Techwood had been like this neighborhood up until the mid-nineties, when the Olympics had changed everything. The city had razed the slums. The inhabitants had been moved farther south. Students lived in the upscale apartment buildings now.
Students like Ashleigh Snyder.
Will spoke before he could stop himself. “Why don’t we go up that way?”
Sara gave him a curious look. He was pointing toward the projects.
He said, “I want to show you something.”
“Around here?”
“It’s just a few blocks this way.” Will pulled at her shoulder to get her going again. They crossed another street, stepping over a pile of litter. Graffiti was everywhere. Will could practically feel the hair standing up on the back of Sara’s neck.
She asked, “Are you sure about this?”
“Trust me,” he said, though as if on cue, they approached a seedy-looking clump of shirtless teenagers. All of them sported scowls and low-hanging jeans. They were a veritable rainbow coalition of tweakers, representing almost every ethnicity Atlanta had to offer. One of them had a small swastika tattooed on his fish-white belly. Another had a Puerto Rican flag on his chest. Ball caps were turned backward. Teeth were missing or covered in gold. All of them held liquor-shaped brown paper bags in their hands.
Sara leaned closer to Will. He stared back at the kids. Will was six-three on a good day, but pulling back his jacket sent the stronger message. Nothing discouraged conversation more than the fourteen rounds in a government-issued Glock model 23.
Wordlessly, the group turned and headed in the opposite direction. Will let his eyes track them just to make it clear they should keep moving.
“Where are we going?” Sara asked. She obviously hadn’t planned on their afternoon stroll turning into a tour of one of the city’s most crime-ridden areas. They were in the full glare of the sun now. There was no shade in this part of town. No one planted flowers in their front yards. Unlike the dogwood-lined streets in the more affluent areas, there was nothing here but bright xenon streetlights and clear open spaces so the police helicopters could track stolen cars or fleeing perpetrators.
“Just a little bit more,” Will said, rubbing her shoulder in what he hoped was a soothing manner.
They walked silently for a few more blocks. He could feel Sara tense up the farther they got from home.
Will asked, “Do you know what this area is called?”
Sara glanced around at the street signs. “SoNo? Old Fourth Ward?”
“It used to be called Buttermilk Bottom.”
She smiled at the name. “Why?”
“It was a slum. No paved streets. No electricity. See how steep the grade is?” She nodded. “The sewage used to back up here. They said it smelled like buttermilk.” Will saw she wasn’t smiling anymore. He dropped his arm to Sara’s waist as they turned onto Carver Street. He pointed to the boarded-up coffee shop on the corner. “That used to be a grocery store.”
She looked up at him.
“Mrs. Flannigan sent me there every day after school to buy her a pack of Kool 100s and a bottle of Tab.”
“Mrs. Flannigan?”
“She ran the children’s home.”
Sara’s expression didn’t change, but she nodded.
Will felt an odd sensation in his belly, like he’d swallowed a handful of hornets. He didn’t know why he’d brought Sara here. He wasn’t generally impulsive. He’d never been one to volunteer details about his life. Sara knew Will had grown up in care. She knew that his mother had died shortly after he was born. Will assumed she’d figured out the rest on her own. Sara wasn’t just a pediatrician. She’d been the medical examiner back in her small town. She knew what abuse looked like. She knew what Will looked like. Given her training, it wasn’t hard to put together the clues.
“Record shop,” Will said, pointing out another abandoned building. He kept his arm around her waist, guiding her toward their ultimate destination. The hornet sensation got worse. Ashleigh Snyder kept flashing into his mind. The photo they showed on the news must have been from her student ID card. The girl’s blonde hair was pulled back. Her lips showed an amused smile, as if the photographer had said something funny.
Sara asked, “Where did you live?”
Will stopped. They had almost passed the children’s home. The building was so changed that it was barely recognizable. The Spanish Revival brick architecture had been completely bastardized. Large metal awnings eyebrowed the front windows. The red brick had been painted a rheumy yellow. Chunks of the façade were missing. The huge wooden front door that had been gloss black as long as Will could remember was now a garish red. The glass was caked with dirt. In the yard, Mrs. Flannigan’s white painted tires no longer held tulips and pansies. They were no longer white, either. Will was afraid to guess what was inside them now, and he didn’t want to get close enough to find out. There was a sign slapped onto the side of the building.
“ ‘Coming soon: Luxury Condos,’ ” Sara read. “Not too soon, I’m guessing.”
Will stared up at the building. “It didn’t used to be like this.”
Sara’s reluctance was palpable, but she still asked, “Do you want to look inside?”
He wanted to run away from here as fast as he could, but Will forced himself to walk up the front steps. As a kid, he’d always felt a certain amount of dread every time he entered the home. There were new boys constantly in and out. Each of them had something to prove, sometimes with their fists. This time, it wasn’t physical violence that sent a cold fear through Will. It was Ashleigh Snyder. It was the unreasonable connection Will was making because the missing girl looked so much like his mother.
He pressed his face close to the window, but couldn’t see anything other than the reflection of his own eyes staring back. The front door was secured with an expensive-looking padlock. The wood was so rotted that one yank on the hasp pulled out the screws.
