Karin Slaughter - Fallen

She asked, “What’s in the boxes?”

He seemed to note her shift in attitude, but chose not to acknowledge it. “Case files from an old investigation. It might have something to do with Evelyn’s disappearance.”

“Not kidnapping?”

His grin indicated he’d been caught. “I just have to know everything in these files by five tomorrow morning.”

“Do you need help?”

“Nope.” He turned to lift the boxes. “Thanks for getting Betty home for me.”

“Being dyslexic is not a character flaw.”

Will left the boxes on the table and turned around. He didn’t respond immediately. He just looked at her in a way that made Sara wish that she had bothered to bathe. Finally, he said, “I think I liked it better when you were mad at me.”

Sara didn’t respond.

“It’s Angie, right? That’s what you’re upset about?”

These shifting levels of subterfuge were new to her. “It seems like we were ignoring that.”

“Would you like to continue along that path?”

Sara shrugged. She didn’t know what she wanted. The right thing to do would be to tell him that their innocent flirtation was over. She should open the door and make him leave. She should call Dr. Dale tomorrow morning and ask him out on another date. She should forget about Will and let time erase him from her memory.

But it wasn’t her memory that was the problem. It was that tightness in her chest when she thought about him being in danger. It was that feeling of relief when he walked through the door. It was the happiness she felt just from being near him.

He said, “Angie and I haven’t been together— together —in over a year.” Will paused, as if to let that sink in. “Not since I met you.”

All Sara could say was, “Oh.”

“And then when her mother died a few months ago, I saw her for maybe two hours, and she was gone. She didn’t even go to the funeral.” He paused again; this was obviously difficult for him. “It’s hard to explain our relationship. Not without making myself look pitiful and stupid.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation.”

He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the table. The overhead light caught the jagged scar above his mouth. The skin was pink, a fine line tracing the ridge between his upper lip and nose. Sara couldn’t begin to calculate the amount of time she’d wasted wondering how the scar would feel against her own mouth.

Too much time.

Will cleared his throat. He looked down at the floor, then back up at her. “You know where I grew up. How I grew up.”

She nodded. The Atlanta Children’s Home had closed many years ago, but the abandoned building was less than five miles from where they stood.

“Kids went away a lot. They were trying to get more of us into foster care. I guess it’s cheaper that way.” He shrugged, as if this was to be expected. “The older ones didn’t usually work out. They lasted maybe a few weeks, sometimes only a couple of days. They came back different. I guess you can imagine why.”

Sara shook her head. She didn’t want to.

“There wasn’t exactly a long line of people who wanted to foster an eight-year-old boy who couldn’t pass the third grade. But Angie’s a girl, and pretty, and smart, so she got sent out a lot.” Again, he shrugged. “I guess I got used to waiting for her to come back, and I guess I got used to not asking what happened while she was gone.” He pushed away from the table and picked up the boxes. “So, that’s it. Pitiful and stupid.”

“No. Will—”

He stopped in front of the door, the boxes held in front of him like a suit of armor. “Amanda wanted me to ask you if you know anyone at the Fulton ME’s office.”

Sara’s brain took its time changing gears. “Probably. I did some of my training there when I started.”

He shifted his grip. “This is from Amanda, not me. She wants you to make some calls. You don’t have to, but—”

“What does she want to know?”

“Anything that comes up on the autopsies. They’re not going to share with us. They want to keep this case.”

He was turned toward the door, waiting. She looked at the back of his neck, the fine hairs at the nape. “All right.”

“You’ve got Amanda’s number. Just call her if anything comes up. Or call her if it doesn’t. She’s impatient.” He stood waiting for her to open the door.

Sara had spent most of the day wanting him out of her life, but now that he was leaving, she couldn’t take it. “Amanda was wrong.”

He turned back around to face her.

“What she said today. Amanda was wrong.”

He feigned shock. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say those words out loud before.”

“ Almeja . The dying man’s last words.” She explained, “The literal translation is right—‘clams’—but it’s not slang for ‘money.’ At least not the way I’ve heard it used.”

“What’s it slang for?”

She hated the word, but she said it anyway. “ ‘Cunt.’ ”

His brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”

“I work in a large public hospital. I don’t think a week’s gone by since I started without someone calling me some variation of that word.”

Will dropped the boxes back on the table. “Who called you that?”

She shook her head. He looked ready to take on her entire patient roster. “The point is, the guy was calling Faith that name. He wasn’t talking about money.”

Will crossed his arms. He was obviously riled. “Ricardo,” he supplied. “The guy in the backyard who shot at those little girls—his name was Ricardo.” Sara held his gaze. Will kept talking. “Hironobu Kwon was the dead guy in the laundry room. We don’t know anything about the older Asian, except that he had a fondness for Hawaiian shirts and spoke with a southside southern drawl. And then there’s someone else who got injured, probably in a knife fight with Evelyn. You’ll probably see the notice at the hospital when you go back to work. Blood type B-negative, possibly Hispanic, stab wound to the gut, possibly a wound on his hand.”

“That’s quite a cast of characters.”

“Trust me, it’s not easy keeping up with them, and I’m not even sure any of them are the real reason all of this is happening.”

“What do you mean?”

“This feels personal, like there’s something else at play. You don’t wait around four years to rob somebody. It’s got to be about something more than money.”

“They say it’s the root of all evil for a reason.” Sara’s husband had always loved money motivations. In her experience, he tended to be right. “This injured guy—the one with the gut wound—is he in a gang?” Will nodded.

“They generally have their own doctors. They’re not bad—I’ve seen some of their handiwork at the ER. But a belly wound is pretty sophisticated to treat. They might need blood, and B-negative is hard to come by. They’d also need a sterile operating environment, medicines that you can’t just grab at your local drugstore. They’d only be at a hospital pharmacy.”

“Can you give me a list? I can have it added to the alert.”

“Of course.” She went to the kitchen to find a pad and paper.

He stayed by the dining room table. “How long could someone live with a stab wound in their belly? It bled a lot at the scene.”

“It depends. Hours, maybe days. Triage can buy some time, but anything close to a week would be a miracle.”

“You mind if I eat my dinner while you do that?” He opened the Styrofoam box. She saw two foot-long hot dogs soaked in chili. He sniffed, then frowned. “I guess the guy at the gas station was going to throw them out for a reason.” Still, he picked up one of the hot dogs.