Amanda stopped for a moment. She put her hand on Faith’s shoulder. “Ev knows you’re with me.”
Faith made her legs keep moving, kept climbing up the stairs because that was all that she could do. It was all any of them could do.
Her mother was watching Emma. Jeremy was at a video game tournament with his friends. They all knew Faith was downtown at the meeting because she had complained loudly about it to anyone who would listen.
Two security guards murdered.
Two cops murdered.
A deputy who probably wouldn’t wake up from surgery.
All of those patients in the hospital. Sick people—sick children, because there wasn’t just one hospital at Emory, there was Egleston Children’s Hospital a block down the street. How many times had Faith driven Emma to the emergency room in the middle of the night? The nurses were so kind. Every doctor so patient. There were parking structures scattered around the building. An explosion could easily send one collapsing onto the hospital.
And then what? How many buildings had been destroyed during the aftershocks on 9/11?
Finally, Maggie pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. Sunlight sliced into Faith’s retinas, but her eyes were already filled with angry tears.
The second detonation was timed to take out the first responders.
She heard the distant chop of helicopter blades. The black UH-1 Huey was almost older than Faith. SWAT used it for fast roping and fire rescue. Men were already suited up in the back. Full tactical gear. AR-15s. More first responders. They would have to go room by room, structure by structure, and ensure there were no other bombs waiting for the signal to detonate.
The chopping got tighter as the aircraft drew closer.
Faith’s thoughts kept a silent cadence between the slicing rotors—
Two-guards-two-families.
Two-cops-two-families.
One-deputy-one-family.
“Mandy.” Maggie had to yell to be heard over the roar of the engines. There was something in her voice that made the air go taut, a knot being jerked into a string.
“It’s Will, Mandy. They hurt your boy.”
4
Sunday, August 4, 1:54 p.m.
Sara made a mental note of the Porsche driver’s estimated time of death as she checked the F-150 driver’s lacerated scalp.
“Gas main exploded. We got the hell outta there.” The truck passenger pointed toward the silver Chevy Malibu. “It’s them people there you should be worried about. Guy in the back seat ain’t lookin’ so good.”
Sara was glad to hear Will keeping pace as she jogged toward the Chevy. There was something not adding up about this car accident. The rear-end impact from the truck didn’t feel severe enough to break the driver’s neck. A mystery for the Atlanta medical examiner to figure out. Eventually. There was no telling how long it would take to clear out the gas main explosion. It was sheer luck that the construction site was empty.
Still—
Broken neck. No other signs of trauma. No lacerations. No contusions.
Weird.
The Malibu driver told Will, “My friend needs help.”
“She’s a doctor,” Merle said.
“Sir?” Sara knelt down to examine the unconscious man in the back seat of the Malibu. The passenger beside him watched her every move. Airway clear. Breathing normal. “Sir, are you okay?”
Sara heard names being tossed around behind her.
Dwight, Clinton, Vince, Merle.
“Dwight?” Sara tried. The back of the Malibu was dark, the windows tinted almost black. She pulled the unconscious man into the sunlight. His pupils were reactive. His vertebrae were aligned. His pulse was strong and steady. His skin felt sticky, but then it was August. Everyone’s skin felt sticky.
“I’m Hank,” the passenger beside him told Sara. “You’re a doctor?”
Sara nodded, but that was all she could give him. This idiot had knocked himself unconscious because he hadn’t bothered to put on a seat belt. The gas main explosion would have critical cases: burns, traumatic brain injuries, crush trauma, projectiles.
Hank opened the door and got out of the car.
Sara glanced up.
Then she stared.
Blood soaked the back of Hank’s leg.
He turned around, leaning his arms on the roof of the car. His shirt slid up. There was a gun tucked into the front of his pants. Sara heard him say, “Clinton, it’s nobody’s fault.”
Sara looked at her hands. The stickiness wasn’t from sweat. It was from blood. She brushed her palm along Dwight’s back. The familiar puckered hole in his left shoulder indicated the same type of injury she’d seen on the back of Hank’s leg.
