Fractured

CHAPTER THREE

THE LITERATURE ON Faith's Mini Cooper claimed that the front seats could easily accommodate a passenger or driver over six feet tall. As with anything, a few extra inches made all the difference, and Faith had to admit that it brought her a small amount of pleasure watching the man who had helped force her mother off the job awkwardly trying to fold his long body into her car. Finally, Will moved the seat back so that it was almost touching the rear window and angled himself in. "All right?" she asked.

He looked around the cab, his neatly parted, sandy blond hair brushing against the glass sunroof. She thought of a prairie dog poking its head outside its hole. He gave a small nod. "Let's go."

She let off the clutch as he reached around for the seat belt. For months, even the thought of this man's name could invoke the kind of deeply felt hatred that made Faith feel like she should vomit just to get the taste out of her mouth. Evelyn Mitchell hadn't shared many details of the internal investigation with her daughter, but Faith had seen the toll the relentless questioning had taken. Day by day, her strong, impervious mother had been whittled into an old woman.

Will Trent was a key factor in that transformation.

Being honest, there was plenty of blame to go around. Faith was a cop, and she knew all about the blue code of silence, but she also knew that it was the betrayal of Evelyn's own men-those greedy bastards who thought it was okay to steal so long as it was drug money-that had finally taken all the fight out of her mother. Still, Evelyn had refused to testify against any of her team. That the city had let her keep her pension was a miracle of sorts, but Faith knew that her mother had friends in high places. You didn't become a captain with the Atlanta Police Department by shunning politics. Evelyn was a master at knowing how the game worked.

For her part, Faith had always assumed Will Trent was some kind of bumbling, rat squad jerk-off who loved to put his thumb on good cops and grind them out of the force. She hadn't anticipated that Trent would be the clean-cut, lanky man crammed into the car beside her. Nor had she considered that he might actually know his way around the job. His reading of the crime scene, the way he had been right about Humphrey being a college student- something that Faith, of all people, should have picked up on-had not been the detecting of some Bureau pencil pusher.

Like it or not, she was stuck with him, and somewhere out there was a missing girl, and two sets of parents who were about to get the worst news of their lives. Faith would do everything she could to help solve this case because at the end of the day, that was all that really mattered. Still, she didn't offer to turn up the Mini's air-conditioning, though Will must have been sweating to death in that ridiculous three-piece suit, and she certainly didn't offer him an olive branch by opening up the conversation. As far as she was concerned, he could sit there with his knees around his ears and boil in his own sweat.

Faith signaled as she pulled out onto Peachtree Street and accelerated into the far right lane, only to come to a complete stop behind a dirt-encrusted pickup truck. They were officially caught up in the hurry-up-and-wait game that was Atlanta's afternoon rush-hour traffic, which started around two-thirty and tapered off at eight. Add in all the construction, and this meant that the five-mile trip to Georgia Tech, which was just across the interstate, would take approximately half an hour. Gone were the Starsky and Hutch days of being able to slap a siren on your roof and blow through traffic. This was Will Trent's case, and if he'd wanted to bypass rush hour, he should have commandeered a cruiser to take them to Tech instead of a bright red Mini with a peace sign on the bumper.

As they inched past the High Museum of Art and Atlanta Symphony Hall, Faith's mind kept going back to the crime scene. She had gotten to the Campano house about ten minutes behind Leo. Faith's mother had always said that the hardest scenes to come onto were the ones involving kids. Her advice was to forget your family, focus on the job and cry about it on your own time. Like every piece of good advice her mother had ever given her, Faith had pushed it aside. It wasn't until she'd walked into that house today that she had realized how true her mother's words had been.

Seeing Adam Humphrey's lifeless body, his sneakers the same brand and color as the ones Faith had bought her own son just the weekend before, had been a punch in the gut. She had stood in the foyer, the heat at her back, feeling as if all the air was gone from her lungs.

"Jeremy," Leo had said, invoking her son. He wasn't offering sympathy. He wanted Faith to form some kind of miraculous mother bond with Abigail Campano and make the woman tell them what the hell had happened.

The Mini shook as a bus rumbled by. They were in a long line of traffic, waiting to take a right turn, when she noticed Will was sniffing his hand. Faith stared out the window as if this was some sort of normal human behavior.

He held out his sleeve. "Does this smell like urine to you?"

She inhaled without thinking, the way you smell bad milk if someone holds it under your nose. "Yes."

He bumped his head against the roof as he leaned up to get his cell phone out of his back pocket. He dialed a number, waited a few seconds, then without preamble told the person at the end of the line, "I think there's urine in the back of Emma's closet. I thought it might be from the dog bed, but I'm pretty sure it was fresh." He nodded as if the other person could see him. "I'll hold."

Faith waited silently. Will's hand was on his knee, his fingers playing with the sharp crease in his pants. He was an average-looking man, probably a few years older than her, which would put him in his mid-thirties. Back at the crime scene, she had noticed a faint scar where his upper lip had been split open and stitched back together in a slightly crooked line. Now, with the late-afternoon sun coming in through the glass roof, she could see another scar jagging from his ear down his neck, following the jugular and disappearing into the collar of his shirt. Faith was no forensics expert, but she would have guessed that someone had come at him with a serrated knife.

Will put his hand up to his face, scratching his jaw, and Faith quickly looked back at the road.

"Good," he said into the phone. "Is there a way to compare it to the O-negative at the bottom of the stairs?" He paused, listening. "Thank you. I appreciate the effort."

