Fractured, page 11
part #2 of Will Trent Series
To Will’s relief, the events unfolded chronologically now. At exactly 12:21:44, the white Prius parked beside the sedan, blocking the camera’s view of the second sedan. The driver got out of the passenger’s side door of the Prius, away from the angle of the camera, and opened the trunk. The second sedan’s trunk popped open briefly, putting it into the frame. It closed a few seconds later. There was a blur that looked like the top of the abductor’s head as he crouched around the sedan, getting in on the passenger’s side. There was nothing else on camera after that. They had to assume that the sedan had pulled away.
Will took his hand off the VCR.
Amanda leaned her hip on the desk. “He knew the sedan was here. He knew to change cars because we would be looking for the Prius.”
“We’ve been looking for the wrong car all afternoon.”
Amanda said, “Let’s have Charlie send the tape to Quantico,” meaning the FBI lab in Virginia. “I’m sure they have an expert on front car panels.”
Will ejected the tape from the machine. The TV flickered and showed the Prius again. Charlie was on his knees, combing through the driver’s-side floorboard. The time stamp read 20:41:52.
Amanda saw it, too. “We’ve lost another thirty minutes.”
AMANDA WAS UNCHARACTERISTICALLY silent when she dropped Will off at city hall. As he walked toward his car, she had only said, “We’ll have more information to go on tomorrow.” Forensics, she meant. The lab was working overtime to process materials. Amanda knew Will had done everything he could. They both knew that was not enough.
Will drove aimlessly down North Avenue, so caught up in his thoughts that he missed his turn. He lived less than five minutes from City Hall East, but lately, he’d found himself wishing the distance were greater. He had lived alone since he was eighteen years old, and was used to having a lot of time to himself. Coming home to Angie was a big adjustment. Especially on a night like tonight, when Will was so caught up in a case that his head hurt, he craved time alone to just sit and think.
He tried to come up with anything positive that had been achieved today. Kayla Alexander’s parents had been reached. Because of the time difference in New Zealand, they would lose a whole day in the air. Still, Leo Donnelly had managed to do one thing right, after all. Well, two, if you counted his sudden medical leave. Will guessed scheduling emergency surgery to have your prostate removed was better than facing Amanda Wagner, though both procedures ran the risk of castration.
Will parked on the street because Angie’s Monte Carlo was blocking the driveway. The trashcan was still on the curb, so he dragged it up to the garage. The motion lights came on, blinding him. Will held up his hand to block the light as he unlocked the front door.
“Hey,” Angie said. She was lying on the couch in front of the television, wearing a pair of cotton boxer shorts and a tank top. She didn’t take her eyes off the set as Will let his gaze travel along her bare leg. He felt the urge to climb onto the couch and go to sleep beside her, or maybe something else. That wasn’t how their relationship worked, though. Angie had never been the nurturing type and Will was pathologically incapable of asking for anything he needed. The first time they had met at the children’s home, she had smacked him on the side of the head and told him to stop gawking. Will was eight and Angie was eleven. Their relationship hadn’t changed much since then.
He dropped his keys onto the table by the door, unwittingly doing a catalogue of the things she had moved or disturbed today while he was gone. Her purse was on the pinball machine, lady crap spilling onto the glass. Her shoes were under the piano bench alongside the pair from yesterday and the day before. The flowers on the deck had been chewed, but Will couldn’t really blame her for that. Betty, his dog, had developed a passion for daisies lately. They were all finding their own passive-aggressive ways to act out against the newness of the situation.
He asked, “Are they still running the Levi Alert?”
Angie muted the television and finally turned her attention to him. “Yeah. Any leads?”
He shook his head, taking off his gun and putting it by his keys. “How’d you know it was my case?”
“I made a phone call.”
Will wondered why she hadn’t just called him directly. He was too tired to pursue it, though. “Anything good on TV?”
“The Man with Three Wives.”
“What’s it about?”
“Ship building.”
Will felt something close to panic as he realized the dog hadn’t greeted him at the door. “Did you accidentally lock Betty in the closet again?” Angie wasn’t a fan of the Chihuahua, and though Will had only taken in the little thing because no one else would, he felt very protective of her. “Angie?”
She smiled innocently, which ratcheted up his alarm. He still wasn’t sure the closet incident had been accidental.
He whistled, calling, “Betty?” Her little bat-head poked out from the kitchen doorway, and he felt a wave of relief as her tiny nails clip-clopped across the hardwood floor. “That wasn’t funny,” he told Angie, sitting down in the chair.
The day caught up with him quickly. All the muscles in his body felt like they were melting. There was nothing he could do right now, but he felt guilty for being home, sitting in his chair, while the killer was out there. The digital clock on the cable box said 1:33. Will hadn’t realized how late it was, and the knowledge brought on something like a slow ache. When Betty jumped into his lap, he could barely move to pet her.
Angie said, “I wish you knew how ridiculous you look with that thing on your knee.”
