Karin Slaughter - Fallen

Sara felt her mouth open in surprise. She was just as guilty as the rest of them. She had been so desperate for Will to fight for her that it had never occurred to her that Will was waiting for Sara to fight for him.

She was through the door and running down the hallway before logic could intervene. As usual, the ER was packed. Nurses ran with bags of IVs. Gurneys flew past. Sara sprinted to the elevator. She stabbed the down button a dozen times, silently begging the doors to open. The stairs exited at the back of the hospital. Parking was in the front. Will would be home by the time she ran around the building. Sara looked at her watch, wondering how much time she had wasted feeling sorry for herself. Will was probably halfway to the decks by now. Three structures. Six stories of cars. More if he’d used one of the decks for the university. She should wait in the street. Sara tried to map the roads in her head. Bell. Armstrong. Maybe he had parked at the Grady Detention Center.

The doors finally opened. George, the security guard, was standing there with his arm resting on his gun. Will was beside him.

George asked, “Everything okay, Doc?”

Sara could only nod.

Will stepped off the elevator, a sheepish look on his face. “I forgot that Betty’s at your place.” He gave that familiar, awkward smile. “At the risk of sounding like a country music singer, you can take my heart, but I can’t let you take my dog.”

Sara was bumped by an EMT passing behind her. She braced her palms against Will’s chest to keep from falling. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets, smiling down at her with a curious look on his face. Who had ever taken up for this man? Not his family, who’d abandoned him to state care. Not the foster parents who’d thought he was expendable. Not the doctors who’d experimented on his busted lip. Not the teachers and social workers who’d taken his dyslexia for stupidity. And especially not Angie, who had so easily gambled with his life. His precious life.

“Sara?” Will looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

She slid her hands up to his shoulders. Sara could feel the familiar hard muscle beneath his shirt, the heat from his skin. She had kissed his eyelids this morning. He had delicate lashes, blond and soft. She had teased him, kissing his eyebrows, his nose, his chin, letting her hair drape across his face and chest. How many hours had Sara spent over the last year wondering how the scar above his mouth would feel against her lips? How many nights had she dreamt about waking up in his arms?

So many hours. So many nights.

Sara stood on her toes to look him in the eye. “Do you want to be with me?”

“Yes.”

She relished the sound of his certainty. “I want to be with you, too.”

Will shook his head. He looked like he was waiting for the punch line to a very bad joke. “I don’t understand.”

“It worked.”

“What worked?”

“Your astounding charm.”

His eyes narrowed. “What charm?”

“I changed my mind.”

He still didn’t seem to believe her.

“Kiss me,” she told him. “I changed my mind.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, tremendous thanks go to Victoria Sanders, my agent, and my editors Kate Miciak and Kate Elton. Angela Cheng Caplan should be in here somewhere, too. I would also like to thank everyone at my publishing houses for their continued support. Gina Centrello and Libby McGuire, it’s been a pleasure getting to know y’all. Adam Humphrey, I appreciate your letting me kill you. And beat you. And humiliate you. And all the other things Claire takes for granted.

Thanks to the incomparable Vernon Jordan for regaling me with tales of 1970s Atlanta. You, sir, are a legend. David Harper, this is at least your tenth year of helping me make Sara look like a doctor. As always, I am enormously grateful for your help and apologize for any errors, which were committed in service of story. Special Agent John Heinen, the same goes for you. Any gun mistakes are my own. I have many people to thank at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, including Pete Stuart, Wayne Smith, John Bankhead, and Director Vernon Keenan. Y’all are so generous with your time, and so passionate about what you do, that it’s a pleasure to be in your company. Speaker David Ralston, I appreciate your continued support.

Daddies don’t get much page time in this book, but I’d like to thank mine for being such a wonderful father. I’d write a story about you, but no one would believe how good you are. And speaking of goodness, DA—as always, you are my heart.

To my readers, please note that this is a work of fiction. Though I have been an Atlanta resident for more than half my life, I am also a writer, and have changed streets, building design, and neighborhoods to suit my dastardly needs. (Come on, Sherwood Forest, you know you deserve it!)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KARIN SLAUGHTER is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including Broken, Undone, Fractured, Beyond Reach , which was a Publishers Weekly best book of the year, and A Faint Cold Fear , which was named an International Book of the Month selection. She contributed to and edited Like a Charm . She is a native of Georgia, where she currently lives and is working on her next novel, to be published in 2012 by Delacorte Press.

ALSO BY KARIN SLAUGHTER

Blindsighted

Kisscut

A Faint Cold Fear

Indelible

Like a Charm (Editor)

Faithless

Triptych

Beyond Reach

Fractured

Undone

Broken

Fallen is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Karin Slaughter

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DELACORTE PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Slaughter, Karin

Fallen : a novel / Karin Slaughter.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-345-52822-3

1. Policewomen—Fiction. 2. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.L275F37 2011

813′.54—dc22 2011004941

www.bantamdell.com

Jacket design: Carlos Beltran

Jacket photograph: Michael Trevillion

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