Karin Slaughter - Fractured

"What am I looking for?"

"A pair of black pants."

"What about his apartment? Can I go in?"

Evan Bernard came out of his classroom, his hands cuffed behind his back, a cop on either side of him. Amanda would be angry at Will for not being the one to escort the prisoner outside, but he wasn't up to smiling for the cameras. The Atlanta Police Department could have this photo op. Will would be better off spending his time looking for evidence that would convict the bastard.

For his part, Bernard's composure had returned, and he looked down at Will with something like pity. "I hope you find her, Officer. Emma was such a sweet girl."

He kept his head turned, watching Will even as he was being led up the hallway.

Faith asked, "Are you there?"

His hands shook as he struggled not to break the phone into more pieces. "Tear the fucking place apart."

FAITH WATCHED IVAN Sambor swing back the metal battering ram and slam it into Evan Bernard's front door. The wooden jamb splintered in a satisfying way, the cheap dead bolt breaking in two as the metal door swung back on its hinges.

She had easily seen inside the apartment from the outside, but Faith walked through the four rooms with her gun drawn, checking the kitchen, the bathroom and the two small bedrooms. Her impression now was the same as when she had first arrived on the scene: Evan Bernard had known they were coming, known that his earlier arrest for sex with a teenage girl would come to light and that the obvious conclusion would be drawn between what happened on the coast and what happened to Kayla Alexander. Bernard had probably stripped the apartment the minute he had gotten home from school that first day.

Faith could smell bleach in every corner of the house. The closet doors had been left open, easily seen from the bedroom windows. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere-not on the kitchen table, the many bookshelves or, when out of curiosity she decided to check, the blades of the ceiling fans. Even the tops of the doors had been dusted.

Faith holstered her gun and called in Charlie Reed and his team. She leaned her shoulder against the door outside the second bedroom. The walls were pink. Blue and white clouds were painted on the ceiling. The furniture was cheap, probably secondhand, but it reminded Faith of a bedroom set she had seen in the Sears catalogue when she was a little girl. The small chest of drawers and the four-poster bed were laminated in white Formica with swirly, gold trim outlining the knobs and various other architectural details. Fluffy pink pillows were scattered on the bed. There was framed artwork of Winnie the Pooh with Tigger. It was the sort of room every girl dreamed about in the 1980s.

Outside, she heard Will Trent asking one of the cops where Faith was. He had probably blown through every light on the five-mile stretch between Westfield and Evan Bernard's apartment.

Will's jaw was clenched as he walked down the hallway. He had an air of fury about him, and seeing the girly bedroom did nothing to change his disposition. His throat worked as he took in the pink curtains and lace bedspread. Several seconds passed before he could speak. "Do you think he held her here?"

Faith shook her head. "It's too obvious."

Neither one of them walked into the room. Faith knew there would be no evidence in the white sheets, no telltale strands of hair in the freshly vacuumed carpet. Bernard had kept this showcase for his own benefit. She could imagine him coming into the room, sitting on the bed and living out his sick fantasies.

"It's younger than seventeen," Faith said. "The room, I mean. It's the kind of stuff you'd buy for a ten- or eleven-year-old."

"Did you get the pants?"

"They were in the garbage," she told him. "Do you think we'll get any DNA off them?"

"We'd better," he said. "The second ransom call had the same proof of life from yesterday. Maybe the kidnapper got spooked because he saw us around the school."

"Or she's already dead."

"I can't accept that," Will told her, his voice firm.

Faith chose her words carefully. "Statistically, children taken by strangers are killed within the first three hours of their abduction."

"She wasn't taken by a stranger," Will insisted, and she wondered where he got his certainty. "The kidnapper prerecorded the part about calling back at four. He obviously needed more time. We'll get the new proof of life then."

"You can't be certain of any of that, Will. Look at the facts. Evan Bernard's not talking. We have no idea who his accomplice is. There's not a chance in hell we'll find something here to-"

"I'm not going to have this conversation with you."

So they were back to him being the boss again. Faith bit her lip, trying not to let her sarcasm escalate the situation. He could live in fairyland all he wanted, but Faith was fairly certain that there would not be a happy ending to this story.

Will pressed the point. "I can't believe she's dead, Faith. Emma's a fighter. She's out there somewhere waiting for us to find her."

The passion in his voice was unmistakable, and instead of feeling irritated, she now felt sorry for him.

He said, "I should've gotten more from Bernard. He was so smug, so sure that he was in control. I feel like I played right into his hands."

"You got him to admit to having sex with Kayla."

"He's going to make bail in twenty-four hours. If his lawyer's any good, he'll get the trial postponed until no one remembers who Emma Campano is. Even with the parents pushing for a prosecution, he could end up walking."

"He admitted on tape to having sex with her."

"I hadn't read him his rights. He could argue that I coerced him." Will shook his head, obviously angry with himself. "I screwed it up."

"He knew we were coming to his apartment," Faith said. "This place is immaculate. He didn't clean like this overnight. He prepared the space for us. He's playing some kind of game."

"I should have run a background check on him yesterday."

"There was no reason to," she countered. "We both assumed that the school had checked him out."

"They did," Will reminded her. "Just not recently."

Charlie called from the other room, "Hey, guys."

Faith and Will went into the master bedroom, which had a decidedly more masculine flair. The furniture was heavy, stained a dark charcoal and sitting low to the ground in a sterile, modern way. Over the bed was hanging a huge canvas of a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl. She was obviously young, though not so young that the painting could be deemed child pornography. It was certainly pornographic, though. The girl was naked, her chest thrust out, her legs wide open. There was a sexy twinkle in her eyes, a kittenish pout to her lips. Everything glistened unnaturally.

Charlie was sitting at a desk that was built into an armoire.

"His computer," Charlie said. "Look at this."

Faith saw that the monitor showed a live image of the second bedroom.

Will said, "The camera must be mounted in the Winnie the Pooh poster."

"Christ," Faith whispered. "Are there any files?"

Charlie was clicking through the directory. "I'm not seeing anything," he told them. "We'll have the forensic techs look at this, but it's my guess that an external hard drive was used." He pulled some loose cables out from behind the computer. "These would've recorded sound and video onto the drive. He could completely bypass the computer's hard drive."

"The main computer wouldn't keep any records?"

Charlie shook his head, opening and closing files as he checked for anything incriminating. Faith saw spreadsheets, homework assignments.