The Silent Wife: From the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping new crime thriller (Will Trent Series, Book 10)

by Karin Slaughter

  Will heard the pecks as she typed out what he assumed was a more measured response.

  Faith said, “Seriously, you should tell Sara. We need to stop for gas anyway. I’ll wait inside the store to give you privacy.”

  Will stared at the road ahead. He knew Faith wasn’t going to drop the subject. “I already told her.”

  Faith slowly pressed the corner of her phone to her forehead. Her eyes squeezed closed. “Are you shitting me?”

  “I called her from the bathroom before we left.”

  “Thanks a fucking lot, Will. She’s going to be pissed at me. Which—” Faith sighed. “Okay, yeah, I can see what you’re thinking. She was going to be pissed at you, and you’re her boyfriend, so you should’ve told her, which you did, and I’m her friend so it’s on me for not telling her, but, good God, this healthy relationship stuff is hard. I don’t know how you do it.”

  Will wasn’t sure he was doing anything.

  “I’m apologizing to her right now.” Faith talked while she typed into her phone. “It would help me a lot if you told her that I said to tell her before I knew you had told her.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “We’re not okay with Nick roughing up Nesbitt, right?”

  Will grappled with the abrupt change of topic. He had almost forgotten about Nick’s outburst. Will was a big proponent of the menacing threat, but putting your hands on a suspect was crossing the line. “No, we’re not okay with it.”

  “It sucks, because we have to back up Nick so he’ll back us up if we ever need it—not that we’d ever do something like that, but, for fucksakes, it’s just another sucky thing in an already sucky day.”

  She dropped her phone into the cupholder.

  “I need more than newspaper articles on these dead women. Were they on dating apps? What’s their social media presence? Did they work in offices or at home? I need case files, coroner’s reports, photographs, witness statements, scene of crime drawings, toxicology reports. All I’ve got is that eight women were found in the woods, and Amanda is right about the woods. Look out the window. How could someone die in Georgia and not be in the woods?”

  Will had been looking out the window for almost an hour. He wasn’t as convinced as Faith. Someone was seeing a pattern with these bodies. That someone had devoted the last eight years of his or her life to tracking them. You didn’t do that unless you were obsessed. Will felt in his gut that finding the root of that obsession would answer a lot of their questions.

  He said, “If we reach out to all the different jurisdictions, someone is going to talk. You said it yourself. Cops are bitchy little gossips. Do we want it getting out that we’re looking at a possible serial?”

  Faith was saved answering by her phone dinging. Then dinging again. She groaned as she read the text. “Amanda wants you to use your relationship with Sara to make a connection with Lena.”

  Will felt his eyebrows furrow. Sara blamed Lena for Jeffrey’s murder. The only way she connected to Lena was with a baseball bat.

  “He’s a pedophile, right?” Faith was back to Daryl Nesbitt. “I mean, part of me says, yeah, Nick, go ahead and beat the shit out of him. Then another part of me says, he still has rights. We took an oath to the Constitution, not to whatever feels right. And Nesbitt’s still a human being. And he was probably abused as a kid, so there’s that.”

  Will let her last sentence roll around a compartment in his brain.

  “Not that there’s a causality between child abuse and turning into a pedophile,” Faith said, probably remembering who she was talking to. “I mean, for one, the world would be full of pedophiles if childhood abuse was the root cause. And for two, any pedophile who’s talking to a researcher is probably going to be in prison, and the majority of the prison population had shitty childhoods. It’s kind of prerequisite to incarceration unless you’re a psychopath.” She reversed herself again. “But you can’t discount stupidity. I’ve arrested a lot of idiots from good homes.”

  Will stared longingly at the radio.

  Her phone went into rapid-fire dinging.

  “Amanda says the coroner’s preliminary exam of Alexandra McAllister points to accidental death. Sara hasn’t found anything so far that disproves that. She’s still looking, but that seems perfunctory.” Faith looked up from her phone. “When has Sara ever done anything that was perfunctory?”

  Will could think of a few times, but he wasn’t going to share. “If McAllister wasn’t murdered, then maybe the newspaper articles are random and this is a wild goose chase.”

