Karin Slaughter - Fallen

“I heard you!” he yelled. “God!”

Ginger shoved his gun back into the holster, adjusting the straps like a haughty cheerleader. He followed Jeremy down the street. Faith limped along after them. Her feet were bruised from the rocky asphalt. Zeke fell in beside her. His shoulder brushed against hers. Faith braced herself for some kind of tirade, but he was mercifully silent as they walked up the driveway and entered the house.

Faith threw Jeremy’s iPhone onto the kitchen table. No wonder he wanted to leave. The space was beginning to feel like a prison. She leaned heavily against the chair. What had she been thinking? How could any of them be safe here? Evelyn’s kidnappers knew the layout of the house. They had obviously targeted Jeremy. Anyone could’ve been in that car. They could’ve rolled down the window, pointed a gun at Jeremy’s head, and pulled the trigger. He could’ve bled out in the middle of the street and Faith wouldn’t have known until his stupid Facebook page loaded that something was wrong.

“Faith?” Zeke was standing in the middle of the kitchen. His tone indicated this wasn’t the first time he’d said her name. “What’s wrong with you?”

Faith crossed her arms low on her stomach. “Where have you been staying? You weren’t sleeping at Mom’s. I would’ve seen your stuff.”

“Dobbins.” She should’ve known. Zeke had always loved the soulless anonymity of base housing, even if Dobbins Air Reserve was an hour drive from the VA hospital where he was doing his inservice.

“I need you to do me a favor.”

He was instantly skeptical. “What?”

“I want you to take Jeremy and Emma back to the base with you. Today. Right now.” The Atlanta police couldn’t protect her family, but the United States Air Force could. “I don’t know how long it’ll be for. I just need you to keep them on the base. Don’t let them off until I tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know that they’re safe.”

“Safe from what? What are you planning?”

Faith checked the backyard to make sure the detectives weren’t listening. Ginger stared at her, his jaw rigid. She turned her back to him. “I need you to trust me.”

Zeke snorted a laugh. “Why would I start doing that?”

“Because I know what I’m doing, Zeke. I’m a police officer. I was trained to do this kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing? Run into the street barefooted like you’re escaping from the loony bin?”

“I’m going to get Mom back, Zeke. I don’t care if it kills me. I’m going to get her back.”

“You and what army?” he scoffed. “You gonna call in Aunt Mandy and go smear lipstick all over them?”

She punched him in the face. He looked more shocked than hurt. Her knuckle felt like it might be broken. Still, she got some satisfaction when she saw a thin line of blood drip onto his upper lip.

“Christ,” he muttered. “What the hell was that for?”

“You’ll need to take my car. You can’t fit a car seat in the Corvette. I can give you some money for gas and groceries and I—”

“Wait.” His voice was muffled by his hand as he felt the bridge of his nose for damage. He looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time since she’d walked through her own front door. Faith had hit her brother before. She’d burned him with a match. She’d beaten him with a clothes hanger. To her recollection, this was the first time any violence between them actually seemed to work.

“All right.” He used the toaster to check his reflection. His nose wasn’t broken, but a deep, purple bruise was working its way underneath his eye. “But I’m not taking your Mini. I’m going to look retarded enough as it is.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WILL HAD NEVER BEEN QUICK TO ANGER, BUT ONCE HE got there, he held on to it like a miser with a pot of gold. He didn’t throw things or use his fists. He didn’t rage or even raise his voice. Actually, the opposite happened. He went quiet—completely silent. It was as if his vocal cords were paralyzed. He kept it all on the inside because, in his vast experience with angry people, Will knew that letting it out meant that someone could end up very badly hurt.

Not that this particular expression of anger didn’t have its drawbacks. His stubborn silence had gotten him suspended from school on more than one occasion. Years ago, Amanda had transferred him to the nether regions of the north Georgia mountains for his refusal to respond to her questions. Once, he’d stopped speaking to Angie for three whole days for fear of saying things to her that could never be taken back. They’d lived together, slept together, dined together, done everything together, and he hadn’t uttered one word to her for a full seventy-two hours. If there had been a category in the Special Olympics for functionally illiterate mutes, Will would’ve had no problem cinching the gold.

This was all to say that not speaking to Amanda during the five-hour drive down to Coastal State Prison was nothing in the scheme of things. The worrying part was that the intensity of Will’s anger would not dissipate. He had never hated another human being as much as he did when Amanda told him that, by the way, Sara had almost been murdered. And that hatred would not go away. He kept waiting to feel that click of it letting up, the pot going from a boil to a simmer, but it wouldn’t come. Even now as Amanda paced back and forth in front of him, going from one end of the empty visitors’ waiting room to the other like a duck in a shooting gallery, he felt the rage burning inside him.

The worst part was that he wanted to speak. He yearned to speak. He wanted to lay it all out for her and watch her face crumble as she realized that Will truly and irrevocably despised her for what she had done to him. He had never been a petty man, but he really, really wanted to hurt her.

Amanda stopped pacing. She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but sulking is not an attractive trait in a man.”

Will stared at the floor. Grooves had been worn into the linoleum by the women and children who had wiled away their weekends waiting to visit the men inside the cells.

She said, “As a rule, I only let someone call me that word once. I think you picked an appropriate time.”

So, he hadn’t been completely mute. When Amanda had told him about Sara, he’d called her the word that rhymes with her name. And not in Spanish.

“What do you want, Will, an apology?” She huffed a laugh. “All right, I’m sorry. I apologize for not letting you get distracted so that you could do your job. I apologize for making sure your head didn’t get blown off. I apologize—”

His mouth moved of its own accord. “Could you just shut up?”

“What was that?”

He didn’t repeat himself. He didn’t care whether or not she heard him, or if his job was in jeopardy, or if she was going to unleash a new kind of hell on him for standing up to her. Will could not remember the last time he had experienced the kind of agony he’d suffered this afternoon. They’d sat outside that damn warehouse for a full hour before the Doraville police released them. Will understood intellectually why the detectives wanted to talk to them. There were two dead bodies and bullet holes everywhere. There was a stockpile of illegal machine guns on a shelf in the back. There was a large safe in Julia Ling’s office with the door swinging open and hundred-dollar bills scattered on the floor. You didn’t just roll up on a scene like that and release the only two witnesses. There were forms to be filled out, questions to be answered. Will had to give a statement. He’d had to wait while Amanda gave hers. It seemed like she had taken her time. He’d sat in the car, watching her talk to the detectives, feeling like an earthquake was going off in his chest.