Karin Slaughter - Fractured

"What?"

"Back at Crim," Faith repeated, wanting to reach through the phone and shake her. "Remember you said that Evan left the school because of a rape allegation?"

"They couldn't prove anything." Mary gave a harsh laugh. "He always gets away with it."

"Right," Faith coaxed, staring at her computer screen, the familiar gray spines of the Alonzo Crim High School yearbooks on Warren Grier's bookshelf. "But that time, you said he got away with it because there was a student who served as an alibi."

"Yeah," Mary conceded. "Warren Grier." She almost spit out the words. "He said they were together after school for some tutoring or something."

Faith had to be sure. "Mary, are you telling me that Warren Grier gave Evan Bernard an alibi for a crime thirteen years ago?"

"Yeah," she repeated. "Pathetic, right? That little retard was even farther up Evan's ass than I was."

WILL REACHED FOR a paper cup but found the dispenser empty. He peered into the long cylinder mounted to the water cooler, making sure there wasn't a cup stuck in the tube.

"I got more in the back," Billy Peterson offered. He was an older cop who had been in charge of the cells for as long as anyone could remember.

"Thanks." Will stood with his hands in his pockets, afraid the tremble would come back and give him away. He felt a familiar coldness building inside of him, the same coldness he had developed when he was a child. Watch what's happening, but keep yourself removed from the fear, the pain. Don't let them know they've gotten to you because all that will do is inspire them to get more creative.

Will never talked about the things that had happened to him-not even with Angie. She had seen some of it go down, but Will had managed to keep most of his dark secrets stored tightly in his mind. Until now. The things he had told Warren Grier, the awful secrets he had shared with him, were thoughts that had been building up inside Will for a long time. Instead of feeling catharsis, he felt exposed, vulnerable. He felt like a fraud. And a heel. There was no telling what was going through Warren's mind right now as he sat alone in his tiny cell. He was probably wishing he had pulled that trigger a third time.

For just a split second, Will found himself not blaming the man. He couldn't block out the Warren from the interrogation room, the sadness in his posture, the guarded way he looked up at Will as if he expected to be kicked in the face at any moment. Will had to remind himself of what Warren had done, the people whose lives he had ruined-and still might be ruining even as he was in custody.

The cell Will had put Warren in was not much larger than the room that the killer called home-a hovel compared to Emma Campano's palatial bedroom with its professionally designed throw pillows and giant television. Will had been struck by the sense of loneliness he'd felt as he went through the younger man's meager belongings. The neatly stacked CDs and DVDs, the carefully arranged sock drawer and color-coded hanging clothes, all reminded Will of a life he could have just as easily lived himself. The heady sense of freedom he'd felt at eighteen, out in the world on his own for the first time, had quickly been replaced by panic. The state did not exactly teach you to fend for yourself. You learned from a very young age to accept whatever they gave you and not ask for more. It was through sheer luck that Will had ended up working for the state. With his problems, he did not know what other job he was qualified to do.

Warren must have been in a similar position. According to his personnel record at the Copy Right, Warren Grier had worked there since dropping out of high school. Over the last twelve years, he had been promoted to the position of manager. Still, he only made around sixteen thousand dollars a year. He could've afforded a nicer place than the one-room dive on Ashby Street, but living below his means must have given Warren some sense of safety. Besides, it wasn't as if he could fill out an application to get a nicer apartment. If he lost the Copy Right position, how would he go about looking for a new job? How could he fill out an employment application? How could he bear the humiliation of telling a stranger that he could barely read?

Without his job, Warren couldn't pay his rent, couldn't buy food, clothes. There was no family to fall back on and as far as the state was concerned, their responsibility had ended when Warren had turned eighteen. He was completely and totally on his own.

The Copy Right had been the only thing standing between Warren Grier and homelessness. Will felt his own stomach clench in a sense of shared fear. If not for having Angie Polaski in his life, how close to Warren Grier's meager existence would Will be?

"Here you go," Billy said, handing Will a cup.

"Thanks," Will managed, heading toward the water cooler. Many years ago, Amanda had kindly volunteered Will for a Taser demonstration. Memories of the pain had receded quickly, but Will could still recall that for hours afterward, he'd suffered from a seemingly unquenchable thirst.

Will filled the cup and stood at the gate to the cells, waiting to be buzzed back through. Inside the lockup, he kept his eyes straight forward, aware of the stares he was getting through the narrow panes of steel-enforced glass in the cell doors. Evan Bernard was on this wing, at the opposite end of Warren's cell. Billy had put him in with the transgendered women, the ones who still had their male equipment. News had already leaked out that Evan Bernard liked raping young girls. The tranny cell was the only place they could think of where Bernard would not get a big dose of his own medicine.

Will opened the narrow slot in Warren's cell door. He put the cup on the flat metal. The cup was not taken.

"Warren?" Will looked through the glass, seeing the tip of Warren's white, jail-issued slipper. The man was obviously sitting with his back to the door. Will crouched down, putting his mouth close to the metal slot. The opening was little more than twelve inches wide by three inches high, just enough to slide a meal tray through.

Will said, "I know you're feeling alone right now, but think about Emma. She's probably feeling alone, too." He paused. "She's probably wondering where you are."

There was no response.

"Think about how lonely she is without you," Will tried. "No one is there to talk to her or let her know that you're okay." His thigh started to cramp, so he knelt on one knee. "Warren, you don't have to tell me where she is. Just tell me that she's okay. That's all I want to know right now."

Still there was no response. Will tried not to think about Emma Campano, how terrified she would be as time slowly passed and no one came for her. How merciful it would have been if Warren had just killed her that first day, sparing her the agony of uncertainty.

"Warren-"

Will felt something wet on his knee. He looked down just as the slight odor of ammonia wafted into his nostrils.

"Warren?" Will looked through the slot again; the white slipper was tilted to the side, unmoving. He saw the bed was stripped. "No," Will whispered. He jammed his arm through the open slot, feeling for Warren. His hand found the man's sweaty hair, felt his cold, clammy skin. "Billy!" Will screamed. "Open the door!"

The guard took his time coming to the gate. "What is it?"

Will's fingers grazed Warren's eyes, his open mouth. "Call an ambulance!"

"Shit," Billy cursed, flinging open the gate. He slammed his fist into a red button on the wall as he jogged toward the cell. The master key was on his belt. He slid it into the lock and jerked open the door to Warren's cell. The hinge squeaked from the weight of the door. One end of the bedsheet was looped around the knob, the other end wrapped tightly around Warren Grier's neck.