Will hesitated, his palm flat to the door. He felt Sara standing behind him, waiting. He wondered what she would do if he changed his mind and walked back down the stairs.
As if sensing his thoughts, she said, “We can go.” Then, more pointedly, “Why don’t we go?”
Will pushed open the door. There was no expected creaking of hinges, but the door caught on the warped wooden floor so that he had to shove it open. Will tested the floorboards as he entered. Though it was still light out, the house was dark, thanks mostly to the heavy awnings and dirty windows. A musky smell greeted him, nothing like the welcoming scent of Pine-Sol and Kool 100s Will recalled from his childhood. He tried the light switch to no avail.
Sara said, “Maybe we should—”
“Looks like it was turned into a hotel.” Will pointed to the caged front desk. Keys still hung from the cubbyholes along the back wall. “Or a halfway house.”
Will glanced around what he guessed was the lobby. Broken glass pipes and tinfoil littered the floor. The crack addicts had demolished the couch and chairs. There were several used condoms melted into the carpet.
“My God,” Sara whispered.
Will felt oddly defensive. “Picture it with the walls painted white, and the sofa this big, yellow, kind of corduroy sectional.” He looked down at the floor. “Same carpet. It was a lot cleaner, though.”
Sara nodded, and he walked toward the back of the building before she could run out the front. The large open spaces from Will’s childhood had been chopped up into single-room apartments, but he could still remember what it had looked like in better times.
He told Sara, “This was the dining hall. There were twelve tables. Kind of like picnic benches, but with tablecloths and nice napkins. Boys on one side, girls on the other. Mrs. Flannigan was careful about letting the girls and boys mingle too much. She said she didn’t need more kids than she already had.”
Sara didn’t laugh at the joke.
“Here.” Will stopped in front of an open doorway. The room was a dark hole. He could easily p
icture how it used to be. Flowery wallpaper. A metal desk and wooden chair. “This was Mrs. Flannigan’s office.”
“What happened to her?”
“Heart attack. She died before the ambulance got here.” He continued down the hallway and pushed open a familiar-looking swinging door. “The kitchen, obviously.” This space, at least, hadn’t changed. “That’s the same stove from when I was a kid.” Will opened the pantry door. There was still food stacked on the shelves. Mold had turned a loaf of bread into a black brick. Graffiti marred the back of the door. “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” was carved into the soft wood.
Sara said, “Looks like the addicts redecorated.”
“That was always there,” Will admitted. “This is where you had to go if you acted up.”
Sara pressed her lips together as she studied the bolt on the door.
Will said, “Trust me, being locked in a pantry wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to a lot of these kids.” He saw the question in her eyes. “I was never locked in there.”
She gave a strained smile. “I should hope not.”
“It wasn’t as bad as you’re thinking. We had food. We had a roof over our heads. We had a color TV. You know how much I love watching television.”
She nodded, and he led her back into the hallway toward the front stairs. He tapped a closed door along the way. “Basement.”
“Did Mrs. Flannigan lock kids down there, too?”
“It was off limits,” Will answered, though he happened to know that Angie had spent a lot of time down there with the older boys.
Carefully, Will walked up the stairs, testing each step before letting Sara follow. The scruffy treads were just as he remembered, but he had to duck at the top of the landing to keep from smacking his head on a structural beam.
“Back here.” He took purposeful strides down the hallway, acting as if this was exactly what he’d planned to do with his evening. As with downstairs, the space was divided into single rooms that met with the needs of the prostitutes, drug addicts, and alcoholics who’d likely rented space by the hour. Most of the doors were open or hanging off their hinges. The plaster around the baseboards had been nibbled away by rats. The walls were probably crawling with their offspring. Or cockroaches. Or both.
Will stopped at the next-to-last door and pushed it open with his foot. An iron cot and a smashed wooden table were the only contents. The carpet was a fecal brown. The one window in the room was cut in half, the other side shared with the next-door neighbor.
“My bed was here against the wall. Bunk bed. I got the top.”
Sara didn’t respond. Will turned around to look at her. She was biting her lip in a way that made him think that the pain was the only thing keeping her from crying.
“I know it looks awful,” he said. “But it wasn’t like this when I was a kid. I promise. It was nice. It was clean.”
“It was an orphanage.”
The word echoed in his head like she’d shouted it down a well. There was no getting past this difference between them. Sara had grown up with two loving parents, a doting sister, and a stable, solidly middle-class life.
And Will had grown up here.
“Will?” she asked. “What just happened?”
He rubbed his chin. Why was he such an idiot? Why did he keep making mistakes with Sara that he’d never made with anyone else in his life? There was a reason he didn’t talk about his childhood. People felt pity when they should’ve felt relief.
“Will?”
“I’ll take you home. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be. This is your home. Was your home. It’s where you grew up.”
“It’s a flophouse in the middle of a slum. We’re probably going to get stabbed by a junkie as soon as we leave.”
She laughed.
“It’s not funny, Sara. It’s dangerous here. Half the crime in the city happens—”
“I know where we are.” She put her hands on either side of his face. “Thank you.”
“For what? Making you need a tetanus shot?”
