He couldn’t swallow. It wasn’t funny anymore now that it might actually happen.
“She’ll have her alarm set to wake her.”
Will wondered how the old woman was going to hear her alarm if she couldn’t hear a phone. And then he stopped worrying, because he was going to pass out from heat stroke long before that happened.
Amanda said, “I’ve got two friends with me and another old gal in the street. She’ll keep an eye on Faith while she’s on route to the house. Bev’s with the Secret Service. She requisitioned a mail truck.”
Will wished that he were more surprised by this information. If Amanda told him that she called an old gal at the White House and borrowed the nuclear codes, he would just nod.
“Everything’s lining up.” Amanda always got chatty right before a case was about to break, and now was no exception. “Faith is waiting at her house. She went to three different banks this morning to support her safe deposit box story. We had one of the managers hand her the cash at the last drop. All the bills are registered. There’s a tracker in the lining of the duffel.” She was silent for a moment. “I think she’ll be okay. Sara got her evened out for now. I’m worried that she’s not taking care of herself.”
Will was worried about that, too. He’d always thought of Faith as indestructible. She seemed capable of handling any crisis. Maybe that had come from being thrust into motherhood before she was ready. Mrs. Levy’s words about the pregnancy scandal rocking the neighborhood kept coming back to him. Faith obviously still carried some shame. She had blushed when she explained her mother’s words to Sara, though Evelyn was obviously just using what might be her last words to her daughter to lift away some of that guilt. Faith’s entire life had been shattered by her pregnancy. Somehow, she had managed to pick up the pieces. Evelyn had been there to offer her support, but Faith had done all the heavy lifting. Getting her GED. Joining the Academy. Going back to college. Raising her kid. She was one of the strongest women Will had ever met. In some ways, she was even stronger than Amanda.
And she deserved the truth.
Will whispered, “Why did you lie to Faith about her father being a gambler?”
Amanda didn’t answer.
He started to ask her again. “Why did you—”
“Because he was,” Amanda said. “I would think after this morning, you would recognize that there are other things a man can gamble with besides money.”
Will swallowed the last bit of saliva in his mouth. He wasn’t up to Amanda’s riddles right now. “Evelyn was on the take.”
“She made a big mistake a long time ago, and she’s been paying for it ever since.”
He struggled to keep his voice quiet. “She took money—”
“I’ll make you a promise, Will. If we get Evelyn out of this, then she’ll tell you the whole truth about everything. You can have a whole hour with her. She’ll answer any question you have.”
He glanced around the trunk, the slit of light coming through the cracked rubber seal. “And if we don’t?”
“Then it won’t matter, will it?” He heard talking in the background. “I need to go. I’ll call you when I have news.”
Will shifted the rifle again so that he could end the call. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. A bead of sweat glided down his back. There was a stinging sensation near the base of his spine where Sara had scratched him.
He shook his head, trying to clear the image from his mind so that his rifle didn’t file a complaint for sexual assault. Will thought about the rifle sitting in the witness stand, using its trigger to wipe a tear from its scope.
He shook his head again. The heat was really getting to him. He started going over the case to focus his mind. Amanda always wanted him to talk it out from the beginning. It was the best way to see what they had missed. In the heat of the moment, it was hard to put together the pieces. Now, Will went through the last few days step-by-step, examining all the angles, reviewing all the lies and half-truths the bad guys had told them as well as the lies and half-truths Amanda had spun.
As before, Will’s mind kept coming back to Chuck Finn. It was a process of elimination. Chuck was the only man from Evelyn’s former team who was not accounted for. He had been at Healing Winds with Hironobu Kwon. He obviously knew Roger Ling, who called him Chuckleberry Finn.
Roger had also talked about cutting off the head of the snake. There had to be one person in charge. Chuck could very well be that person. He ticked a lot of boxes: He had a personal vendetta against Evelyn Mitchell for turning him in. His life in prison wasn’t a cakewalk. He’d gone from being a well-respected police officer to having to watch his back in the shower room.
