Karin Slaughter - Fractured

Will rubbed his jaw again. "No." He was silent for a moment, then said, "I'm sorry I left you out of the phone call. And the press conference. It won't happen again."

She wasn't quite ready to accept his apology, maybe because he kept leaving her out no matter how many times he said he was sorry. "What was Paul's reaction to all this?"

"He was his usual asshole self," Will said. "Trying to control everything."

"What about him?" Faith asked. "Doth he protest too much?"

"Paul's an asshole, but I don't see him doing this kind of thing. He'd have to have an accomplice, a motive."

"I guess we'll know motive well enough when the DNA comes back."

"It's not going to match." He seemed so sure of himself that Faith didn't bother to argue. The obvious culprit in any child abduction case was always the father. Actually, most domestic cases ended up pointing a big accusatory finger back at the father, no matter the circumstances. This was Will's case, and if he was so damn sure the man wasn't involved, then there was nothing Faith could do about it.

"I know him," Will said, as if he could sense Faith's skepticism.

"All right."

"I'm serious, Faith. Paul didn't do this." He kept pressing the matter. "I know you don't trust my judgment on a lot of things-"

"That's not true."

"Then, can I get a word in?"

Faith didn't trust herself to respond. She seemed to be making a habit of sparring with this man, and the end result usually had him feeling perplexed and her feeling like a heel.

Will seemed to realize this, too. "All I am trying to say is that I know this guy. Please trust me. There is no way Paul Campano would be involved in anything that would hurt a kid-especially when it's his own child."

"Okay," Faith agreed. God knew she'd taken more on face value than this. She glanced around the room, feeling a desperate need to change the subject. "I don't mean to pry, but do you mind my asking why you have two bags of home pregnancy kits by your window?"

He actually blushed as he turned around to look at them.

Faith rushed an apology. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said-"

"I forgot they were over there."

Faith saw the boxes peeking up from the bags, their happy little logos. If only she'd had access to a kit when she was pregnant with Jeremy. Maybe Faith wouldn't have waited until she was in her third trimester to tell her parents. She put her hand to her neck, wondering where that awful thought had come from. She must have been more exhausted than she realized.

He said, "I think my girlfriend might be pregnant."

His words hung between them, and Faith tried to pin down when exactly their relationship had gone from coolly professional to personal. There was something so kind about him under his awkward manners and social ineptness. Despite her best intentions, Faith realized that she could not hate Will Trent.

She glanced at the myriad kits. There had to be a dozen of them.

"You can't just dip those in the toilet. You have to have a fresh sample."

Will opened his desk drawer and reached his hand all the way to the back. "I've got this," he said, pulling out a test stick. "I found it in the trash. Do you know what this signifies?"

Faith stopped herself before touching the stick, remembering at the last minute that someone had actually urinated on it. She looked at the result panel. There was a single blue line. "I have no idea."

"Yeah," he said. "Anyway, I got all these so I can figure out which brand it is and get the results."

The obvious question hung in the back of her throat- why don't you just ask her? -but Faith figured the fact that Angie Polaski hadn't mentioned the test to Will in the first place was proof enough that there was a serious breakdown in communications.

She said, "Let's go through them now."

He was obviously surprised by the suggestion. "No, I couldn't ask you to do that."

"We can't do anything until Bernard calls. Come on."

Will only made a show of resisting. He emptied the bags onto his desk. They started opening the boxes, breaking the plastic seals, finding the test sticks, comparing them to the one on Will's desk calendar. They were nearly to the last one when Will said, "This looks like it."

Faith looked at the plastic-wrapped tester in his hand and compared it to the used one on his desk. "Yep," she agreed.

He unfolded the directions that came with the test, skimming them to find the right section. He glanced up at Faith nervously, then looked back at the directions.

"Let me," she finally said, putting him out of his misery. There was a drawing on the back side. "One line," she said. "That means it's negative."

He sat back in his chair, hands gripping the arms. She couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed. "Thank you for helping me with that."

Faith nodded, sticking the directions back in the box.

"Spell-check."

"What?"

"Yesterday, Bernard said that computers make it easier for dyslexics to hide their problem." He shrugged. "It would make sense that someone who was functionally illiterate would do the same thing."

Faith closed her eyes, remembering the threatening notes. "The way the words were jumbled together-they were spelled correctly, right? Is l-e-v a word?" She pointed to his computer. "Type it in."

Will didn't move. "It's a word."

"What does it mean?"

His phone rang. He didn't move to answer it.

Faith had seen him acting strangely, but this took the cake. The phone rang again. "Do you want me to get that?"

He reached over and pressed the speakerphone button. "Will Trent."

"It's Beckey in the lab," a woman with a pronounced Yankee accent said. "Gordon Chew is here."

Will pressed the off button on his computer monitor. He stood up, straightening his jacket. "Let's go."

THE FORENSIC LAB took up the entire second floor of City Hall East. Unlike the rest of the building, which was likely filled with mice and asbestos, the lab was clean and well lit. The air-conditioning actually worked. There were no cracked tiles on the floor or jagged pieces of metal sticking out from the desks. Everything was either white or stainless steel. Faith would've eaten her gun if she'd had to work here day in and day out. Even the windows were clean, missing the great swaths of grime that covered the rest of the building.

At least two dozen people buzzed around the room, all of them wearing white coats, most of them in goggles and surgical gloves as they handled evidence or worked on their computers. There was music playing, something classical that Faith did not recognize. Other than this and the hum of electronics, there was no other noise. She supposed processing blood and combing through carpet fibers didn't call for much conversation.

"Over here," a slim Asian man called across the room. He was sitting on a stool beside one of the lab tables. Several trays were laid out in front of him and a large black briefcase that she was used to seeing lawyers carry was on the floor at his feet. Faith wondered if he'd brought the white lab coat he was wearing or if someone had let him borrow it.

"Gordon," Will said, then introduced Faith.

He offered her his hand. "Nice meeting you, ma'am."

"Likewise," Faith said, thinking she hadn't heard such a lovely, soft drawl since her grandmother had died. She wondered where Gordon had picked it up. He was probably a few years older than Faith, but he had the manners and bearing of a much older man.

Will indicated the notes on the table. Gordon had taken them out of their plastic bags. "What do you think?"

"I'm thinking it's a good thing you called me. This paper is in terrible condition. I'm not going to even try iodine fuming."

"What about DFO?"

"I already put them under the light. It's a mess, man."