Will snapped the phone closed and dropped it in his pocket. Faith waited for an explanation, but he seemed content to keep his thoughts to himself. Maybe he just saw her as his personal driver. Maybe he associated her too closely with Leo Donnelly's mistake. She could not fault him for painting her with the same brush. Faith had been at the scene, had stood by chewing the fat with the mother while all the clues at the scene were waiting to be put together. She was Leo's partner, not his underling. Everything he had missed, Faith had missed, too.

Still, curiosity began to nag at her, then anger started to take hold. She was a detective on the Atlanta police force, not a lackey. Because of her mother's rank, rumors had always followed every promotion Faith received, but everyone on the homicide squad had quickly figured out that she was there because she was a damn good cop. Faith had stopped having to prove herself years ago, and she didn't like being left out now.

She tried to keep her tone even, asking, "Are you going to tell me what that was about?"

"Oh." He seemed surprised, as if he had forgotten she was there. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to working with other people." He turned his body as much as he could to face her. "I think Emma was hiding in the closet. She must have urinated on herself. Charlie said most of it was absorbed by the shoes, but it puddled a little on the floor in the back of the closet. I must've transferred it with my gloves when I searched the dog bed and not realized they were wet."

Faith tried to catch up. "They're going to try to match the DNA in the urine to the blood you think came from Emma at the bottom of the step?"

"If she's a secretor, then they can do a surface match in about an hour."

About eighty percent of the population was categorized as secretors, meaning their blood type showed up in body fluids like saliva and semen. If Emma Campano was a secretor, they could easily tell her blood type by testing the urine.

Faith said, "They'll have to confirm it with DNA, but it's a good start."

"Exactly." He seemed to be waiting for more questions, but Faith didn't have any. Finally he turned back around in his seat.

Faith edged up on the clutch as the light changed. They moved about six feet before the light changed back and traffic stopped. She thought about Emma Campano, kidnapped, reeking of her own urine, her last image that of her best friend lying slaughtered on the ground. It made her want to call her son, even if he would be annoyed to hear from his overprotective mother.

Will started to move around again. She realized he was trying to take off his jacket, bumping his head against the windshield and sideswiping the rearview mirror in the process.

She said, "We're going to be at this light for a while. Just get out of the car and take it off."

He put his hand on the door handle, then stopped, giving a forced chuckle. "You're not going to drive away, are you?"

Faith stared at him in response. He moved with some speed as he got out of the car, removed the jacket and returned to his seat just as the light changed.

"That's better," he said, carefully folding the jacket. "Thank you."

"Put it on the backseat."

He did as he was told, and she rolled the car forward another six feet before the light changed again. Faith had never been good at hating anyone face-to-face. Even with some of the criminals she arrested, she found herself understanding, though certainly not condoning, their actions. The man who had come home to find his wife in bed with his brother and killed them both. The woman who shot the husband who had been abusing her for years. People were not that complicated when it came down to it. Everyone had a reason for everything they did, even if that reason was sometimes stupidity.

This line of thought brought her back to Emma Campano, Kayla Alexander and Adam Humphrey. Were they all somehow involved with each other, or were they strangers until today? Adam was a freshman at Georgia Tech. The girls were seniors at an ultra-exclusive private school in a neighboring city about ten miles away. There had to be some kind of connection. There had to be a reason they were all in that house today. There had to be a reason Emma was taken.

Faith let off the clutch, easing up the car. There was a construction flagman in the opposite lane, directing cars to detour. Sweat poured off his body, his orange caution vest sticking to his chest like a piece of wet toilet paper. Like every other major American city, Atlanta's infrastructure was falling apart. It seemed like nothing was ever done until disaster struck. You couldn't leave the house without running into a construction crew. The whole city was a mess.

Despite her earlier vow, Faith turned up the air-conditioning. Just looking at the construction worker made her feel the heat more. She tried to think about cold things like ice cream and beer as she stared blankly at the truck ahead of them-the dirt hanging off the mud flaps, the American flag on the back window.

"Is your brother still overseas?"

Faith was so taken by surprise, all she could say was, "What?"

"Your brother-he's a surgeon, right? In the military?"

She felt violated, though of course Will's investigation into her mother had given him leave to mine her children's lives, as well. He would know that Zeke was in the Air Force, serving atBrandenburg. He would also have had access to Faith's psych evaluations, her school records, her marital history, her child's history-everything.

She was incredulous. "You've got to be kidding me."

"It would be disingenuous of me to pretend I know nothing about you." His tone was completely unreadable, which just annoyed her even more.

"Disingenuous," she echoed, thinking there was a reason this man had been assigned to investigate the narcotics squad. Will Trent didn't act like any cop Faith had ever met. He didn't dress like one, he didn't walk like one and he sure as hell didn't talk like one. It probably meant nothing to him to ruin the lives of men and women who belonged to a family that he could never be a part of.

Up ahead, the light changed, and she popped the clutch, swerving around the truck and turning right from the left-hand lane. Will's hands didn't even move off his knees as she performed this highly illegal maneuver.

She said, "I have been trying to be civil to you, but my brother, my mother-my whole family-is off limits. You got that?"

He didn't acknowledge her remarks so much as skirt around them. "Do you know your way around Georgia Tech?"

"You know damn well that I do. You subpoenaed my bank records to make sure I could afford the tuition."