He stared at the coffee table, the fingerprints on the polished wood. There was an empty glass of wine beside an open bag of Doritos. His stomach rumbled at the sight of the chips, but he was too tired to reach down and get one. “You didn’t tighten the lid on the garbage last night,” he told her. “A dog or something got into it. Trash was all over the yard this morning.”
“You should’ve woken me up.”
“It’s no big deal.” He paused, letting her know that it was. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Paul?”
“That soon?” she asked. “I was at least going to give you time to settle.”
When Paul had first come to the children’s home, Will had idolized him. He was everything Will wasn’t: charming, popular, circumcised. It all seemed to come so naturally to him—even Angie. Though honestly, Angie was easy for everybody. Well, everybody at that point but Will. He still didn’t know why Paul had hated him so much. It took about a week of tension before the older boy started openly picking on him, then another week before Paul started using his fists.
Will told Angie, “He’s still calling me Trashcan.”
“You were found in a trashcan.”
“That was a long time ago.”
She shrugged, like it was easy. “Start calling him cocksucker.”
“That’d be a little cruel considering what his daughter probably went through.” Will amended, “Is still going through.”
They both stared silently at the television. A diet pill commercial was on—the befores and afters. It seemed like everybody wanted to change something about their lives. He wished there was a pill he could take that would get Emma back. No matter who her father was, the girl was still just an innocent child. Even Paul didn’t deserve to lose his daughter. No one did.
Will glanced at Angie, then back at the TV. “What kind of parents do you think we’d be?”
She nearly choked on her own tongue. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“I dunno.” He stroked Betty’s head, picking at her ears. “I was just wondering.”
Angie’s mouth worked as she dealt with the shock. “Wondering what, whether he’d be a drug addict like my mother or a psychopath like your father?”
Will shrugged.
She sat up on the couch. “What would we tell him about how we met? Just give him a copy of Flowers in the Attic and hope for the best?”
He shrugged again, tugging at Betty’s ears. “Assuming he can read.”
Angie didn’t laugh. “What are we going to tell him about why we got married? Normal kids ask about that kind of shit all the time, Will. Did you know that?”
“Is there a book about a daddy giving a mommy an ultimatum after she gives him syphilis?”
Will looked up when she did not answer. The corner of Angie’s lip curled into a smile. “That’s actually the next movie after this one.”
“Yeah?”
“Meryl Streep plays the mother.”
“Some of her best work has been with syphilis.” He felt Angie staring at him and kept his attention on Betty, scratching her head until her back foot started to thump.
Angie smoothly steered the subject back to something easier. “What’s Paul’s wife look like?”
“Pretty,” he said, jerking back his hand as Betty gave him a nip. “Actually, she’s beautiful.”
“I’d bet you my left one he’s cheating on her.”
Will shook his head. “She’s the whole package. Tall, blond, smart, classy.”
Her eyebrow went up, but they both knew Will’s type leaned more toward gutter-mouthed brunettes with the self-destructive habit of saying exactly what was on their minds. Natalie Maines in a wig would be a concern. Abigail Campano was nothing more than a curiosity.
“Be that as it may,” Angie said, “men don’t cheat on their wives because they aren’t pretty or smart or sexy enough. They cheat because they want an uncomplicated fuck, or because they’re bored, or because their wives don’t put up with their bullshit anymore.”
Betty jumped onto the floor and shook herself out. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do that.” Angie used her foot to block Betty from getting on the couch. He could easily see her doing the same thing with a toddler. Will stared at Angie’s toenails, which were painted a bright red. He couldn’t imagine her sitting around with a little girl getting a pedicure. Of course, three months ago, he couldn’t imagine Angie ever settling down, either.
When she’d called him to say that he had to go to the free clinic to get tested, he’d been so furious he’d thrown the telephone through a kitchen window. There had been a lot of fighting after that—something Will hated and Angie fed off of. For almost thirty years, they had followed this pattern. Angie would cheat on him, he would send her away, she would come back a few weeks or months later and it would all start over again.
Will was sick of being on that treadmill. He wanted to settle down, to have some semblance of a normal life. There was hardly a long line of women waiting to sign up for the job. Will had so much baggage that he needed a claim check every time he left the house.
Angie knew about his life. She knew about the scar on the back of his head where he’d been whacked with a shovel. She knew how his face had gotten torn up and why he got nervous every time he saw the glow of a cigarette. He loved her—there was no question about that. Maybe he didn’t love her with passion, maybe he wasn’t really in love with her at all, but Will felt safe with her, and sometimes, that was the one thing that mattered the most.
Out of nowhere, she said, “Faith Mitchell’s a good cop.”
“That was a mighty informative phone call you made today,” Will commented, wondering who at the Atlanta Police Department had been so chatty. “I investigated her mother.”
“She didn’t do it,” Angie said, but Will knew her defense was the automatic type that cops used, sort of like a gesundheit when somebody sneezed.
“She’s got an eighteen-year-old kid.”
“I’m hardly in a position to denigrate teenage slutdom.” Angie added, “Be careful around Faith. She’s going to figure you out in about ten seconds flat.”
Will sighed, feeling it deep in his chest. He stared at the kitchen doorway. The light had been left on. He could see the bread was on the counter, an open jar of Duke’s beside it. He had just bought that mayonnaise. Was she that wasteful or was she trying to send him some kind of message?
