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 logical 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.
Faith walked past the Mini. She refused to drive her car to her mother’s house. It was too much like every other normal day when she loaded up Emma and her things and drove the block and a half to her mother’s home. Faith had been stubborn her entire life and she wasn’t going to stop that now. She wanted to at least do one thing today on her own terms.
She took a left at the bottom of her driveway, then a right toward her mother’s house. She scanned the long stretch of street. Cars were pulled into carports and garages. No one was out on their front porch, though that was hardly unusual. This was a back porch neighborhood. For the most part, people minded their own business.
At least they did now.
There was a parked mail delivery truck on her right. The carrier got out as Faith passed. Faith didn’t recognize the woman—an older, hippie-looking type with a salt-and-pepper Crystal Gayle ponytail down her back. The hair swung as she walked to Mr. Cable’s mailbox and shoved in a bunch of lingerie catalogues.
Faith shifted the duffel to her other hand as she took a left onto her mother’s street. The canvas bag and the cash inside it were heavy, almost fifteen pounds all together. The money was in six bricks, each approximately four inches high. They had settled on $580,000, all in hundred-dollar bills, mostly because that was the amount of cash Amanda could sign out of evidence. It seemed like a credible amount of money if Evelyn had been mixed up in the corruption that had taken down her squad.
But she hadn’t been involved in the corruption. Faith had never doubted her mother’s innocence, so the confirmation from Amanda had not brought her much peace. Part of Faith must have sensed there was more to the story. There were other things her mother had been mixed up in that were equally as damning, yet Faith, ever the spoiled child, had squeezed her eyes shut for so long that part of her couldn’t believe the truth anymore.
Evelyn had called this kind of denial “voluntary blindness.” Normally, she was describing a particular type of idiot—a mother who insisted her son deserved another chance even though he’d been twice convicted of rape. A man who kept insisting that prostitution was a victimless crime. Cops who thought it was their right to take dirty money. Daughters who were so wrapped up in their own problems that they didn’t bother to look around and see that other people were suffering, too.
; Faith felt a breeze in her hair as she reached her mother’s driveway. There was a black van on the street, directly in front of the mailbox. The cab was empty, at least as far as she could tell. There were no windows in the back. Bullet holes pierced the metal on one side. The tag was nondescript. There was a faded Obama/Biden sticker on the chrome bumper.
She lifted up the yellow crime scene tape blocking off the driveway. Evelyn’s Impala was still parked under the carport. Faith had played hopscotch in this driveway. She had taught Jeremy how to throw a basketball at the rusty old hoop Bill Mitchell had bolted to the eaves. She had dropped off Emma here almost every day for the last few months, giving her mother and daughter a kiss on the cheek before driving off to work.
Faith tightened her grip around the duffel as she walked into the carport. She was sweating, and the cool breeze in the covered area brought a chill. She looked around. The shed door was still open. It was hard to believe that only two days had passed since Faith had first seen Emma locked in the small building.
She turned toward the house. The door to the kitchen had been kicked open. It hung at an angle from the hinges. She saw the bloody handprint her mother had left, the space where her ring finger should’ve pressed against the wood. Faith held her breath as she pushed open the door, expecting to be shot in the face. She even closed her eyes. Nothing came. Just the empty space of the kitchen, and blood everywhere.
When she’d entered the house two days ago, Faith had been so focused on finding her mother that she hadn’t really processed what she was seeing. Now, she understood the violent battle that had taken place. She’d worked her share of crime scenes. She knew what a struggle looked like. Even with the body long removed from the laundry room, Faith could still recall the placement, what he’d been wearing, the way his hand fanned out against the floor.
Will had told her the kid’s name, but she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t remember any of them—not the man she had shot in the bedroom or the man she had killed in Mrs. Johnson’s backyard.
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