The man had probably developed his habit inside the joint, then reveled in it the minute he’d been paroled. Heroin and crack added up to an expensive habit. Even if Chuck was clean now, his money would be long gone. Of all the detectives Will investigated, Chuck was the one who had the least to show for his crimes. He’d shot his wad on luxury travel, seeing every corner of the world in the style of a multimillionaire. The trip to Africa alone had cost around a hundred thousand dollars. The only person Will interviewed who seemed to really be upset about the charges against Chuck Finn was his travel agent.
Will guessed he would find out soon enough whether or not Chuck was really behind all of this. He heard the carport door open, the shuffle of bedroom slippers across the concrete. The trunk cracked open, daylight pouring in like water. He saw Mrs. Levy pad by with a white garbage bag in her hand. There was the clatter of a plastic Herbie Curbie garbage can as she threw away the trash.
Will clutched the rifle in one hand and held down the trunk lid with the other. His movement was as predicted—more like a lazy tongue flopping onto the concrete than Superman leaping into action. Roz Levy passed right by him. She looked straight ahead, cool as a cucumber. Her hand reached out, effortlessly making the small movement to close the trunk. Without a glance down at Will, she was back inside the house, door closed, and he was left thinking that it was entirely possible this old woman had been calm enough not just to kill her husband but to lie to Amanda’s face about it for the last decade.
Will lay on the concrete for a few seconds, relishing the feel of cold on his skin, gulping in the crisp, fresh air tinged with the odor of leaking oil from the Corvair’s back end. He got up on his elbows. His memory of the carport, while accurate, was next to useless. It was a wide-open space front to back, like the underpass of a bridge, only more dangerous. Roz Levy’s house was on one side of the structure. On the other was the brick knee wall, about four feet high, with an ornate metal column at each end to support the roof. Will could see into the street from under the car, but there was no vantage point from which to tell whether or not he was being watched.
He looked to his side. The Herbie Curbie was equidistant between the half wall and the car. Will guessed the blur of movement would be obvious to anyone watching, but he didn’t really have a choice. He got up into a low squat. He held his breath, thinking there was no time to waste, and darted behind the large trashcan.
No bullets. No shouts. Nothing but his heart pounding in his chest.
There were at least three more feet to go to the knee wall. Will braced himself to move, then stopped because there was probably a better way to do this than sit against the wall with a neon sign pointing to his head. Slowly, he pushed the trash container, duckwalking behind it, and closing the gap between the car and the wall. At least he had some visual cover, if not protection, from anyone out in the street. Across the yard was another matter. The brick wall might protect him from shots fired from Evelyn’s house, but he was basically an easy target to anyone who walked up on him from the backyard.
Will couldn’t squat like this forever. He bent down on one knee and chanced a look over the wall. The space was clear. Evelyn’s house was on a lower elevation. He could not have lined up the bathroom window any better if he’d planned it. It was high in the wall, probably
inside the shower. The opening was narrow enough to fit a small child through, though unfortunately not a grown man. Especially an overgrown man. The shade was pulled up. Will could see clear down the hallway. With the rifle scope to his eye, he could make out the wood grain in the door that led to Evelyn’s carport. It was closed. Black powder dusted the white where the CSU techs had taken fingerprints.
They had already talked this out. When Faith came into the house, she was supposed to enter through that door.
Will’s phone vibrated. He pressed the Bluetooth piece. “I’m in position.”
“The black van was just spotted on Beverly. They came from the Peachtree side.”
Will tightened his hand on the grip. “Where’s Faith?”
“She just left her house. She’s on foot.”
He didn’t have to say anything. They both knew this was not part of the plan. Faith was supposed to drive, not go for a stroll.
He heard the rattling of an engine in the street. The black van pulled close to the curb. They weren’t exactly incognito. Bullet holes pocked the side panels. Will slid the lever on the side of the rifle to fire. He aimed down on the middle section of the van as the side door slid open. He scanned the inside, surprised by what he found.