  “We still have Nesbitt’s allegations against Lena, which we both know are probably true because she’s a dirty cop and she does dirty cop things to frame people.”

  Will stared at the open road. He could feel the swirl of another Lena vortex, which put Faith’s dogshit metaphor on more solid ground.

  Another ding from Faith’s phone. “And, Amanda and I are riding the same wavelength. She says, ‘Gloves off with Lena.’”

  Another ding. “All caps. ‘I WANT HER NOTEBOOKS.’ Yeah, der.”

  Another ding. “‘Try to get something useful to leverage Nesbitt.’”

  Another ding. “‘Ask Will if he has a game plan.’”

  Faith groaned again. “Okay, Boomer, that’s enough from you.” She turned the phone to silent before slotting it back into the cupholder. “Is this killing you inside or what?”

  The GPS announced the exit. Will slowed the car as he pulled into the far lane.

  Faith let a few seconds pass before asking, “Are you not answering my question?”

  Will’s jaw felt tight. So did his stomach. And every other organ in his body. If there had been a way to talk to Faith, then give her amnesia, he would’ve gladly spilled his guts. “You’re going to have to narrow it down.”

  His request didn’t buy as much time as he’d hoped. Faith went right to the sore spot. “The Jeffrey part. I was just thinking how I would feel if the woman I loved was suddenly having to deal with the ghost of her previous husband, and it would be killing me. Like, for-real-dead killing me.”

  He shrugged his shoulder. The GPS told him to take the next turn. He coasted toward the ramp. He could see a fork at the top.

  Faith said, “I figured there’s a reason you’re not asking Sara to marry you, right?”

  Will waited for the GPS to tell him what to do next.

  “First rule of Cop Club: don’t ask a question if you won’t like the answer.” Faith turned off the sound on the GPS. She knew left and right weren’t easy for Will. She pointed down the road. “That way.”

  Will went that way.

  “For what it’s worth, Sara really loves you,” Faith said. “She calls you my love and it doesn’t even sound corny. She lights up when she sees you. Even this morning. She’s standing in the middle of an actual violent crime scene, and she sees you and she smiles like Rose the first time she sees Jack on the Titanic.”

  Will frowned.

  “Okay, Jack dies, but you get what I mean. Go this way.” She pointed at the next turn. “How about Duke and—what’s her name, from The Notebook? Crap, never mind, they both die at the end.” She pointed toward the next turn. “Ghost. Nope. Patrick Swayze was murdered. The Fault in Our Stars. Bright Star. Love Story—well, you have to admit, she should’ve died for her bad acting. Oh—Princess Bride. Westley was only mostly dead. Turn up here.”

  “As you wish.”

  Faith pointed to a mailbox in the distance. “My side of the road. Three-forty-nine.”

  Will parked on the street in front of the neighbor’s house. Lena and her husband lived in a one-story, tan-and-white cottage that looked like every other cottage in the neighborhood. One spindly tree in the yard. One mailbox with flowers around the base. The driveway was steep. Jared Long, Lena’s husband, had parked his motorcycle across the sidewalk. He was in the process of rolling up the garden hose. He had clearly just finished washing the bike, which was one of the most beautiful machines Will had ever
seen.

  Faith drew out a, “Fuuuhhh …”

  “That’s the Chief Vintage.” Will had no idea she was into motorcycles. “Six-speed, Power Plus 105ci, air-cooled V-twin, closed-loop sequential—”

  “Shut up.”

  Will saw where he’d gone wrong. Faith wasn’t ogling the bike. She was ogling Jared, who was wearing nothing but a pair of board shorts and the body of a twenty-five-year-old who spent three hours a day at the gym.

  Will was secure enough in his masculinity to admit the kid was incredibly handsome. The insecurity came from the knowledge that Jared was a carbon-copy of his incredibly handsome biological father, who happened to be named Jeffrey Tolliver. Sara’s husband had died without ever learning that Jared was his son, which was a Jack and Rose type tragedy if you looked at it from a Westley, mostly dead perspective.

