Karin Slaughter: Fractured

"We're engaged." Will felt Amanda's scrutiny focus on him with a cold intensity. He tried to deflect, indicating the open doorway with a nod of his head. "What've we got here?"

"A shitload of hate for you, my friend." Leo took out a cigarette and lit it. "You better watch your back."

Amanda asked, "Is the mother still inside?"

"First door on the left," Leo answered. "My partner's in there with her."

"Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me." Amanda dismissed Leo the way she might a servant. The look she gave Will wasn't that much more pleasant.

Leo exhaled a line of smoke as he watched her go up the stairs. "Puts a chill on things, don't she? Like fucking dry ice."

Will defended her automatically, in that sort of way that you defend a useless uncle or slutty sister when someone outside of the family attacks them. "Amanda is one of the best cops I've ever worked with."

Leo fine-tuned his appraisal. "Nice ass for a grandma."

Will thought back to the car, the way Amanda's arm had shot out in front of him when she thought they were going to get hit by the news van. It was the most maternal thing he had ever seen her do.

Leo offered, "Bet she's a lot of work in the sack."

Will tried not to shudder as he forced the image from his mind. "How've you been?"

"Prostate's got me leaking like a fucking sieve. Haven't been laid in two months and I got this cough that won't go away." He coughed, as if to prove it, then took another hit off the cigarette. "You?"

Will squared his shoulders. "I can't complain."

"Not with Angie Polaski at home." Leo's suggestive laugh reminded Will of what an asthmatic child molester would sound like if he smoked three packs a day. Angie had worked vice for fifteen years before taking medical leave from the force. Leo was under the impression that she was a whore just because her job had required her to dress like one. Or maybe it was the many different men she'd slept with over the years.

Will offered, "I'll tell her you said hello."

"Do that." Leo stared up at Will, taking a deep pull on the cigarette. "What are you really doing here?"

Will tried to shrug it off, knowing that Leo would be furious if he had his case snatched out from under him. "Bentley's got a lot of connections."

Leo dubiously raised an eyebrow. Despite the rumpled suit and the way his forehead sloped like a caveman's, he had been a cop long enough to recognize when someone hadn't exactly answered a question. "Bentley called you in?"

"The GBI can only involve itself in cases when it's invited by the local police force or government."

Leo snorted a laugh, smoke coming out of his nostrils. "You left out kidnapping."

"And bingo," Will added. The GBI had a task force that investigated bingo parlors in the state. It was the sort of job you got when you pissed off the wrong person. Two years ago, Amanda had exiled Will to the north Georgia mountains, where he had spent his time arresting meth-dealing hillbillies and reflecting on the dangers of disobeying his direct superior. He didn't doubt a bingo transfer was in his future should he ever rile her again.

Will indicated the house. "What happened here?"

"The usual." Leo shrugged. He took a long drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out on his shoe. "Mom comes home from playing tennis, the door's open." He put the butt in his jacket pocket as he led Will into the house. "She goes upstairs and sees her daughter, dead and diddled." He indicated the curving staircase that swept over their heads. "The killer's still here, sets his sights on the mom-who's fucking hot, by the way-fighting ensues, and, surprise, he's the one that winds up dead."

Will studied the grand entranceway. The doors were a double set, one fixed, one open. The broken side window was a good distance from the knob. Someone would have to have a long arm to reach in and unlock the door.

He asked, "Any pets?"

"There's a three-hundred-year-old yellow Lab. He was in the backyard. Deaf as a freakin' post, according to the mother. Probably slept through the whole thing."

"How old's the girl?"

"Seventeen."

The number echoed in the tiled foyer, where the smell of lavender air freshener and Leo's sweaty, nicotine stench competed alongside the metallic tinge of violent death. At the bottom of the stairs lay the source of the most dominant of all the odors. The man was lying on his back with his hands palms up near his head as if in surrender. A medium-sized kitchen knife with a wooden handle and a jagged edge was a few feet from his hand, lying in a nest of broken glass. His black jeans looked soiled, the skin of his neck bruised red from strangulation. The smattering of a mustache under his nose made his lip look dirty. Acne spotted his sideburns. One of his sneakers had come untied, the laces stiff with dried blood. Incongruously, the killer's T-shirt had a dancing cherry on it, the stem cocked at a jaunty angle. The shirt was dark red, so it was hard to tell if the darker parts were blood, sweat, urine or a combination of all three.

Will followed the dead man's gaze up to the chandelier hovering overhead. The glass made a tinkling noise as it swayed in the artificial breeze from the air-conditioning. White spots of light danced around the foyer, reflecting the sunlight that came in through the palladium window over the doors.

Will asked, "Do you have an ID on him yet?"

"Looks like his wallet's in his back pocket, but he's not going anywhere. I don't want to roll the body until Pete gets here." He meant Pete Hanson, the city medical examiner. "Perp looks pretty young, you know?"

"Yeah," Will agreed, thinking that the killer was probably not old enough to buy alcohol. Amanda had been excited by the prospect of a contract killing. Unless Hoyt Bentley's enemies had a crack team of mercenary frat boys on the payroll, Will doubted there was a connection.

He asked, "Domestic?"

Leo shrugged again, a gesture that was more like a tic. "Looks like it, huh? Boyfriend snaps, kills the girl, panics when the mom comes home and goes after her. Problem is, Campano swears she's never seen him before in her life."

"Campano?" Will echoed, feeling his gut tighten at the name.

"Abigail Campano. That's the mother." Leo studied him. "You know her?"

"No." Will looked down at the body, hoping his voice would not give him away. "I thought the last name was Bentley."

"That's the wife's father. The husband's Paul Campano. He owns a bunch of car dealerships. You heard the commercials, right? ‘We never say no at Campano.' "

"Where is he?"

Leo's cell phone started to ring and he slid it off the clip on his belt. "Shouldn't be too much longer. He was on the phone with her when it happened. He's the one who called 9-1-1."

Will cleared his throat so his voice would come back. "Might be interesting to know what he heard."

"You think?" He studied Will closely as he opened his cell phone, answering, "Donnelly."

Leo stepped outside and Will looked around the foyer, taking in the dead body, the broken glass. Obviously, there had been a massive struggle here. Blood streaked the floor, two different sets of tennis shoes leaving smeared waffle prints across the creamy white tile. A frail, antique-looking table had fallen on its side, a glass bowl shattered beside it. There was a busted cell phone that looked as if it had been stepped on. Mail was scattered around like confetti and a woman's handbag was overturned, the contents adding to the mess.

Over by the wall, there was a lamp sitting upright on the floor as if someone had placed it there. The base was cracked and there was a tilt to the shade. Will wondered if someone had turned it right side up or if the lamp, defying all probabilities, had landed upright. He also wondered if anyone had noticed the bloody bare footprint beside the lamp.