The patient way he explained himself set her teeth on edge. "It's been almost four hours since Adam died, more than that since Emma Campano was taken. Ideally, we would go straight to his room instead of waiting for the legal department to okay our access."

"The dean said that was just a formality."

"People tend to change their minds about things after they talk to lawyers."

She certainly couldn't argue with that. "We can't get into the room without a key."

He reached around to his jacket in the backseat and pulled out a plastic evidence bag. She could see a key inside. "Charlie found this in the upstairs hallway. We'll call your contact when we get there, but I see no reason why we shouldn't try the key while we're waiting."

Faith slowed at another red light, wondering what else he had been holding back. It annoyed her that he didn't trust her, but then again, she hadn't really given him a reason to. She allowed, "I know where Towers Hall is."

"Thank you."

Her hands were hurting from clutching the steering wheel too hard. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. One by one, she released her fingers from the wheel. "I know I sound like a bitch, but my family is off limits."

"That's a fair request, and you don't sound that way at all."

He stared silently out the window as the car crawled down Tenth Street toward Georgia Tech. Faith turned on the radio and searched for the traffic report. As they crossed over the interstate, she looked down onto I-75, which more closely resembled a parking lot. Over half a million cars used this corridor in and out of the city every day. Emma Campano could have been in any one of them.

The commuters around them followed the on-ramps to 75/85, so that by the time the Mini was on the other side of the bridge, traffic had returned to a more manageable level. Faith exited Tenth Street to Fowler, following familiar roads winding through the campus.

The Georgia Institute of Technology occupied around four hundred acres of prime downtown Atlanta real estate. Georgia residents could attend tuition-free thanks to the lottery-funded HOPE scholarship, but academic requirements barred the way for a large chunk of them. Add to that the financial burden of housing, textbooks and lab fees and even more students dropped to the wayside. If you were lucky, you got a full scholarship to take up the slack. If you weren't, you'd better hope your mother could take out a second mortgage on her house. Tech consistently ranked in the top ten of most college lists and was considered, along with Emory University, to be part of the chain of schools belonging to the Ivy League of the South. You could easily pay your mother back when you graduated.

Faith slowed the car along Techwood Drive for the students who didn't seem to understand the purpose of a crosswalk. A group of young men whooped at the sight of a blonde in a Mini, the combination of hormones and the natural lack of social graces inherent in math and science majors causing several of them to stumble over their own feet. Faith ignored them, scanning the streets for a place to park. Campus parking was a nightmare even at the best of times. Finally, she gave up and pulled the Mini into a handicapped parking space. She flipped down the visor to show her police parking permit, hoping local security chose to honor it.

Will said, "Go ahead and call your contact."

Faith talked to the dean's secretary as Will extricated himself from the car. She ended the call, got out and locked the doors. "Dean Martinez is still talking to legal. We're supposed to wait here. He'll join us as soon as he's off the phone." Faith pointed to a large, four-story brick building. "That's Glenn Hall. Towers is right behind it."

Will nodded for her to lead the way, but Faith's gait was considerably shorter than his and they ended up walking side by side. She had never thought of herself as short, but at five-eight, she felt dwarfed by him.

Classes were still in session, small clusters of students milling around. Though Will was still wearing his vest, his paddle holster and gun were in full view without his jacket. Faith was wearing a short-sleeved cotton shirt and dress pants-sensible considering the hundred-plus temperature, but hardly the best way to conceal the gold shield on her left hip and the gun on her right. The two of them caused quite a stir as they walked toward the quad between Glenn and Towers Hall.

Still, walking through the campus, seeing all those young faces, Faith realized how badly she wanted to work this case. Setting aside that being partnered with Leo Donnelly was not exactly hitching her wagon to a star, Faith could not fathom what it felt like to lose a child. Talking to Abigail Campano had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done in her life. All the mother could remember were the fights they'd had, the horrible things they'd said to each other. The fact that the woman's daughter was missing rather than dead didn't take away any of the horror. Faith wanted to do everything she could to help get Emma back home. Inexplicably, she also felt the need to let Will Trent know that despite today's screwups, she wasn't completely useless.

She started by telling him what little she knew about this part of the Tech campus. "These are both freshman dorms, not coed, about six hundred students between them. They're the closest to the stadium and the loudest. Parking for freshmen is heavily restricted so not many of them have cars, at least not on campus." Her feet sunk into the soft grass, and she looked down to check her footing, saying, "Most classes will be over in half an hour-"

"What are you doing here?"

She recognized the shoes first. They were the same brand and color she'd seen on Adam Humphrey's feet just a few hours ago. Two thin legs stuck out of the top of the sneakers like hairy sticks. His shorts hung around his narrow hips, the top of his boxers showing. He was wearing a torn, faded T-shirt-his Air Force-captain uncle's least favorite-that read "No Blood for Oil."

In retrospect, it seemed likely that she might run into Jeremy, who had been living at Glenn Hall for the last week and a half. Though she knew for a fact that her son was supposed to be in class right now. She had helped him sign up his schedule weeks ago.

She told him as much. "What happened to intro to bio-mechanics?"

"The professor let us out early," he shot back. "Why are you here?"

Faith glanced at Will Trent, who stood impassively beside her. She supposed one of the few benefits of his investigation into her mother was his lack of shock over a thirty-three-year-old woman having an eighteen-year-old son.

Will said, "One of your classmates has been in an accident."

