Karin Slaughter - Fractured

"The plastic cut open the skin on her back. Pete had to peel it off for me."

Through the bag, Will made out the shattered phone. Still, he pressed his thumb on the green button and waited. There was no power to the device.

"Switch out the SIM card in your phone," Charlie suggested.

"Sprint," Will told him, recognizing the silk-screened logo on the back of the silver phone. The phone didn't use a SIM card. The only way to access any information stored on the device would be to have a technician hook it up to a computer and pray. Will said, "It must belong to either the kid downstairs, Kayla or somebody else."

"I'll rush it through the lab once we get prints," Charlie offered, holding out his hand for the phone. "The IMEI has been scratched off."

The IMEI was the serial number that cell phone networks used to identify a particular phone on the grid. "Scratched off on purpose?"

Charlie studied the white sticker near the battery casing. "Looks rubbed off from use to me. It's an older model. There's duct tape residue on the sides. I'd guess it was falling apart long before it was crushed. Not what I'd expect a teenage girl to carry."

"Why is that?"

"It's not pink and it doesn't have Hello Kitty stickers all over it."

He had a point. Emma Campano's phone had a bunch of pink, plastic charms dangling from the case.

Will said, "Tell the lab this has priority over the computer." They had found a MacBook Pro downstairs that belonged to Emma Campano. The girl had enabled FileVault, encryption software so secure that not even Apple could unlock it without the password. Unless Emma had used something simple like the name of the family dog, nothing short of the NSA could break it open.

Charlie said, "I found this over by the table." He held up another plastic bag that contained a brass key. "Yale lock, pretty standard. No usable fingerprints on it."

"Was it wiped down?"

"Just used a lot. There aren't any prints to lift."

"No keychain?"

Charlie shook his head. "If you had it in your pocket and you were wearing baggy pants, it could easily come out during a struggle."

Will looked at the key, thinking that if it had a number or address on it, his job would be so much easier. "Mind if I hold on to this?"

"I've already catalogued it. Just make sure it gets back to evidence."

"Will?" Amanda had been hovering behind him. "I talked to Campano."

He pocketed the key Charlie had found, trying to hide his sense of dread along with it. "And?"

"He wants you off the case," she said, but didn't seem to think that was worth discussing. "He says that they've had some problems with Emma lately. She was a good girl, the perfect child, then she got mixed up with this Kayla Alexander sometime last year and everything went to hell."

"In what way?"

"She started skipping school, her grades started to fall, she started listening to the wrong music and dressing the wrong way."

He told her about what he'd found in Emma's room. "I'm guessing they made her take down the posters."

"Typical teenager stuff," Amanda said. "I wouldn't trust the father so much on where the blame lies. I have yet to meet a parent who admits that his own child is the bad apple." She tapped her watch, her signal that they were wasting time. "Tell me what progress we've made."

Will told her, "The deceased male is Adam Humphrey. He's got an Oregon driver's license."

"He's a student?"

"Detective Mitchell is calling local colleges to see if he's registered. We're still trying to track down Alexander's parents."

"You know the key to breaking this is going to be finding a second person who knows at least one of our victims."

"Yes, ma'am. We're running dumps on all the telephones. We just need a lead to follow."

"GHP is pulling a negative," she said, meaning the Georgia Highway Patrol. "White is a popular color for the Prius, but there aren't that many on the road. Unfortunately, we're heading into rush hour, so it's not going to get easier."

"I've got uniforms pulling video from every ATM and store-front on Peachtree as well as anything in the Ansley Mall area. If the Prius left either way, we might get an image we can work with."

"Let me know if you need more feet on the ground." She rolled her hand, meaning for him to continue.

"The knife doesn't match anything in the kitchen or the carriage house, which points to the killer bringing it with him. It's pretty cheap-wooden handle, fake gold grommets-but it's obviously sharp enough to do some damage. The brand is for commercial use only. It's the kind of thing you'd find at Waffle House or Morrisons. The local supplier says he sells millions of them a year just in the metro area."

Amanda always thought in terms of how she could frame a case for the prosecutor. "Bringing the knife to the crime scene shows intent. Go on."

"There's dried blood on the glass outside the front door. Whoever broke it already had blood on his or her hand-it's on the outside of the pane. I'd guess it would take someone with an arm that was around three feet long to reach in through that window and unlock the front door."

"So, no forced entry-the girls let their attacker into the house. Whoever busted the glass obviously wanted to make it look as if he broke in." Amanda mumbled, "I suppose we have CSI to thank for his stupidity."

"Or someone smart enough to make it look stupid."

She raised an eyebrow. "Possibly. Do you think we should be looking at the father more closely?"

"He sells cars and he's a jerk. I'm sure there's a long list of enemies, but this feels deeply personal. Look at Kayla Alexander. Whoever killed her was furious. If you're a hired gun, you go in, take out the target and leave. You don't spend time beating her and you don't use a knife."

"What was your conversation like with Paul Campano?"

"He doesn't seem to know a lot about her life," Will said. Thinking back on the interview, he realized that this fact seemed to be the genesis of Paul's anger. It was as if he had never met his own daughter. "The mother had to be sedated. I'll go back at her first thing tomorrow."

"Do we know if Alexander was raped?"

"Pete isn't sure yet. Bruising would indicate yes, and there's sperm in her vagina, but it's also on the crotch of her panties."

"So, she stood up and put on her underwear at some point after intercourse. Let's see if the sperm comes back to our other victim, if that's what we're calling corpse number two for the moment." Amanda pressed her finger to her lip as she thought this through. "What about the mother? Hysterics, sedation. Pretty dramatic stuff and it conveniently takes her out of the spotlight."

"I think she's genuinely horrified about what's happened and she's scared she's going to be arrested for killing someone in cold blood."

Amanda looked at the dark, congealed pool where the body had lain. "Good defense if you ask me. Let's go back to the father. Maybe he was molesting the daughter."

Will felt his body break out in a sudden cold sweat. "He wouldn't do that."

Amanda studied him. "Do you have a previous relationship with this person that I should know about?"

"What did he say?"

She gave him a sharp smile. "You don't have the luxury of not answering my question."

Will felt his jaw working and made himself stop. "It was a long time ago."

Amanda seemed to realize Charlie was at her feet, picking through carpet fibers with a pair of tweezers. She murmured to Will, "A discussion for another time."

"Yes, ma'am."

Amanda's tone went back to normal. "Charlie, can you walk me through this?"

Charlie finished what he was doing and stood up with a groan, rubbing one of his knees as if he needed to work some life back into it. He pulled down his mask again. "We lucked out with the blood. The female decedent is B-negative, the male decedent is O-negative. The carpet here"-he indicated the shoe prints-"shows almost exclusively B, indicating the female decedent."