  “Fucking Lena.” Faith flapped down the visor to look in the mirror. “How did that bitch get J.Lo’s life with Lizzie Borden’s personality?”

  Will got out of the car. He checked his phone again as he walked toward Jared. Still no text message from Sara. No smiley face. No heart.

  He powered off the phone.

  Will had a job to do. He couldn’t stop every five minutes to check his phone like a lovesick schoolboy.

  “Hey, man, long time.” Jared greeted Will with a wide grin. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Looking for Lena.” Will straightened his shoulders. At least he was taller. “Is she around?”

  “She’s in the house. Good to see you.” Jared gave him a firm handshake. And then he patted Will on the shoulder, because apparently, all the men from small Southern towns patted each other like dogs. “How’s Aunt Sara doing these days?”

  “She’s—” Will’s mouth did something crazy. “We’re getting married.”

  “Wow, that’s great, dude. Tell her I’m—” He winced. Faith had slingshotted back into the Mini. She had forgotten to take off her seatbelt. “When’s the date?”

  “Soon.” Will broke out into a sweat. He prayed Faith had not heard him. “We’re not telling people, okay?”

  “Sure.” Jared grinned at Faith as she slowly made her way over. “How’s it going? I’m Jared, Lena’s husband.”

  “Mitchell. Faith. Just call me Faith.” To her credit, she didn’t swoon. “Nice to meet you. Jared.”

  “You, too.” Jared crossed his arms. The muscles bulged in the wrong way. The kid was obviously skipping push-downs for his triceps. “Y’all are a long way from Atlanta. Do you have a case down here or what?”

  Will glanced at Faith. Some of her cop brain broke through. She asked, “Lena didn’t get a call from the station?”

  “I turned off her phone.” He nodded up at the house. Lena’s blue Toyota RAV4 was parked nose-out in front of the garage. “Poor thing’s been asleep for the last two hours. She’s, like, growing an entire new human being inside her belly. It’s awesome.”

  “Awesome,” Faith echoed. The last of the handsome-man spell drained away. “We need to talk to her. Do you mind waking her up?”

  Faith started up the steep driveway without waiting for an answer.

  Jared gave Will a questioning look.

  Will tried to smile. He felt his lips stretching like the plastic around a six-pack of Coke. He grabbed the empty bucket by the bike. He nodded up the drive to get Jared going.

  Jared threw the hose over his shoulder as he followed Faith. He asked Will, “This about one of Lena’s cases?”

  Will realized that Jared hadn’t said anything about turning off his own phone. He was a motorcycle patrolman stationed out of Lena’s squad. When Lena hadn’t answered her phone, the next call would’ve been to Jared.

  “We need Lena’s perspective,” Will said. “I’m sure she’ll want to help.”

  “Don’t get her riled up, okay? She’s delicate right now. With the baby and everything. The homestretch has been really hard on her.”

  Will heard Faith let out a long, disgusted sigh.

  He told Jared, “I promise I won’t say anything to upset her.”

  “Thanks, dude.” The lie of omission earned Will another manly pat on the shoulder.

  He saw Faith touch the rear quarter panel of Lena’s RAV4 as she passed by. Then he watched Jared do the same. Neither one of them probably realized what they had done. The muscle memory came from working patrol. They were trained to leave their DNA and fingerprints on the rear of any vehicle they stopped in case either was later needed to establish a chain of custody.

  Lena worked at a police station. There were dozens of prints on the back panel.

  “Lots of stairs,” Faith announced, making her way up to the front porch. Will assumed from her delighted tone that she was thinking about Lena dragging a baby stroller up the steep incline. Faith had many thoughts on strollers.

  Will let Jared sprint ahead of him. He remembered these steps from a year ago. Will had been working undercover. He hadn’t known whose house he was entering. Then he’d heard a shotgun blast. Then he’d found Lena with blood on her hands.

  Jared held open the front door. He took the bucket from Will and dropped it beside the hose, just inside the doorway. “I’ll tell Lee you’re here. If I don’t see you before I leave, have a good one. I need to hit the shower before work.”

  “Thanks,” Faith said.