Jeremy had been raised by two generations of cops. He knew the language. "You mean he's dead?"

Faith didn't lie to her son. "Yes. I need you to keep this between us for a while. His name was Adam Humphrey. Do you know him?"

Jeremy shook his head. "Is he a Goatman?" For reasons unknown, residents of Glenn Hall referred to themselves by this title.

"No," she told him. "He's at Towers."

"Classes just started. Fartley's the only guy I know." Another nickname, this one for his dormmate. "I can ask around."

"Don't worry about it," she said, fighting the urge to reach up and tuck his hair behind his ear. Since his thirteenth birthday, he had been taller than her. On the few occasions when Jeremy allowed public displays of affection, she had to stand on her toes to kiss his forehead. "I'll come by later."

He shrugged. "Don't, okay? The MILF shit's getting pretty bad."

"Don't say ‘shit.' "

"Mom."

She nodded, a tacit understanding. Jeremy ambled away, his brand-new sixty-dollar book bag dragging in the grass. When Faith was sixteen and lugging her one-year-old son around on her hip, she had blushed furiously when people had referred to him as her little brother. At the age of twenty-five, she would bristle angrily when men assumed that her son's age had a direct correlation to her level of wantonness. By thirty, she had become comfortable enough with her past to own up to it. Everyone made mistakes, and the truth was that she loved her son. Life had certainly not been easy, but having him with her made all the gawking and disapproval worthwhile.

Unfortunately, this peace had been quickly shattered when, during freshman orientation last month, Jeremy's new dormmate had taken one look at Faith and said, "Dude, your girlfriend is hot."

Will pointed to the red brick building opposite Glenn Hall. "This is Towers?"

"Yes," she said, leading him across the empty quad. "When I spoke with Martinez, the dean of student relations, he told me that Adam's dormmate is named Harold Nestor, but Nestor hasn't shown up for classes yet. Martinez said there was some sort of family situation-a sick parent, he thought. It's doubtful whether or not the kid will still attend."

"Does Nestor have a key to the room?"

"No. The kid hasn't even picked up his housing packet yet. As far as Martinez knows, Nestor has never even met Adam."

"Let's confirm that," Will said. "Does anyone else have a key to the room?"

"Campus security has a passkey, I would imagine. They don't really have house masters here-student government runs everything and they haven't had elections yet."

Will tried the front door to the building, but it wouldn't open.

Faith pointed to the large red sign warning students not to let strangers into the dorm. She had forgotten about this part. "You need a security card to get in."

"Right." He pressed his face to the glass, checking the lobby. "Empty."

"Adam didn't have a security card in his wallet." She glanced back at the quad, hoping for a wandering student who could help out, but the field was empty. "I guess we'll have to wait for Martinez and the lawyers after all."

Will had his hands in his pockets as he stared at the many signs on the door. In addition to the red one, there was a blue plaque that had instructions for the handicapped to press the plate on the wall to engage the automatic door as well as a laminated piece of green notebook paper advising students of numbers to call in cases of nonemergencies.

Will stared straight ahead, brow furrowed in concentration, as if he could open the door with his mind.

Faith had given up trying to figure him out since the urine incident. She walked over to the building intercom system, which contained a directory of all the student names. Someone had taped a handwritten note over the buzzers that read, "BROKEN!! DO NOT TOUCH!!" Out of curiosity, she scanned the names. Humphrey, A. was beside the number 310.

Will stood beside her. She thought he was reading the names until he asked, "What's a MILF?"

She felt herself blush. "That was a private conversation."

"Sorry."

He reached for the directory and she pointed out, "It's broken."

He gave her an awkward half-smile. "I can see that." He pressed the blue handicap plate below the directory. There was a buzz, then an audible click as a lock released and the front door groaned open.

She waited for a well-earned sarcastic comment. All he did was indicate that she should go into the building ahead of him.

The lobby was empty, but the smell of young men was overpowering. Faith didn't know what happened to boys between the ages of fifteen and twenty, but whatever it was made them smell like gym socks and Tiger Balm. How on earth she had never noticed this when she was a teenager herself was one of life's great mysteries.

"Cameras," Will said, pointing them out. "What was the room number again?"

"Three-ten."

He headed for the stairs and Faith followed. The way Will moved made her think he was probably a runner. That would certainly explain why he seemed to have less body fat than a greyhound. Faith quickened her step to follow him, but by the time she reached the top floor, Will was already trying the key in the lock, using the plastic bag to keep his prints off the metal.

He opened the door, but didn't go in. Instead, he walked down the hallway. Three-ten was conveniently located next to the kitchen and across from the bathrooms. Will knocked on the door to 311. He waited, but there was no answer. He went down the hall and tried the next door.

Faith turned her attention to Adam's room, hearing distant knocks as Will tried each closed door. Like Jeremy's, the room was around fifteen feet by eleven, basically the size of a prison cell. A bed was on either side with desks at their respective ends. There was a wardrobe and closet for each student. Only one bed had sheets, but the other had a pillow on the end opposite the television. It looked as if Adam had been using both sides of the room in the hopes that Harold Nestor would never show up.

Will said, "Nobody seems to be home right now."

She checked her watch. "Give it about twenty minutes. What do you want me to do?"

"My gloves are in my jacket. Do you have an extra pair?"

