Fractured

CHAPTER FOUR

THE COPY RIGHT COPY CENTER was on the street-level floor of an ancient three-story building. It was one of the few structures on Peachtree Street yet to be torn down and replaced by a skyscraper, and the entire building had an air of resignation, as if at any moment it expected to be razed. The high-volume copy machines, made visible through the plate-glass windows by harsh, fluorescent lights, gave the place a dystopic, science fiction feel. Blade Runner meets Kinko's.

"Shit," Amanda hissed as the uneven road scraped against the bottom of her car. The asphalt was patched with heavy metal plates that overlapped like thick Band-Aids. Pylons and signs blocked off an entire lane on Peachtree, but the construction workers were long gone.

She sat up, gripping the wheel as the car bounced onto the ramp leading to the parking deck. Amanda pulled up behind a crime-scene van and put the car in park.

"Seven hours," she said. That was how long Emma had been missing.

Will got out of the car, adjusting his vest, wishing that he had his jacket even though the promise of night had done nothing to alleviate the sweltering heat. One of the employees of the CopyRight had seen the abduction alert on television. He had spotted the car while taking a cigarette break and made the call.

Will followed Amanda down the gently sloping ramp that led to the parking garage behind the building. The space was small by Atlanta standards, maybe fifty feet wide and just as deep. Overhead, the ceiling was low, the concrete beams hanging down less than a foot from the top of Will's head. The second-story ramp was blocked off with concrete barriers that looked as if they had been there a while. A service road ran off the back, and he saw that it was connected to the adjacent buildings. Three cars were in a blocked-off area, he assumed for employee parking. The floodlights were yellow to help keep mosquitoes at bay. Will put his hand to his face, feeling the scar there, then made himself stop the nervous habit.

There was no gate for the parking lot, no booth with an attendant. Whoever owned the lot relied on the honesty of strangers. The honor box by the entrance had numbers corresponding to the spaces. Visitors were expected to fold four single dollar bills into a tight wad and shove them through tiny slits by way of payment. A slim, sharp piece of metal hung on a wire to help people cram in the money.

Amanda's heels clicked across the concrete as they walked toward Kayla Alexander's white Prius. A team had already surrounded the car. Cameras flashed, evidence was sifted, plastic bags were filled. The techs were all suited up, sweating from the unrelenting heat. The humidity made Will feel like he was breathing through a wet piece of cotton.

Amanda looked up, surveying the area. Will followed her gaze. There was one lone security camera up on the wall. The angle was more for catching people going into the building than watching cars parked in the lot.

"What have we got?" Amanda asked.

She spoke softly, but this was her team and they had all been waiting for her to ask the question.

Charlie Reed stepped forward, two plastic evidence bags in his hands. "Rope and duct tape," he explained, indicating each. "We found these in the trunk."

Will took the bag of rope, which appeared to be unused clothesline; there was a plastic tie around the neatly folded line. One side was faintly red where the fibers had wicked up blood. "Was it coiled up like this when you found it?"

Charlie gave him a look that asked if Will really thought he was that stupid. "Just like that," he said. "No fingerprints on either one."

Amanda surmised, "He came prepared."

Will handed back the rope and Charlie continued, "There was a patch of blood in the trunk that matched Emma Campano's blood type. We'll have to check with a doc, but the injury doesn't seem life threatening." He pointed to a semicircle of dark blood in the trunk. Will guessed it was about the same size as a seventeen-year-old girl's head. "Based on the volume of blood, I'd say it was a nasty cut. The head bleeds a lot. Oh-" He directed this toward Will. "We found microscopic sprays of blood in Emma Campano's closet above the urine you found. My guess is she was either kicked or punched in the head, causing the spray. We cut out the Sheetrock, but I'm not sure there's enough to test." He added, "Maybe that's why he didn't need to use the rope and tape. He knocked her out before removing her from the closet."

Amanda apparently already assumed this. "Next."

Charlie walked around the car, pointing to different spots. "The steering wheel, door panels and trunk latch show faint streaks of the same blood we found in the trunk. This is classic glove transfer." He meant the abductor had been wearing latex gloves. "As for the trash, we're assuming it came from the owner."

