Will’s wife had shown up a few minutes later, and Sara had realized instantly that the awkward moment she’d had with Will Trent on her couch was purely a figment of her imagination. Angie Trent was striking and sexy in that dangerous-looking way that drives men to extremes. Standing beside her, Sara had felt slightly less interesting than the hospital wallpaper. She had made her excuses and left as quickly as politeness would allow. Men who liked women like Angie Trent did not like women like Sara.
She was relieved by the revelation, if only slightly disappointed. It had been nice thinking that a man had found her attractive. Not that she would do anything about it. Sara would never be able to give her heart away to another human being the way she had with Jeffrey. It wasn’t that she was incapable of love; she was simply incapable of repeating that kind of abandon.
“Hey there.” Krakauer was walking out of the lounge as she went in. “You off?”
“Yes,” Sara told him, but the doctor was already down the hall, staring straight ahead, trying to ignore the patients who were calling to him.
She went to her locker and spun the dial. She took out her purse and dropped it on the bench behind her. The zipper gaped open. She saw the edge of the letter tucked in between her wallet and her keys.
The Letter. The explanation. The excuse. The plea for absolution. The shifting of blame.
What could the woman who had single-handedly brought about Jeffrey’s death possibly have to say?
Sara took out the envelope. She rubbed it between her fingers. There was no one else in the lounge. She was alone with her thoughts. Alone with the diatribe. The ramblings. The juvenile justifications.
What could be said? Lena Adams had worked for Jeffrey. She was one of his detectives on the Grant County police force. He had covered for Lena, bailed her out of trouble and fixed her mistakes for over ten years. In return, she had put his life in jeopardy, gotten him mixed up with the kind of men who killed for sport. Lena had not planted that bomb or even known about it. There was no court of law that would condemn her for her actions, but Sara knew—knew to the core of her being—that Lena was responsible for Jeffrey’s death. It was Lena who had gotten him involved with those bloodless mercenaries. It was Lena who had put Jeffrey in the way of the men who murdered him. As usual, Jeffrey had been protecting Lena, and it had gotten him killed.
And for that, Lena was as guilty as the man who had planted the bomb. Even guiltier, as far as Sara was concerned, because Sara knew that Lena’s conscience was eased by now. She knew that there were no charges that could be brought, no punishment to bring down on her head. Lena would not be fingerprinted or humiliated as they photographed and strip-searched her. She would not be put into solitary confinement because the inmates wanted to kill the cop who’d just been sentenced to prison. She would not feel the needle in her arm. She would not look out into the viewing area of the death chamber at the state penitentiary and see Sara sitting there, waiting for Lena Adams to finally die for her crimes.
She had gotten away with cold-blooded murder, and she would never be punished for it.
Sara tore off the corner of the envelope and slipped her thumb along the edge, breaking the seal. The letter was on yellow legal paper, one-sided, each of the three pages numbered. The ink was blue, probably from a ballpoint pen.
Jeffrey had favored yellow legal pads. Most cops do. They keep stacks of them on hand, and they always produce a fresh one when a suspect is ready to write a confession. They slide the tablet across the table, uncap a fresh new pen and watch the words flow from pen to paper, the confessor turning from suspect to criminal.
Juries like confessions written on yellow legal paper. It’s something familiar to them, less formal than a typed statement, though there was always a typed statement to back it up. Sara wondered if somewhere there was a transcription of the printed capital letters that crossed the pages she now held in her hands. Because, as sure as Sara was standing in the doctors’ lounge at Grady Hospital, this was a confession.
Would it make a difference, though? Would Lena’s words change anything? Would they bring back Jeffrey? Would they give Sara back her old life—the life where she belonged?
After the last three and a half years, Sara knew better. Nothing would bring that back, not pleading or pills or punishments. No list would ever capture a moment. No memory would ever re-create that state of bliss. There would only be the emptiness, the gaping hole in Sara’s life that had once been filled by the only man in the world she could ever possibly love.
In short, no matter what Lena had to say, it would never bring Sara any peace. Maybe knowing this made it easier.
Sara sat down on the bench behind her and read the letter anyway.
To my readers …
thank you for trusting me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
—
First off, I want to thank my readers from the bottom of my heart for their continued support. I felt such a sense of purpose while I was writing Sara’s story, and I hope y’all think it was worth it.
On the publishing side, the usual suspects are to be thanked: the Kates (M and E, respectively), Victoria Sanders, and everyone at Random House U.S., U.K. and Germany. Special appreciation goes to my friends at the Busy Bee. I wanted to thank you in Dutch, but the only Dutch words I know are the bad ones. Schijten!
