Dirt and leaves kicked up as each man scrambled to stand. Will tried to roll over, but his foot was caught in something. He jerked his leg, furiously trying to free himself. Warren seized the advantage, straddling him, pointing the gun at Will’s face and pulling the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He pulled the trigger again.
“Hold it!” Faith screamed. She had somehow gotten in front of them. Her body blocked out the sunlight, her hands casting a shadow across Will’s face. Her gun was trained squarely between Warren’s eyes. “Drop it, motherfucker, or I will blow your brains back to Peachtree.”
Warren stared up at her. Will could not see the man’s eyes, but he knew what Warren was looking at. Faith was tall and blond and pretty. She could be Emma or Kayla or even Abigail Campano. The sun was behind her. Maybe it gave Warren the impression that an angel was standing over him. Maybe you did what you were told when there was a gun in your face.
Warren dropped his weapon. It hit Will’s chest, then fell onto the ground.
Will put his hand on the revolver as he rolled out from under the man. His leg came free from the vines with a gentle pull. He realized he had stopped breathing. He felt light-headed and slightly ill.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Faith said, her handcuffs clicking around Warren’s wrist. “You have the right to an attorney.”
Will sat up, the dizziness taking over for a few seconds. He held the gun in his hands. Smith & Wesson classic model 36, 17/8" with a blue case. The serial number was gone. Duct tape covered the grip to keep fingerprints from transferring. The weapon had been professionally prepped.
He guessed that Adam had bought a gun, after all.
Will opened the cylinder and turned it upside down. The revolver was designed to hold five rounds. Three bullets fell into the palm of his hand. Will stared at the shiny brass, smelling the scent of powder mixed with oil.
If Warren had pulled the trigger one more time, Will would be dead right now.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Faith was struck by how normal she found Warren Grier. He was average looking, the sort of young man you wouldn’t think twice about letting into your house to fix your toilet or check for a gas leak. Considering what had happened to Kayla Alexander and Adam Humphrey, what had most likely been done to Emma Campano, Faith had expected a monster, or at the very least an arrogant sociopath like Evan Bernard.
Instead, she found Warren Grier almost pitiable. His body was thin and wiry. He couldn’t make eye contact with her. Sitting in the chair across from her in the interrogation room, his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped low between his knees, he reminded her more of Jeremy that time he’d gotten caught stealing candy from the store than a cold-blooded killer.
She cleared her throat and he glanced up at her, shy, as if they were in high school and she was the cheerleader who was nice to him when her friends were not looking. He seemed almost grateful to be sitting across from her. Had she not seen him with her own eyes less than an hour ago pointing a gun in Will Trent’s face, Faith would have laughed at the prospect of this introspective, awkward man being capable of such a thing.
Faith had only drawn her gun twice in her career. It was not a thing a police officer did lightly. You did not pull your weapon unless you were ready to use it, and there were a finite number of circumstances that justified that happening. Standing there in the woods, looking down at Warren Grier, watching his finger pull back on the trigger, she had been fully prepared to pull back her own finger.
But it would have been too late. Faith had been following procedure. She could have safely told any review panel that she was doing the job as she had been trained to do: you give a warning first, then you shoot. Faith knew now that she would never again give that warning. Warren had already pulled the trigger twice by the time she got there. The only thing that had kept him from pulling it a third time, sending the firing pin into the back of a bullet, the bullet through the back of Will’s brain, was … what?
She felt a rush of heat just thinking about the close call. Faith had to remind herself that the irrational side of Warren Grier was the one that they needed to keep in mind at all times. Evan Bernard was the cool and collected one. Warren was the reactionary, the person who was capable of a frenzied murder. He had abducted Emma Campano. He had stabbed Adam Humphrey. He had beaten Kayla Alexander to death.
Faith realized that over the last twelve hours, she had allowed herself to think that Emma Campano was probably dead. Now she found herself coming to terms with the possibility that Emma was still alive, and that the only way to find her was through the killer sitting on the other side of the table.
She hoped to God that Will was up to the challenge.
Warren said, “The construction guys say that the water main should be fixed soon. That’ll be nice to have the street clear, finally.”
Faith turned slightly in her chair, facing away from him. There was a camera on a tripod at the head of the table, their every movement being recorded. She thought about Evan Bernard’s little-girl room and wondered if Warren Grier had sat in front of the computer next door, watching him. They hadn’t found a hard drive in the man’s apartment. They hadn’t found a laptop computer or anything remotely incriminating.
“They sure were busy this afternoon,” he said. “It was very noisy.”
She felt her pity seep away, her disgust take hold.
According to Lionel Petty, Warren spent a lot of time in his office with the door closed. Had he watched Emma and Adam in the parking lot on the security monitor? Is that when he’d first spotted Emma? How did Kayla fit into all of this? Where did Evan Bernard come in?
Faith had been processing Warren through the system, watching him get photographed and fingerprinted and searched. Will had told her about Warren’s dingy apartment on Ashby Street downtown. It was a one-room affair with a toilet down the hall, the sort of place you moved into when you just got out of jail. Warren’s landlady was shocked to hear that her quiet tenant of ten years had been arrested. He never went out except for work, she had told Will. He never had friends around.
