Criminal, Page 3

  She clutched her hands together, but didn’t turn around. Footsteps followed her. Lucy didn’t quicken her pace. Couldn’t quicken her pace. The pain in her stomach was strong, a knife cutting through her viscera. The hospital was fine for one night, but there was tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Lucy would have to find a way back into Juice’s good graces. Tonight had been slow. Even Kitty wasn’t bringing in much. Juice was all about cold, hard cash, and Lucy was betting this Jesus freak had at least ten bucks on him. Sure, Juice would still beat her, but the money would soften his blows.

  “I want to call him.” Lucy kept a careful pace. She could hear the man following, keeping his distance. “My brother. He’ll come get me. He said he would.” She was lying, but her voice was strong. “I don’t have any money. To call him, that is.”

  “If it’s money you want, I can give you that.”

  Lucy stopped. Slowly, she turned around. The man was standing in a sliver of light that came from the lobby of a nearby office building. Lucy was too tall, five-ten with her shoes off. She was used to looking down at most people. This guy was well over six feet. The hands that held the Bible were huge. His shoulders were broad. Long legs, but not lean. Lucy was fast, especially when she was scared. The minute he took out his wallet, she would grab it and dash away.

  She asked, “You a marine or what?”

  “4-F.” He took a step toward her. “Medical disability.”

  He looked capable enough to Lucy. He probably had a daddy who bought him out of the draft, same as Lucy’s dad had with Henry. “Give me some money so I can call my brother.” She remembered, “Please.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Athens.”

  “Greece?”

  She sputtered a laugh. “Georgia. He’s in college. Law school. He’s about to get married. I wanna call him. Congratulate him.” She added, “Get him to pick me up and take me home. To my family. Where I belong.”

  The man took another step forward. The light picked out the features of his face, which were normal, even average. Blue eyes. Nice mouth. Sharp nose. Square jaw. “Why aren’t you in college?”

  Lucy felt a tingle at the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure how to describe it. Part of her was afraid of the man. Part of her was thinking she hadn’t talked to a guy like this in more years than she could remember. He wasn’t looking at her like she was a whore. He wasn’t proposing a transaction. There was nothing in his eyes that told her he was a threat. And yet, it was two in the morning and he was standing in the empty street of a city that pretty much closed its doors at six o’clock after all the white people went back to the suburbs.

  The truth was, neither one of them belonged here.

  “Sister.” He took another step closer. Lucy was shocked to see the concern in his eyes. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I let the Lord guide my hand.”

  Lucy had trouble answering. Years had passed since anyone had looked at her with anything close to compassion. “What makes you think I’m afraid?”

  “I think you’ve lived with fear for a long time, Lucy.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve—” She stopped. “How do you know my name?”

  He seemed confused. “You told me.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You told me your name was Lucy. Just a few minutes ago.” He held up the Bible for emphasis. “I swear.”

  All the saliva in her mouth was gone. Her name was her secret. She never gave it away to strangers. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Lucy …” He was less than five feet away from her now. There was that same concerned look in his eyes, though he could easily take one more step and wrap both hands around her neck before she knew what was happening.

  But he didn’t. He just stood there holding his Bible to his chest. “Please, don’t be scared of me. You have no reason to be afraid.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I want to help you. To save you.”

  “I don’t need saving. I need money.”

  “I told you I’d give you all the money you need.” He tucked the Bible under his arm and took out his wallet. She could see bills stacked neatly in the fold. Hundreds. He fanned them out in his hand. “I want to take care of you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  Her chest shook. She eyed the money. There was at least five hundred there, possibly more. “I don’t know you.”

  “No, not yet.”

  Lucy’s foot stepped back, but she needed to go forward, needed to grab the cash and run. If the man sensed her plans, he didn’t show it. He stood there with the hundreds looking like postage stamps in his large hands, not moving, not speaking. All that cash. Five hundred dollars. She could rent a hotel room, keep herself off the street for months, maybe a year.

