Will felt the anvil lift off of his chest. The call had finally gone through.
“I need the commander. I’ve got one of the bombing suspects in custody. I have details on—”
“S-shilver BMW X5.” Will heard his words slur. “Three sushpects. They abducted two wahh—” He couldn’t get the information to come out. His head didn’t want to stay upright. “Amanda Wagner. You need to fah … tell … tell her they took Sara. Tell her …”. He had to close his eyes against the sunlight. “Tell her I fucked up.”
Will’s eyelids peeled open like wet cotton. Thumb tacks were drilling into his pupils. Tears leaked out as he struggled to maintain consciousness. There wasn’t a moment of disorientation or forgetfulness. He remembered exactly what had happened and knew exactly where he was.
He swung his legs over the side of the hospital gurney. He nearly fell to the floor.
“Steady.” Nate, the cop from the cruiser, was still with him. “You passed out. You’re in the ER.”
Will strained to hear him over the loud noises. “Did they find Sara?”
“Not yet.”
“The car?” Will pressed. “They can’t find the car?”
“There’s a full-on manhunt. They’ll find her.”
Will didn’t just want them to find her. He wanted—needed—them to find her alive.
The cop said, “Maybe you should lay down, buddy.”
Will rubbed his eyes to clear them. The fluorescent lights were like sewing needles. He realized that he was sitting on one of dozens of gurneys that were parked on each side of the hallway. Patients were bleeding, moaning, crying. Debris covered their faces in gray dust. The atmosphere was eerily calm. No one was shouting. Nurses and doctors walked briskly back and forth with tablets tucked under their arms. The hospital staff were prepared for this. The real panic would be out in the streets.
Will asked Nate, “How many people are dead?”
“There’s no official count. Maybe as few as twenty, maybe as many as fifty.”
Will’s brain couldn’t comprehend the number. He had heard the bombs go off. He had run to help the survivors. He had been mentally prepared to do whatever it took to save as many people as possible.
Now, his only concern was Sara.
Nate said, “They’re clearing each building in teams. Looking for more—”
Will slid off the bed. He waited for the nausea and dizziness to return. Neither made a repeat appearance, but his head throbbed with each beat of his heart.
He closed his eyes, tried to breathe. “What about the BMW?”
“It’s in the system, but the system—”
“What time is it?”
“Two thirty-eight.”
Which meant that Sara had been gone for over half an hour. Will’s head dropped to his chest. His stomach was still grinding inside of his belly. His hands were bleeding from punching Hurley while Sara was taken right out from under him.
My son-in-law would’ve never let this happen.
Her son-in-law.
Sara’s husband.
The chief of their town.
Would not have let this happen.
“Hey,” Nate said. “You want some water or something?”
Will rubbed his jaw with his fingers. He could still smell Sara on his hands.
“Will!” Faith was running down the hallway. Amanda walked behind her. She was talking into a satellite phone.
Will’s throat felt so raw that he could barely get out the question. “Did you find Sara?”
“The entire state is looking for her.” Faith pressed her hand to his forehead the same way she did when she was worried that Emma had a fever. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I let them steal her.”
Faith put her hand back to his head.
“We stopped to help them.” Will bullet-pointed the details of the car accident. “They drove up The By Way. That’s the last I saw of her. I don’t—” He stopped to cough. It felt like another punch to his gut. “I don’t know why she went with them.”
Amanda asked, “Why are you slumped over like a hobo?”
Before he could answer, she raised his shirt. Red and purple splotches showed the broken blood vessels under his skin.
“Jesus Christ,” Faith whispered.
Amanda told Nate, “You’re dismissed, Officer. Report to your squad. Faith, go find a doctor. Tell them he could be bleeding internally.”
Will tried, “I’m not—
“Shut up, Wilbur.” Amanda made him sit down on the gurney. “I’m not going to play that game where I order you to go home and you wander off like a wrecking ball. I’ll keep you with me. You’ll hear everything I hear. But you have to do exactly as I say.”
Will nodded his agreement, but only as a way to make her talk.
“First, you need to take this. It’s aspirin. It’ll help with the headache.”
Will stared at the round tablet in her palm. He hated drugs.
Amanda broke the tablet in half. “This is the last time I compromise. You’re either playing by my rules or you’re not.”
He tossed the pill into his mouth and dry swallowed.
And then he waited.
Amanda said, “Michelle Spivey was admitted through the ER this morning. Her appendix had burst. She was immediately sent to surgery. Robert Jacob Hurley identified her as his wife, Veronica Hurley. He showed Admitting his group insurance card. He’s divorced from his wife, but she’s still on his SHBP.”
“The state healthplan,” Will said. “So, Hurley’s a cop.”
“He served on the GHP until eighteen months ago. Shot an unarmed man during a traffic stop.”
“Hurley,” Will said. The connection to Georgia Highway Patrol made the name familiar. Will had followed the story the way every cop followed that kind of story, hoping like Christ that the shoot was legit because the alternative was first-degree murder.
He said, “Hurley was cleared.”
“Correct. But he couldn’t right himself. He dropped off the force six months later. Pills and alcohol. His wife left him.”