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was kind enough to let me go behind the scenes with some of their special agents and technicians. Holy crap at the job y’all do. Director Vernon Keenan, John Bankhead, Jerrie Gass, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jesse Maddox, Special Agent Wes Horner, Special Agent David Norman and others unnamed here—thank you all for your time and patience, especially when I was asking the crazier questions.
Sara continues to benefit from Dr. David Harper’s many years in medicine. Trish Hawkins and Debbie Teague were again instrumental in giving Will obstacles—and helping me figure ways around them. Don Taylor, you are a peach and a true friend.
My daddy made me vegetable soup when I was too loopy from cold medicine to string two sentences together. D.A. ordered pizza when my fingers were too tired from typing.
Oh—and, yet again, I have taken liberties with roads and landmarks. For instance, Georgia Route 316 in Conyers is not meant to be Highway 316, which runs through Dacula. It’s fiction, y’all.
Broken 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 © 2010 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,
Broken : a novel / Karin Slaughter.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33959-5
1. Linton, Sara (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Policewomen—Fiction.
3. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.L275B76 2010
813′.54—dc22 2010004424
www.bantamdell.com
Cover design: Carlos Beltran
v3.0
Contents
Master - Table of Contents
Broken
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Part One - Monday
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two - Tuesday
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter E
leven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Three - Wednesday
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Part Four - Three Weeks Later
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Allison Spooner wanted to leave town for the holiday, but there was nowhere to go. There was no reason to stay here, either, but at least it was cheaper. At least she had a roof over her head. At least the heat in her crappy apartment occasionally worked. At least she could eat a hot meal at work. At least, at least, at least … Why was her life always about the least of things? When was there going to come a time when it started being about the most?
The wind picked up and she clenched her fists in the pockets of her light jacket. It wasn’t so much raining as misting down a cold wetness, like walking around inside a dog’s nose. The icy chill coming off Lake Grant made it worse. Every time the breeze picked up, she felt as if tiny, dull razors were slicing through her skin. This was supposed to be south Georgia, not the freaking South Pole.
As she struggled for her footing along the tree-lined shores, it seemed like every wave that lapped the mud brought the temperature down another degree. She wondered if her flimsy shoes would be enough to keep her toes from getting frostbite. She had seen a guy on TV who’d lost all his fingers and toes to the cold. He’d said he was grateful to be alive, but people will say anything to get on TV. The way Allison’s life was going right now, the only program she’d end up on was the nightly news. There’d be a picture—probably that awful one from her high school yearbook—beside the words “Tragic Death.”
The irony was not lost on Allison that she would be more important to the world if she were dead. No one gave a crap about her now—the meager living she was scraping out, the constant struggle of keeping up with her classes while juggling all the other responsibilities in her life. None of it would matter to anybody unless she turned up frozen on the lakeshore.
The wind picked up again. Allison turned her back to the cold, feeling its freezing fingers probe her rib cage, squeeze her lungs. A shiver racked her body. Her breath was a cloud in front of her. She closed her eyes. She chanted her problems through chattering teeth.
Jason. School. Money. Car. Jason. School. Money. Car.
The mantra continued well past the penetrating gust. Allison opened her eyes. She turned around. The sun was going down faster than she’d thought. She turned around, facing the college. Should she go back? Or should she go forward?
She chose to go forward, tucking her head down against the howling wind.
Jason. School. Money. Car.
Jason: Her boyfriend had turned into an asshole, seemingly overnight.
School: She was going to flunk out of college if she didn’t find more time to study.
Money: She wasn’t going to be able to live, let alone go to school, if she cut back any more hours at work.
Car: Her car had started smoking this morning when she cranked it up, which was no big deal since it had been smoking for months, but this time the smoke was on the inside, coming through the heating vents. She’d nearly suffocated driving to school.
Allison trudged along, adding “frostbite” to her list as she rounded the bend in the lake. Every time she blinked, it felt like her eyelids were cutting through thin sheets of ice.
Jason. School. Money. Car. Frostbite.
The frostbite fear seemed more immediate, though she was reluctant to admit that the more she worried about it, the warmer she felt. Maybe her heart was beating faster or her walking pace was picking up as the sun began to set and she realized that all of her whining about dying in the cold might come true if she didn’t hurry the hell up.
Allison reached out, bracing herself against a tree so that she could pick her way past a tangle of roots that dipped into the water. The bark was wet and spongy under her fingertips. A customer had sent back a hamburger at lunch today because he said the bun was too spongy. He was a big, gruff man in full hunting gear, not the sort of guy you’d expect to use a delicate word like “spongy.” He had flirted with her and she had flirted back, and then when he left there was a fifty-cent tip on his ten-dollar meal. He’d actually winked at her as he walked out the door, like he was doing her a favor.