  Lucy felt her heart banging against her shattered rib. She was torn between snatching the dough and running for her life and just plain running from her life. The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention. Her hands were shaking. She felt heat radiating somewhere behind her. For a moment, Lucy assumed the sun was coming up over Peachtree Plaza, streaking down the street, warming her neck and shoulders. Was this some sign from above? Was this finally her moment of salvation?

  No. No salvation. Just money.

  She forced herself to take a step forward. Then another. “I want to know you,” she told the man, fear making the words slur on her tongue.

  He smiled. “That’s good, sister.”

  Lucy made herself return the smile. Made her shoulders curve so she looked younger, sweeter, innocent. And then she grabbed the wad of cash. She turned to run, but her body jerked back like a slingshot.

  “Don’t fight me.” His fingers were clamped around her wrist. Half her arm disappeared inside his grip. “You can’t escape.”

  Lucy stopped fighting. She didn’t have a choice. Pain was shooting up her neck. Her head was throbbing. Her shoulder crunched in the socket. Still, she kept her fist wrapped around the money. She could feel the stiff bills scraping against her palm.

  He said, “Sister, why do you crave a life of sin?”

  “I don’t know.” Lucy shook her head. She looked down at the ground. She sniffed back the blood that dripped from her nose. And then she felt his grip start to loosen.

  “Sister—”

  Lucy wrenched away her arm, her skin feeling torn, like a glove ripping off. She ran as fast and as hard as she could, feet slapping pavement, arms pumping. One block. Two. She opened her mouth, taking deep gulps of air that sent stabbing pains into her chest. Broken ribs. Busted nose. Shattered teeth. Money in her hand. Five hundred dollars. A hotel room. A bus ticket. Safety. All the H that she could handle. She was free. Goddamn it, she was finally free.

  Until her head flew back. Her scalp felt like the teeth of a zipper being wrenched apart as chunks of hair were snatched out at the root. Lucy’s forward momentum didn’t stop. She saw her legs shoot out in front of her, feet level to her chin, and then her back slammed down flat to the ground.

  “Don’t fight,” the man repeated, straddling her, his hands wrapping around her neck.

  Lucy clawed at his fingers. His grip was relentless. Blood poured from her torn scalp. It went into her eyes, her nose, her mouth.

  She couldn’t scream. She blindly reached out, trying to dig her fingernails into his eye sockets. She felt the side of his face, his rough skin, then her hands dropped because she couldn’t hold up her arms anymore. His breath quickened as her body spasmed. Warm urine ran down her leg. She could feel his excitement even as a sense of hopelessness took over. Who was Lucy fighting for? Who cared if Lucy Bennett lived or died? Maybe Henry would be sad when he heard the news, but her parents, her old friends, even Mrs. Henderson, would probably feel nothing but relief.

  Finally, the inevitable.

  Lucy’s tongue swelled in her mouth. Her vision blurred. It was useless. There was no air left for her lungs. No oxygen going to her brain. She felt herself start to give, her muscles releas
ing. The back of her head hit pavement. She stared up. The sky was impossibly black, pinholes of stars barely visible. The man stared down at her, the same concerned look in his eyes.

  Only this time, he was smiling.

  two

  Present Day

  MONDAY

  Will Trent had never been alone in someone else’s home before unless that person was dead. As with many things in his life, he was aware that this was a trait he shared with a lot of serial killers. Fortunately, Will was an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, so the empty bathrooms he searched and the deserted bedrooms he tossed all fell under the category of intrusions for the greater good.

  This revelation didn’t help ease his mind as he walked through Sara Linton’s apartment. Will had to keep telling himself he had a legitimate reason to be here. Sara had asked him to feed and walk the dogs while she worked an extra shift at the hospital. Barring that, they were hardly strangers. They’d known each other for almost a full year before they’d finally gotten together two weeks ago. Will had spent every night here since. Even before that, he’d met Sara’s parents. He’d dined at her family’s table. Given all of this familiarity, his feelings of trespass didn’t really add up.

