The Will Trent Series 5-Book Bundle Page 52

  Will was sick of being on that treadmill. He wanted to settle down, to have some semblance of a normal life. There was hardly a long line of women waiting to sign up for the job. Will had so much baggage that he needed a claim check every time he left the house.

  Angie knew about his life. She knew about the scar on the back of his head where he’d been whacked with a shovel. She knew how his face had gotten torn up and why he got nervous every time he saw the glow of a cigarette. He loved her—there was no question about that. Maybe he didn’t love her with passion, maybe he wasn’t really in love with her at all, but Will felt safe with her, and sometimes, that was the one thing that mattered the most.

  Out of nowhere, she said, “Faith Mitchell’s a good cop.”

  “That was a mighty informative phone call you made today,” Will commented, wondering who at the Atlanta Police Department had been so chatty. “I investigated her mother.”

  “She didn’t do it,” Angie said, but Will knew her defense was the automatic type that cops used, sort of like a gesundheit when somebody sneezed.

  “She’s got an eighteen-year-old kid.”

  “I’m hardly in a position to denigrate teenage slutdom.” Angie added, “Be careful around Faith. She’s going to figure you out in about ten seconds flat.”

  Will sighed, feeling it deep in his chest. He stared at the kitchen doorway. The light had been left on. He could see the bread was on the counter, an open jar of Duke’s beside it. He had just bought that mayonnaise. Was she that wasteful or was she trying to send him some kind of message?

  A shadow crossed over him, and he looked up to see Angie. She got in the chair, straddling him, her arms resting on his shoulders. Will ran his hands along her legs, but she stopped him from going any farther. Angie never gave anything for free, which she proved by saying, “Why did you ask about kids?”

  “Just making conversation.”

  “Pretty strange conversation.”

  He tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

  “Come on,” she prodded. “Tell me why you asked.”

  He shrugged. “No reason.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you want kids?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What—you want to adopt?”

  He stopped her with two simple words. “Do you?”

  She sat back, her hands in her lap. He had known her for pretty much his entire life. In all that time, a direct question had never gotten a direct answer, and he knew that wasn’t going to change any time soon.

  “You remember the Doors?” she asked. She didn’t mean the band. When they were growing up, there were certain kids who came and went in the system so many times that it was like the children’s home was a revolving door for them. She put her lips close to his ear. “When you’re drowning, you don’t stop to teach somebody else how to swim.”

  “Come on.” He patted her leg. “I need to take Betty for her walk and I’ve got an early morning.”

  Angie had never taken well to being told she couldn’t have something. “You can’t spare me thirty-two seconds?”

  “You leave out a new jar of mayonnaise and you expect foreplay?”

  She smiled, taking that as an invitation.

  “You know,” he began, “you’ve been living here for two and a half weeks and the only places we’ve had sex are this chair and that couch.”

  “You realize that you’re probably the only man on earth who would complain about something like that?”

  “I bow to your extensive market research.”

  The corner of her mouth went up, but she wasn’t smiling. “It’s gonna be like that, huh?”

  “Did you call the real estate agent yet?”

  “It’s on my list,” she told him, but they both knew she wasn’t going to put her house on the market any time soon.

  Will didn’t have the strength to continue the conversation. “Angie, come on. Let’s not do this.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and did something extremely effective with her hips. Will felt like a lab rat as she looked down at him, watching his every move, adjusting the rhythm according to his reaction. He tried to kiss her, but she kept pulling just out of his reach. Her hand went into her shorts, and he felt the back of her fingers pressing against him as she stroked herself. Will’s heart started pounding as he watched her eyes close, her tongue dart out between her lips. He nearly lost it when she finally turned her hand around and started using it on him.

  “Are you still tired?” she whispered. “You want me to stop?”

  Will didn’t want to talk. He lifted her up and pushed her back onto the coffee table. His last thought as he thrust into her was at least it wasn’t the couch or the chair.

  Will scooped up Betty and held her to his chest as he started jogging down the street. She pressed her face into his neck, her tongue lolling happily as they left the neighborhood. He didn’t slow his pace until he could see the streetlights from Ponce de Leon. Though Betty protested, he put her down on the sidewalk and made her walk the rest of the way to the drugstore.

  At two in the morning, the place was surprisingly busy. Will grabbed a basket and headed toward the back of the store, guessing he’d find what he needed near the pharmacy. He walked down two different aisles before he spotted the right section.

  Will scanned the boxes, his eyes blurring on the letters. He could make out numbers okay, but had never been able to read well. There was a teacher early on who had suggested dyslexia, but Will had never been diagnosed so there was no telling if he had a real disorder or if he was just painfully stupid—something subsequent teachers agreed was the issue. The only thing he knew for certain was that no matter how hard he tried, printed words worked against him. The letters transposed and skipped around. They lost their meaning by the time they went from his eyes to his brain. They turned backward and sometimes disappeared off the page altogether. He couldn’t tell left from right. He couldn’t focus on a page of text for more than an hour without getting a blinding headache. On good days, he could read on a second-grade level. Bad days were unbearable. If he was tired or upset, the words swirled like quicksand.

