Genesis (6 page)

"Told . . . ," a voice began, only to be drowned by static. There
was a small television/radio sitting on a white plastic chair at the back
of the cavern. Will kept down in a crouch as he moved toward the
chair. He looked at the buttons, pressing a few before he managed to
turn off the radio, remembering too late that he should have had his
gloves on.

He followed the cord of the television with his eyes, finding a
large marine battery. The plug had been cut off the cord, the bare red
and black wires attached to the terminals. There were other wires,
their ends stripped down to the copper. They were blackened, and
Will caught the familiar scent of an electrical burn.

"Hey, Gomez?" Fierro called. His voice was all raw nerves.

"It's empty," Will told him.

Fierro made a hesitating noise.

"I'm serious," Will told him. He went back to the opening, craning
up to see the man. "It's empty."

"Christ." Fierro's head disappeared from view, but not before
Will saw his hand shoot up in the sign of the cross.

Will was ready to do some praying himself if he didn't get out of
here. He shone the light on the ladder, seeing where his own shoe
prints had smeared into the bloody footprints on the rungs. Will
looked down at his scuffed shoes, the dirt floor, finding more bloody
footprints that he had smeared. He crammed his shoulders back into
the shaft and put his foot on the rung, trying not to mess up anything
else. Forensics wasn't going to be happy with him, but there was
nothing he could do about it now except apologize.

Will froze. Anna's feet had been cut, but the cuts were more like
the nasty scrapes you get from stepping on sharp objects—pine needles,
burrs, thorny vines. That was why he had assumed she had
walked in the woods. She wasn't bleeding enough to leave bloody
footprints that were so pronounced he could see the ridges of the sole
in the dirt. Will stood there with his hand above him, one foot on the
ladder, debating.

He gave a bone-weary sigh, then crouched back down, skipping
the light along every corner of the cave. The rope was bothering
him, the way it had been wrapped around the bed. His mind flashed
on the image of Anna tied down, the rope wrapped in a continuous
loop over and under the bed, securing her body to the frame. He
pulled one of the lengths out from under the bed. The end was cut
clean through, as were the others. He glanced around. Where was the
knife now?

Probably with that last stupid rat.

Will pulled back the mattress, gagging from the smell, trying not
to think about what his bare hands were touching. He kept the back
of his wrist pressed under his nose as he pulled away slats of wood
that supported the mattress, hoping to God the rat didn't spring up
and claw out his eyes. He made as much noise as he could, dropping
the slats in a pile on the floor. He heard a squeaking sound behind
him, and turned to find the rat crouched down in the corner, its
beady eyes reflecting the light. Will had a piece of wood in his hand,
and he thought about hurling it at the beast, but he was worried his
aim wouldn't be good enough in the narrow space. He was also worried
it would piss off the rat.

He laid the plank onto the pile, keeping a wary eye on the creature.
Something else got his attention. There were scratch marks on
the bottom of the bed slats—deep bloody gouges that didn't look
like they were made by an animal. Will shone the light into the opening
under the bed. The dirt was excavated about six inches below the
floor, running the length and width of the bed. Will reached down
and picked up a small length of rope. Like the other pieces, this had
been cut, too. Unlike the other pieces, there was a knot intact.

Will pulled back the rest of the slats. There were four metal bolts
underneath the bed, one at each corner. A piece of rope was tied
through one bolt. Pink blood stained the cord. He felt the rope with
his fingers. It was wet. Something sharp scraped his thumb. Will
leaned in closer, straining to see what had scratched him. He picked
at the cord with his fingernails, prying out the object so he could examine
it more closely in the flashlight beam. Bile hit the back of his
throat when he saw what he was holding.

"Hey!" Fierro bellowed. "Gomez? You coming up or what?"

"Get a search team out here!" Will rasped.

"What're you talkin—"

Will looked at the piece of broken tooth in his hand. "There's another
victim!"