Faith shook her head. She had long ago gotten out of the habit of carrying a purse on the job and the one pair of gloves she normally kept in her front pocket had been used at the Campano crime scene. "I have a box in my trunk. I can-"

"I'll get it," he said, patting his pockets, a gesture that was quickly becoming familiar. "I left my phone in the pocket, too. I'm batting a thousand today."

She handed him the keys. "I'll make sure no one touches anything."

He sprinted back down the hall toward the stairs.

Faith decided she might as well see what they were up against. She walked over to the first desk, which was overflowing with scraps of paper, used textbooks, mechanical pencils and a small pile of magazines. They were all back issues of Get Out, which seemed to specialize in hiking. The other desk held what would be considered college necessities: an LCD television, a PlayStation console, several games and a stack of DVDs with handwritten labels. She recognized the titles of some recent Hollywood blockbusters as well as several that were simply labeled "porn" with stars to indicate, she supposed, their level of pornography.

One of the desk drawers was partially open, and Faith used a pencil from the other desk to pry it the rest of the way. Inside was a Playboy magazine, two foil-wrapped condoms and a stack of well-thumbed baseball trading cards. The juxtaposition made Faith sad. Adam Humphrey would forever be caught in the stages between being a boy and being a man.

She knelt down. Nothing was taped under the Formica desktop or shoved between the drawers. Faith checked the other desk, too. She saw the corners of a plastic bag hanging down. She craned her neck, holding back her hair as she went in for a closer look.

Adam Humphrey probably wasn't the only boy at Tech who had a bag of pot taped under his desk. Hell, he probably wasn't the only boy on this floor who had one.

She stood back up, scanning the room-the Radiohead poster on the wall, the dirty socks and sneakers bunched in the corner, the stack of graphic novels by the bed. His mother must have been feeling indulgent when she let him pick out the black throw rug on the floor and the matching bedspread and sheets.

Faith imagined what it would be like for the Humphreys to pack up their son's meager belongings and take them back to Oregon. Was this all that they would have left of their son? Worse for Faith, who would have to tell them that their child was gone? Will had assigned the Kayla Alexander notification to Leo. Was he going to put Faith in the unenviable position of telling the Humphreys that their son had been murdered?

God, she did not want to do that.

"Who are you?"

Same accusatory tone, different boy. This one stood in the doorway, a hard look on his face. Faith turned toward him, giving him the full benefit of her gun and badge, but his expression did not change.

She asked, "What's your name?"

"None of your fucking business."

"That's a really long name. Were you adopted?"

Obviously, the joke fell flat. "Do you have a warrant?" He rested his left hand on the doorknob. The other one was covered in a cast that stopped just below his elbow. "Does campus security know you broke into his room?"

Strange way to put it, she thought, but told the kid, "I had a key."

"Good for you." He crossed his arms as best he could with the cast. "Now show me a warrant or get the fuck out of my friend's room."

She made herself laugh because she knew it would irritate him. He was a good-looking kid-dark hair, brown eyes, well built and obviously used to getting his way. "Or what?"

Apparently, he hadn't thought that far in advance. His voice wasn't so sure when he said, "I'll call campus security."

"Use the phone in a different room," Faith told him, turning back to the desk. She used the pencil to push through some of the papers, which were filled with mathematical equations and notes from class. She could feel the kid staring at her. Faith persevered. This wasn't exactly the first time she'd had an eighteen-year-old stare at her with burning daggers of hate.

"This is so wrong," he said, more for attention than effect.

Faith sighed, as if she was annoyed that he was still there. "Listen, this isn't about the pot, or the porn or the illegal downloads or whatever else you guys have been up to, so get your head out of your ass, understand that your friend must be in serious trouble if an Atlanta police detective is going through his things and tell me what your name is."

He was quiet, and she felt like she could hear his brain working as he tried to think of a way around answering her question. Finally he relented. "Gabriel Cohen."

"You go by Gabe?"

He shrugged.

"When was the last time you saw Adam?"

"This morning."

"In the hall? At class?"

"Here, maybe eight o'clock this morning." Again, he shrugged. "Tommy, my roommate, he snores. He's kind of an asshole. So I've been sleeping over here to get away from him." His eyes widened, and he seemed to realize that he'd put himself right in the middle of things.

"It's all right," she assured him. "I told you, Gabe, I'm not here because of two ounces of weed and a bootleg of The Bourne Ultimatum."

He chewed his lip, staring at her, probably trying to figure out whether or not he could trust her.

For her part, Faith was wondering what was taking Will Trent so long. Though she wasn't sure if his presence would help or hinder the situation.

She asked, "How long have you known Adam?"

"About a week, I guess. I met him on move-in day."

"You seemed pretty eager to take up for him."

She was getting better at reading his shrugs. His main concern had been the illegal bounty-probably the downloads more than the drugs, considering that ripping off movie studios carried a much stiffer penalty.

Faith asked, "Does Adam have a car?"

He shook his head. "His family's pretty weird. They kind of live off the grid. Real eco-minded."

That would explain the rural route. "What about this?" She pointed to the expensive television, the game console.

"They're mine," Gabe admitted. "I didn't want Tommy, my dormmate, fucking with them." He added, "But Adam plays, too. I mean, he likes to be outside and all, but he's a gamer, too."

"Does he have a computer?"

"Somebody swiped it," he responded, and Faith wasn't as surprised as she should have been. Theft was a rampant problem with this generation. Jeremy had had so many scientific calculators stolen from him at school that she had threatened to bolt one to his hand.