Will looked inside the car. The keys dangled from the ignition slot just beside what looked like a toggle knob that served as the gearshift. There were go-cups and empty fast food bags and school-books and papers and melted makeup and sticky spots of spilled soda and other items that indicated Kayla Alexander had been too lazy to find a trashcan, but nothing else that stuck out.

Charlie continued, "We got a positive on body fluids in the seats. Could be blood, urine, sperm, sweat, sputum. The seat material is dark and there's not much, but it's something. I'm going to cut out the patches and see if we can soak something out of them back at the lab."

Will asked him, "The blood on the outside of the car was Emma's only?"

"That's right."

"So he would've changed his gloves from the time he was in the Campano house?"

Charlie considered his answer. "That would make sense. If he was using the same gloves, then Adam and Kayla's blood would also be on the car."

Amanda asked, "Wouldn't it have dried in the heat?"

"Possibly, but the new wet blood would release the dried blood. I would expect to see some cross-contamination."

"How are you sure the blood is Emma's?"

"I'm not, really," Charlie admitted. He found a roll of paper towels and tore off a strip so he could wipe the sweat off his face. "All I cangoby is type. The blood wefound onthe car is O-positive. Emma was the only one in the house that we know of who had that type."

"Not to question your methods," Will began, then did exactly that. "How do you know for sure that it's only type O-positive?"

"Blood types don't get along well," Charlie explained. "If you put O-pos with any type A or B, then you get a violent reaction. It's why they type you at the hospital before they give you a transfusion. It's a simple test-takes only a few minutes."

Amanda piped in. "I thought O-positive was universal?"

"That's O-negative," Charlie told her. "It has to do with antigens. If the blood types aren't compatible, then red blood cells clump together. In the body, this can cause clots that block vessels and bring about death."

Amanda's impatience was clear. "I don't need a science lesson, Charlie, just the facts. What else have you found?"

He looked back at the car, the team collecting evidence and putting it into bags, the photographer documenting each empty McDonald's cup and candy wrapper. "Not much," he admitted.

"What about the building?"

"The top two floors are empty. We cleared them first thing. I'd guess no one's stepped foot up there in six months, maybe a year. Same with the parking area upstairs. The concrete barricade has been there for a while. My guess is that this place is so old, it wasn't built to handle newer, larger cars so they closed it off to prevent collapse."

Amanda nodded. "Find me if anything else comes up."

She headed toward the building, Will trailing behind her. "Barry didn't find any discarded gloves," she told him, referring to the chief of the canine unit. "This afternoon, the dogs were able to find a trail from the Campano house to the woods at the end of their street, but there were too many scents and they lost the trail." She pointed to an area directly behind the garage. "There's another path back there that goes into those same woods. It would take ten minutes to get to the Campanos from here if you knew what you were doing."

Will remembered what Leo had told him earlier. "The girls were skipping last year until the neighbor across the street told Abigail that Emma's car was in the driveway. They could've started parking here to avoid being told on."

"But Kayla's car was parked in the driveway today," Amanda pointed out.

"Should we recanvass the neighbors, see if they remember anything?"

"You mean for a third time?" She didn't say no, but reminded him, "It's all over the news now. I'm surprised no one has talked themselves into seeing something."

Will knew that was often a problem with eyewitness testimony, especially when the crime involved children. People wanted to help so much that their brains often came up with scenarios that didn't actually happen. "What's the kid's name-the one who called in the Prius?"

"Lionel Petty." She pressed a red button by the door. A few seconds passed, then there was a buzz and click.

Will opened the door for her and followed Amanda down a long hallway that led to the Copy Right. The air-conditioning was a welcome relief from the stagnant heat in the garage. Inside the store, signs hung from the ceiling with cartoon smiling pens writing out helpful directions. The front counter was covered with reams of paper. Machines whirred in the background, swirling out sheets of paper at incredible speeds. Will glanced around, but couldn't see anyone. There was a bell on the counter and he rang it.

A kid poked up his head from behind one of the machines. His hair was a mess, as if he'd just rolled out of bed, though his goatee was neatly trimmed. "Are you the cops?" He walked toward them, and Will saw that he wasn't really a kid. Will would have put him in his late twenties, but he was dressed like a teen and he had the round, open face of a child. Except for the receding hairline, he could have passed for fifteen. He repeated his question. "Are you guys with the cops?"