F
AITH SAT IN THE HOSPITAL CAFETERIA, THINKING SHE FELT THE
same way she'd felt the night of her junior prom: unwanted, fat and
pregnant. She looked at the wiry Rockdale County detective sitting
across from her at the table. With his long nose and greasy hair hanging
down over his ears, Max Galloway had the surly yet perplexed
look of a Weimaraner. What's more, he was a poor sport. Every sentence
he uttered to Faith alluded to the GBI taking away his case, beginning
with his opening salvo when Faith asked to sit in on the
interview with two of the witnesses: "I bet that bitch you work for is
already primping her hair for the TV cameras."

Faith had held her tongue, though she couldn't imagine Amanda
Wagner primping anything. Sharpening her claws, maybe, but her
hair was a structure that defied primping.

"So," Galloway said to the two male witnesses. "You guys were
just driving around, didn't see nothing, and then there's the Buick
and the girl on the road?"

Faith struggled not to roll her eyes. She had worked homicide in
the Atlanta Police Department for eight years before she had partnered
with Will Trent. She knew what it was like to be the detective
on the other side of that table, to have some arrogant jerk from the
GBI waltz in and tell you he could run your case better than you
could. She understood the anger and the frustration of being treated
like an ignorant hick who couldn't detect your way out of a paper
bag, but now that Faith herself was GBI, all she could think about
was the pleasure she would feel when she snatched this case right out
from under from this particularly galling ignorant hick.

As for the paper bag, Max Galloway might as well have had one
over his head. He had been interviewing Rick Sigler and Jake
Berman, the two men who had come upon the car accident on Route
316, for at least half an hour and still hadn't noticed that both men
were gay as handbags.

Galloway addressed Rick, the emergency medical technician who
had helped the woman on the scene. "You said your wife's a nurse?"

Rick stared at his hands. He had a rose-gold wedding band
around his finger and the most beautiful, delicate hands Faith had
ever seen on a man. "She works nights at Crawford Long."

Faith wondered how the woman would feel knowing that her
husband was out getting his knob polished while she was pulling the
late shift.

Galloway asked, "What movie did y'all go see?"

He'd asked the two men this same question at least three times,
only to be given the same answer. Faith was all for trying to trip up a
suspect, but you had to have more intelligence than a russet potato to
pull off that kind of thing—sadly, this was exactly the type of acumen
that Max Galloway did not possess. From where Faith was sitting,
it seemed like the two witnesses had just had the misfortune of
finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The only
positive aspect of their involvement was that the medic had been able
to take care of the victim until the ambulance arrived.

Rick asked Faith, "Do you think she's going to be okay?"

Faith assumed the woman was still in surgery. "I don't know," she
admitted. "You did everything you could to help her, though. You
have to know that."

"I've been at a million car accidents." Rick looked back at his hands.
"I've never seen anything like that before. It was . . . it was just awful."

In her normal life, Faith wasn't a touchy-feely person, but as a
cop, she knew when a softer approach was needed. She felt the urge
to lean across the table and put her hands over Rick's, to comfort him
and draw him out, but she wasn't sure how Galloway would react and
she didn't want to make herself any more of an enemy than she already
was.

Galloway said, "Did y'all meet at the theater or did you take one
car?"

Jake, the other man, shifted in his chair. He'd been very quiet
from the beginning, only speaking when he was asked a direct question.
He kept glancing at his watch. "I need to go," he said. "I have to
get up for work in less than five hours."

Faith glanced at the clock on the wall. She hadn't realized it was
coming up on one in the morning, probably because the insulin shot
had given her a strange sort of second wind. Will had left two hours
ago after giving her a quick rundown of what had happened, dashing
off to the crime scene before she could offer to join him. He was persistent,
and Faith knew that he would find a way to get this case. She
just wished she knew what was taking him so long.

Galloway pushed a pad and piece of paper toward the men. "Give
me all your phone numbers."

The color drained from Rick's face. "Only call my cell. Please.
Don't call me at work." He glanced nervously at Faith, then back at
Galloway. "They don't like me to get personal calls at work. I'm out
in the bus all day. All right?"