She asked, "Where does Adam check his e-mail?"

"I let him use mine. Sometimes he goes to the computer lab."

"What's his major?"

"Same as me. Polymers with a focus on spray adhesives."

That must have impressed the ladies. "Does he have a girlfriend or anyone he hangs out with?"

Gabe's shoulder went up in a slightly defensive manner. "We all just got here, you know? Not much time to hook up."

"Are you from out of state?"

He shook his head. "I went to Grady."

Grady was a magnet school, which meant they drew the top students from other schools in the Atlanta system. "Have you ever met Kayla Alexander or Emma Campano?"

"Are they at Grady?"

"Westfield."

He shook his head. "That's in Decatur, right? I think my girlfriend went there. Julie. She's been kicked out of a lot of schools."

"Why is that?"

He gave a shy half-smile. "We share a distrust for authority."

Faith smiled back. "Does Julie go to Tech?"

He shook his head again. "She went to State a few quarters, then dropped that, too. She tends bar nights in Buckhead."

Buckhead was a wealthy section of Atlanta known for its nightlife. Faith gathered Julie was at least twenty-one if she was allowed to serve alcohol. The four-year age difference between her and Emma Campano would have meant the girls would not likely have crossed paths.

Faith asked Gabe, "How'd you hurt your wrist?"

He colored slightly. "Stupid stuff. I slipped and fell on my hand."

"That must've hurt."

He held up the cast, as if he still couldn't believe he'd injured himself. "Like a mofo."

"Which bar does Julie work at?"

He dropped his arm but his guard went back up. "Why?"

Faith guessed he'd been cooperative enough to warrant an explanation. "Gabe, I need to tell you what happened to Adam today."

There was something like a loud "woof" echoing in the hallway. Gabe whispered, "Fuck."

Two seconds later, Faith met the reason behind the expletive.

Gabe reluctantly made introductions. "This is Tommy Albertson, my dormmate."

He was as pasty as Gabe was dark, and Faith knew instantly that Gabe's assessment had been right on the money: the kid was an asshole. As if to prove it, Tommy's tongue practically hung out of his mouth as he stared at her. "Yowza. Me likes a woman with a gun."

Gabe hissed, "Shut up, man. Adam's in trouble."

"I was about to tell Gabe…" Faith directed her words to the young man. "Adam was killed this morning."

"Killed?" Tommy rocked onto the balls of his feet as he pointed his fingers at Faith. "Shit, dude, it was him, right? They said it was a Tech student. Fuck me-that was Adam?"

Gabe's confusion was obvious. "He was killed? As in murdered?"

Tommy became even more excited. "Dude, some crazy bitch strangled him to death. To death, man. With her bare hands. Seriously, it was all over the news. Where've you been all day, bro?"

Gabe's throat worked. His eyes moistened and his sense of betrayal was profound as he looked at Faith for confirmation. "Is it true?"

She nodded her head once, furious that someone in the department had leaked out that Adam had gone to Tech. "It's more complicated than that, but, yes, Adam is dead."

"How?"

"I can't really talk about details with you, Gabe. I can say that Adam acted heroically, that he was trying to help someone, and then things went very wrong. A girl was kidnapped, and we're looking for her, but we need your help."

His lower lip quivered as he tried to control his emotions.

By contrast, Tommy seemed almost exhilarated. "Are you here to question me?" he asked. "Bring it on. I've got all kinds of information."

Faith asked, "What kind of information?"

"Well, nothing, like, concrete or anything. He was a quiet dude, but you know, there was that intensity underneath. Like…danger."

Faith struggled to remain passive, though she would have loved to take Tommy Albertson to the morgue and ask him what exactly was so exciting about his friend being dead. "Did Adam have a girlfriend? Did he hang around with anyone in particular?"

As with everything else, Tommy found this extremely entertaining. He clamped his hands on Gabe's shoulders. "Two questions, one answer!"

Gabe squirmed away from him. "Fuck off, asshole. You never even talked to Adam. He hated your guts."

She tried, "Gabe-"

"Fuck you, too." He left the room. A few moments later, she heard a door slam.

Faith narrowed her eyes at Tommy, resisting the urge to tear him down to size. He'd stepped a few feet into the room, and she didn't like the way he was crowding her space. She knew that she would need to establish control or there would be a problem. "Maybe you'd like to answer these questions at the station?"

He showed a toothy grin, coming closer. "My dad's a lawyer, lady. Unless it gets you wet slapping the cuffs on a virile young stud such as myself, no way am I getting into the back of your car."

Faith kept her tone even. "Then I guess we have nothing to talk about."

He smiled smugly, closing the space between them. "Guess so."

"Could you leave now?" When he didn't move, she shouldered him back into the hall. He was taken off guard, or maybe she was madder than she thought, but the push turned into more of a shove, and he landed flat on his ass.

"Jesus," he whined, sitting up. "What is wrong with you?"

She turned the thumb latch on the inside doorknob and pulled the door firmly closed. "Your friend is dead, a girl is missing, and your reaction to all this is to laugh and make jokes about it. What do you think is wrong with me?"

Her words hit their mark, but they didn't have the desired effect. "Why are you such a bitch?"

"Because I have to deal with assholes like you every day."

"Is there a problem here?" A well-dressed Hispanic man was coming up the stairs. He sounded slightly out of breath and a bit concerned that a student was on the floor.