Will spoke first because he knew from experience that Amanda's style of rattling off questions and demanding quick answers didn't exactly lend itself to eliciting information from strangers. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the machines. "You're Lionel Petty?"

"Yeah," he answered, smiling nervously at Amanda. "Is this going to crack the case?" The slow cadence of his voice had a slight lilt to it, and Will couldn't tell if the man was just that laid-back or had smoked a little too much weed. "I've been watching it on the news all day, and they've been showing the car, like, every five minutes. I couldn't believe when I checked out for a smoke and looked up and there it was. I thought maybe my brain was making it up because what're the odds, right?"

"Petty," a disembodied voice called. Will moved down the counter. He saw the lower half of a body sticking out from a copy machine. "Did you clock out like I told you?"

Petty smiled, and Will saw the crookedest set of teeth he'd ever seen on a man. "So, not to be crass or anything, but is there a reward? ‘We can't say no at Campano.' They live in Ansley Park. The family must be loaded."

"No," Amanda answered. She had figured out who was in charge. She asked the kid under the copier, "Where's the tape for the security cameras?"

He crawled out of the machine. There was a splotch of ink on his forehead, but his hair was neatly combed, his face clean-shaven. He was about the same age as Petty, but he lacked the other man's boyish features and stoner charm. He wiped his hands on his pants, leaving a faint trail of ink. "I'm sorry, we've got a ten thousand booklet run due first thing in the morning and my machine just jammed up."

Will glanced at the guts of the copier, thinking that its gears and cogs reminded him of a wristwatch.

"I'm Warren Grier," the man offered. "I pulled the tape as soon as your guys got here. You're lucky. We swap out the same two cassettes every day. If you'd shown up tomorrow, it probably would've been recorded over."

Will asked, "Do you have a problem with theft around here?"

"Not really. The construction makes it hard to get in and out of the building. About ninety percent of our clients never see us. We deliver out to them."

"Why the security camera?"

"Mostly to see who's at the door and to keep out the homeless people. We don't keep a lot of cash here, but the junkies don't need a lot, you know? Twenty bucks is a score for them."

"Is it just you and Lionel?"

"There's a girl who works mornings. Monique. She's seven to noon. We use a courier for deliveries. They're in and out all day." He leaned his hand on the counter. "Sandy and Frieda should be in soon. They work the evening shift."

"Who uses the offices upstairs?"

"There used to be some lawyers, but they cleared out maybe a year ago?" He was asking Petty, and the other man nodded confirmation. "They were immigration lawyers. I think they were running some kind of scam."

"Lots of shifty people," Petty provided.

"Here." Warren dug a set of keys out of his pants pocket and handed them to Petty. "Take them to my office. I stopped the tapes when your guys got here. The one on the top is from today. It hasn't been rewound yet, so you can probably find the time frame you need pretty easily." He apologized to Will. "I'm sorry, but I've got to get this machine back up. Just holler if you have any problems and I'll come back and help you."

"Thank you," Will told him. "Can I ask-have you noticed someone using the parking garage a lot lately? Maybe not the Prius, but another car?"

Warren shook his head as he walked back to the machine. "I'm usually chained to the store. The only time I go back through that door is usually when it's time to go home."

Will stopped him before he ducked into the copier. "Have you seen any suspicious characters in the area?"

Warren shrugged. "This is Peachtree Street. It's kind of hard not to."

Petty said, "I keep a lookout, you know?" He motioned for them to follow him to the back of the store. "It's not just like with the car. I called the cops on some homeless people who were crashing in the alley."

Amanda asked, "When was this?"

"Year, maybe two years ago?"

Will waited for her to say something sarcastic, but she held her tongue.

He asked Petty, "Have you ever seen the Prius parked back there before?"

He shook his head.

"What about any other cars?" Will pressed. "Is there one in particular that you've seen back there a lot?"

"Not that I remember, but I'm usually inside to catch the phones."

"What about your cigarette breaks?"

"Stupid, huh?" He blushed slightly. "I quit, like, two years ago, but then I met this girl at the Yacht Club a couple of days ago, and she smokes like freakin' Cruella de Vil. I picked it back up like-" He snapped his fingers.

The Euclid Avenue Yacht Club was a divein Little Five Points. It was just the kind of place you expected to find a twenty-something-year-old copy store worker with the ambition of a snail.

Will asked, "What about the construction workers outside?"