Will whispered to Amanda, “There are only two of them. They have Evelyn.”
“You’re authorized to take your shot.”
He didn’t see how that was going to happen. The two young men on either side of Evelyn Mitchell each had their weapons aimed at her head. It looked impressive, but if one of them pulled the trigger, it wouldn’t just take out Evelyn—the bullet would go straight through her skull and into his buddy’s head. Amanda would’ve called this doing the Lord’s work if her best friend in the world weren’t in the middle of these two Einsteins.
They jerked Evelyn down from the van, making sure that her body gave them cover. She screamed in pain, the sound piercing the quiet afternoon. She wasn’t tied up, but Evelyn Mitchell could hardly run off to safety. One of her legs was crudely splinted with two broken-off broom handles. Duct tape kept them in place. She was obviously severely wounded. Her abductors obviously did not care.
Both boys were wearing black jackets and black baseball hats. Their heads swiveled around as they looked for possible threats. They walked single file, with Evelyn sandwiched between them. The one in back kept a Glock jammed into her ribs, spurring her on the way you would a horse. She obviously couldn’t walk on her own. Glock’s arm was wrapped around her waist. She leaned back into him with every step, her face a mask of pain. The one in front kept his knees bent as he walked. Evelyn’s hand dug into his shoulder for balance. The man didn’t falter. He kept sweeping a Tec-9 back and forth across the front of the house. His finger was on the notoriously sensitive trigger. Will hadn’t seen a Tec-9 since the now-expired federal assault-weapons ban had forced the manufacturer out of business. The gun had been used during the Columbine massacre. It was a semiautomatic, but that hardly mattered when you had fifty rounds in the magazine.
For just a second, Will took his eye away from the scope and checked the street. It was empty. No Chuck Finn. No more young guns in black jackets and black baseball hats. He looked back through the scope. His stomach dropped. There couldn’t just be two of them.
Amanda’s voice was terse. “Do you have the shot?”
Will’s sights were lined up on Tec-9’s chest. Maybe the two kids weren’t complete amateurs after all. Tec-9 was directly in front of Evelyn, guaranteeing that any bullet that went through him would go through Evelyn, too. The same held true for Glock, who was pressed behind her. A head shot was out of the question. Even if there was a way to take down Tec-9, Glock would have a round in Evelyn before Will could realign his sights. Will may as well kill the prisoner as kill one of her captives. “No shot,” he whispered to Amanda. “It’s too risky.”
She didn’t argue with him. “Keep the line open. I’ll let you know when Faith reaches the house.”
Will tracked the three figures until they disappeared inside the carport. He pivoted, lining up the rifle to the kitchen door, holding his breath as he waited. The door was kicked open. Will kept his finger resting on the trigger guard as Evelyn Mitchell stumbled into the kitchen. Glock was still behind her. He lifted and carried her, the strain showing on his face. Tec-9 was still in front, still walking low. The top of his hat showed at Evelyn’s chest level. Will studied her face. One of her eyes was swollen shut. The skin on her cheek was ripped open.
They were in the foyer. Evelyn winced when Glock loosened his grip around her waist to set her down. She was a thin woman, but she was practically dead weight. The kid behind her was breathing heavy. He pressed his head into her back. Like Tec-9, he was still more teenager than man.
The light in the foyer changed. The space darkened. They must have pulled down the blinds covering the front windows. They were vinyl, meant to filter the light, not completely block it. Will could still clearly see all three figures. Evelyn was half carried, half pushed again, this time into the living room. He saw the black hat, the Tec-9 waving in the air. Then they were gone. His line of sight cleared straight through to the kitchen.
“They’re in the living room,” he told Amanda. “All of them.” He didn’t point out that her obvious plan was already off the rails. Evelyn wasn’t being kept in the back bedroom. They wanted her front and center when Faith entered the house.