  Will looked down at the hose, which had dragged grass clippings into the house. It was already coming uncoiled because Jared had not wrapped each end three times and screwed the connections together, which was the way a man was supposed to store a hose.

  “Psst.” Faith’s eyebrows were near her hairline.

  Will gathered she was judging every inch of Lena’s house. The public space was open floorplan, the living room at the front, the dining room and kitchen at the back, the entrance to the hall between them. Everything looked very tidy except the kitchen, which was frozen in the exact same stage of remodeling as it had been when Will was here before. The cabinets were still unpainted. Boxes of laminate flooring were still waiting to be installed. At least an actual sink had replaced the bucket under the faucet.

  Will allowed himself a petty sense of satisfaction. He’d gathered that Jeffrey Tolliver had been the kind of man who didn’t quickly finish construction projects. By contrast, Will would not sleep until the last nail hole was puttied and the third coat of paint applied.

  “Psst.” Faith was at it again. She nodded toward a photograph that looked like Lena was kissing another woman on the mouth.

  Will said, “Sibyl, her twin sister. She died a few years ago.”

  Faith looked mildly disappointed.

  “Will?” Lena was making her way up the hallway. Her hands were pressed against the walls for balance. She was normally a very petite woman, but the pregnancy had rounded out her face and taken some of the luster from her dark brown hair. Jared was right about the difficult homestretch. Lena’s normally light brown skin was the color of a tube sock. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked exhausted. Nothing glowed about her but misery. The swell in her belly reminded Will of a softball crammed inside of a straw.

  “Wow,” Faith said. “You’re so huge! You must be due any day now.”

  For some reason, Lena looked aghast. “It’s next month.”

  “Oh.” Faith gave the word some space. “You’re carrying so low. Is it twins?”

  “No, uh, just one.” Lena gave Will a panicked look that he didn’t quite understand. She was smoothing her hands over her belly the way you’d calm a frightened dog. She asked Faith, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Faith Mitchell, Will’s partner.” Faith vigorously shook Lena’s hand. “Sorry I jumped straight in. I’ve got two of my own. I loved being pregnant.”

  Okay, so, she was fucking with Lena.

  “You said one more month?” Faith’s voice was filled with false exuberance. “That’s such a fractious time. Right before your whole life changes forever. My first one went two weeks past his due date. I thought
I was going to explode. They say you forget the pain, but my God, it was like sitting on a table saw. I hope Jared likes cuddling.”

  Faith laughed. Lena laughed. Only one of them meant it.

  Will suggested, “Should we sit down?”

  Lena looked relieved as she padded toward the couch.

  Faith waited until the last second to ask, “Could I have a glass of water?”

  Lena struggled between sitting and standing.

  “I’ll get it.” Will hoped his expression conveyed to Faith that she needed to knock this off.

  It did not.

  She kept babbling as Will walked into the kitchen.

  He easily found a glass in the cabinet because the doors were stacked on top of the fridge. He turned on the faucet. The floor had clearly been swept, but grit bit into the soles of his shoes. Grout. The sub-floor showed gouges where tiles had been ripped up. It made sense to make the floor uniform, especially with a baby coming. Will had not realized how important it was to have a long, straight surface until he’d rolled a tennis ball back and forth with Emma, a game that the two-year-old could play for five hours straight.

  “And Beyoncé,” Faith was saying. “It took her six whole months to drop the baby weight. You’d think someone with all of her resources would lose it faster.”

  Will scowled a warning at Faith as he walked toward the couch. He handed Lena the glass of water. She looked like she needed it more.

  He told her, “We had some questions about one of your Grant County cases.”

  “Grant County?” Lena seemed surprised by the detail. “I thought this was about the drug bust last month.”

  Will could see Faith making a mental note to look into the case.

  He smoothed down his tie as he sat across from Lena. “No, this was eight years ago. A guy named—”

  “Daryl Nesbitt.”

  Will wasn’t surprised that Lena had worked that out. The case was not the kind that you easily forget.

  Lena asked, “What’s the lying pedophile saying now?”

  Faith made a show of searching for her notebook in her purse.

  Lena spoke to Will. “Is Nesbitt trying to leverage you into reopening his case?”