"They've been there off and on for about six months. At first, they were trying to use the garage during lunch. You know, for shade and all. But Warren got mad because they were leaving all kinds of trash back there-cigarette butts, coffee cups, all kinds of shit. He had a talk with the foreman, all cool about it, just, like, ‘show some common courtesy, man. Put litter in its place.' The next day, we get here, and there's fucking steel plates all over the road and they haven't been back since."

"When was this?"

"A week ago? I don't remember. Warren will know."

"Did you have any other trouble with them before this?"

"Nah, they weren't on the job long enough to give a shit. They come and go all the time, usually different crews, different bosses." Petty stopped in front of a closed door. He kept talking as he slipped the key into the lock. "I don't want you to think I'm some kind of greedy bastard asking about a reward."

"Of course not," Will said, glancing around the office. The space was small but well organized, with what must have been thousands of CDs neatly stacked on metal shelves from floor to ceiling. A battered chair sat beside a metal desk, papers stacked on the top. The time clock ticked loudly. A shelf on the opposite wall held a tiny black and white television. Hooked up to the front jacks was an array of cables leading to two VCRs.

Petty said, "It's pretty crappy. Warren's right about the tapes being recorded over. I've been working here seven years and he's bought new ones maybe twice."

"What about all these CDs?"

"Customer files, artwork and stuff," he explained, tracing his fingers along the multicolored jewel cases. "Most of the projects are e-mailed now, but sometimes, we get repeats and have to pull them."

Will stared at the television, spotting the top of Charlie's head as he cut a patch of material from the passenger seat of the Prius. Two tapes were beside the set, numbers labeling them one and two. Will checked one of the VCRs, which looked pretty straightforward. The big button was always play. The smaller ones on either side would be rewind and fast-forward.

He told Petty, "I think we've got this."

"I can-"

"Thank you," Amanda said, practically pushing him out the door.

Will went to work, sliding the top tape into the player. The television screen blinked, and the image of the parking garage came up.

Amanda said, "They turned it off two hours ago."

"I can see that," he mumbled, holding down the rewind key, watching the date and time code count backward. Will stopped the tape and hit rewind again, knowing the machine would go faster without having to show the image. The VCR whirred. The clock ticked.

"Try now," Amanda told him.

Will pressed the play button, and the garage flipped back up again. They saw the Prius again, parked in the same space. The time code read 1:24:33.

"Close," she said. Because of her husband's 9-1-1 call, they knew Abigail Campano had arrived at her home sometime around twelve-thirty.

Will kept the VCR in play mode and held down the rewind button with his thumb. The scene was pretty static, just the Prius and the empty garage. The quality of the tape was exactly as you would expect, and Will doubted he would have guessed the car's make from the film alone. Because the camera was angled more toward the door, the parking garage was only captured in a pie-shaped section. Everything on the tape played in reverse, so when the Prius backed out at 12:21:03, that meant that the car had actually arrived at that time. This was good information to have, but what really caught their attention was the second car the Prius had been blocking from the camera's eye.

"What make is that?" Amanda asked.

The grainy film showed the generic front side panel and partial front wheel of a red or blue or black sedan pulling into a parking space. Will could see part of the windshield, the slope of the hood, a side blinker light, but nothing more. Toyota? Ford? Chevy?

He finally admitted, "I can't tell."

"So," Amanda said, "we know that the Prius entered the garage at 12:21. Go back to when the second car first showed up."

Will did as he was told, going back almost an hour, stopping at eleven-fifteen that morning. He pressed play, and the footage slowly played out. The dark-colored car pulled into the space. The image of the driver revealed nothing more than that he was of average build. As he got out of the car, you could see that he had dark hair and wore a dark shirt and jeans. Having the benefit of comparison, Will surmised this was Adam Humphrey. Adam closed the car door, then tossed something-the keys?-across the roof of the car to the passenger, who was out of the camera's eye but for a hand and the upper part of a forearm as the second person caught the keys. The passenger wore no watch. There were no tattoos or other identifying marks. Both driver and passenger left the scene, and Will fast-forwarded the tape until Kayla Alexander's car showed up.

