Fractured

'Exactly,' Charlie confirmed. 'We found several spots on the stairs, a couple more up here. My guess is that whoever the blood belongs to was unconscious. As Will and I suggested, she was carried down the stairs. Either the abductor had to stop at the bottom to reposition her or she came to and started to struggle. Somehow, her foot touched the ground at that one spot.'

Will told Amanda, 'I've asked Charlie to Lumenol the house top to bottom. I'm curious about where Emma Campano was while her friend was being attacked.'

'It follows that she was unconscious somewhere.'

'Not here,' Charlie supplied. 'At least, not by what the blood tells us.'

Will said, 'We've had a lot of mistakes made today. I want to make sure that footprint downstairs belongs to Emma Campano. She's got a ton of shoes in her closet. Maybe you can get a latent?'

'It's a long shot, but I can certainly try.'

Amanda asked, 'Did you find any sperm in this area?'

'Nothing.'

'But Kayla Alexander had sperm on and in her person.'

'Yes.'

She told him, 'I want a rush DNA comparison against both Adam Humphrey and Paul Campano. Check the master bathroom for hair or any tissue you can find that might belong to the father.' She looked at Will, as if waiting for him to object. 'I want to know who this girl has been having sex with, consensual or otherwise.' She didn't wait for a response, turning on her heel after tossing a 'Will?' over her shoulder.

He followed her down the back stairs and into the kitchen. Will tried to get ahead of her on the blame game. 'Why didn't you tell me Faith Mitchell's mother was part of my investigation?'

She started opening and closing drawers. 'I assumed you would use your brilliant detective skills to make a connection between the two last names.'

She was right, but Evelyn Mitchell hadn't been a priority for him for a long time. 'Mitchell is a common name.'

'I'm glad we have that settled.' Amanda found what she was looking for. She held up a kitchen knife, looked at the silver bee on the handle. 'Laguiole. Nice.'

'Amanda-'

She placed the knife back in the drawer. 'Faith will be your partner going forward on this investigation. We've pissed off the Atlanta Police Department enough this year without pulling another major case from them, and I'd rather partner you with a goat than put Leo Donnelly on this.'

'I don't want her.'

'I don't care,' she shot back. 'Will, this is a major case I'm handing you. You're thirty-six years old now. You're never going to move up if-'

'We both know this is as far as I'm going to get.' He didn't give her room to disagree. 'I'm never going to do PowerPoint presentations or stand in front of a chalkboard filling in a timeline.'

She pursed her lips, staring at him. He wondered why the disappointment in her eyes bothered him so much. As far as he knew, Amanda didn't have any children or even a family. She wore a wedding ring sometimes, but that seemed to be more for decoration than declaration. For all intents and purposes, she was as much an orphan as he was. Sometimes, he thought that she was like the dysfunctional, passive-aggressive mother he'd never had-a fact which made Will glad that he had grown up in the children's home.

She said, 'It's dry erase now. You don't get chalk on your hands.'

'Oh, well…sign me up.'

She smiled ruefully. 'How do you know Paul Campano?'

'I knew him when I was ten years old. We didn't get along.'

'Is that why he doesn't want to talk to you?'

'It could be,' Will admitted. 'But I think my knowing him might also be a way in.'

'Hoyt Bentley has posted a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to his granddaughter's safe return. He wanted to come out of the gate with half a million, but I managed to talk him down.'

Will didn't envy her the task. Men like Bentley were used to being able to buy their way out of anything. A more lucrative reward would have backfired in so many ways, including bringing out every fruitcake in the city.

'I bet you they're going to hire their own people to stick their noses into this.'

Will recognized a sucker bet when he saw one. Atlanta's wealthy had a bevy of private security forces at their disposal. Hoyt Bentley had enough money to buy every last one of them. 'I'm sure Paul and his father-in-law think they can take care of this themselves.'

'I hope whoever they hire knows the difference between paying off a CEO's mistress and negotiating a ransom.'

Surprised, Will said, 'Do you think there will be a ransom demand?'

'I think there will be several-none of them from our kidnapper.' She crossed her arms, leaning against the counter. 'Tell me what's bothering you.'

Will didn't have to think in order to answer her question. 'Two teenage girls, at least one teenage boy, alone in a house during the middle of the day. The parents don't know where any of them are. They say their daughter has changed lately, that she's been acting out. Somebody had sex in that bed upstairs. Where were Emma and Adam when Kayla was being butchered? Where was Emma when Adam was stabbed?We have toask whether ornot Emma Campano is a victim or an offender.'

Amanda let that sink in, considering the possibilities. 'I'm not saying you're wrong,' she finally told him. 'But there's a big difference between being a rebellious teenager and being a coldblooded killer. Nothing about the scene points to anything ritualistic. I'm not saying you're wrong to consider the possibility, but let's just treat this as a straight abduction until we find something that points to more nefarious origins.'

Will nodded.

'What's your game plan?'

'Charlie's going to be here all night, so anything big forensic-wise should be on your desk first thing in the morning. We've got APD pulling parking tickets in the area for the last week. I've got a two-man unit checking storm drains to see if anything was ditched-another weapon, some clothing, whatever. I want to talk to some folks at the school where these girls went and see if they have any enemies-and spread that out to the Alexanders, too. I think it's sketchy they left their kid alone for three weeks while they're half a world away. Do you have an ETA on the dogs?'

'Barry Fielding was on a training run up in Ellijay when I called,' she told him, referring to the director of the GBI canine unit. 'He should be here with a team within the next half hour.' She returned to something Will had said earlier. 'Let's go back two months on those parking tickets in the area. Go ahead and pull 9-1-1 calls, too. There can't be that many, but touching on what you said about the kids being alone here today, if this has been an ongoing thing…' She let Will fill in the blank: Don't stop questioning what Emma Campano's role was in all of this. 'What are you going to be doing?'

'I'm going to go to the school myself to get a better idea of who these girls are. Were. I also want to talk to the mother. She was out of it today. Maybe she'll be more helpful tomorrow.'

'She's a lot stronger than she looks.'

'She strangled a man with her bare hands. I don't think you need to tell me to watch out for her.'

Amanda looked around the kitchen, appraising the stainless steel gleaming from every corner, the granite countertops. 'This is not going to turn out well, Will.'

'You think the girl is already dead?'

'I think if she's lucky she is.'

They were both silent. Will couldn't guess what was on Amanda's mind. For his part, he was thinking how ironic it was that Paul had everything they could only dream about when they were kids-family, wealth, security- and yet one violent intervention by fate had managed to sweep it all away. You expected that kind of thing to happen when you were living in an orphanage, kids stacked twelve to a room in a house that was no larger than a shoebox. You didn't expect it living smack-dab in the middle of Mayberry.

Movement outside the kitchen window caught Will's attention. Faith Mitchell looked grim as she walked along the back patio by the pool. She opened one of the French doors, asking, 'Am I interrupting?'