So where was he keeping Emma Campano?
As if he could read her mind, Warren said, “You won’t find her.”
Faith did not respond, did not try to read any sense of hope in his words. Warren had tried several times to engage her in conversation. She had taken the bait the first few times, but quickly learned that he was playing her. He wanted to talk about the weather, the news story about the drought—anything to engage her in meaningless conversation. Faith had learned a long time ago that you never gave suspects what they wanted. It put the relationship on the wrong foot if they thought that they were the ones in control.
There was a knock at the door, then Will came into the room. He had several neon-colored file folders in his hand. He nodded at Faith as he checked the camera, making sure everything was working properly.
Warren said, “I’m sorry I tried to kill you.”
Will smiled at him. “I’m glad you didn’t succeed.”
It showed remarkable restraint, and Faith was again struck by how very little Will Trent acted like a cop. He straightened his vest, making sure his tie was tightly tucked in, as he sat down beside Faith. The man looked more like an accountant who was about to start an audit than a cop.
Will told Warren, “Your fingerprint matches the note that was slipped under Adam Humphrey’s door last week.”
Warren nodded his head once. He stayed hunched over the table, his hands between his knees. His chest was pressed into the metal top the way babies do when they’re trying to stand.
Will asked, “Did you try to warn Adam away?”
Warren gave a single nod again.
“May I tell you what I think happened?”
He seemed to be waiting for just that.
“I think that you planned this out well ahead of time. Evan Bernard needed money to pursue his legal case against Georgia Tech. He lost h
is pension, his retirement benefits, everything,” Will told Faith. “We found out that he sold his house last summer to pay his legal bills.” He shook his head, indicating they had checked the house and found nothing.
Faith wondered what other information he had unearthed while she had been sitting on Warren. She glanced at the colored file folders, and Will gave her an uncharacteristic wink.
Warren asked, “Did you get adopted out?”
Faith didn’t understand the question, but Will obviously did.
“No,” he answered. “I left when I was eighteen.”
Warren smiled, a kindred spirit. “Me, too.”
“Did you meet Bernard when you got fostered out? Did he teach at your school?”
Warren’s face was placid.
“I think that Evan Bernard introduced you to Kayla Alexander. He needed Kayla to open the front door for you, to make sure that Emma was at home. Maybe she was supposed to keep Adam calm while you took her away.” Warren did not confirm anything. “Was Kayla the one who told Emma to start parking in the garage?”
Warren said, “Kayla told Emma to park there last year so her parents wouldn’t find out they were skipping.”
“Let’s go back three days ago, the day of the crime. Did you use the path in the woods behind the Copy Right to walk to the Campanos?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have the knife and the gloves with you?”
“Yes.”
“So you went there intending to kill somebody.”
He hesitated, then shrugged in answer.
Will thumbed through the files in his hand and opened the green one. “We found this in your desk at the copy center.” He showed Faith the photograph before sliding it toward Warren. The picture showed Emma Campano walking with Adam Humphrey. The two teenagers had their arms around each other. Emma’s head was tilted back as she laughed.
Will said, “You liked watching her.”
Warren did not respond, but then Will hadn’t really asked a question.
“Did you think that Adam wasn’t good enough for her?”
He remained silent.
“You knew Emma was special. Who told you she had a reading problem like you?”
“I don’t have a reading problem.” His tone was defensive, a radical change from the conversational manner he had adopted before.
Will opened another folder, this one blue, and showed Faith an official-looking form. “This is an evaluation from a clinical psychologist who interviewed Warren when he was released from the state’s care.” Will put the sheet of paper down on the table, turning it toward Warren. Faith saw that there were colored dots on the page. Will put his finger on the blue one. “ ‘Antisocial,’ ” he read, moving down to the red dot. “ ‘Sociopathic tendencies.’ ” He moved his finger down to the next dot, then the next, calling out, “ ‘Anger control issues.’ ‘Poor aptitude.’ ‘Poor reading skills.’ Do you see this, Warren? Do you see what they said about you?” He paused, though obviously he didn’t expect an answer. Will tucked the form back into the folder, and the tone of the interview suddenly changed when he said, “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter if you can see it, because it clearly says that you can’t read it.”
Pain flashed in the other man’s eyes as if he had been betrayed.
Will kept chipping away, his tone soft, as if he could be both the good and the bad cop rolled into one. “Is that why you dropped out of school when you were sixteen?”
Warren shook his head.
“I guess school wasn’t that fun since they stuck you with the stupid kids.” For Faith’s benefit, Will explained, “Warren was put into special education classes when he was fifteen, even though his IQ tested within the normal range.”
Warren looked down at the table, his eyes still glistening.
Will said, “It’s kind of sad when the short bus pulls up in front of the orphanage.”
Warren cleared his throat, struggling to speak. “You’re never going to find her.”
“And you’re never going to see her again.”