She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. Maybe her grandmother had been right. Girls like Allison didn’t go to college. They found work at the tire factory, met a guy, got pregnant, got married, had a couple of more kids, then got divorced, sometimes in that order, sometimes not. If she was lucky, the guy didn’t beat her much.
Was that the kind of life Allison wanted for herself? It was the kind of life that was written in her blood. Her mother had lived it. Her grandmother had lived it. Her aunt Sheila had lived it until she pulled a shotgun on her uncle Boyd and nearly took his head off. All three of the Spooner women had at some point or another thrown away everything for a worthless man.
Allison had watched it happen to her mother so often that by the time Judy Spooner was in the hospital for the last time, every bit of her insides eaten away from the cancer, all Allison could reflect on was the waste of her mother’s life. She’d even looked wasted. At thirty-eight years old, her hair was thinning and nearly all gray. Her skin was faded. Her hands were clawed from working at the tire factory—picking tires off the belt, pressure-testing them, putting them back on the belt, then picking up the next tire, then again and again, over two hundred times a day, so that every joint in her body ached by the time she crawled into bed at night. Thirty-eight years old and she welcomed the cancer. Welcomed the relief.
One of the last things Judy had told Allison was that she was glad to be dying, glad that she didn’t have to be alone anymore. Judy Spooner believed in heaven and redemption. She believed that one day streets of gold and many mansions would replace her gravel drive and trailer-park existence. All Allison believed was that she had never been enough for her mother. Judy’s glass was perpetually half empty, and all the love Allison poured into her over the years would never fill her mother up.
Judy was too far drawn into the muck. The muck of her dead-end job. The muck of one worthless man after another. The muck of a baby holding her down.
College was going to be Allison’s salvation. She was good at science. Looking at her family, it made no sense, but somehow she understood how chemicals worked. She understood at a basic level the synthesis of macromolecules. Her grasp of synthetic polymers came hand in glove. Most important, she knew how to study. She knew that somewhere on earth, there was always a book with an answer in it, and the best way to find that answer was to read every book you could get your hands on.
By her senior year in high school, she had managed to stay away from the boys and the drinking and the meth that had ruined just about every girl her age in her small hometown of Elba, Alabama. She wasn’t going to end up being one of those soulless, washed-out girls who worked the night shift and smoked Kools because they were elegant. She wasn’t going to end up with three kids by three different men before she hit thirty. She wasn’t going to ever wake up one morning unable to open her eyes because some man’s fist had beaten them shut the night before. She wasn’t going to end up dead and alone in a hospital bed like her mother.
At least that’s what she’d been thinking when she left Elba three years ago. Mr. Mayweather, her science teacher, had pulled every string he could grab to get her enrolled in a good college. He wanted her to get as far away from Elba as possible. He wanted her to have a future.
Grant Tech was in Georgia, and it wasn’t far away in miles so much as far away in feeling. The college was enormous compared to her high school, which had a graduating class of twenty-nine people. Allison had spent her first week on campus wondering how it was possible to be in love with a place. Her classe
s were filled with kids who had grown up with opportunities, who’d never considered not going to college straight out of high school. None of her fellow students snickered when she raised her hand to answer a question. They didn’t think you were selling out if you actually listened to the teacher, tried to learn something other than how to give yourself French tips or weave extensions into your hair.
And the area around the college was so pretty. Elba was a blight, even for south Alabama. Heartsdale, the city where Grant Tech was located, felt like a town you’d see on television. Everyone tended their yards. Flowers lined Main Street in the spring. Total strangers waved at you with a smile on their face. At the diner where she worked, the locals were so kind, even if they were bad tippers. The town wasn’t so big that she got lost. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so big that she didn’t meet Jason.
Jason.
She’d met him her sophomore year. He was two years older, more experienced, more sophisticated. His idea of a romantic date wasn’t sneaking into a movie and doing it quick in the back row before the manager kicked you out. He took her to real restaurants with cloth napkins on the tables. He held her hand. He listened to her. When they had sex, she finally understood why people called it making love. Jason didn’t just want better things for himself. He wanted better things for Allison. She’d thought what they had was a serious thing—the last two years of her life had been spent building something with him. And then suddenly, he had turned into a different person. Suddenly, everything that had been so great about their relationship was the reason it was falling apart.
And, as with her mother, Jason had somehow managed to make it all Allison’s fault. She was cold. She was distant. She was too demanding. She never had time for him. As if Jason was an affectionate saint who spent his days wondering what would make Allison happy. She wasn’t the one who went on all-night benders with her friends. She wasn’t the one getting mixed up with weird people at school. She sure as hell wasn’t the one who got them involved with that jerk from town. How could that be Allison’s fault if she had never even seen the guy’s face?
The Will Trent Series 5-Book Bundle Page 126