  The year before, Amanda Wagner had found out about his problem. Will wasn’t sure how she had found out, but asking her would only open up a conversation he didn’t want to have. He used voice recognition software to do his reports. Maybe he relied on the computer spell-check too much. Or maybe Amanda had wondered why he used a digital recorder to take notes instead of the old-fashioned spiral notebook every other cop used. The fact existed that she knew and it made his job that much harder because he was constantly having to prove to her that he wasn’t a hindrance.

  He still wasn’t sure if she had assigned Faith Mitchell to him to help or because Mitchell, of all people, would be looking for something wrong with him. If it got out that Will was functionally illiterate, he would never be able to lead a case again. He would probably lose his job.

  He couldn’t even think about what he’d do if that happened.

  Will put the basket on the floor, rubbing Betty’s chin to let her know he hadn’t forgotten about her. He looked back at the shelf. Will had thought it would be easier than this, but there were at least ten different brands to choose from. All the boxes were the same except for varying shades of pink or blue. He recognized some of the logos from television commercials, but he hadn’t seen the box among the trash strewn across the yard, he had only seen the little stick you pee on. Whatever dog had gotten into the garbage had destroyed the packaging, so this morning, all Will could do was stand in the middle of the driveway holding up what was obviously a home pregnancy test.

  There were two lines on it, but what did that mean? Some of the commercials on TV showed smiley faces. Some of them showed pluses. Wouldn’t it follow that some would have a minus? Had his eyes blurred and he’d seen two lines instead of a single minus? Or was he so freaked out that he’d read a word as a symbol? Did the test actually say something as
simple as “no” and Will couldn’t read it?

  He would get one of each type, he decided. When the Campano case resolved, he would lock his office door and go through each kit, comparing it to the wand from the trash, until he found the right brand, then he would take however many hours he needed to figure out the directions so he’d know one way or the other what exactly was going on.

  Betty had jumped into the basket, so Will loaded the boxes in around her. He carried it against his chest to keep her from spilling out. Betty’s tongue lolled again as he headed to the front checkout, her little paws on the edge of the basket so she looked more like a hood ornament. People stared, though Will doubted this was the first time this Midtown store had seen a grown man in a business suit carrying a Chihuahua with a pink leash. On the other hand, he could pretty much guarantee that he was the first one to be carrying a basket full of home pregnancy tests.

  More stares came as he waited in line. Will scanned the images on the newspapers. The Atlanta Journal had already printed the early edition. As with just about every other paper in the nation this morning, Emma Campano’s face was above the fold. Will had plenty of time waiting in line to decipher the bold, block letters over the photograph. MISSING.

  He tried to breathe through the tightness in his chest as he thought about all the bad things that people could do to each other. The Doors, the kids who came back from foster care or couldn’t make it with their adopted family, told that story. Time and time again, they would be sent out, only to come back with a deadness in their eyes. Abuse, neglect, assault. The only thing harder to look at was the mirror when you came back yourself.

  Betty licked his face. The line moved up. The clock over the register said two-fifteen.

  Amanda was right. If she was lucky, Emma Campano was dead.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Abigail Campano felt like her daughter was still alive. Was that possible? Or was she making a connection that wasn’t there, like an amputee who still feels a missing arm or leg long after it’s gone?

  If Emma was dead, it was Abigail’s fault. She had taken a life—not just any life, but that of a man who had tried to save her daughter. Adam Humphrey, a stranger to Abigail and Paul, a boy they had never seen or heard of until yesterday, was dead by her own hands. There had to be a price for that. There had to be some sort of justice. If only Abigail could offer herself up to the altar. She would gladly switch places with Emma right now. The torture, the pain, the terror—even the cold embrace of a shallow grave would be better than this constant state of unknowing.

  Or would it? What were Kayla’s parents thinking right now? Abigail couldn’t stand the couple, hated their permissiveness and the mouthy daughter it had produced. Emma was certainly no saint, but she had been different before she met Kayla. She had never failed a class or missed a homework assignment or skipped school. And yet, what would Abigail say to the girl’s parents? “Your daughter would still be alive if you had kept her away from mine?”

  Or—daughters.

  “Our daughters would be alive if you had listened to me.”

  Abigail forced herself to move, to try to get out of bed. Except for going to the bathroom, she had lain here for the last eighteen hours. She felt foolish for having to be sedated—some latter-day Aunt Pittypat who felt the vapors coming on. Everyone was being so careful around her. Abigail had not felt so handled in ages. Even her mother had been gentle on the telephone. Beatrice Bentley had lived in Italy since she’d divorced Abigail’s father ten years ago. She was on a plane somewhere over the North Atlantic right now, her beautiful mother rushing to her side.

  Adam Humphrey’s parents would be coming, too. What awaited them was not a bedside, but a graveside. What would it feel like to bury your child? How would you feel as the coffin lowered into the earth, the earth covered your baby in darkness?