“Who was with him? Who planted the bombs?”
“Unsubs.” Unknown subjects. “The FBI is using facial recognition on the CCTV footage. One of them left fingerprints, but they’re not in the NGI.”
The FBI’s Next Generation Identification system. If the Unsub had ever been in law enforcement, military, or cleared a background check for a job or licensing, his details would’ve been stored in the searchable database alongside the criminals.
“Why did they have Spivey?” Will asked. “They deliberately bombed the hospital. They took Sara by chance.”
He heard Hurley’s words—wrong place, right time.
He asked Amanda, “Where are they going? What do they want? Why did they blow up—”
“Doctor?” Amanda was waving her hand toward a man in scrubs. “Over here.”
“A nurse is the best you’re going to get.” The man lifted Will’s shirt and started jamming his fingers into his belly. “Any of this hurt more than you think it should?”
Will’s jaw had clamped tight at the first touch. He shook his head.
The nurse pressed his stethoscope around, listening, moving it along, listening. When he was finished, he spoke to Amanda instead of Will. “All the MRIs are backed up. We can do a CT to check for internal bleeding.”
Will asked, “How long does it take?”
“Five minutes if you can walk down the stairs on your own.”
“He can walk.” Amanda helped Will off the gurney. The top of her head came up to his armpit. He leaned into her more than he should’ve. His stomach muscles burned like cordite. Still, he asked, “Why did they bomb the hospital?”
“To get away,” Amanda said. “They need Michelle. For what, we have no idea. We have to operate on the assumption that the bombing was a diversion. They could’ve done a hell of a lot more damage, garnered a lot more dead and wounded, in any number of other locations
. The what can’t be our focus. We need to get to the bottom of the why.”
Will squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t break down anything she was telling him. His brain was packed with glass beads. “Sara. I couldn’t—I didn’t—”
“We’re going to find her.”
Faith met them on the stairs. She darted ahead of them and walked backward, giving Amanda updates. “They found a broken flip phone on a side street. ATF thinks it was used to trigger the bombs. We’re taking it to our lab for fingerprinting. First look says they’re the same as the ones we found from the Unsub.”
Will winced as his foot slipped on the stair. His ribs had turned into knives. He said, “The GPS. Sara’s BMW has—”
“It’s all in motion,” Amanda said. “We’re relaying information as quickly as we can.”
“Through here.” The nurse was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He held open the door.
Will didn’t move.
There was something else they weren’t telling him. He could sense the tension between Amanda and Faith. One of them was a consummate liar. The other was the same—except when it came to Will.
He asked Faith, “Is she dead?”
“No,” Amanda said. “Absolutely not. If we knew something, we would tell you.”
He kept his eyes on Faith.
She said, “I promise I would tell you if we knew where she was.”
Will chose to believe her, but only because he had to.
“On your right,” the nurse said.
Amanda steered Will down the hallway and into a room. A table was in the middle of a giant metal ring. He put his hand to the back of his head. His fingers found the sharp edge of a staple holding together his scalp.
When had that happened?
Amanda said, “We’ll be out here.”
The door closed.
Will was helped onto the table by a technician. She disappeared inside a little booth and told him what to do, that he needed to lie still, hold his breath, let it go. Then the table was moving back and forth through the circle and Will had to squeeze his eyes shut because the metal ring turned into a quarter spinning on its edge.
He didn’t think about Sara. He thought about his wife.
Ex-wife.
Angie had disappeared on him. Constantly. Repeatedly. She had grown up in state care, too. That’s where Will had met her. He was eight years old. He was in love the way you can love something that’s the only thing you have to hold on to.
Angie could never settle in one place for long. Will had never blamed her for leaving. He had always had a knot in his stomach while he waited for her to return. Not because he missed her, but because when Angie was away from him, she did bad things. She hurt people. Maliciously. Unnecessarily. Will had always felt a sick sense of responsibility every time he woke up to find her things gone from his house, like she was a rabid dog he couldn’t keep chained up in the yard.
It was different with Sara.
Losing her—letting someone steal her—felt like he was dying. Like there was a part of him that Sara had breathed life into, and without her, that part would wither away to nothing.
Will didn’t know how to be alone anymore.
“All right.” The scan was finally over. The technician helped him off the table. Will rubbed his eyes. He was seeing double again.
The technician asked, “Do you need to sit down?”
“No.”
“Any nausea or dizziness?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.” Will stepped outside so that the next patient could be rolled in. She was a nurse still dressed in scrubs. Blood streaked her face. She was covered in concrete dust, mumbling for someone to call her husband.
Will found Amanda in the room across the hall. The lights were off, which was a godsend. The blazing pain in his eyes melted into a slow burn.
The nurse from before lifted his chin at Will. “Those crunches paid off, my man.”
“This is your lower abdomen.” The radiologist was pointing to a screen of blobs that Will guessed were his organs. “I don’t see any bleeding. Most of the bruising is in the surface. He’s right about the crunches. Your abdominal muscle created a corset around the organs. But here, you have a micro-tear in the periosteum.” He traced around a rib that looked like it was still in one piece. “That’s a tissue-thin membrane that surrounds the bone. You need to ice it three times a day. Take Advil or get something stronger if you need it. We’ll put you on a pulmonary plan to keep your lungs healthy. Moderate activity is okay but nothing strenuous.” He looked up at Will. “You got lucky, but you need to take it easy.”
