Fallen Read online

  She took Faith’s hand and wrapped her fingers around the insulin pen. “You do this, and I’ll go get Will.”

  “You can call him from here. I know what you’re going to say.”

  Sara didn’t stop to explain herself, especially since Faith was obviously having trouble processing information. She grabbed her clothes off the counter and went into the bedroom. Will was standing in front of the dresser putting on his shirt. She saw his broad chest reflected in the mirror, the dark stain of electrical burns traveling down the flat of his belly and disappearing into his jeans. Sara had put her mouth on every inch of him last night, but standing here in the light of day, she felt awkward around him.

  He looked at her reflection. Sara pulled her robe tighter around her waist. He had made the bed. The pillows were stacked neatly against the headboard. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her morning.

  He asked, “What’s wrong?”

  She put her folded clothes on the bed. “Faith is here.”

  “Here?” He turned around. He sounded almost panicked. “Why? How did she know?”

  “She doesn’t know. She asked me to call you. She’s terrified her phone’s being tapped.”

  “Does she know about her mother?”

  “I don’t think so.” Sara put her hand to her chest, cinching the robe again, feeling every bit of her nakedness underneath. “She said that people are watching her. She’s acting paranoid. Her blood sugar is off the charts. She’s taking her insulin now. She should settle once we get some food into her.”

  “Do I need to get breakfast?”

  “I can make her something.”

  “I can—” He stopped, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Maybe I should do that. For Faith, I mean. You could cook me something after.”

  So much for the honeymoon period. At least she knew now why Bob had smelled like scrambled eggs the other night. “I’ll stay in here to give you some privacy.”

  “Could you …” He hesitated. “It might be better if you were there. I’m going to have to tell her about her mother.”

  “I thought Amanda said to wait.”

  “Amanda says a lot of things I don’t agree with.” He indicated that she should leave the room ahead of him. Sara walked down the hall. She could feel Will close behind her. Despite what had happened the night before—some of it in this very hallway—he felt like a stranger to her. Sara gripped her robe tighter, wishing she had stopped to change into some real clothes.

  Faith was still sitting at the kitchen bar. Some of her nervous energy had dissipated. She saw Will and said, “Oh.”

  He looked embarrassed. Sara felt the same. Maybe that explained his standoffish mood. It seemed wrong for them to be together given what had happened to Evelyn Mitchell.

  Still, Faith said, “It’s all right. I’m happy for you.”

  Will didn’t acknowledge the comment. “Dr. Linton says you need to eat.”

  “I need to talk to you first.”

  Will looked at Sara. She shook her head.

  “You need breakfast first.” Will opened the dishwasher and took out the frying pan. He found the eggs and bread in their proper place. Faith watched him make breakfast. She didn’t speak. Sara didn’t know if she was crashing or if she just didn’t know what to say. Probably a little of both. For her part, Sara had never felt so uncomfortable in her own home. She watched Will break the eggs and butter the toast. His jaw was rigid. He didn’t look up at her. She might as well have stayed in the bedroom.

  Will took three plates out of the cabinet and loaded them up with food. Sara and Faith sat at the bar. Though there was a third chair, Will stood, leaning against the counter. Sara picked at her food. Faith ate half her eggs and a slice of toast. Will cleaned his plate, then finished Faith’s toast as well as Sara’s, before scraping the rest into the trash and stacking the plates in the sink. He rinsed the bowl that had held the eggs, ran some water in the frying pan, then washed his hands.

  Finally, he said, “Faith, I have to tell you something.”

  She shook her head. She must’ve known what was coming.

  He stood with his back against the counter. He didn’t lean over and take her hands. He didn’t come around and sit beside her. He just told her the news straight out. “Last night, I was at Coastal State Prison. I talked to a man who’s pretty high up in the drug trade. Roger Ling.” He kept his eyes focused on hers. “There’s no other way to say this. He told me that your mother was killed. Shot in the head.”

  She didn’t respond at first. She sat there with her elbows on the counter, hands hanging down, mouth open. Eventually, she said, “No, she’s not.”