Tommy scrambled to stand. He had the look of a spoiled child who was relishing the prospect of tattling. Faith dealt with it the only way she knew how, admitting, "He got aggressive and I pushed him out of my way."

The man had reached them by now. There was something familiar about his face, and Faith realized he was one of the many nameless administrators she'd seen at Jeremy's freshman orientation the month before.

There was no recognition in his eyes as Victor Martinez looked from Tommy to Faith, then back again. "Mr. Albertson, we have over eighteen thousand students enrolled in this school. It doesn't bode well for you that we are barely out of our first week and I already know your name and student ID number by heart."

"I didn't-"

He turned his attention to Faith. "I'm Dean Martinez," he said, offering his hand. "You're here about Adam Humphries?"

She shook his hand. "Humphrey," she corrected.

"I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances." He kept ignoring Tommy, who muttered an insult under his breath before he skulked away. "Maybe you could walk with me? I'm sorry that it seems like I'm not giving this the attention I should, but the first week of school is grueling and I'm between meetings."

"Of course." She caught the scent of his cologne as she followed him toward the stairs. Though it was late in the day, he was clean-shaven and his suit was still neatly pressed. Not counting Will Trent-and why would she?-it had been a long time since Faith had been around a man who paid attention to basic hygiene.

"Here," Victor said, reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket. "This is the master key to his room, his class schedule and his contact details." His hand brushed hers as he gave her the paper, and Faith was so surprised by the sensation it brought that she dropped the paper.

"Whoops," he said, kneeling down to retrieve it. The moment could have been awkward-Victor on one knee in front of her- but he managed to make it look graceful, scooping up the page and standing in one fluid motion.

"Thank you," Faith managed, trying not to sound as stupid as she felt.

"I'm sorry it took so long to clear this through legal, but the university has to cover its ass."

She scanned the paper, a familiar-looking student application with all the pertinent information. "Your candor is refreshing."

He smiled, lightly holding the railing as they walked down the stairs. "Can you tell me a little bit about what's going on? I've heard the news, of course. It's extraordinary."

"It is," she agreed. "I don't know what they're saying, but I really can't comment on an ongoing investigation."

"I understand," he responded. "The police department has an ass, too."

She laughed. "That could be taken two different ways, Dean Martinez."

He stopped on the next landing. "Victor, please."

She stopped, too. "Faith."

"I love the old-fashioned names," he told her, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.

"I'm named after my grandmother."

"Beautiful," he said, and she got the distinct impression he wasn't commenting on the tradition of passing down family names. "Do you mind my asking why you look so familiar to me?"

Despite the circumstances, there had definitely been some sort of flirting banter between them. Faith took a moment to mourn the loss of it before saying, "You probably saw me at freshman orientation. My son is a student here."

He did a terrific impression of a deer staring down an eighteen-wheeler. "Our youngest student is sixteen."

"My son is eighteen."

His throat moved as he swallowed, then came the forced chuckle. "Eighteen."

"Yep." There was nothing to do with the awkward moment but talk over it. "Thank you for the key. I'll make sure it's returned to your office. I'm sure my boss will want to interview some of the students tonight. We'll be as respectful as we can, but I would appreciate your informing campus security so we don't have any problems. You might get some angry phone calls from parents. I'm sure you're used to dealing with that."

"Certainly. I'll be glad to run interference." He started down the stairs. "I really must get to that meeting."

"One more thing?" Faith was only doing her job, but she had to admit it was somewhat rewarding seeing the fear in his eyes as he waited. "Can you tell me why Tommy Albertson is already on your radar?"

"Oh." The dean was obviously relieved it was that easy. "Towers and Glenn have a running rivalry. There are usually some good-natured pranks back and forth, but Mr. Albertson took it a bit far. They're sketchy on the details, but knowing how these things work, I assume water balloons were involved. The floor was wet. People were injured. One boy had to be taken to the hospital."

That would explain the cast on Gabe's arm.

"Thank you." Faith shook his hand again. This time, his eyes didn't crinkle when he smiled, and he let her go down the stairs ahead of him. He seemed to hesitate when they got outside, but once he figured out she was going right, he took a quick left toward the back of the quad.

Faith made her way toward her car, wondering what the hell had happened to Will Trent. She found him leaning over her Mini, his elbows resting on the roof. He had his head in his hands, the phone to his ear. His jacket was draped across the hood.

As Faith drew closer, she could make out what he was saying. "Yes, sir. I'll make sure someone is there to meet you at the airport tomorrow. Just call me back with your flight information." He glanced up, and there was so much pain in his expression that she made herself look away. "Thank you, sir. I'll do everything I can."

She heard the phone snap closed. He cleared his throat. "Sorry, the sheriff called back with a number for the Humphreys. I wanted to get that over with as soon as possible." He cleared his throat. "They're about six hours from a major airport. They're going to drive down tonight and try to get the first flight out tomorrow morning, but it lays over in Salt Lake. Depending on whether or not they get routed through Dallas, it could take them anywhere from seven to twelve hours to get here." He cleared his throat. "I told them to call the airline directly, explain their situation, and see what can be done."

Faith could not imagine what sitting in a car, waiting around at all those airports would feel like. Maddening, she guessed; the most painful day of any parent's life. She chanced a look at Will. His usual passive expression had returned. "Did they have anything?"

He shook his head. "Adam doesn't have a car here. He's been to Atlanta twice. The first time, he flew down with his father for orientation, stayed three days, then flew back. Both parents drove him down two weeks ago to help him settle into the dorm."