A gunshot wound.
The Porsche driver’s broken neck. The short skid marks on the road. The blood trail leading to the truck. The names—would Will catch the fake names? Dwight Yoakam. Hank Williams. Merle Haggard. Vince Gill. Clint Black. They were all country music singers.
Sara took a deep breath and held in her panic.
She carefully searched the Malibu for a weapon.
Dwight’s holster was empty. Nothing on the floorboards. She looked between the front seats and almost gasped.
A woman had wedged herself into the footwell. Petite with short, platinum blonde hair. Arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She hadn’t moved or made a noise this entire time, but now she raised up her head and showed her face.
Sara’s heart shuddered to a stop.
Michelle Spivey.
The missing woman’s eyes were bloodshot with tears. Her cheeks were sunken. Her lips were chapped and bleeding. She spoke soundlessly, desperately—
Help.
Sara felt her own mouth open. She took a stuttered breath. She heard another word echoing in her head, the same word that came to every woman’s mind when they were surrounded by aggressive, damaged men—
Rape.
“Will.” Sara’s hands trembled as she fumbled in her pocket for the key fob. “I need you to get my medical bag out of the glove compartment of the car.”
Please. She silently begged. Get your gun and stop this.
Will grabbed the key. She felt the brush of his fingers. He didn’t look at her. Why wouldn’t he look at her?
Clinton said, “Give us a hand, big guy. Let’s go.”
“Wait.” Sara tried to slow them down. “He could have a neck injury or—”
“Ma’am, excuse me.” Merle’s beard was long but his hair was buzz-cut. He had to be police or military. All of them were. They stood the same way, moved the same way, followed orders the same way.
Not that it mattered. They had already gained the upper hand.
Will had clearly made the same calculation. He was looking at Sara now. She could feel his eyes on her. Sara could not look back at him because she knew that she would fall apart.
He said, “I’ll get your bag.”
Hank had limped around the car. He stood beside Sara—not too close, but close enough. Sara could feel the threat of him like a chemical burning her skin.
Will gripped the key fob in his fist as he walked toward the BMW. He was angry, which was good. Unlike most men, fury cleared Will’s mind. His muscles were tensed. She focused all of her strength, all of her hope, onto his broad shoulders.
“Vale.” Hank was speaking to Vince. He wasn’t using their code names anymore. The pretense was over. Either Sara or Will had given themselves away or Hank had figured out that the police sirens they were hearing in the distance would soon find their way down Bella’s street.
Hank lifted his chin, indicating Vale should follow the rest of the team to the car.
“Out,” Hank told Michelle, his voice low. He had a gun in his hand. It was small, but it was still a gun.
Michelle winced as she crawled over the center console. She held up her pants with one hand. The fly was unzipped. Blood dripped over her fist, ran down her legs.
Sara’s heart turned to glass.
<
br /> Michelle’s bare feet slapped the asphalt. A bout of dizziness made her reach for the car to steady herself. She had open sores between the webbing of her toes. Needle tracks. They had drugged her. They had cut her. She was bleeding between her legs.
Rape.
“Don’t scream,” Hank said.
Before Sara could react, a blinding pain shot from her wrist to her arm and into her shoulder. She was forced onto her knees. The road bit into her skin. Hank twisted her arm again. Sara had her fingers laced behind her head by the time Will reached the BMW.
He leaned into the car.
He looked up.
His jaw tightened down so hard that she could see the outline of the bones.
Sara watched his eyes track—Hank pointing a gun at her head. Michelle holding up her bloody pants. Three armed men surrounding him. No way to save Sara even if he sacrificed himself in the process.
This final realization brought an expression to his face that Sara had never seen before:
Fear.
“You let—” Michelle’s voice was hoarse. She was talking to Hank. “You l-let him rape me.”
The words were a hammer to Sara’s heart.
