The end.
“Will?” Faith asked.
He looked up at her.
“How did you get into the GBI?”
He weighed the question, trying to spot her end game. “I was recruited.”
“How?”
“Amanda came to my college.”
Faith gave a tight nod, and he could tell she was chasing a train of thought he couldn’t pin down. “What about the application?”
Will rubbed his eyes. There was still white grit in the corners from tearing apart the basement.
Faith pressed, “The background screening. All the paperwork.”
She knew about his dyslexia. She also knew he could pull his own weight. “It was mostly oral interviews. They let me take the rest home. Same as you, right?”
Faith’s chin tilted up. Finally, she said, “Right.”
Will rested his hand on Betty’s chest. He could feel her heart beat against his palm. She sighed. Her tongue licked out.
Will asked, “Why did the reporter from
Faith shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I told you I shut down the story.”
Will had been so blind. Amanda had fed him the information this morning but he’d been too exhausted to process it. “My records are sealed. There’s no way a reporter—or anybody—could know who my father is. At least not legally.” He studied Faith. “And even if someone found out, why call Amanda? Why not call me directly? My number is listed. So’s my address.”
Faith chewed her bottom lip. It was her tell. She knew something that Will did not, and she wasn’t going to share it.
Will leaned toward her. “I want you to go to the hotel. He’s on parole. He doesn’t have a legal expectation of privacy.”
Faith didn’t need to ask whose hotel room. “And do what?”
Will clenched his fist. The cuts opened up again. “I want you to toss his room. I want you to interrogate him and sit on him until he can’t take it anymore.”
Faith stared at him. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have to build a case, not a harassment suit.”
“I don’t care about a case. Make him so miserable he leaves the hotel just to get away from you.”
“And then what?”
She knew what would happen next. Will would shoot him down in the street like a rabid dog.
She said, “I’m not going to do that.”
“I can look up the layout of the hotel. I can go to the courthouse. I can find a way in there and—”
“That sounds like a great way to leave a paper trail.”
Will didn’t care about a paper trail. “How many men are on the hotel?”
“Five times as many as are sitting outside your house right now.”
Will went to the front window. He pushed open the blinds. There was an Atlanta cop car blocking his driveway. A G-ride was in the street. Will slammed his hand against the blinds. Betty barked, jumping up from the couch.
He went to the back of the house. He opened the kitchen door. A man was sitting in the gazebo Will had built last summer. Tan and blue GBI regs. Glock on his hip. He had his feet propped up on the railing. He waved as Will slammed the door.
“She can’t do this,” Will said. “She can’t sit on my house like I’m some kind of criminal.”
Faith asked, “Why didn’t you ever tell me about him?”
Will paced across the room. His body was suddenly filled with adrenaline. “So I can be another notch in your serial killer collection?”
“Do you really think I’d turn your life into a game?”
“Where’s my gun?” His keys were on his desk. His phone. The Glock was missing. “Did you take my gun?”
Faith didn’t answer, but he noticed that her thigh holster was gone. She’d locked her gun in the car. She didn’t trust him not to take it.
Several thoughts came into Will’s head. Punching a hole in the wall. Kicking over his desk. Breaking the windows in Faith’s car. Taking a bat to that asshole sitting in his gazebo. In the end, Will could only stand there. It was the same thing that had happened at the morgue. He was too exhausted. Too overwhelmed. Too handled. “Just leave, Faith. I don’t need you babysitting me. I don’t want you here.”
“Too bad.”
“Go home. Go home to your stupid kid and get the hell out of my business.”
“If you think being a dick is going to chase me away, you don’t know me very well.” She sat back in the chair, arms crossed over her chest. “Sara found semen in the girl’s hair.”
Will waited for her to continue.
“There’s enough for a DNA profile. Once it’s in the system, we can match it against his.”
“That’ll take weeks.”
“Four days,” she told him. “Dr. Coolidge put a rush on it.”
“Then arrest him. You can hold him for twenty-four hours.”
“Which means he’ll bail out and disappear before we can pick him up again.” Her voice had the annoying tone of someone trying to be reasonable. “APD put six guys on the hotel. Amanda probably has ten more. He won’t be able to take a shit without us knowing.”
“I want to be there when you arrest him.”
“You know Amanda won’t allow that.”
“When you interrogate him.” Will couldn’t help himself. He started begging. “Please let me see him. Please. I have to see him. I have to look him in the eye. I want to see his face when he realizes that I got away. That he didn’t win.”
Faith put her hand over her heart. “I swear to God, Will. I swear to you on the lives of my children that I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens.”
“It’s not enough,” Will said. He didn’t just want to look his father in the eye. He wanted to beat him. He wanted to kick out his teeth. To slice off his cock. To sew shut his mouth and eyes and nose and beat him until he drowned in his own vomit. “It’s not enough.”
“I know it’s not,” Faith said. “It’ll never be enough, but it’ll have to do.”
There was a knock on the door. Will didn’t know who he was expecting when Faith opened the door. Amanda. Angie. Some cop telling him that Will’s father had killed again.
Anyone but the person who was actually there.
Sara asked Faith, “Everything okay?”
Faith nodded, picking up her purse by the door. She told Will, “I’ll call you the minute I know anything. I promise.”
Sara shut the door behind her. Her hair fell in soft curls around her shoulders. She was wearing a tight black dress that wrapped around her body. Will had seen her dressed up before, but never like this. She was wearing extremely high heels with a black leopard print. They did something to her calf that sent a tightness into his groin.
She said, “Hi.”
Will swallowed. He could still taste plaster in his throat.
Sara walked around the couch and sat down. She slid off her heels and tucked her legs underneath her. “Come here.”
Will sat down on the couch. Betty was between them. She jumped down. Her toenails clicked across the floor as she headed into the kitchen.
Sara took his hand. She must’ve noticed the cuts and blisters, but she didn’t say anything. Will couldn’t look
