Karin Slaughter - Fractured

Faith had called the resource officer at Alonzo Crim High School as soon as she'd made her way out of Grant Park. There was no record of the alleged rape that had forced Evan Bernard to leave his position. Mary Clark could not remember the girl's name-or at least she claimed not to. No charges had been filed against Evan Bernard, so the local precinct had no records of an investigation. Of the hundred or so current faculty members, none had been around during the time Mary Clark was being sadistically abused. There were no witnesses, no evidence and no accomplices in sight.

Still, somewhere out there was another person who knew exactly where Emma Campano was. Will seemed to think there was a chance that the girl was still alive, but Faith held no such illusion. If the killer had a living victim, he would have recorded another proof of life for the second call. This was all well planned out. Bernard was the calm one, the one who remained in control. The Campano house told them that the killer, Emma's abductor, was not similarly gifted. Something must have gone horribly wrong.

Faith had ripped open the envelope her gas bill was supposed to be mailed in and used it to store the yearbook photos of Kayla Alexander and Evan Bernard. She opened it now and looked at Evan Bernard's school photo. He was a good-looking man. He could have easily dated women his own age. Without prior knowledge, Faith would have dated him in a heartbeat. A well-educated, articulate teacher who tutored kids with learning disabilities? There had probably been women lined up at his front door. And yet, he had chosen the young girls who didn't know any better.

Just being in the teacher's house this morning had made Faith feel filthy. His barely legal porn and the painting of the young woman on his bedroom wall all pointed to his sick obsession. She was just as furious as Will that he would easily make bail tomorrow. They needed more time to build a case against him, but right now, the only thing they had to go on was a missing hard drive and a fingerprint that did not belong to their only suspect. And still, there was a nagging question in the back of Faith's mind: was Bernard the key to all this, or was he just a disgusting distraction from the real murderer?

Faith could well understand what a forty-five-year-old man wanted with a seventeen-year-old girl, but could not fathom what had attracted Kayla Alexander to Evan Bernard. His hair was going gray. He had deep wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. He wore suit jackets with corduroy patches at the elbows and brown shoes with black pants. Worse, he had all the power in the relationship, and not just because of his job.

By virtue of the fact that Bernard had simply lived longer than Kayla, he was smarter than her. In the twenty-eight years that separated their ages, he'd had garnered more life experiences, gotten more relationships under his belt. It must have been so easy for him to seduce the willful child. Bernard was probably the only adult in her life who encouraged Kayla's bad behavior. He would have made her feel special, as if he was the one person who understood her. All he would have wanted in return was her life.

At the age of fourteen, Faith had been similarly tricked by a boy who was only three years her senior. He had compromised her in so many ways by holding the threat over her head that if she stopped seeing him, he would tell her parents all the things she had done with him. Faith had just dug herself deeper and deeper, skipping school, breaking curfew, being at his beck and call. And then she had gotten pregnant and he had tossed her aside like a piece of garbage.

The conference room door opened as the meeting adjourned. Men in suits poured out, blinking in the sunlight coming through the windows. Victor seemed surprised to find Faith waiting for him. There was an awkward moment where she reached out to shake his hand just as he went in to kiss her cheek. She laughed nervously, thinking she couldn't adjust to who she was supposed to be right now.

"I'm here for my job," she told him by way of an explanation.

He held out his hand, motioning for her to walk with him. "I got a message that you called earlier. I was hoping it was for a date, but I reached out to Chuck Wilson anyway."

Wilson was the scientist who was analyzing the gray powder Charlie Reed had found. "Does he have anything?"

"I'm sorry, but I haven't heard back from him yet. I made him promise he'd get to it today." He smiled. "We could go to lunch and check with him afterward."

"Sooner would be better. Is there a way to call him?"

"Of course."

They went down a small stairway. She told him, "I need to talk to one of your students, too."

"Which one?"

Faith played with the envelope in her hand, the pictures of Kayla and Bernard. "Tommy Albertson."

"You're in luck," Victor said, glancing at his watch. "He's been waiting for me in my office for the last hour."

"Is he in trouble?"

"That's what the meeting was about." Victor took her arm and led her down the hallway. He lowered his voice. "We've just gotten approval to begin the process of expelling him."

The parent-side of Faith experienced a mild form of panic at the thought. "What did he do?"

"A series of extremely stupid pranks," Victor told her. "One of which resulted in destruction of school property."

"What property?"

"He backed up the toilets on his hall last night. We think he used socks."

"Socks?" Faith asked. "Why would he do that?"

"I've given up asking myself why young boys do anything," Victor commented. "My only regret is that I won't be the one who gets to tell him he's out of here."

"Why not?"

"He gets an opportunity to face the expulsion committee and explain his case. I'm a tad concerned because there are some kindred spirits on the panel. It's made up of Tech graduates, most of whom participated in their fair share of idiocy while they were on campus, and most of whom went on to excel in their chosen careers."

Victor reached in front of her and opened the door marked "Dean of Student Relations." His name was in gold letters under the title, and Faith felt a shocking thrill at the sight of it. Her brief bouts of dating were usually with men whose titles generally tended toward the more generic: plumber, mechanic, cop, cop, cop.

"Marty," Victor said to the woman behind the desk. "This is Faith Mitchell." He smiled at Faith. "Faith, this is Marty. She's worked with me for almost twelve years."

The women exchanged pleasantries, but there was a definite understanding between them that they were sizing each other up.

Victor put on his official voice as he told Faith, "Detective Mitchell, Mr. Albertson is a nineteen-year-old adult, so you don't need my permission to talk to him. You're more than welcome to use my office."

"Thank you." Faith tucked the envelope under her arm and walked to another door with Victor's name on it.

Her first thought as she entered the office was that it smelled like Victor's aftershave and looked as masculine and handsome as he was. The space was large with a bank of windows that looked down on the expressway. His desk was glass on a chrome base. The chairs were low slung but comfortable looking. The couch in the corner was sophisticated, black leather, only marred by the teenage lump sitting on it.

"What are you doing here?" Tommy Albertson wanted to know.

"I'm here to help you with your grief counseling. Apparently, you've been so distraught about what's happened in your dorm over the last few days that you've been acting out."

The large lightbulb over his head flickered before finally turning on. "Yeah," he agreed. "I'm pretty worried about Gabe."

"Do you know if he has a gun?"

"I already answered that question," he reminded her. "No, I don't know if he had a gun. I didn't know he was depressed. I never met that girl-either of them. I just kept my head down, you know? Kept out of everybody's business."