Amanda said, “They’re using Ev as a shield while they close the curtains in the back. I can’t get a shot.” She muttered a curse. “I can’t see anything.”
“Where’s Faith?”
“She should be here soon.”
Will tried to relax his body so his shoulders didn’t ache. No Chuck Finn. No stashing Evelyn. The two boys had not checked the house for lurking cops. They hadn’t secured the scene. They hadn’t barricaded the front door or taken any precautions to make sure their escape was just as easy as their entry.
Every item they failed to check off the list was like a noose tightening around Faith’s neck.
All Will could do now was wait.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Before she left the house, Faith used Jeremy’s iPhone to make a video for her children. She told them that she loved them, that they were everything to her, and that no matter what happened today, they should always know that she cherished every hair on their precious heads. She told Jeremy that keeping him was the best decision she had made in her life. That he was her life. She told Emma the same, and added that Victor Martinez was a good man, and that she was glad that her daughter would get to know her father.
Dramatic, Zeke would’ve called it. She had made a video for him, too. Her words to her brother had surprised her, mostly because the phrase “you asshole” hadn’t come up once. She told him that she loved him. She told him that she was sorry for what she’d put him through.
And then she’d tried to leave a video for her mother. Faith had stopped and started the recording at least a dozen times. There was so much to say. That she was sorry. That she hoped Evelyn wasn’t disappointed with the choices that Faith had made. That every small bit of good inside of Faith had come from her parents. That her only goal in life ever had been to be as good a cop, as good a mother, as good a woman, as her own mother.
In the end, she had given up, because the likelihood that Evelyn Mitchell would ever see the recording was very slim.
Faith was not completely delusional. She knew that she was walking into a trap. Earlier, in Sara’s kitchen, Amanda hadn’t been listening to Will but Faith had. She saw the logic in what he was saying, that there was more to this than just a money grab. Amanda was infused with the thrill of the chase, the opportunity to tell these upstart bastards who’d had the gall to take her best friend that they weren’t going to get away with it. Will, as usual, was more clearheaded about the situation. He knew how to ask the right questions, but, just as importantly, he knew how to listen to the answers.
He was a l
ogical man, not given to emotion—at least Faith didn’t think he was. There was no telling what went on in that head of his. God help Sara Linton and the Herculean task in front of her. The handshake this morning wouldn’t be the worst of it. Even if Sara managed to get Angie Trent out of the picture, which Faith doubted was possible, there was still Will’s immutable stubbornness. The last time Faith had seen a man shut down so quickly was when she’d told Jeremy’s father that she was pregnant.
Or maybe Faith was wrong about Will. She was about as good at reading her partner as he was at reading a book. The only thing Faith could swear by was Will’s uncanny ability to understand emotional behavior in others. Faith supposed this came from being raised in care, having to quickly discern whether the person in front of him was friend or foe. He was a maestro at massaging facts out of the subtle clues that normal people tended to ignore. She knew it was just a matter of time before Will figured out what had happened with Evelyn all those years ago. Faith had only figured it out herself this morning when, for what might be the last time, she went through Jeremy’s things.
Of course, she couldn’t completely leave it to Will’s investigative telepathy. Faith, ever the control freak, had written a letter outlining everything that had happened and why. She’d mailed it to Will’s house from the last bank she visited. The Atlanta police would look at the videos on Jeremy’s iPhone, but Will would never tell them what Faith had written in the letter.
This much she trusted to her core: Will Trent knew how to keep a secret.
Faith blocked the letter from her mind as she walked out her front door. She stopped thinking about her mother, Jeremy, Emma, Zeke—anyone who might cloud her mind. She was armed to the teeth. There was a kitchen knife inside the duffel bag, hidden below the cash. Zeke’s Walther was stuck down the front of her pants. She was wearing an ankle holster with one of Amanda’s backup S&Ws pressed firmly against her skin. The metal chafed. It felt obvious and bulky in a way that made her have to concentrate so she didn’t limp.
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