  “Faith—”

  “Did you find the body?”

  “No, but—”

  “When was this? When did he tell you?”

  “Late, around nine o’clock.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “Faith, it’s true. This guy knows what he’s talking about. Amanda says—”

  “I don’t care what Amanda says.” She dug around in her pockets again. “Mandy doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Whoever this guy is who you talked to was lying.”

  Will glanced at Sara.

  “Look,” Faith said. She had an iPhone in her hands. “Do you see this? It’s Jeremy’s Facebook page. They’ve been sending messages.”

  Will pushed away from the counter. “What?”

  “I met one of them last night. At the grocery store. He did this.” She indicated the bruises on her face. “I told him I had to have proof of life. He emailed me through Jeremy’s Facebook account this morning.”

  “What?” Will repeated. The color had drained from his face. “You met him alone? Why didn’t you call me? He could’ve—”

  “Look at this.” She showed him the phone. Sara couldn’t see the image, but she heard the sound.

  A woman’s voice said, “It’s Monday morning. Five thirty-eight.” She paused. There was background noise. “Faith, listen to me. Don’t do anything they say. Don’t trust them. Just walk away from this. You and your brother and the kids are my family. My only family …” Suddenly, the voice grew stronger. “Faith, this is important. I need you to remember our time together before Jeremy—”

  Faith said, “It stops right there.”

  Will asked, “What’s she talking about? The time before Jeremy?”

  “When I was pregnant.” Her cheeks colored, though almost twenty years had passed. “Mom stayed with me. She was …” Faith shook her head. “I wouldn’t have made it through without her. She just kept telling me to be strong, that it would be over eventually and then everything would be all right.”

  Sara put her hand on Faith’s shoulder. She could not imagine the pain that the other woman was going through.

  Will stared at the iPhone. “What’s on the television set behind her?”

  “Good Day Atlanta. I checked with the station. This is the weather segment they aired half an hour ago. You can see the time over the station logo. I got the file two minutes later.”

  He handed Sara the phone, but still would not look her in the eye.

  Curiosity had always been her weakness. Sara’s reading glasses were on the counter. She slipped them on so she could see the small details. The screen showed Evelyn Mitchell sitting beside a large plasma-screen TV. The sound was off, but Sara saw the weather woman pointing to the five-day forecast. Evelyn was looking off-camera, probably at the man filming her. Her face was a bloody mess. She moved stiffly, as if in a great deal of pain. Her words slurred as she began, “It’s Monday morning.”

  Sara let the video play out, then put the phone down.

  Faith was watching Sara closely. “How does she look?”

  Sara took off her glasses. She could hardly render a medical opinion based on a grainy video, but it was obvious to anyone that Evelyn Mitchell had been very badly beaten. Still, she said, “She looks like she’s holding up.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Faith turned
to Will. “I told them I’d meet them at noon, but the email says twelve-thirty. Mom’s house.”

  “Your mother’s house?” he repeated. “It’s still an active crime scene.”

  “Maybe it’s been released. APD isn’t telling me anything. Let me find the email.” Faith moved her thumbs across the screen again and handed the phone to Will. “Oh,” she said, reaching for the device. “I forgot—”

  “I’ve got it.” Will took Sara’s glasses off the counter and slipped them on. He stared at the phone for a few seconds. Sara couldn’t tell if he’d read the email or was just making a lucky guess when he said, “They want the money.”

  Faith took the phone away from him. “There is no money.”

  Will just stared at her.

  “It’s not true,” Faith said. “It was never true. You couldn’t prove anything. She wasn’t dirty. Boyd and the rest of them were on the take, but Mom never took anything.”

  “Faith,” Will said. “Your mother had a bank account.”

  “So what? Everyone has a bank account.”

  “An out-of-state bank account. It’s in your father’s name. She still has it. There’s been about sixty grand in and out of it as far as I can tell. There might be other accounts in other states, other names. I don’t know.”

