Karin Slaughter - Faithless

He mumbled under his breath, “Step one,” as if reading the directions out loud would convince the phone to see logic. Sixteen more steps went by for a fifth time, but when Jeffrey pressed the recall button, nothing happened.

“Shit,” he said, pounding his fist into the desk, then “Fuck!” because he had used his injured left hand. He twisted his wrist, watching blood wick into the white bandage Sara had applied last night at the morgue. He threw in a “Jesus” for good measure, thinking the last ten minutes put a fine point on what was proving to be an extremely shitty day.

As if he had been summoned, Brad Stephens stood at the office door. “Need help with that?”

Jeffrey tossed him the phone. “Put my number on speed dial.”

Brad pressed some buttons, asking, “Your cell number?”

“Yeah,” he said, writing Cathy and Eddie Linton’s home number on a yellow Post-it. “This one, too.”

“Okeydoke,” Brad said, reading the number upside down, punching more buttons.

“You need the instructions?”

Brad gave him a sideways look, like Jeffrey might be pulling his leg, and kept programming the phone. Suddenly, Jeffrey felt about six hundred years old.

“Okay,” Brad said, staring at the phone, pressing more buttons. “Here. Try this.”

Jeffrey hit the phone book icon and the numbers came up. “Thanks.”

“If you don’t need anything else…”

“That’s fine,” Jeffrey said, standing from his chair. He slipped on his suit jacket, pocketing the phone. “I guess there haven’t been any hits on the missing persons report we put out?”

“No, sir,” Brad answered. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear.”

“I’ll be at the clinic, then back here.” Jeffrey followed Brad out of his office. He rolled his shoulder as he walked to the front of the squad room, trying to loosen up the muscles that were so tight his arm felt numb. The police station reception area had been open to the lobby at one time, but now it was walled in with a small banker’s window so visitors could check in. Marla Simms, the station’s secretary since before dirt, reached under her desk to buzz the door open for Jeffrey.

“I’ll be at Sara’s office if you need me,” he told her.

Marla gave him a cat’s grin. “You be good, now.”

He gave her a wink before heading outside.

Jeffrey had been at the station since five thirty that morning, having given up on sleep sometime around four. He usually ran for thirty minutes every weekday, but today he had fooled himself into thinking he wasn’t being lazy if he went straight to work instead. There was a mountain of paperwork to get through, including finalizing the station’s budget so the mayor could veto everything on it right before going to his annual two-week mayors’ conference in Miami. Jeffrey imagined the mayor’s minibar bill could pay for at least two Kevlar vests, but the politician never saw things that way.

Heartsdale was a college town, and Jeffrey passed several students going to class as he walked down the sidewalk. Underclassmen had to live in the dorms, and the first thing any sophomore with half a brain did was move off campus. Jeffrey had rented his house to a couple of juniors who he hoped were as trustworthy as they looked. Grant Tech was a school of eggheads, and while there weren’t nonacademic fraternities or football games, some of the kids knew how to party. Jeffrey had carefully screened prospective tenants, and he had been a cop long enough to know that there was no way in hell he would get his house back in one piece if he rented it to a bunch of young men. Something was wrong with your wiring at that age, and if it involved beer or sex- or both, if you were lucky- the brain ceased all higher levels of thinking. The two girls moving in had both listed reading as their only hobby. The way his luck was going lately, they were probably planning on turning the place into a meth lab.

The college was at the mouth of Main Street, and Jeffrey walked toward the front gates behind a group of students. They were all girls, all young and pretty, all oblivious to his presence. There had been a time when Jeffrey’s ego would have been bothered by a bunch of young women ignoring him, but now he was concerned for other reasons. He could be stalking them, listening to their conversation to find out where they would be later on. He could be anybody.

Behind him, a car horn beeped, and Jeffrey realized he had stepped into the street. He waved to the driver as he crossed the road, recognizing Bill Burgess from the dry cleaners, saying a small prayer of thanks that the old man had managed to see past his cataracts and stop the car in time.

Jeffrey seldom remembered dreams, which was a gift considering how bad some of them could be, but last night he’d kept seeing the girl in the box. Sometimes, her face would change, and he would see instead the girl he had shot and killed a year ago. She had been just a child, little more than thirteen, with more bad stuff going on in her world than most adults experience in a lifetime. The teen had been desperate for someone to help her, threatening to kill another kid in the hopes that it would end her own suffering. Jeffrey had been forced to shoot her in order to save the other kid. Or maybe not. Maybe things could have been different. Maybe she wouldn’t have shot the kid. Maybe they would both be alive now and the girl in the box would just be another case instead of a nightmare.

Jeffrey sighed as he walked along the sidewalk. There were more maybe’s in his life than he knew what to do with.

Sara’s clinic was on the opposite side of the street from the station, right by the entrance to Grant Tech. He glanced at his watch as he opened the front door, thinking that at a little after seven she would already be in. The clinic didn’t see patients until eight on Mondays, but a young woman was already pacing the front waiting room, jiggling a crying baby as she walked the floor.

Jeffrey said, “Hey.”

“Hey, Chief,” the mother said, and he saw the dark circles under her eyes. The baby on her hip was at least two, with a set of lungs on him that rattled the windows.

She shifted the kid, lifting her leg for support. She probably weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, and Jeffrey wondered how she managed to hold on to the baby.

She saw him watching and told him, “Dr. Linton should be right out.”

Jeffrey said, “Thanks,” taking off his suit jacket. The east-facing side of the waiting room was built with glass brick, so even on the coldest winter morning the rising sun could make you feel like you were in a sauna.

“Hot in here,” the woman said, resuming her pacing.

“Sure is.”

Jeffrey waited for her to say more, but she was concentrating on the child, shushing him, trying to soothe his crying. How mothers managed to keep from falling over into a coma when they had small children was beyond Jeffrey. At times like this, he understood why his own mother had kept a flask in her purse at all times.

He leaned back against the wall, taking in the toys stacked neatly in the corner. There were at least three signs posted around the room that warned, “NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED.” Sara figured if a kid was sick enough to go to the doctor, the parents should be paying attention, not yakking on the phone. He smiled, thinking of the first and only time Sara had carried a phone in her car. Somehow, she kept accidentally hitting the speed dial, so that Jeffrey would answer his phone and hear her singing along to the radio for minutes at a time. It had taken three calls before he figured out he was hearing Sara trying to harmonize with Boy George and not some sick freak beating up a cat.

Sara opened the door beside the office and went to the mother. She didn’t notice Jeffrey, and he kept quiet, taking her in. Normally, she pulled her long auburn hair back into a ponytail while she worked, but this morning it was loose around her shoulders. She was wearing a white button-down shirt and a black A-line skirt that hit just below the knee. The heel on her shoe wasn’t high, but it did something nice to her calf that made him smile. In the outfit, anyone else would look like a waitress from an uptown steakhouse, but on Sara’s tall, slim frame, it worked.