“You c-can’t—” Michelle gulped. “You can’t pretend it’s n-not happening. I’m telling you now. You know what he—”
“All right!” Hank shouted over her. He told Will, “I need you to slowly get your head out of the car and put your hands up.”
Sara could only watch as Will complied. His eyes kept darting around. His brain was furiously working, trying to find a way out of this.
There was no way out.
They were going to kill Will. They were going to make Sara fix them and then they were going to tear her apart.
“You let him do it,” Michelle whispered. “You let him h-hurt me. You let him—”
“We need a doctor,” Hank shouted at Will. “No offense, brother. Wrong place, right time. Let’s go, lady. Get in the car.”
Sara had been expecting this moment, but she did not realize until now what her response would be.
“No.”
She didn’t move.
Her knees were part of the asphalt.
She was as sentient as a mountain.
Sara had been raped in college. Viciously, brutally, savagely raped. She had been robbed of her ability to have children. Had her sense of self, her sense of safety, forever stolen. The experience had altered her in ways that she still, almost twenty years later, was discovering. She had vowed that she would never let that happen to her ever again.
Hank’s grip tightened around her arm.
“No.” Sara wrenched away from him. The fear had drained away. She would die before she let them take her. Sara had never been more certain of anything in her life. “I’m not going with you.”
“Lady, that wasn’t a gas main that exploded at the campus.” Hank looked at Will. “We just blew up dozens, maybe hundreds of people. Do you think I give a shit about having your blood on my hands?”
His words nearly cut her in two. All of those sick and injured people. Students and children and staff who had devoted their lives to helping others.
“No,” Sara repeated. She was openly crying. They were going to kill her eventually. All she could control was what happened between now and then.
“Get in the car.”
“I won’t go with you. I won’t help you. You’ll have to shoot me.” She stared her resignation into Will. She needed him to understand why she was refusing to go.
Will’s throat worked. Tears were in his eyes.
Slowly, finally, he nodded.
“How about I kill her?” Hank pointed the gun at Michelle.
“Do it.” Michelle’s voice was strong, devoid of her earlier stutter. “Go ahead, you spineless piece of shit.” Her fist was clenched around the waist of her pants. Sara could see a bloody bandage, popped sutures, at her bikini line.
Had they operated on her?
“You still think you’re a good man,” Michelle told Hank. “What’s your father going to say when he hears about who you really are? I heard you talking about your dad, how he’s your hero, how you wanted to make him proud. He’s sick. He’s going to die. His last breath, he’s gonna know what kind of monster he helped bring into this world.”
Clinton laughed. “Damn, girl, the way you’re talking makes me wonder how tight your daughter’s pussy is.”
There was a flurry of movement above Sara’s head. Hank’s arm swung around, pointing the gun at Clinton.
Click-click-click.
The gun had jammed.
“You son of a—” Clinton’s Glock was out of his holster.
Hank dragged Michelle down to the ground as the gun fired. Sara closed her eyes. She stayed exactly where she was, sitting up on her knees, fingers laced behind her head, and waited for the bullet.
There wasn’t one.
She heard two more gunshots in rapid succession.
Sara opened her eyes. Merle lay dead on the ground. Vince/Vale had been wounded. He fell out of the open door of the car. Blood flowered from the wound in his side.
Will had shot them. He was turning to do the same to Clinton when the man tackled him to the ground.
Sara pushed herself up to run.
She was flung back down.
Hank’s arm wrapped around her neck. Chokehold. Her vision swam. She clawed at his skin. “Let me go!” she screamed, biting, scratching, kicking.
There was a dark blur out of the corner of her eye. The distinctive, long barrel of a Glock 22. Called a man-stopper because the .40 caliber ammo would stop a man dead in his tracks.
Hank had the gun pointed at the ground. His finger rested above the trigger guard, ready to fire if needed.
It wasn’t needed.
Clinton was pounding his fists into Will’s belly. Liver. Spleen. Pancreas. Kidneys. He was using his hands like a pile driver to break them apart.