  Faith shook her head. “No. You’re lying.”

  “Why would I lie about that?”

  “Because you can’t admit that you were wrong about her. She wasn’t dirty.” Tears filled her eyes. She had the look of someone who knew the truth but could not accept it. “She wasn’t.”

  There was another knock at the door. Sara guessed that Abel Conford had finally noticed the extra cars in the parking lot. Wrong again.

  “Good morning, Dr. Linton.” Amanda Wagner did not look pleased to be standing in the hallway. Her eyes were red. The makeup had been wiped off her nose. Her skin was darker where foundation and blush covered her cheeks.

  Sara opened the door wider. She tightened her robe again, wondering where the nervous tic had come from. Perhaps it was because she was completely naked underneath and the black silk was as thin as crepe paper. She hadn’t planned on hosting a party this morning.

  Faith seemed incensed to see Amanda. “What are you doing here?”

  “Roz Levy called. She said you stole her car.”

  “I left a note.”

  “Which she strangely did not interpret as the proper way to ask for permission. Fortunately, I was able to talk her out of calling the police.” She smiled at Will. “Good morning, Dr. Trent.”

  Will feigned a sudden fascination with the tiles on Sara’s kitchen floor.

  “Wait a minute,” Faith said. “How did you know where I was?”

  “Roz LoJacked the car. I called in a few favors at dispatch.”

  “LoJack? It’s a nine-hundred-year-old Corvair. It’s worth five dollars.”

  Amanda took off her coat and handed it to Sara. “I’m sorry to intrude on your morning, Dr. Linton. I love what you’ve done to your hair.”

  Sara forced a smile onto her face as she hung the coat in the closet. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She turned to Will and Faith. “Should I be hurt that I wasn’t invited to this party?”

  No one seemed up to answering her. Sara took three mugs down from the cabinet and poured coffee into each of them. She heard Evelyn Mitchell’s voice on the iPhone as Faith played the video for their new guest.

  Amanda asked her to play it again, then a third time, before asking, “When did this come in?”

  “A little over half an hour ago.”

  “Read me the message that came with it.”

  Faith read, “ ‘Twelve-thirty at 339 Little John. Bring the cash in a black duffel bag. Do not alert anyone. We are watching you. If you deviate from these instructions, she will be dead and so will you and your family. Remember what I said.’ ”

  “Roger Ling.” Amanda’s voice was one of restrained fury. “I knew that bastard was lying. You can’t trust a goddamn word any of them say.” She seemed to realize the greater meaning of her words. Her mouth opened in surprise. “She’s alive.” She laughed. “Oh, God, I knew the old girl wouldn’t give up without a fight.” She put her hand to her chest. “How could I think for a minute that …” She shook her head. The smile on her face was so wide that she finally covered it with her hand.

  Will asked the more important question. “Why would they want to meet at your mother’s house? It’s not secure. They won’t have the advantage. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Faith answered, “It’s familiar. It’s easy to keep an eye on.”

  Will said, “But there’s no way that the crime scene’s been released. It’ll take days to process everything.”

  Amanda supplied, “The kidnappers must know something we don’t.”

  “It could be a test,” Will countered. “If we clear out the forensic team, it’ll be obvious that Faith called the police. Or us.” He told Faith, “You pull up to the house and you’re out in the open. You go inside and you’re walking right into their hands. What’s to stop them from shooting you and taking the money? Especially if we can’t put in a tactical team to secure the area.”

  “We can make do,” Amanda insisted. “There are only three routes in and out of that neighborhood. They make a move in either direction and we’ll have pistols at the ready.”

  Will ignored the bravado. He opened the drawer by the refrigerator and took out a pen and pad of paper. He held the pen awkwardly in his left hand, resting the barrel between his middle and fourth finger. Sara watched as he covered the page with a large T, then drew two irregularly shaped squares—one on the arm of the T, one at the base. His spatial recollection was better than Sara would have guessed, but then, he’d probably been to Faith’s house several times.

