Karin Slaughter - Fractured

"It was the exact opposite."

"Maybe it was," Paul admitted. "You know, when you're a kid, you see things differently."

Will heard the words come out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "I'm going to get Emma back for you."

Paul nodded, obviously not trusting himself to speak.

"You're going to have to be strong for her. That's what you need to be thinking about: how you can help her." Will added, "She's got you, Paul. That's the difference. Whatever she's going through right now, she's got you waiting at the end of it to help her."

"I wish I could be strong," he said. "I feel so fucking weak right now."

"You're not weak. You were the meanest bastard in a house full of bastards."

"No, buddy." He seemed resigned as he patted Will on the shoulder. "I was just the most scared."

Behind the door, the sink turned on, water flooding out of the faucet. The paper towel dispenser screeched as the crank turned, then the door opened. Abigail's makeup had been fixed, her lipstick reapplied.

"Okay," Paul said, more to himself. He reached out his hand and she took it, nothing awkward in the gesture. Will led them down the hall and pressed the call button. Abigail had her head on Paul's shoulder, her eyes closed as if she was willing herself to get through this. When the doors slid open, Will reached in and pressed his code into the keypad. Emma's parents got on.

Paul gave him a stiff nod-not a thank-you, but an acknowledgment that Will was there.

Abigail didn't give Will a second glance as the doors closed.

Will looked down at the photographs in his hand. Emma Campano smiled back at him in a toothy grin. He thumbed through the pictures. In some, she was with her parents. Others showed her with Kayla Alexander. Younger shots showed Emma with a group of girls in the school choir, another group on a skiing trip. She seemed even more vulnerable with a group than when she was alone, as if she could feel her separateness, her outsider status, as keenly as the prick of a pin. He saw in her eyes the trepidation of a kindred spirit.

Will tucked the photos into his pocket and headed toward the stairs.

AMANDA'S CORNER OFFICE was on the opposite side of the building from Will's and a lifetime away from the squalor in which he toiled. Ahead was the ubiquitous view of the Home Depot parking lot. Up the street, the city loomed-skyscrapers, regal old buildings and in the mist-covered distance, the greenery of Piedmont Park.

Her desk was not the requisitioned metal type whose sharp corners had taken out more than one poor civil servant's kneecap. Polished wood gleamed from under her leather blotter with its pink phone messages Caroline had left her. Her in and out trays were always empty. Will had never seen a speck of dust in the place.

Pictures of Amanda with various dignitaries hung alongside newspaper articles touting her triumphs. The walls were painted a soothing gray. The ceiling was made of crisp white squares rather than the dingy, water-stained tiles that were the hallmark of every other office in the building. She had an LCD TV and her own coffee bar. The air really was better up here.

"Get you anything?" Caroline, Amanda's secretary, asked. She was the only woman who worked on Amanda's team. Will supposed this was because Amanda had come up during the age of tokenism, when there was only one spot for a woman at the top. Or maybe it was because Amanda knew that men were easier for her to control.

"No, thank you," he said. "Did Amanda tell you we're-"

"Expecting a phone call?" she interrupted.

"Thanks."

She smiled and returned to her desk outside the office.

Will had called Evan Bernard, Emma's reading teacher, first thing this morning. The man had agreed to look at the threatening notes that Adam Humphrey had been sent. As Faith had suggested, Will was hoping the teacher could give his opinion as to whether or not they were looking at the work of a dyslexic. A cruiser had been dispatched to show him copies of the letters. Bernard was supposed to call as soon as he got them.

Will checked the time on his splintered cell phone, wondering where Amanda was. The numbers didn't glow as brightly. Sometimes it rang when someone called, sometimes it flashed silently. Earlier, it had started vibrating for no apparent reason, and he had to take out the battery to get it to stop. He was worried about the phone, which was three years old and about three million models out of date. A new one would require him to learn a whole new set of directions. He would have to change over all the numbers and program in the functions. There went his vacation. Or maybe not. You needed a job to take a vacation.

"Looks like we're getting good feedback from the press," Amanda said, breezing into her office. "Paul Campano denied getting into a scuffle with you. He said it was an accident, that you fell."

Will had stood when she entered the room and he was so shocked that he forgot to sit back down.

"Hamish Patel and his big mouth say otherwise." Amanda eyed him as she fanned through the notes on her desk. "I'm going to guess from your appearance that Campano took a swing at you?"

Will sat down. "Yeah."

"And I gather from the black eyes and swollen nose that you valiantly suffered his blows?"

Will tried, "If that's what Hamish says."

"Care to tell me why he took the swing in the first place?"

Will told her a favorable version of the truth. "The last thing I said to him before he hit me was that we needed a DNA sample."

"That puts it nicely back on me."

He asked, "Did Paul give the sample?"

"Yes, actually. So, either he's extremely arrogant or he's innocent."

Will would've bet on both, but he still could not believe that Paul had covered for him. He hadn't even hinted at the favor less than half an hour ago. Maybe this was the man's way of paying him back for being such a jerk all those years ago. Or maybe he was still the same old Paul who liked to settle his scores when the adults weren't watching.

"What about his affairs?"

"I called the dealership as soon as I got back to my office. If she doesn't get back to me by noon, I'll send a squad car to pick her up." Will had to add, "My gut tells me Paul doesn't have anything to do with this. Maybe if it was just a simple kidnapping-but it's not."

"We'll know soon enough," Amanda said. "I've fast tracked the comparison between Paul Campano and the DNA we found on Kayla Alexander. Beckey Keiper at the lab is going to call you as soon as the results are in."

"I sent a cruiser over to Emma's school," Will said, barely able to get past his shock. "Bernard should be calling us any minute."

"It's extremely ironic that our resident dyslexic can't tell us, isn't it?"

Will tried not to squirm in his chair. He had called his boss at home only one other time in the last ten years, and that was to tell her that a colleague had been killed. Last night, she had been even icier to him when he'd explained that he had been unable to see anything unusual about the notes someone, probably the killer, had slipped under Adam Humphrey's dorm room door.

He cleared his throat. "If you want my resignation-"

"When you leave this job it'll be with my foot up your ass, not slinking out the door like a wounded kitten." She sat back in her chair. "God dammit, Will."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it right now." She twisted the screw tighter. "Those letters are the first pieces of real evidence we have. ‘Leave her alone.' ‘She belongs to me.' Those are direct threats from our killer to one of our victims. If this is the work of someone with some kind of handicap-that's our blood in the water, Will. We should have been circling this information as soon as we got it."

"I'm aware of that."