“Stop him,” Sara pleaded. “He’s going to kill—”
Will’s hand slashed out at Clinton’s face. The folding knife. The four-inch blade was razor sharp. Blood ripped a line through the air.
Clinton reared back.
Will stabbed him in the groin.
Sara stood up, but Hank kept her from running. His arm was tight around her neck. He kept the Glock pointed downward, but his finger was stiff beside the trigger. The muscles in his forearm were like rope.
“Will—” His name got caught in Sara’s throat.
He coughed up blood. He rolled to his side. He was clutching his belly, trying to stand up, looking for the revolver.
Hank told Sara, “You go with us, or I’ll shoot him in the chest.”
A sob bruised her throat. She reached out her hand as if she could help him.
Will’s legs tensed as he tried to get up again. Vomit roiled from his mouth. Blood dripped from the back of his head. He got to his knees, but fell flat.
Sara cried out as if her own body had slammed into the ground.
“Doc?” Hank finally raised the gun, aiming it at Will.
Sara walked toward the BMW. She could barely stay upright. Her knees kept locking out. Will was still writhing on the ground. She looked up the street. Her mother was standing on the sidewalk. Cathy had a shotgun in her hands, an old double barrel that had been gathering dust above Bella’s fireplace for the last fifty years.
Sara shook her head, pleading with Cathy not to interfere.
Hank dragged Michelle toward the BMW. He threw her at Vale to take care of. He was heading toward Will, his Glock at his side.
“You promised.” Even as Sara said the words she understood the stupidity of trusting a mass murderer.
“Drive.” Vale shoved Sara into the driver’s seat. She could see out of the open passenger-side door. Will was on all fours. Vomit and blood dripped from his mouth. His eyes were closed. Sweat ran down his face.
“Fuck,” Clinton muttered, climbing into the seat behind Sara. “Jesus fuck. Le
t’s get out of here.”
Sara watched helplessly as Hank swung back his leg. He was going to kick Will in the head.
“Will!” she screamed.
He grabbed the leg, dragging Hank down to the sidewalk. There was no struggle. Will straddled him. He started beating his face; quickly, methodically, furiously.
“Leave him!” Clinton yelled.
Vale strained to reach behind him, blindly feeling for the revolver that was stuck down the front of his pants. He was panicked from the gunshot wound in his side. Blood had soaked his shirt.
“I said fucking leave him!” Clinton pointed his Glock at Vale’s head. “Now!”
“Jesus, Carter!” Vale hoisted himself into the passenger’s seat of the car even as he said, “We can’t leave Hurley.”
Clinton. Hank. Vince.
Carter. Hurley. Vale.
“Drive!” The Glock banged against the side of Sara’s skull. “Go!”
She put the engine in gear. She swung the car around. She saw Will in the side mirror. Merle was lying dead on the ground beside him. He was still straddling Hank or Hurley or whoever the hell the man was.
Kill him, too, Sara thought. Beat the life out of him.
The shotgun went off. Cathy had aimed for the tires but hit the rear panel instead.
“Fuck!” Vale screamed. “What the fuck, Carter!”
“Shut up!” Carter slammed his fist into Sara’s seat. Blood dripped from the slash in his forehead. The handle of Will’s knife was sticking out of his thigh. “Go right! Go right!”
Sara swerved right. Her heart was pounding so hard that she felt dizzy. Her stomach was clenched. She felt her bladder wanting to release. Vale was sitting beside her. Carter was directly behind her, his shoulder pressed against Michelle’s. Dwight was passed out in the seat behind Vale, but there was no telling how long that would last. She had trapped herself with these monsters. Her only consolation was that Will was still alive.
“Fuck!” Vale rubbed his face with his hands. He was running out of adrenaline. His body was registering the shock of the gunshot wound. His breath came in sharp, panicked pants. “He got me in the chest, bro! I can’t—I can’t breathe!”
The Last Widow: The latest new 2019 crime thriller from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author Page 7