A shadow crossed over him, and he looked up to see Angie. She got in the chair, straddling him, her arms resting on his shoulders. Will ran his hands along her legs, but she stopped him from going any farther. Angie never gave anything for free, which she proved by saying, “Why did you ask about kids?”
“Just making conversation.”
“Pretty strange conversation.”
He tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.
“Come on,” she prodded. “Tell me why you asked.”
He shrugged. “No reason.”
“Are you trying to tell me you want kids?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What—you want to adopt?”
He stopped her with two simple words. “Do you?”
She sat back, her hands in her lap. He had known her for pretty much his entire life. In all that time, a direct question had never gotten a direct answer, and he knew that wasn’t going to change any time soon.
“You remember the Doors?” she asked. She didn’t mean the band. When they were growing up, there were certain kids who came and went in the system so many times that it was like the children’s home was a revolving door for them. She put her lips close to his ear. “When you’re drowning, you don’t stop to teach somebody else how to swim.”
“Come on.” He patted her leg. “I need to take Betty for her walk and I’ve got an early morning.”
Angie had never taken well to being told she couldn’t have something. “You can’t spare me thirty-two seconds?”
“You leave out a new jar of mayonnaise and you expect foreplay?”
She smiled, taking that as an invitation.
“You know,” he began, “you’ve been living here for two and a half weeks and the only places we’ve had sex are this chair and that couch.”
“You realize that you’re probably the only man on earth who would complain about something like that?”
“I bow to your extensive market research.”
The corner of her mouth went up, but she wasn’t smiling. “It’s gonna be like that, huh?”
“Did you call the real estate agent yet?”
“It’s on my list,” she told him, but they both knew she wasn’t going to put her house on the market any time soon.
Will didn’t have the strength to continue the conversation. “Angie, come on. Let’s not do this.”
She put her hands on his shoulders and did something extremely effective with her hips. Will felt like a lab rat as she looked down at him, watching his every move, adjusting the rhythm according to his reaction. He tried to kiss her, but she kept pulling just out of his reach. Her hand went into her shorts, and he felt the back of her fingers pressing against him as she stroked herself. Will’s heart started pounding as he watched her eyes close, her tongue dart out between her lips. He nearly lost it when she finally turned her hand around and started using it on him.
“Are you still tired?” she whispered. “You want me to stop?”
Will didn’t want to talk. He lifted her up and pushed her back onto the coffee table. His last thought as he thrust into her was at least it wasn’t the couch or the chair.
WILL SCOOPED UP Betty and held her to his chest as he started jogging down the street. She pressed her face into his neck, her tongue lolling happily as they left the neighborhood. He didn’t slow his pace until he could see the streetlights from Ponce de Leon. Though Betty protested, he put her down on the sidewalk and made her walk the rest of the way to the drugstore.
At two in the morning, the place was surprisingly busy. Will grabbed a basket and headed toward the back of the store, guessing he’d find what he needed near the pharmacy. He walked down two different aisles before he spotted the right section.
Will scanned the boxes, his eyes blurring on the letters. He could make out numbers okay, but had never been able to read well. There was a teacher early on who had suggested dyslexia, but Will had never been diagnosed so there was no telling if he had a real disorder or if he was just painfully stupid—something subsequent teachers agreed was the issue. The only thing he knew for certain was that no matter how hard he tried, printed words worked against him. The letters transposed and skipped around. They lost their meaning by the time they went from his eyes to his brain. They turned backward and sometimes disappeared off the page altogether. He couldn’t tell left from right. He couldn’t focus on a page of text for more than an hour without getting a blinding headache. On good days, he could read on a second-grade level. Bad days were unbearable. If he was tired or upset, the words swirled like quicksand.
The year before, Amanda Wagner had found out about his problem. Will wasn’t sure how she had found out, but asking her would only open up a conversation he didn’t want to have. He used voice recognition software to do his reports. Maybe he relied on the computer spell-check too much. Or maybe Amanda had wondered why he used a digital recorder to take notes instead of the old-fashioned spiral notebook every other cop used. The fact existed that she knew and it made his job that much harder because he was constantly having to prove to her that he wasn’t a hindrance.
He still wasn’t sure if she had assigned Faith Mitchell to him to help or because Mitchell, of all people, would be looking for something wrong with him. If it got out that Will was functionally illiterate, he would never be able to lead a case again. He would probably lose his job.
He couldn’t even think about what he’d do if that happened.
Will put the basket on the floor, rubbing Betty’s chin to let her know he hadn’t forgotten about her. He looked back at the shelf. Will had thought it would be easier than this, but there were at least ten different brands to choose from. All the boxes were the same except for varying shades of pink or blue. He recognized some of the logos from television commercials, but he hadn’t seen the box among the trash strewn across the yard, he had only seen the little stick you pee on. Whatever dog had gotten into the garbage had destroyed the packaging, so this morning, all Will could do was stand in the middle of the driveway holding up what was obviously a home pregnancy test.
