Karin Slaughter - Fractured

Faith felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She'd barely managed a shower, let alone had time to turn on the television. "What?"

"The press conference," he said, as if it was common knowledge. "I thought Amanda pushed it, but it's not like she consults me on-"

"There was a press conference?" Faith realized she had stood up. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you'd appreciate the sleep."

"Why the hell am I here?" she demanded. "What am I doing-"

"Hold on," Will interrupted. He was still sitting in his chair, a confused look on his bruised face. "What did I do now?"

"What did you do?"

"Whatever it is, I'm sorry. I really am." Will leaned forward. "Let's just talk about this, okay? Please sit down."

His genuine remorse took some of the fight out of her. She sat down. "This is ridiculous."

"Just tell me what you want to do."

"We need to define my position on this case." He still seemed at a loss, so she gave him some options. "Am I still your lackey or school spokesperson or chauffeur or-"

A loud bang came from the office next door, followed by laughter. Phones were ringing. The day shift was starting to straggle in. Will seemed to realize this just as Faith did. He squeezed around his desk and pulled the door closed.

He waited until he was seated again to tell her, "We're in this together."

"Then why aren't you telling me things?"

"I just thought…" He still sounded baffled. "I thought you'd appreciate getting some extra sleep. The press conference was just smoke and mirrors. There was no reason for both of us to have to suffer through it."

Faith could think of all kinds of reasons-a chance to talk to Abigail Campano again, to see the mother and father interacting together. The opportunity to find out what the reporters had dug up on their own, or just the common God damn courtesy of being included in the case she had been pouring her life into for the last three days.

Will was looking down at his desk, but Faith had been the mother of a teenage boy long enough to spot guilt when she saw it.

She asked, "What else?" He didn't answer, so she pressed. "I know there's something else, Will. Just go ahead and tell me."

A sense of dread filled his voice. "You're really not going to like it."

Faith waited. She could clearly hear the conversation in the next office-cop talk, somebody bragging about kicking the knees out from under an arrest.

Will said, "I talked to Evan Bernard this morning."

"By yourself?"

"With Amanda."

Faith let that sink in. Was it Amanda who didn't trust her? It would be very like the older woman to make her own decisions and leave Will to clean up the mess. Was Faith mad at the wrong person? On the other hand, if that was the case, if Faith's being left out was coming from Amanda, then why wasn't Will telling her?

She rubbed her eyes, too tired to see through the layers of deceit. "What did he say?"

"In his opinion, we're looking at an illiterate adult, not someone with a learning disability."

Faith found the leap extraordinary. "He got that from three notes?"

"I'm just telling you what he said."

"How can someone get through school without learning how to read and write?"

"It happens," he said, rubbing his jaw.

Faith felt more than snubbed this time. The press conference was one thing, but she had real questions for Evan Bernard, primarily: how could he be so sure from three short sentences that they were dealing with someone who had a learning disability rather than someone who was perfectly normal and trying to cover his tracks?

Will said, "The lab is going to call us when Gordon Chew gets here. He's the fingerprint expert."

"Why didn't you use one of our guys?"

"You only get a few chances to chemically process paper. If there's a fingerprint on one of those notes, Gordon will find it." Will tapped the keyboard on his computer to wake it up. He started reading something, probably his e-mail. "Did you do anything with that vial?"

She was conscious that sound traveled both ways. "I put it in the right hands."

He kept his eyes on his computer, moving the mouse around, clicking. She didn't know if he was pouting or scared to say the wrong thing again. As usual, his topic of choice was the last thing she would have predicted. "I had to have a root canal last year. You're very lucky you're with APD. The GBI's dental plan sucks. I had to pay fifteen hundred bucks out of my own pocket."

Faith made a sympathetic noise, but she was about ready to snatch the keyboard out from under him. "Do you want me to leave you alone so you can play with your computer?"

He had the grace to look guilty. Finally, he sat up in his chair, actually looking at Faith as he talked. "The ransom call from the cell phone came from a tower that services most of Atlanta. The ransom call analysis won't be ready until noon. Charlie still doesn't have anything tangible on the Prius. We're waiting for Paul Campano's DNA to come back to see if it matches Kayla Alexander. It's been almost three full days since the girl was abducted and it looks like we're going to waste another two hours waiting for people to answer our questions, which, by the way, is only going to lead to more questions."

"You make it sound so easy."

"Yeah, by the way, I'd call your union rep if I were you. The Alexanders are suing the city for mishandling the identification on their daughter."

"Fuck," Faith groaned.

Will tapped his fingers on his desk. "I'm sorry. We're in this together, okay?"

"You mean in the lawsuit?"

He smiled. "Maybe that, too."

Faith couldn't get bogged down in this crap and still do her job. "What's our plan after the fingerprint guy?"

"Amanda wants us to talk to the Copy Right employees to see if they noticed anything suspicious about the construction workers. Then we're supposed to meet her at the Campano house. The kidnapper said he would call at ten-thirty this morning. Hopefully we'll have some new information to go on then, a drop, a new proof of life."

"We've got a solid description of Adam's Chevy Impala on the wire. Every cop in the city will be looking for it."

"Let's just hope it's still in the city."

He sat back in his chair, hands folded across his flat belly. Faith asked him, "Did Amanda tear you a new one?"

"No," he said. "I was surprised. She's very hard to work for."

"I can imagine."

He held up his hand, thumb stretched out at an angle. "See this?" he asked, indicating a faint scar on the webbing. "She shot me with a nail gun four years ago."

"On purpose?"

"That's the question," he said, folding his hands again.

Since this seemed to be turning into a pile-it-on-Amanda party, she told him, "She dated my uncle Kenny when I was a kid."

Will nearly fell out of his chair. "What?"

Faith explained, "My dad's brother. He was a colonel in the Air Force. Amanda dated him for…" She thought about it. Amanda had left Ken right before Jeremy entered high school. "Almost fifteen years."

"I didn't know that."

"Amanda didn't tell you when she put you onto my mother?"

"No, but as far as I know, she never interfered. She just told me to be fair." His voice sounded odd when he answered.

Faith remembered something her mother had told her. At the time, she had found it strange, but now she understood. "My mother didn't talk about you much during the investigation, but one time she told me that she trusted you to do the right thing."

"That's nice," Will said, though she gathered by his expression that he was feeling duped. Faith was beginning to see that this was classic Amanda. She never gave you the entire picture.

She tried to change the subject, talking about his dank office. "The view doesn't really improve in the sunlight."