“I have her up here,” he insisted, pressing his finger to his temple. “I have her with me all the time.”
“I know she’s alive,” Will said, sounding so certain of himself that Faith almost believed him. “You wouldn’t kill her, Warren. She’s special to you.”
“She loves me.”
“She’s terrified of you.”
He shook his head. “She understands why I had to do it. I had to save her.”
“What does she understand?”
“That I’m protecting her.”
“Protecting her from Bernard?”
He shook his head, biting his lip, refusing to give up the teacher.
Will opened a red file folder and took out yet another sheet of paper, which he slid Warren’s way. “ ‘It is my opinion that Warren Grier has an undiagnosed reading and written language disability. This, combined with his average IQ and antisocial behavior—’ ”
Warren whispered, “She’s going to die, and it’s all going to be on you.”
“I’m not the one who took her from her family. I’m not the one who killed her best friend.”
“Kayla wasn’t her friend,” Warren said. “She hated her. She couldn’t stand her.”
“Why?”
“Kayla made fun of her all the time,” Warren said. “She said she was stupid because she had to have special help after school.”
“Was Kayla mean to you, too?”
He shrugged, but the answer to that question was lying dead down in the morgue right now.
“Tell me what happened that day, Warren. Did Kayla let you into the house?”
“She was just supposed to let me into the house and shut up, but she wouldn’t stop. She was pissed about Adam, that he was upstairs having sex with Emma. She kept going on and on about how stupid Emma is, and how she doesn’t deserve to have a boyfriend. She said Emma is stupid like me.”
“Did Kayla start yelling?”
“When I hit her.” Warren amended, “Not hard, though. Only to get her to shut up.”
“Then what happened?”
“She ran up the stairs. She kept screaming. I told her to stop, but she wouldn’t. She was supposed to help with Adam. I was supposed to hold the knife to her neck so he wouldn’t try anything, but she just went crazy. I had to hit her.”
“Did you stab Kayla?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just felt someone grab my hand, and it was him, it was Adam. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I just stood up, and the knife went into his chest. I didn’t want to hurt him. I tried to help him. I tried to warn him to go away.”
“Where was Emma when all of this was happening?”
“I heard her crying. She was in the closet in one of the rooms. She had …” His voice caught. “The room was so nice, you know? It had a big TV, and a fireplace, and all these clothes and shoes and everything. She had everything.”
“Did you hit her?”
“I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“But she was unconscious when you carried her down the stairs.”
“We went outside. I don’t know what was wrong with her. I carried her. I put her in the trunk, then I went to the parking garage like I was supposed to.”
“Like Bernard told you to?”
He looked back at the table again, and Faith wondered what kind of hold Evan Bernard had over the young man. For all appearances, Bernard preferred girls. Was there another side to his depravity that they had yet to find out about?
Will asked, “Where did you take her, Warren? Where did you take Emma?”
“Somewhere safe,” he said. “Somewhere we could be together.”
“You don’t love her, Warren. You don’t kidnap somebody if you love them. They come to you. They choose you. Not the other way around.”
“It wasn’t like that. She said she loved me.”
“After you took her?”
“Yeah.” He had a grin on his fa
ce, as if the news still surprised and astounded him. “She really fell in love with me.”
“You really think that?” Will asked. “You really think you belong in her world?”
“She loves me. She told me.”
Will leaned closer. “Guys like you and me, we don’t know what it means to be in a family. We don’t see how deep that bond is, we never feel how much parents love their children. You broke that bond, Warren. You took Emma away from her parents just like you were taken away from yours.”
Warren still shook his head, but with sadness more than certainty.
“What was that like for you, being in her room, seeing the good kind of life she had when you had nothing?” His voice was low, confidential. “It all felt wrong, didn’t it? I was there, man. I felt it, too. We don’t belong around normal people like that. They can’t take our nightmares. They don’t understand why we hate Christmas and birthdays and summer vacations because every holiday reminds us of all the time we spent alone.”
“No.” Warren shook his head, vehement. “I’m not alone now. I have her.”
“What do you picture for yourself, Warren? Some kind of domestic scene where you come home from work and Emma’s cooking you dinner? She’ll kiss you on the forehead and you’ll drink some wine and talk about your day. Maybe after, she’ll wash the plates and you’ll dry?”
Warren shrugged, but Faith could tell that was exactly the sort of life the man envisioned.
“I saw your booking photos when they arrested you downstairs. I know what cigarette burns look like.”
He whispered a quiet, “Fuck you.”
“Did you show your burns to Emma? Did she get sick the same way you do every time you see them?”
“It’s not like that.”
“She had to feel the scars, Warren. I know you took your clothes off. I know you wanted to feel her skin against yours.”
“No.”
“I don’t know which is worse, the pain or the smell. First, it’s like little needles digging into you—a million at a time just burning and stinging. And then the smell hits you. It’s like barbecue, isn’t it? You smell it in the summer all over the city, that raw flesh burning in the flames.”
The Will Trent Series 5-Book Bundle Page 74