That they were organized. That she loved Will. That she ached for him. That she knew he was looking for her.

  Sara started to speak, but the doorknob turned.

  Dash opened the door. His back was to her.

  He was still talking to Beau. “Well, son, I’m sure we can make that happen.”

  Sara clicked the phone off. She had tossed it onto the nightstand by the time Dash turned around.

  Sara stood up. She smoothed down her shorts. She had been so eager to transfer Carter’s DNA onto them, but now she was almost soaked in his blood. “You said you would return me to my family after I helped you.”

  “In fact, that’s exactly what I told you.” He watched the television. They were showing aerial video of the decimated parking garage. “What does your husband do?”

  Sara realized the truth might be something that could work to her advantage. “I’m a widow. My husband was a cop. He died in the line of duty.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss. The streets are a dangerous place these days.” Dash stared at her, still full of suspicion. “Tell me, Miss Pediatrician, do you have a familiarity with measles?”

  Sara felt her head shaking, but only to bide time while she tried to see around his question. She answered, “Yes.”

  “Good. We happen to have ourselves a bit of a problem with measles at our Camp. An outbreak, you’d call it. If you’re amenable, there are some very sick children who could use your help.”

  Measles?

  Was that why they had taken Michelle Spivey? They thought they needed an infectious disease expert to control a measles outbreak?

  “Dr. Earnshaw?” Dash prompted.

  Sara said, “You’re framing this as a choice.”

  “We all have choices, Doctor. Sometimes, there are good options and sometimes, there are bad ones. But there’s no such thing as not having a choice.”

  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Will an empty bladder assist you in your decision-making?”

  Sara didn’t answer, nor did she dare to leave without his permission.

  Dash drew out his response. He picked up Carter’s phone. He dropped it onto the floor. He crushed it with his heel. He leaned down. He used his fingers to probe the pieces. Found the SIM card and the battery. The former contained all of the stored information from the phone. The latter kept the signal transmitting the phone’s location.

  Sara pressed together her lips. She had seen the text go through. The little blue bar at the bottom had swooped across the screen. The metadata would include the time and location.

  Wouldn’t it?

  Dash pocketed the phone components. He told Sara, “You know this entire room will be cleaned by tomorrow morning. The bodies will be removed. You won’t even know we were here.”

  Sara understood that he wasn’t bluffing. Beau was too thorough. He had even counted out the layers of gauze for his inventory card.

  “Well, Dr. Pediatrician. I need an answer.” Dash adjusted the sling around his shoulder. “Can I count on you to help heal our sick little ones?”

  She said, “If I leave with you, I’ll never see my family again.”

  “Everything is negotiable.”

  “What Carter did to Michelle—”

  “Is not going to happen to you.”

  There was nothing but folly in taking this monster at his word.

  Still, Sara told him, “All right.”

  He nodded toward the bathroom, permission granted.

  She clenched together her fists as she walked past him. She shut the door. She turned on the faucet and washed Carter from her mouth. She dried her face on another towel.

  This is what she told herself: The text had gone through. The signal would be traced. The motel would be located. Carter and Vale’s bodies would be found. Beau would be interrogated.

  Dash called, “Doctor, I’m going to step outside for a moment.”

  Sara listened to the door open in the other room. There was no telltale click as it closed. Dash was waiting to see what she would do. Sara looked around the bathroom. The narrow window mounted above the shower stall showed the tip of a rifle pointed at the sky.

  Sara pulled down her shorts. She sat on the toilet. She had to force the muscles to relax. Her bladder was painfully full. The sound echoed against the tiled walls.

  She finally heard the click of the door closing.

  Will had told her a long time ago that the calmest suspect was always the most guilty. They appeared relaxed because they thought they were in control. They had outwitted everyone. There was no way they were going to get caught.

  Dash was a perfect example of this arrogant calm. The way he talked to Sara—treating her with respect, framing his commands as requests, trying to appear amenable and logical—all of these were tools he was employing to control her.

  Maybe he had tried and failed to do the same thing with Michelle. So he had turned her over to Carter. Which meant that Dash had known exactly what Carter was doing to the woman. Vale had clearly participated, but he just as clearly was going to die anyway. Shooting him in the chest for the crime of rape made Dash look like an honorable commander.

  Sara would respect this veneer of honor as long as it kept her safe.

  Dash had no idea that Will was looking for her.

  He did not know that Sara was lucky.

  8

  Sunday, August 4, 4:26 p.m.

  Will slouched in the front seat of Amanda’s Lexus as she drove him to Sara’s apartment. His headache had returned, but not with its previous ferocity. The sunlight wasn’t so hard on his eyes anymore. Then again, it was late afternoon, so the sunlight wasn’t as hard on anyone’s eyes.

  He told himself that Sara was still alive. That she was safe. Will had stabbe
d Carter in the groin. He had shot another man in the chest. The third had been unconscious the whole time. None of them would be walking around with their heads up anytime soon. Without Hurley, they might decide to go their separate ways.

  Or they might regroup and get stronger.

  Amanda stopped at a light. She put on the blinker. She asked Will, “Do you have any questions?”

  Will stared up at the glowing red light. He considered everything that she had told him so far. There was only one question. “Your gut says that Carter took Michelle by order of this group, the Invisible Patriot Army. We’ve got proof that they murdered a bunch of cops. They blew up a parking deck. They kidnapped a GBI agent. Even if you take Martin Novak’s possible involvement out of the equation, they’re still terrorists. Why isn’t the FBI balls to the walls going after them?”

  Amanda gave a heavy sigh. Her hands were tight on the steering wheel. Instead of answering his question, she said, “Ruby Ridge. A US marshal was murdered. Randy Weaver’s wife and son were killed. The standoff lasted eleven days. Weaver was acquitted. The family was awarded three million dollars in a wrongful death case. The FBI was publicly eviscerated.”

  The light turned green. Amanda took the turn.

  “Twelve months later, there was the siege at Waco.” She took another turn onto the road to Sara’s apartment. “Four agents murdered, six wounded. Eighty-six Branch Davidians killed, many of them women and children. The entire nation watched the compound burn. No one blamed the child molester leading the cult. The FBI was torn apart. Janet Reno never fully recovered.”

  “Amanda—”

  “The Bundy standoff. The Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Armed militias tried to seize federal land and when the smoke cleared, most of them were acquitted by juries of their peers. Two anti-government arsonists received presidential pardons.” Amanda slowed the car to turn into Sara’s building. “Most of the agents at the FBI are hard-working patriots who believe in our country. But then there are some who are blinded by politics, and others by ideology. They’re either terrified to make a decision because of the political fallout or, worse, they agree with the groups they’re supposed to be locking up.”

  Will said, “Send me in undercover. We don’t need the FBI. These are state charges on state land. I’ll get the evidence to—”