  Which still didn’t stop him from feeling like a stalker.

  Maybe this came from the way Will felt being alone here. He was pretty sure that he was obsessed with Sara Linton. He wanted to know everything about her. And while he wasn’t seized by the urge to take off his clothes and roll around naked on her bed—at least, not without Sara there with him—he felt the compulsion to look at all the things on her shelves and in her drawers. He wanted to flip through the photo albums she kept in a box in her bedroom closet. He wanted to peruse her books and scroll through her iTunes collection.

  Not that he would act on these impulses. Unlike most serial killers, Will was aware that any one of these things crossed the line into creepy. But the desire left him feeling unsettled all the same.

  He looped the dogs’ leashes around the hook inside the hall closet. Sara’s two greyhounds were piled onto the living room couch. A ray of sun bleached their fawn-colored fur. The loft was a penthouse corner unit, which was one of the perks of being a pediatrician instead of a lowly civil servant. The L-shaped wall of windows gave a stellar view of downtown Atlanta. The Bank of America Plaza that looked like the builders had forgotten to remove the scaffolding up top. The steplike Georgia Pacific tower that was built over the movie theater where Gone with the Wind premiered. The tiny Equitable building sitting like a black granite paperweight beside the pencil cup of the Westin Peachtree Plaza.

  Atlanta was a small town in the scheme of things—the population inside the city limits was slightly north of five hundred thousand. Bump that out to the metro area and it was closer to six million. The city was a Mecca on the Piedmont, the center of business in the Southeast. Over sixty languages were spoken here. There were more hotel rooms than residents, more office spaces than people. Three hundred murders a year. Eleven hundred reported rapes. Nearly thirteen thousand aggravated assault charges.

  More like a small town with a chip on its shoulder.

  Will made his way to the kitchen and picked up the water bowls from the floor. The thought of going home to his small house made him feel lonely, which was strange considering Will had grown up wanting to be nothing but alone. There was more to his life than Sara Linton. He was a grown man. He had a job. He had his own dog to look after. He had a home. He’d even been married before. Technically, he was still married, though that hadn’t mattered much until recently.

  Will was eight years old when the cops dropped off Angie Polaski at the Atlanta Children’s Home. She was eleven, and a girl, which meant she stood a good chance of being adopted, but Angie was mouthy and wild and no one wanted her. No one wanted Will, either. He’d spent most of his early life being checked in and out of the children’s home like a dog-eared library book. Somehow, Angie made all of it more bearable. Except for the times when she was making it unbearable.

  Their marriage had taken place two years ago. It had been perpetrated on a double dog dare, which might explain why neither of them took it very seriously. Angie had lasted less than a week. Two days after the civil ceremony, Will woke up to find her clothes gone, the house empty. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t hurt. Actually, he was enormously relieved that it had happened sooner rather than later. Angie disappeared on him all the time. Will knew that she would be back. She always came back.

  Only, this time, for the first time, something had happened while Angie was away. There was Sara. There was the way she breathed in Will’s ear. There was the way she traced her fingers down his spine. There was her taste. Her smell. There were all these things Will had never even noticed with Angie.

  He clicked his tongue as he put down the water bowls. The dogs stayed on the couch, unimpressed.

  Will’s Glock was on the counter beside his suit jacket. He clipped the holster onto his belt. He checked the time on the stove as he pulled on his jacket. Sara’s shift ended in five minutes, which meant it was at least ten minutes past time for Will to leave. She would probably call him when she got home. He would tell her he was doing paperwork or about to get on the treadmill or some other lie that made it clear he hadn’t been sitting around waiting for her to call, and then he would run back over here like Julie Andrews prancing up that hill in The Sound of Music.

  He was heading to the front door when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Will recognized his boss’s number. For a split second, he considered sending the call to voicemail, but he knew from experience that Amanda would not be easily deterred.

  He answered, “Trent.”

  “Where are you?”