  He explained, “Faith’s house is on the corner here. Evelyn is here on Little John.” He traced an L-shaped line between the two houses. “We’ve got all this open space. They could block the intersection here and take her. They could park a van at the same spot and shoot her from a distance. She could pull into the driveway here, and up comes their black van. Two in the head, just like Castillo at the warehouse, or they could grab her and be on the interstate or Peachtree Road within five minutes. Or they could make it easy and set up here—” He drew an oblong square beside Evelyn’s house. “Roz Levy’s carport. She’s got a knee wall here where they could set up with a rifle. The bathroom window to Evelyn’s house faces Mrs. Levy’s. It’s down an incline. You can see straight through to the kitchen door from Mrs. Levy’s without anyone knowing. Faith comes in the door with the bag of cash and they drop her.”

  Amanda took the pen and turned the base of the T into a circle. “Little John loops around. The whole neighborhood folds back on itself.” She drew more arcs. “This is Nottingham. Friar Tuck. Robin Hood. Beverly. Lionel.” She drew large X’s at the end points. “Beverly dumps out onto Peachtree here, where every car in the world eventually passes; the other end throws you back into the infinite loop of Ansley Park. Lionel does the same. They’re bottlenecks. Most of the houses along these routes have on-street parking. We could have ten cars at each point and no one would notice.”

  Will said, “I’m not worried about their exit routes. I’m worried about Faith going into that house alone. If they really are watching the place, they’ll know the minute someone shows up who shouldn’t be there. They’ve had almost three full days to get the lay of the neighborhood, possibly more. Even if the CSU guys leave, they’ll be counting the number who go in and the number who go out.”

  Amanda turned over the paper. She drew a rough diagram of a house, pointing out the rooms. “Faith comes in through the kitchen. The foyer is here, looking into the living room. Here’s the bookcase on the left—my left. Takes up the entire wall. Sofa backs up to here. The wingback chair is here on the right. A couple of other chairs are here and here. Stereo console here. Sliding glass doors opp
osite the foyer.” She tapped the pen to what must’ve been the master bedroom. “They’ll keep Ev in here until Faith comes with the money, then they’ll bring her into the living room. It’s the obvious area for the exchange.”

  “Nothing is obvious here.” He grabbed the pen. “We can’t cover the front windows because we don’t know who’s watching the house. We can’t cover the back because the yard is wide open to the neighbors’ and they’ll see movement at any window. We still don’t know how many kids are left on this team. There could be one, there could be a hundred.” He threw down the pen. His tone was firm. “I don’t like it, Faith. You can’t go in there. Not on their terms. We’ll find another way to do this. We’ll suggest another location that we can secure ahead of time so that we can make sure you’re safe.”

  Amanda’s tone betrayed her irritation. “Don’t be so fatalistic, Will. We’ve got six hours. All of us know the layout of the house, so that’s our advantage as well as theirs. I know every old broad in that neighborhood. It’s a residential street. We’ve got joggers, delivery-men, cable trucks, meter readers, postal carriers, and afternoon strollers we can tap into. I can dribble in four teams over the next few hours and no one will be the wiser. We’re not a bunch of Keystone Kops. We can figure out a way to do this.”

  “I’ll do it,” Will offered, and Sara felt her heart jump into her throat.

  “You can hardly pass for Faith.”

  “We’ll send them an email to let them know I’m going to make the exchange. Roger Ling knows what I look like. Even if he’s not involved in this, he’s obviously enjoying the show. He knows who these guys are. He can tell them to trust me.”

  Sara felt a wave of relief to see Amanda start shaking her head even before he’d finished talking.

  He insisted, “It’s safer this way. Safer for Faith.”

  As usual, Amanda didn’t hold back. “That’s one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever heard come from your mouth. Think about what we’ve seen over the last couple of days. This is amateur hour. Julia Ling practically laid it out for us. We’re dealing with a bunch of young, stupid boys who think they know how to play cops and robbers. We’ll either have them on the ground or in it before they know what hit them.”