“For sharing part of your life with me.” She gently kissed him on the lips. “Thank you.”
Will stared into her eyes, wishing he could read her mind. He didn’t understand Sara Linton. She was kind. She was honest. She wasn’t storing up information to later use against him. She wasn’t jabbing her thumb into open wounds. She wasn’t anything like any woman he’d ever met in his life.
Sara kissed him again. She stroked his hair back over his ear. “Sweetheart, I know that look, and it’s not going to happen here.”
Will opened his mouth to respond, but stopped when he heard the sound of a car door slamming.
Sara jumped at the noise, her fingers digging into his arm.
“It’s a busy street,” Will told her, but he still went to the front of the house to investigate. Through the broken window at the end of the hallway, he saw a black Suburban parked at the curb. The glass was smoked black. The freshly washed exterior sparkled in the sun. The back end was lower than the front because of the large metal gun cabinet bolted into the rear of the SUV.
Will told Sara, “That’s a G-ride.” A government-issued vehicle. Amanda drove one exactly like it, so he shouldn’t have been surprised to see her get out of the Suburban.
She was talking on her BlackBerry. A hammer was in her other hand. The claw was long and nasty. She swung it at her side as she walked toward the front door.
Sara asked, “What’s she doing here?” She tried to look out the window, but Will pulled her back. “Why does she have a hammer?”
Will didn’t answer—couldn’t answer. There was no reason for Amanda to be here. No reason for her to call and ask Will where he was. No reason to tell him to report to the airport like she was giving a child a time-out in the corner.
Amanda’s voice carried through the closed window as she talked on the phone. “That’s unacceptable. I want the full team answering to me. No exceptions.”
The front door opened. It creaked this time. Will heard footsteps across the floor.
Amanda made a disgusted noise. “This is my case, Mike. I’ll work it how I see fit.”
Sara whispered, “What is she—”
Will’s expression must’ve stopped her. His jaw felt clamped shut. He was gripped by a sudden, inexplicable fury. He held up his hand, indicating Sara should stay there. Before she could argue, Will headed down the stairs, stepping carefully so the treads wouldn’t creak. He was sweating again. The hornets in his gut had worked their way into his chest, trapping his breath.
Amanda tucked her BlackBerry in her back pocket. She gripped the hammer in her hand as she started down the basement stairs.
He said, “Amanda.”
She spun around, grabbing the handrail for support. There was no mistaking the look on her face for anything but absolute shock. “What are you doing here?”
“Is the girl still missing?”
She didn’t move from the top stair. She was obviously still too shocked to speak.
He repeated his question. “Is the girl still—”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Go home, Will.” He’d never heard anything like fear in her voice, but he could tell now that she was deathly afraid—not of Will, but of something else. “Just let me handle this.”
“Handle what?”
She rested her hand on the doorknob, as if she wanted nothing more than to close him out. “Go home.”
“Not until you tell me why you’re alone in an abandoned building when there’s an active case.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not actually alone, am I?”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m not—” Her words were cut off by a loud crack. Panic filled her eyes. Another crack came like a shotgun blast. Amanda started to fall. She clutched the doorknob. Will lunged to help, but he was too late. The door slammed closed as the stairs collapsed. The noise rumbled th
rough the building like a charging freight train.
Then—nothing.
Will jerked open the door. The knob rattled at his feet. He stared down into absolute blackness. Uselessly, he flipped the light switch up and down.
“Amanda?” he called. His voice echoed back at him. “Amanda?”
“Will?” Sara was on the landing. She quickly took in what had happened. “Give me your phone.”
Will tossed her the phone. He took off his jacket and holster and got down on the floor.
Sara said, “You are not going down there.”
Will froze, startled by the order, the unfamiliar sharp tone of her voice.
“We’re in a crack house, Will. There could be needles down there. Broken glass. It’s too dangerous.” She held up her finger as the phone was obviously answered on the other end. “This is Dr. Linton from the ER. I need a bus and rescue sent to Carver Street for an officer down.”
Will provided, “Street number’s 316.” He sat on his knees and leaned his head into the basement as Sara rattled off the details. “Amanda?” He waited. No response. “Can you hear me?”
Sara ended the call. “They’re on their way. Just stay there until—”
“Amanda?” Will glanced around the hallway, trying to put together a plan. Finally, he turned around and got down on his belly.
Sara pleaded, “Will, don’t.”
He elbowed back until his feet hung down into the basement.
“You’re going to fall.”
He edged back farther, expecting any moment for his feet to hit solid ground.
“There are broken pieces of wood down there. You could shatter your ankle. You could land on Amanda.”
Will gripped the edge of the doorjambs with his fingers, praying that his arms wouldn’t give. Which they eventually did. He dropped straight down like the blade on a guillotine.
“Will?” Sara was in the open doorway. She got down on her knees. “Are you all right?”
Pieces of wood poked into his back like sharp fingers. Sawdust filled the air. Will’s nose had banged into his knee so hard that pinpoints of light exploded in front of his eyes. He touched the side of his ankle. A nail had scraped across the bone. His teeth ached at the memory.
The Will Trent Series 5-Book Bundle Page 209