  For some reason, he found the question intrusive. “Why?”

  Amanda gave a weary sigh. He could hear noises on her end—the low murmur of a crowd, a repetitive clicking sound. “Just answer me, Will.”

  “I’m at Sara’s.” She didn’t respond, so he asked, “Do you need me?”

  “No, I most certainly do not. You’re still on airport duty until further notice. Do you understand me? Nothing else.”

  He stared at the phone for a moment, then put it back to his ear. “All right.”

  Abruptly, she ended the call. Will had the distinct feeling she would’ve slammed down the receiver if such a thing were possible on a cell phone.

  Instead of leaving, he stood in the foyer, trying to figure out what had just happened. Will replayed the conversation in his head. No obvious explanation jumped out. Will was used to his boss being obtuse. Anger was hardly a new emotion. But while Amanda had certainly hung up on him before, Will couldn’t fathom why she cared where he was at the moment. Actually, he was surprised that she was even talking to him. He hadn’t heard her voice in two weeks.

  Deputy Director Amanda Wagner was an old-timer, from that group of cops who easily bent the rules to make a case but stuck to the manual when it came to the dress code. The GBI required all non-undercover agents to keep their hair half an inch off their collar. Two weeks ago, Amanda had actually slapped a ruler to the back of Will’s neck, and when he hadn’t taken the hint, she’d transferred him to airport duty, which required Will to hang out in various men’s toilets, waiting for someone to sexually proposition him.

  Will’s mistake was mentioning the ruler to Sara. He’d told her the story as a sort of joke as well as an explanation for why he needed to run up the street to the barbershop before they went to dinner. Sara hadn’t told Will not to get his hair cut. She was so much smarter than that. She’d told him she liked his hair the length that it was. She’d told him that it looked good on him. She’d stroked the back of his neck while she said this. And then she had suggested that instead of going to the barber, they go into the bedroom and do something so filthy that Will had experienced a few seconds of hysterical blindness.

  Which was why he was looking at spending the rest of his career doing a Mr. Bojangles under
the bathroom stall of every men’s toilet in the busiest passenger airport in the world.

  But it didn’t explain why Amanda had felt the need to locate Will on this particular day at this particular time.

  Or the sound of people gathered in the background. Or the familiar clicking noise.

  Will went back into the living room. The dogs shifted on the couch, but Will didn’t sit down. He picked up the remote and turned on the television. A basketball game was on. He flipped to the local station. Monica Pearson, the Channel 2 anchor, was sitting behind her news desk. She was doing a story on the Beltline, the new transportation system that was hated by everyone in Atlanta except for the politicians. Will’s finger was on the power button when the story changed. Breaking news. The image of a young woman appeared over Pearson’s shoulder. Will turned up the volume as the story was tossed to a live news conference.

  What he saw made him sit down.

  Amanda Wagner stood at a wooden podium. A handful of microphones were in front of her. She was waiting for silence. Will heard the familiar sounds: cameras clicking over the low murmur of the crowd.

  He’d seen his boss do hundreds of news conferences. Usually, Will was in the back of the room, trying to stay off camera, while Amanda basked in the glow of undivided attention. She loved being in charge. She lived to control the slow trickle of information that fed the media. Except for now. Will studied her face as the camera closed in. She looked tired. More than that—she looked worried.

  She said, “The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released an Alert Bulletin on Ashleigh Renee Snyder. The nineteen-year-old female was reported missing at approximately three-fifteen this afternoon.” Amanda paused, giving the newspaper journalists time to scribble down the description. “Ashleigh lives in the Techwood area and is a sophomore at the Georgia Institute of Technology.”

  Amanda said more, but Will tuned out the words. He watched her mouth move. He saw her point to different reporters. Their questions were long. Her answers were brief. She didn’t put up with much. There was none of her usual bantering back and forth. Finally, Amanda left the podium. Monica Pearson returned. The photo of the missing girl was back over her shoulder. Blonde, pretty, thin.