Karin Slaughter - Fallen

Will asked the old woman, “Why didn’t you take that Python over to Evelyn’s when you heard the shots the other day?”

She looked down at the gun. There was a bit of petulance in her tone. “Ev told me not to come over no matter what.”

Will hadn’t pegged her as an order-follower, but maybe her bark was worse than her bite. Poisoning was a coward’s choice, coldblooded murder without the inconvenience of getting your hands dirty. He tried to push her toward the truth. “But you heard gunshots.”

“I assumed Evelyn was taking care of some old business.” She jabbed her thumb Amanda’s way. “Notice she didn’t call her for help.”

Amanda rested her chin on the walkie-talkie. She was watching Will like she was waiting for a pot to boil. She was always ten steps ahead of him. She knew where his brain was going even before he did.

She told Mrs. Levy, “I knew Evelyn was seeing Hector again. She told me months ago.”

“Like hell she did. You were as shocked to see that picture as I was when I took it.”

“Does it matter, Roz? After all this time, does it really matter?”

The old woman seemed to think that it did. “It’s not my fault she was willing to gamble away her life for ten seconds of pleasure.”

Amanda laughed, incredulous. “Ten seconds? No wonder you murdered your husband. Is that all the old bastard could give you—ten seconds?” Her tone was cutting, rueful, the same one she’d used on the phone half an hour ago.

There are other things a man can gamble with besides money .

She was talking about Will and Sara. She was talking about the inherent risks that came with love.

Will turned back to the camera. Faith was still talking. Had Roz Levy set up the camera today, or had it been there all along? The view into the house was clear. What would she have seen two days ago? Evelyn making sandwiches. Hector Ortiz carrying in groceries. They were comfortable around each other. They had a history. A history that Evelyn was trying to hide from her family.

Pigeons and bluebirds.

Will looked up from the camera. “He’s Evelyn’s son.” Both women stopped talking.

Will said, “Hector’s the father, right? That’s the mistake Evelyn made twenty years ago. She had a son by Hector Ortiz. Was the bank account used to help support him?”

Amanda sighed. “I told you, the account doesn’t matter.”

Roz made a disgusted sound. “Well, I’m not going to keep it a secret anymore.” She gleefully told Will, “She couldn’t very well raise a brown baby, could she? I always said just switch it with Faith’s. That girl was wild. No one would’ve been surprised to hear she was running around with some wetback.” She cackled at Will’s stunned expression. “Fast-forward twenty years and she did it anyway.”

“Nineteen years,” Amanda corrected. “Jeremy’s nineteen.” She looked around the room, finally realizing what Roz Levy had been up to. “Christ,” she mumbled. “We should’ve charged you for a front-row seat.”

Will asked, “What happened?”

Amanda pressed her eye to the camera. “Evelyn gave the baby to a girl we worked with. Sandra Espisito. She was married to another cop. They couldn’t have children of their own.”

“Can we get them here? Maybe they could talk to him.”

She shook her head. “Paul was shot in the line of duty ten years ago. Sandra died last year. Leukemia. She needed a bone marrow transplant. She had to explain to her son why he couldn’t be a donor.” She turned back to Will. “He looked into his father’s side of the family first. I suppose Sandra thought it might be easier. Hector invited him to a get-together. That’s how he met Ricardo. That’s how he got mixed up in Los Texicanos. He started using drugs. Pot at first, then heroin, then there was no looking back. Evelyn and Hector had him in and out of rehab.”

Will felt a burning in his gut. “Healing Winds?”

She nodded her head. “This last time, at least.”

“He met Chuck Finn there.”

“I don’t know the details, but I imagine so.”

If Will had known this earlier, there was no way he would’ve let Faith go into that house alone. He would’ve tied her up. He would’ve shoved Amanda inside Mrs. Levy’s trunk. He would’ve called in SWAT from every police force in the country.

Amanda said, “Go ahead and get it out. I deserve it.”

Will had already wasted enough time yelling at her. “What does the back of the house look like?”

She couldn’t process the question. “What?”

“The back of the house. Faith is standing in the foyer. She’s looking into the family room. The whole back wall is windows and a sliding glass door. You said the curtains were pulled closed. They’re thin cotton. Can you see anything like a shadow or movement?”

“No. It’s too bright outside and the lights are off inside.”

“When is SWAT supposed to be here?”

“What are you thinking?”

“We need to get the helicopter.”

For once, she didn’t ask questions. She got on the walkie-talkie and patched directly into the SWAT commander.

Will pressed his eye to the camera as Amanda negotiated the request. Faith was still standing in the foyer. She wasn’t talking anymore. “Is there some reason you didn’t tell me that Evelyn had a love child with Hector Ortiz?”

“Because it would kill Faith,” Amanda told him, seemingly unaware of the irony. Her next words were more directed toward Roz. “And Evelyn didn’t want anyone to know, because it’s nobody’s damn business.”

Will took out his cell phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Faith.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

FAITH’S CELL PHONE VIBRATED IN HER POCKET. SHE DIDN’T move. She just stared at her mother. Tears were streaming down Evelyn’s face.

“It’s all right,” Faith told her. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” the man echoed. “Thanks a lot, sis.”

Faith flinched at the word. How blind she’d been. How selfish. It all made so much sense now. The extended leave her mother had taken from work. Her father’s sudden business trips and angry silences. Evelyn’s expanding waistline when she’d never been overweight before or since. The vacation she had taken with Amanda the month before Jeremy was born. Faith had been furious when, after nearly eight months of shared imprisonment, Evelyn had announced that she was going to drive to the beach for a week of fun with Aunt Mandy. Faith had felt betrayed. She had felt abandoned. And now, she felt so stupid.

Remember our time together before Jeremy—

That’s what Evelyn had said in the video. She was giving Faith a clue, not strolling down memory lane. Remember that time. Try to recall what was really going on—not just with you, but with me .

Back then, Faith had been so wrapped up in herself that all she cared about was her own misery, her own shattered life, her own lost opportunities. Looking back now, she saw the obvious signs. Evelyn wouldn’t go outside during the daytime. She wouldn’t answer the door. She woke at the crack of dawn to shop at a grocery store on the other side of town. The phone rang plenty of times, but Evelyn refused to answer it. She isolated herself. She cut herself off from the world. She slept on the couch instead of in her marital bed. Except for Amanda, she talked to no one, saw no one, reached out to no one. And all the while, she had given Faith the one thing every child secretly longs for: every ounce of her attention.

And then everything had changed when Evelyn returned from her vacation with Amanda. She called it “my time away,” like she’d gone down to the springs to take the cure. She was different, happier, as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Faith had seethed with jealousy to find her mother so altered, so seemingly carefree. Before the trip, they had luxuriated in their shared misery, and Faith could not understand how her mother could so easily let it go.