Karin Slaughter - Broken

“Agent Trent wanted this.” Marla held out the sheet of paper between her fingers, giving Lena a meaningful look, as if they were two spies passing a briefcase in front of the Kremlin. “He didn’t see it last night.”

Lena had to tug the sheet before Marla would release it. She recognized her own handwriting. The copied page was from her notebook. The transcript she had made of the 911 call. She tried to pick out the words but her eyes blurred. “I thought he asked for the tape?”

“If he wants more than this, then he’s going to have to drive down to Eaton to get it.” She tucked her hands into her wide hips. “And you can tell him from me that I’m not his personal secretary. I don’t know who he thinks he is, ordering people around.”

He was the man who was going to shut down this force if they didn’t do everything he said. “Have you talked to Frank this morning?”

“I’m guessing he came by last night. My files were a mess when I got here.”

Lena already knew Frank had stolen Tommy’s phone and taken the photograph from Allison’s wallet, but this new information sent a chill straight to her chest. “Which files?”

“All of them. I don’t know what he was looking for, but I hope he found it.”

“You gave Trent those incident reports.”

“What of it?”

“Why?”

“No one wants to speak ill of the dead, but I’ll come on out and say it to whoever asks. Tommy wasn’t acting right lately. He was getting into trouble, yelling at people, threatening them. Don’t get me wrong. He was a good boy when he was little. Had those precious little blond curls and pretty blue eyes. That’s what Sara’s remembering. But she doesn’t know what he was like lately. I think something just clicked in his head. Maybe it was there all along and we just didn’t notice. Didn’t want to notice.” Marla shook her head in a tight half-circle. “This is just a mess. A grade-A, certified pile of doo.”

Lena focused on Marla for the first time. The old woman wasn’t one of her biggest fans. At best, she managed a nod for Lena when she walked through the door in the morning. Most times, she never bothered to look up from her desk. “Why are you talking to me? You never talk to me.”

Marla bristled. “Excuse me for trying to help.” She turned on her heel and stomped out.

Lena watched the door slowly close on its hinges. The room felt small, claustrophobic. She couldn’t stay here all day, but her instinct to hide from Will Trent was hard to overcome. Larry Knox had told Frank that Will was a suit, not a cop. Lena’s first impression had been the same. With his cashmere sweater and metrosexual haircut, Will looked like he’d be more at home behind a desk, clocking out at five and going home to the wife and kids. The old Lena would have dismissed him as a fraud, not on her level and not deserving of the badge.

That old Lena had been burned so many times by her snap judgments that she’d practically self-immolated. Now, she could look past her knee-jerk reaction and see the truth. Will had been sent down by a deputy director who was a heartbeat away from the top job. Lena had met Amanda Wagner many years ago. She was a tough old bitch. There was no way Amanda would’ve sent her second string down here, especially at the request of Sara Linton. Will was probably one of the best investigators on her team. He had to be. In less than two hours, he had shattered Lena’s case against Tommy Braham into tiny pieces.

And now she had to go back out there and face him again.

Lena’s feet still ached from the long trek through the forest. Her shoes were soaking wet. She went to her locker. The combination left her mind as soon as she turned the dial. She pressed her forehead against the cool metal. Why was she still here? She couldn’t keep this up with Will Trent. There were so many lies and half-truths dangling out there that she couldn’t remember them all. He kept laying traps, and with each one, she felt herself getting closer and closer to falling in. She should go home before she said too much. If Trent wanted to stop her, he would have to do it with handcuffs.

The combination came into her head. Lena spun the dial, opening the locker. She looked at her rain jacket, her toiletries, the various crap she’d collected over the years. There was nothing here she wanted except the extra pair of sneakers she kept in the bottom. She started to close the locker but stopped at the last minute. Inside a box of tampons was a picture of Jared that had been taken three years ago. He was standing outside Sanford Stadium at the University of Georgia. The place was packed. Georgia was playing LSU. There was a crowd of students around him, but he was the only one looking back at the camera. Looking back at Lena.

This picture was the moment that she had fallen in love with him—outside that noisy stadium, surrounded by drunken strangers. Lena had actually managed to capture on film that exact moment when everything in her life had changed. Who would be around to capture it when it all changed back?

Probably the booking officer who took her mugshot.

The door popped open. Four patrolmen came in, so lost in conversation that they barely acknowledged Lena. She tucked Jared’s picture into her back pocket. Her socks were soaking wet, but she slid on her spare sneakers anyway. She just wanted to get out of here. She would walk through the squad room, right past Will Trent, get into her car and go home to Jared.

Lena would start packing tonight. She’d be one of those people who left her house key in the mailbox for the bank. Her car was in good shape. She had enough in savings to last her three months, four if Jared didn’t expect her to help out with rent. She would move in with him and try to get over this, try to find a way to live her life without being a cop.

If she wasn’t in jail for obstructing an investigation. If she wasn’t convicted of negligence. If Gordon Braham didn’t sue her into the ground. If Frank didn’t fill Jared’s ear with poison. Poison Jared would believe, because the great thing about lying was people believed it so long as the lie was close enough to the truth.

Lena slammed the locker closed, pressing her hand against the cool metal.

One of the patrolmen said, “You let that GBI asshole slip and hit his head, we’re not going to shed any tears.”

They were all suiting up, pulling on their heavy rain gear. Will had taken photographs and samples from the bark and soil by the tree, but he had ordered a full-scale search of the woods. He wanted more photographs, drawings, diagrams. He wanted to make sure the force knew that they had made a mistake. That Lena had made a mistake.

“Fucking retard,” another cop said.

Lena didn’t know if he meant Will or Tommy. Either way, she managed some false bravado. “Wish he was a little smarter so he knew how stupid he was.”

They were all laughing when she left the locker room. Lena pulled on her jacket. She walked through the squad room with more swagger than she felt. She had to get her composure back. She had to steel herself against the next barrage of questions from Will Trent. The fewer answers she gave him, the better off she would be.

The paper Marla had given her was in her hand. Lena skimmed the words as she walked so she wouldn’t have to talk to anybody. She stopped as she reached the front door. She read the transcript again. The words were in her handwriting, but the last few lines from the call were missing. The caller had mentioned that Allison had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend. Why was that part taken out?

She glanced at Marla behind the front desk. Marla stared back, one eyebrow raised above her glasses. She was either still pissed or sending Lena a message. It was hard to tell. Lena looked at the transcript again. The last part was gone, the cut clean so that you would never know it was missing. Had Marla taken a shot at tampering with police evidence? Frank had gone through her files last night. Why would he edit the transcript without telling Lena? Christ, she had her notebook in her back pocket with the original transcript. All Trent had to do was ask her to see it and Lena would be looking at an obstruction charge for tampering with evidence.