  Abigail often wondered what it would have been like to have a son. Granted, she was an outsider, but mothers and sons seemed to have such uncomplicated relationships. Boys were easy to read. With one glance, you could tell whether they were angry or sad or happy. They appreciated simple things, like pizza and video games, and when they fought with their friends, it was never for blood, or worse, for sport. You never heard about boys writing slam notes or spreading rumors about each other at school. A boy never came home crying because someone called him fat. Well, maybe he did, but his mother could make everything better by stroking his head, baking some cookies. He would not sulk for weeks over the slightest perceived insult.

  In Abigail’s experience, women certainly loved their mothers, but there was always some kind of thing that lived between them. Envy? History? Hate? This thing, whatever it was, made girls gravitate toward their fathers. For his part, Hoyt Bentley had relished spoiling his only child. Beatrice, Abigail’s mother, had resented the lost attention. Beautiful women did not like competition, even if it was from their own daughters. To Abigail’s recollection, she was the only thing her parents ever fought about.

  “You’ve spoiled her rotten,” Beatrice would scream at Hoyt, her milk-white complexion seeming to take on the green pallor of envy.

  In college, Abigail had met a fellow student named Stewart Bradley who, from all appearances, was just the type of man she was meant to marry. He was of the old money stock that her father approved of, and had enough new money to please her mother in the process. Stewart was smart, easygoing and about as interesting as a jar of pickled beets.

  Abigail had been ripe for stealing the day she took her BMW into the dealership for servicing. Paul Campano wore a cheap suit that was too tight in the shoulders. He was loud and unpolished and even days later, just thinking about him would bring on a rush of heat straight between her legs. Three weeks later, she gave up the life of Mrs. Pickled Beets and moved in with Paul Campano, an adopted Jew with Italian parents and a chip on his shoulder the size of Rhode Island.

  Beatrice didn’t approve, which sealed the deal. Her mother claimed that Paul’s lack of money and family name were not the problem. She saw that there was something deep in Paul that would never be satisfied. Even on Abigail’s wedding day, Beatrice had told her daughter to be careful, that men were selfish creatures at their core, and there were only a handful of them who managed to overcome that natural inclination. Paul Campano, with his pinky ring and hundred-dollar haircut, was not one of them. Hoyt had for all intents and purposes moved in with his mistress by then, and Abigail had assumed that her mother’s warning was the result of her own miserably isolated life.

  “Darling,” Beatrice had confided, “you cannot fight a man’s history.”

  Undeniably, Abigail and Paul loved each other passionately. He had worshipped her—a role that Abigail, ever the daddy’s girl, was more comfortable with than she wanted to admit. Every new milestone, whether it was becoming manager of the dealership, buying his own franchise, then adding another and another, he would run to her for praise. Her approval meant so much to him that it was almost comical.

  There came a time, though, when she got sick of being worshipped, and she saw she was not so much on a pedestal as locked in a fairy-tale tower. Paul really meant it when he said that he wasn’t good enough for her. His self-deprecating jokes that had seemed so charming in the beginning suddenly weren’t so funny. Behind all the bluster and bravado was a need so deep that Abigail wasn’t sure she would ever find the bottom.

  Paul’s adoptive parents were lovely people—Marie and Marty were a rare combination of patience and contentment—but years went by before Marie let it slip that Paul had been twelve when he came to live with them. Abigail had had this image in her mind of a perfect, pink baby being delivered straight into Marie’s arms, but the reality of Paul’s adoption was more Dickensian than anyone wanted to admit. Abigail had questions, though no one would answer them. Paul would not open up and his parents obviously felt it would be a betrayal to talk about their son, even if the person asking was his own wife.

  The affairs started around that time
, or maybe they had been going on all along and she’d just then started to notice. It was so much easier to keep your head in the sand, to maintain the status quo while the world crumbled around you. Why was Abigail surprised by his infidelities? She had taken a different route, but the path she was on already showed the familiar footsteps of her own mother.

  At first, Abigail had welcomed the expensive gifts Paul brought back from business trips and conferences. Then she had grown to understand that they were payoffs, get-out-of-guilt free cards that he fanned like a croupier. As the years went by, Abigail’s smile was not so bright, her bed not so welcoming, when he returned from California or Germany with diamond bracelets and gold watches.

  So, Paul had started bringing back gifts for Emma. Their daughter had responded as expected to the lavish gifts. Young girls are built to crave attention, and Emma had stepped into the role of daddy’s girl as easily as her mother before her. Paul would give her an iPod or a computer or a car, and she would blissfully throw her arms around his neck while Abigail admonished him about spoiling her.

  Abigail’s transformation from her self to her mother was that simple. As with any change, there was revelation. She hated seeing Emma so easily swayed by Paul’s gifts and unconditional love. He saw her as perfect and she returned the favor in spades. Everything was made so easy for his girl. Paul bought Emma out of every bad mood, every sad day. When she lost her English textbook the second day of school, he bought her a new one, no questions asked. When she misplaced her homework or forgot an assignment, he made excuses for her. Whether it was checking the closet for monsters or getting her sold-out concert tickets or making sure she had the latest style of jeans, Paul was there for her. Why would Abigail begrudge this? Shouldn’t a woman be thrilled that her only child was so loved?