Faith held up her phone. “Amanda, the video just came through.”
Will didn’t ask what video. They were clearly doing things without him.
“Let’s go somewhere else.” Amanda took them to the stairway opposite the one they’d come down.
She pointed to the treads. “Sit.”
Will sat because he needed to.
Amanda pulled a wrapped piece of gum out of her purse. He heard a snap, then she waved it under his nose.
Will reared back like a horse. His heart slammed against his spine. His brain broke open. Everything got sharper. He could see the grout in the joints between the concrete blocks.
Amanda showed him the packet he’d mistaken for gum. “Ammonium ampoules.”
“Fuck,” Will panicked. “Did you drug me?”
“Stop being a baby. It’s smelling salts. I woke you up because I need you to pay attention to this.”
Will’s nose was running. She handed him a tissue as she sat beside him.
Faith stood on the other side of the railing. She held out her phone so they could all watch a video.
Will saw a parking lot. The footage was in black and white, but sharp. A woman was walking with her daughter toward a Subaru.
Dark hair, slim build. Will recognized her from the stories on the news a month ago, not from the woman he’d seen today.
Michelle Spivey.
Her daughter was walking ahead of her. Looking at her phone. Swinging the shopping bags. Michelle was searching her purse for her keys when a dark, unmarked van pulled up beside her daughter. The driver’s face wasn’t visible through the windshield. The side door slid open. A man jumped out. The daughter ran.
The man reached for Michelle.
Faith paused the video and zoomed in on the man’s face.
“That’s him,” Will said. The driver of the Chevy Malibu. “Clinton. That’s what they called him, but I’m sure that’s not his name.”
Faith mumbled under her breath.
“Who is he?”
“He’s not in the system.” Amanda motioned for Faith to close the video. “We’re working the case. This is another piece of the puzzle.”
Will shook his head. She had made a mistake using the smelling salts. He wasn’t half out of it anymore. “You’re lying to me.”
Her satellite phone rang. She stuck her finger in the air for silence, answering, “Yes?”
Will held his breath, waiting.
Amanda shook her head.
Nothing.
She walked out into the hallway, letting the door close behind her.
Will didn’t look at Faith when he said, “You know his name, don’t you?”
Faith took a sharp breath. “Adam Humphrey Carter. He’s been in and out of prison for grand larceny, B-and-E, domestic violence, making terroristic threats.”
“And rape,” Will guessed.
Faith took another breath. “And rape.”
The word stayed balanced on the edge of the cliff between them.
The door opened.
“Faith.” Amanda waved her over, whispered something into her ear.
Faith headed up the stairs. The hand she put on Will’s shoulder as she ran past did nothing to reassure him.
“The elevators are too slow,” Amanda said. “Can you manage six flights?”
Will gripped the railing and pulled himself up.
“You said you’d tell me everything.”
“I said you would hear everything I hear. Do you want to be with me when I talk to Hurley or not?” She didn’t wait. She started up the stairs. Her spiked heels stabbed into the treads. She rounded the corner without looking to see if he was following.
Will trudged up after her. His brain kept throwing up images—Sara standing in the doorway of the shed. Sara running ahead of him to the Chevy. The panicked expression on her face when she’d handed him the key fob. She had known something was wrong before he did. She had called it back at the Porsche. Will should’ve dragged her to the BMW and taken her home.
He looked at his watch.
3:06 p.m.
Sara had been missing for over an hour. She could be crossing the Alabama state line right now. She could be tied down in the woods while Adam Humphrey Carter ripped her in two.
His stomach clenched. He was going to be sick again.
You let them steal my daughter.
“Hold up.” Amanda had stopped on the fourth-floor landing. “Take a minute.”
“I don’t need a minute.”
“Then maybe you should try this in heels.” She took off her shoe and rubbed her foot. “I need to catch my breath.”
Will stared down at the stairs. He tried to clear away all the dark thoughts. He looked at his watch again. “It’s 3:07. Sara’s been gone for—”
“Thank you, Captain Kangaroo. I know how to tell time.” She shoved her foot back into the shoe. Instead of continuing the climb, she unzipped her purse and started digging around inside.
Will said, “That man, Carter. He’s a rapist.”
“Among other things.”
“He has Sara.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“He could be hurting her.”
“He could be running for his life.”
“You’re not being completely honest with me.”
“Wilbur, I’ve never been completely anything.”
Will didn’t have the strength to keep chasing his own tail. He leaned against the wall. He wrapped his hands around the railing. He looked down at his sneakers. They were stained green from mowing the grass. Red streaks of dirt and blood wrapped around his calves. He could still feel the cold stone floor of the shed against his knees. He closed his eyes. He tried to summon up the memory of that blissful moment before everything went wrong, but all he could feel was guilt gnawing a hole in his chest.
The Last Widow: The latest new 2019 crime thriller from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author Page 10