To Will's relief, the events unfolded chronologically now. At exactly 12:21:44, the white Prius parked beside the sedan, blocking the camera's view of the second sedan. The driver got out of the passenger's side door of the Prius, away from the angle of the camera, and opened the trunk. The second sedan's trunk popped open briefly, putting it into the frame. It closed a few seconds later. There was a blur that looked like the top of the abductor's head as he crouched around the sedan, getting in on the passenger's side. There was nothing else on camera after that. They had to assume that the sedan had pulled away.

Will took his hand off the VCR.

Amanda leaned her hip on the desk. "He knew the sedan was here. He knew to change cars because we would be looking for the Prius."

"We've been looking for the wrong car all afternoon."

Amanda said, "Let's have Charlie send the tape to Quantico," meaning the FBI lab in Virginia. "I'm sure they have an expert on front car panels."

Will ejected the tape from the machine. The TV flickered and showed the Prius again. Charlie was on his knees, combing through the driver's-side floorboard. The time stamp read 20:41:52.

Amanda saw it, too. "We've lost another thirty minutes."

AMANDA WAS UNCHARACTERISTICALLY silent when she dropped Will off at city hall. As he walked toward his car, she had only said, "We'll have more information to go on tomorrow." Forensics, she meant. The lab was working overtime to process materials. Amanda knew Will had done everything he could. They both knew that was not enough.

Will drove aimlessly down North Avenue, so caught up in his thoughts that he missed his turn. He lived less than five minutes from City Hall East, but lately, he'd found himself wishing the distance were greater. He had lived alone since he was eighteen years old, and was used to having a lot of time to himself. Coming home to Angie was a big adjustment. Especially on a night like tonight, when Will was so caught up in a case that his head hurt, he craved time alone to just sit and think.

He tried to come up with anything positive that had been achieved today. Kayla Alexander's parents had been reached. Because of the time difference in New Zealand, they would lose a whole day in the air. Still, Leo Donnelly had managed to do one thing right, after all. Well, two, if you counted his sudden medical leave. Will guessed scheduling emergency surgery to have your prostate removed was better than facing Amanda Wagner, though both procedures ran the risk of castration.

Will parked on the street because Angie's Monte Carlo was blocking the driveway. The trashcan was still on the curb, so he dragged it up to the garage. The motion lights came on, blinding him. Will held up his hand to block the light as he unlocked the front door.

"Hey," Angie said. She was lying on the couch in front of the television, wearing a pair of cotton boxer shorts and a tank top. She didn't take her eyes off the set as Will let his gaze travel along her bare leg. He felt the urge to climb onto the couch and go to sleep beside her, or maybe something else. That wasn't how their relationship worked, though. Angie had never been the nurturing type and Will was pathologically incapable of asking for anything he needed. The first time they had met at the children's home, she had smacked him on the side of the head and told him to stop gawking. Will was eight and Angie was eleven. Their relationship hadn't changed much since then.

He dropped his keys onto the table by the door, unwittingly doing a catalogue of the things she had moved or disturbed today while he was gone. Her purse was on the pinball machine, lady crap spilling onto the glass. Her shoes were under the piano bench alongside the pair from yesterday and the day before. The flowers on the deck had been chewed, but Will couldn't really blame her for that. Betty, his dog, had developed a passion for daisies lately. They were all finding their own passive-aggressive ways to act out against the newness of the situation.

He asked, "Are they still running the Levi Alert?"

Angie muted the television and finally turned her attention to him. "Yeah. Any leads?"

He shook his head, taking off his gun and putting it by his keys. "How'd you know it was my case?"

"I made a phone call."

Will wondered why she hadn't just called him directly. He was too tired to pursue it, though. "Anything good on TV?"

"The Man with Three Wives."

"What's it about?"

"Ship building."

Will felt something close to panic as he realized the dog hadn't greeted him at the door. "Did you accidentally lock Betty in the closet again?" Angie wasn't a fan of the Chihuahua, and though Will had only taken in the little thing because no one else would, he felt very protective of her. "Angie?"

She smiled innocently, which ratcheted up his alarm. He still wasn't sure the closet incident had been accidental.

He whistled, calling, "Betty?" Her little bat-head poked out from the kitchen doorway, and he felt a wave of relief as her tiny nails clip-clopped across the hardwood floor. "That wasn't funny," he told Angie, sitting down in the chair.

