Karin Slaughter - Fallen

“I’m sorry to barge in on you.” Faith pushed her way into the apartment. She was wearing a bulky navy blue jacket with the hood pulled over her head. Dark sunglasses obscured half her face. Her jeans and Chuck Taylors completed the ensemble. She looked like a PTA mom’s idea of a cat burglar.

Sara could only ask, “How did you get in?”

“I told your neighbor I was a cop and he let me in.”

“Great,” Sara mumbled, wondering how long it would take for everyone in the building to think she was being arrested. “What’s going on?”

Faith took off the sunglasses. There were five tiny bruises circling her face. “I need you to call Will for me.” She went to the window and looked down at the parking lot. “I thought about this all night. I can’t do it alone. I don’t think I’m capable.” She shielded her eyes with her hand, though the sun had yet to come up. “They don’t know I’m here. Ginger fell asleep. Taylor left last night. I sneaked out. Through the back yard. I took Roz Levy’s car. I know they’ve tapped my phones. They’re watching me. They can’t know that I’m doing this. They can’t know that I talked to anybody.”

She was a poster child for hypoglycemia. Sara suggested, “Why don’t you sit down?”

Faith kept her perch over the parking lot. “I sent my children away. They’re with my brother. He’s never even changed a diaper. This is too much responsibility for Jeremy.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about it. Come over here and sit down with me.”

“I have to get her back, Sara. I don’t care what it takes. What I have to do.”

Her mother. Will had told Sara about his trip to Coastal State Prison, his conversation with Roger Ling. “Faith, sit down.”

“I can’t sit or I’ll never get up again. I need Will. Can you please just call him?”

“I’ll get him for you. I promise, but you have to sit down.” Sara guided her over to the stool by the kitchen counter. “Did you eat breakfast?”

She shook her head. “My stomach’s too upset.”

“How’s your blood sugar?”

She stopped shaking her head. Her guilty expression was answer enough.

Sara made her voice firm. “Faith, I’m not going to do anything until we get your numbers in order. Do you understand me?”

Faith didn’t argue, perhaps because part of her knew that she needed help. She felt around in her jacket pockets and pulled out a handful of hard candy that she dropped on the counter. Next came a large gun, then her wallet, a set of keys with a gold cursive L on the chain, and finally, her blood-testing kit.

Sara scrolled through the tester’s memory, checking the stats. Faith had obviously been playing candy roulette for the last two days. It was a common trick among diabetics, using candy to fight the lows, gritting out the highs. It was a good way to get through a difficult period, but it was an even better way to end up in a coma. “I should take you to the hospital right now.” Sara gripped the monitor in her hand. “Do you have your insulin?”

Faith dug into her pockets again and put four disposable insulin pens on the counter. She started babbling. “I got them from the pharmacy this morning. I didn’t know how much to take. They showed me, but I’ve never used them before and they’re so expensive I didn’t want to mess up. My ketones are okay. I used a strip last night and this morning. I should probably get a pump.”

“An insulin pump wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Sara slid a testing strip into the monitor. “Did you eat supper last night?”

“Sort of.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Sara mumbled. “What about snacks? Anything?”

Faith leaned her head in her hand. “I can’t think straight with Jeremy and Emma gone. Zeke called this morning. He says they’re settled in but I can tell he’s annoyed. He’s never been good around kids.”

Sara took Faith’s finger and lined up the lancet. “We are going to have a long talk when this is over about your noncompliance. I know that saying right now is stressful for you is an incredible understatement, but your diabetes isn’t something you can magically put on hold. Your vision, your circulation, your motor skills …” Sara didn’t finish the sentence. She’d lectured so many diabetics about this same issue that she felt like she was reading from a script. “You have to take care of yourself or you’re going to end up blind or in a wheelchair or worse.”

Faith said, “You look different.”

Sara patted down her hair, which was sticking straight up in the back.

“You’re practically glowing. Are you pregnant?”

Sara laughed, surprised by the question. An ectopic pregnancy in her twenties had led to a partial hysterectomy. Will wasn’t that much of a miracle worker. “You’re one-thirty?”

“One thirty-five.”

Sara dialed out the correct dosage on the pen. “You’re going to inject this, then I’m going to cook breakfast for you, and you’re not doing anything else until you’ve eaten every bite.”

“That stove cost more than my house.” Faith leaned over the counter for a better look. Sara pushed her back down. “How much money do you make?”

She took Faith’s hand and wrapped her fingers around the insulin pen. “You do this, and I’ll go get Will.”

“You can call him from here. I know what you’re going to say.”

Sara didn’t stop to explain herself, especially since Faith was obviously having trouble processing information. She grabbed her clothes off the counter and went into the bedroom. Will was standing in front of the dresser putting on his shirt. She saw his broad chest reflected in the mirror, the dark stain of electrical burns traveling down the flat of his belly and disappearing into his jeans. Sara had put her mouth on every inch of him last night, but standing here in the light of day, she felt awkward around him.

He looked at her reflection. Sara pulled her robe tighter around her waist. He had made the bed. The pillows were stacked neatly against the headboard. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her morning.

He asked, “What’s wrong?”

She put her folded clothes on the bed. “Faith is here.”

“Here?” He turned around. He sounded almost panicked. “Why? How did she know?”

“She doesn’t know. She asked me to call you. She’s terrified her phone’s being tapped.”

“Does she know about her mother?”

“I don’t think so.” Sara put her hand to her chest, cinching the robe again, feeling every bit of her nakedness underneath. “She said that people are watching her. She’s acting paranoid. Her blood sugar is off the charts. She’s taking her insulin now. She should settle once we get some food into her.”

“Do I need to get breakfast?”

“I can make her something.”

“I can—” He stopped, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Maybe I should do that. For Faith, I mean. You could cook me something after.”

So much for the honeymoon period. At least she knew now why Bob had smelled like scrambled eggs the other night. “I’ll stay in here to give you some privacy.”

“Could you …” He hesitated. “It might be better if you were there. I’m going to have to tell her about her mother.”

“I thought Amanda said to wait.”

“Amanda says a lot of things I don’t agree with.” He indicated that she should leave the room ahead of him. Sara walked down the hall. She could feel Will close behind her. Despite what had happened the night before—some of it in this very hallway—he felt like a stranger to her. Sara gripped her robe tighter, wishing she had stopped to change into some real clothes.

Faith was still sitting at the kitchen bar. Some of her nervous energy had dissipated. She saw Will and said, “Oh.”