"From Oregon?" she asked, surprised. "How many days did that take?"

"The mom said they took a week, but they stopped to see things along the way. Apparently, they're into camping."

"That jibes with the outdoor magazines I found in his room," Faith said, thinking she would just as soon slit her wrists as drive across America. Add Jeremy into the road trip, and they would be looking at a murder/suicide. "So, he's been in Atlanta for fourteen days."

"Right," Will said. "They've never heard of either Kayla Alexander or Emma Campano. As far as they know, Adam wasn't seeing anyone. He had a girlfriend back home but she moved to New York last year-she's some kind of dancer. It was a mutual split and he's dated off and on since then, but nothing serious. They have no idea why Emma's picture was in his wallet." He rubbed his jaw, his fingers finding the line of the scar. "The mother said that his laptop was stolen last week. They reported it to campus security, but she didn't think it was taken seriously."

Faith figured that was her cue. She told him about Gabe and Tommy, the girlfriend who might have gone to Westfield. As she spoke, she figured she should come clean and told him about shouldering Tommy into the hallway. She also told him about Victor Martinez's comments, though she held back the embarrassing parts for the sake of her own dignity.

Instead of railing her for assault and battery against Albertson, Will asked, "What are there, around fifty bars in Buckhead?"

"At least."

"I guess it's worth a try calling around to see if we can find her," he said. "I hate to say it, but at this point, a girlfriend who might have gone to the same school as Emma and Kayla and who's dating a friend of Adam's is the only lead we've got to follow."

Neither one of them had to vocalize the obvious: every hour that ticked by made it harder to find the killer, and less likely that they would find Emma alive.

He started pressing numbers on his phone. "Someone called while I was talking to the parents," he explained. "Put the incident with Albertson in your report, then put it out of your mind. We've got much bigger problems to deal with right now."

A cream-colored Lexus sedan pulled up while he was listening to his messages. Faith saw Amanda Wagner behind the wheel. She must have been the one who left the message, because Will told Faith, "They found Kayla Alexander's Prius at a copy center on Peachtree. There's blood in the trunk, but no sign of Emma. Security camera's fuzzy, but at least it was working."

He pocketed the phone as he walked toward Amanda's car, rattling off orders for Faith. "Call in a couple of units to help you canvass the dorms. Maybe somebody else knows more about Adam. Search his things, see if there are any more pictures of Emma. Take out anything his parents don't need to see. Go back at that Gabe kid if you think it'll work. If not, give him the night to stew. We can both hit him tomorrow."

She tried to process all of this. "What time do we start?"

"Is seven too early?"

"No."

"Meet me at Westfield Academy. I want to screen the staff."

"Wasn't Leo-"

"He's not on this anymore." Will opened the car door. "I'll see you in the morning."

Faith opened her mouth to ask him what the hell happened to Leo, but Amanda started to pull away before his butt hit the seat. Faith saw that Will's jacket was still on the Mini's hood and waved for them to stop, but Amanda either didn't see her or didn't care. Faith supposed the good news was that she was still on the case. The bad news was that she was definitely still at the scut-work level. She was probably going to be here until three in the morning.

Leo was the first casualty. Faith would be damned if she'd be the second.

She checked Will's jacket and found a handful of latex gloves. She also found something far more curious: a digital voice recorder. Faith turned over the small device in her hand. All the letters had been rubbed off from use. The screen said there were sixteen messages. She guessed the red button was record, so the one beside it would have to be play.

Her cell phone rang and Faith almost dropped the recorder. She recognized Jeremy's number and looked up at the second floor of Glenn Hall. She counted five spaces over and found him standing at his window, watching her.

He said, "Isn't it illegal to go through somebody's pockets like that?"

She put the recorder back in the jacket. "I'm getting really tired of dealing with smart-aleck kids who know their legal rights."

He snorted.

"Answer a question for me: if you didn't have your key card, how would you get into the building?"

"Press the handicap button."

Faith shook her head at the situation. So much for tracking people who'd been in and out of the dorm. "So, do you need pizza money or your laundry done or are you just making sure I don't come up there and embarrass you in front of your friends?"

"I heard about that kid," he said. "It's all over the dorm."

"What are they saying?"

"Not a lot," Jeremy admitted. "Nobody really knew him, you know? He was just some guy you passed in the hall on the way to the toilet."

She heard the sympathy in his voice, and Faith felt a tinge of pride that her son showed such humanity. She had met the alternative and it wasn't pretty.

He asked, "Do you think you'll find that girl?"

"I hope so."

"I can keep my ear to the ground."

"No, you will not," she countered. "You're going to school to learn how to be an engineer, not a cop."

"There's nothing wrong with being a cop."

Faith could think of several things, but she didn't want him to know. "I should go, honey. I'm going to be here late."

He didn't hang up. "If you wanted to do some laundry…"

She smiled. "I'll call you before I leave."

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah?"

He was silent, and she wondered if he was going to tell her that he loved her. That was how they trapped you, after all. You walked the floor with them and cleaned up after them and took all the grief and the noise and the swarthy Latin men who looked at you as if you had horns, and then they hooked you back in with those three simple words.

Not this time, though. Jeremy asked, "Who was that guy you were with? He didn't look like a cop."

Her son was right about that. She picked up Will Trent's jacket to lock it back in the car. "Nobody. Just a guy who works for your aunt Amanda."