The day caught up with him quickly. All the muscles in his body felt like they were melting. There was nothing he could do right now, but he felt guilty for being home, sitting in his chair, while the killer was out there. The digital clock on the cable box said 1:33. Will hadn't realized how late it was, and the knowledge brought on something like a slow ache. When Betty jumped into his lap, he could barely move to pet her.

Angie said, "I wish you knew how ridiculous you look with that thing on your knee."

He stared at the coffee table, the fingerprints on the polished wood. There was an empty glass of wine beside an open bag of Doritos. His stomach rumbled at the sight of the chips, but he was too tired to reach down and get one. "You didn't tighten the lid on the garbage last night," he told her. "A dog or something got into it. Trash was all over the yard this morning."

"You should've woken me up."

"It's no big deal." He paused, letting her know that it was. "Aren't you going to ask me about Paul?"

"That soon?" she asked. "I was at least going to give you time to settle."

When Paul had first come to the children's home, Will had idolized him. He was everything Will wasn't: charming, popular, circumcised. It all seemed to come so naturally to him-even Angie. Though honestly, Angie was easy for everybody. Well, everybody at that point but Will. He still didn't know why Paul had hated him so much. It took about a week of tension before the older boy started openly picking on him, then another week before Paul started using his fists.

Will told Angie, "He's still calling me Trashcan."

"You were found in a trashcan."

"That was a long time ago."

She shrugged, like it was easy. "Start calling him cocksucker."

"That'd be a little cruel considering what his daughter probably went through." Will amended, "Is still going through."

They both stared silently at the television. A diet pill commercial was on-the befores and afters. It seemed like everybody wanted to change something about their lives. He wished there was a pill he could take that would get Emma back. No matter who her father was, the girl was still just an innocent child. Even Paul didn't deserve to lose his daughter. No one did.

Will glanced at Angie, then back at the TV. "What kind of parents do you think we'd be?"

She nearly choked on her own tongue. "Where the hell did that come from?"

"I dunno." He stroked Betty's head, picking at her ears. "I was just wondering."

Angie's mouth worked as she dealt with the shock. "Wondering what, whether he'd be a drug addict like my mother or a psychopath like your father?"

Will shrugged.

She sat up on the couch. "What would we tell him about how we met? Just give him a copy of Flowers in the Attic and hope for the best?"

He shrugged again, tugging at Betty's ears. "Assuming he can read."

Angie didn't laugh. "What are we going to tell him about why we got married? Normal kids ask about that kind of shit all the time, Will. Did you know that?"

"Is there a book about a daddy giving a mommy an ultimatum after she gives him syphilis?"

Will looked up when she did not answer. The corner of Angie's lip curled into a smile. "That's actually the next movie after this one."

"Yeah?"

"Meryl Streep plays the mother."

"Some of her best work has been with syphilis." He felt Angie staring at him and kept his attention on Betty, scratching her head until her back foot started to thump.

Angie smoothly steered the subject back to something easier. "What's Paul's wife look like?"

"Pretty," he said, jerking back his hand as Betty gave him a nip. "Actually, she's beautiful."

"I'd bet you my left one he's cheating on her."

Will shook his head. "She's the whole package. Tall, blond, smart, classy."

Her eyebrow went up, but they both knew Will's type leaned more toward gutter-mouthed brunettes with the self-destructive habit of saying exactly what was on their minds. Natalie Maines in a wig would be a concern. Abigail Campano was nothing more than a curiosity.

"Be that as it may," Angie said, "men don't cheat on their wives because they aren't pretty or smart or sexy enough. They cheat because they want an uncomplicated fuck, or because they're bored, or because their wives don't put up with their bullshit anymore."

Betty jumped onto the floor and shook herself out. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Do that." Angie used her foot to block Betty from getting on the couch. He could easily see her doing the same thing with a toddler. Will stared at Angie's toenails, which were painted a bright red. He couldn't imagine her sitting around with a little girl getting a pedicure. Of course, three months ago, he couldn't imagine Angie ever settling down, either.

When she'd called him to say that he had to go to the free clinic to get tested, he'd been so furious he'd thrown the telephone through a kitchen window. There had been a lot of fighting after that-something Will hated and Angie fed off of. For almost thirty years, they had followed this pattern. Angie would cheat on him, he would send her away, she would come back a few weeks or months later and it would all start over again.

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 fore-play?"

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.