"Sure." Max sat back in the chair, arms crossed over his chest,
staring at Faith. "You hear that, vulture?"

Faith gave the man a tight smile. She could take outright hate, but
this passive-aggressive crap was getting on her last nerve.

She took out two business cards and handed one to each man.
"Please call me if you think of anything else. Even something that
doesn't seem important."

Rick nodded, tucking the card into his back pocket. Jake held on
to his, and she imagined he was going to toss it into the first trashcan
he came across. Faith's impression was that the men didn't know each
other very well. They had been vague about details pertaining to
their friendship, but each had presented a movie-ticket stub when
asked. They had probably met in the theater, then decided to go
somewhere more private.

A cell phone began to play the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
Faith corrected her initial assumption, thinking it was more than
likely the University of Georgia fight song, as Galloway flipped open
his phone, saying, "Yeah?"

Jake started to stand, and Galloway nodded to him, as if permission
to leave had been asked and granted.

"Thank you," Faith told the two men. "Please, call me if you
think of anything else."

Jake was already halfway to the door, but Rick lingered. "I'm
sorry I wasn't much help. There was a lot going on, and—" Tears
welled into his eyes. He was obviously still haunted by what had happened.

Faith put her hand on his arm, keeping her voice low. "I really
don't care about what you guys were doing out there." Rick colored.
"It's none of my business. All I care about is finding out who hurt this
woman."

He looked away. Immediately, Faith knew that she had pushed
him in exactly the wrong direction.

Rick gave a tight nod, still not meeting her eye. "I'm sorry I can't
be more help."

Faith watched him leave, wanting to kick herself. Behind her, she
heard Galloway mutter several curses. She turned as he pushed back
from the table so hard that his chair clattered to the floor. "Your partner
is a fucking lunatic. One hundred fucking percent."

Faith agreed—Will was never one to do things halfway—but she
never badmouthed her partner unless it was to his face. "Is that just
an observation, or are you trying to tell me something?"

Galloway tore off the page with the phone numbers and slapped
it down on the table. "You got your case."

"What a surprising turn of events." Faith flashed him a smile,
handing him a card. "If you could please fax all witness statements
and preliminary reports to my office. Number's on the bottom."

He snatched the card, bumping into the table as he walked away,
grumbling. "Keep smiling, bitch."

Faith leaned down and picked up the chair, feeling a bit woozy as
she straightened. The nurse educator had been more of the former
than the latter, and Faith was still unsure about what to do with all
the diabetic instruments and supplies she had been given. She had
notes, forms, a journal and all sorts of test results and papers to give
to her doctor tomorrow. None of it made sense. Or maybe she was
too shocked to process it all. She had always been very good at math,
but the thought of measuring her food and calculating insulin made
her brain go all fuzzy.

The final blow had been the result of the pregnancy test that had
been kindly tagged on to all the other bloodwork. Faith had been
clinging to the possibility that the over-the-counter tests were inaccurate—
all three of them. How exact could the technology be for
something that you peed on? She had vacillated daily between thinking
she was pregnant and thinking that she had a stomach tumor, not
exactly sure which news would be more welcome. When the nurse
had happily informed her, "You're going to have a baby!" Faith had
felt like she was going to pass out again.

There was nothing she could do about it now. She sat back down
at the table, looking at Rick Sigler's and Jake Berman's phone numbers.
She would have made a bet that Jake's was false, but Faith wasn't
new to this game. Max Galloway had been annoyed when she had
asked the men to see their driver's licenses and copied down the information
in her notebook. Then again, maybe Galloway wasn't a total
idiot. She'd seen him scribbling down his own copy of the phone
numbers while he was on his cell. The thought of Galloway having
to come ask Faith for Jake Berman's details made her smile.

She checked the clock again, wondering what was keeping the
Coldfields. Galloway had told Faith the couple had been instructed
to come to the cafeteria for their interviews as soon as the ER cleared
them, but the couple seemed to be taking their own sweet time. Faith
was also curious about what Will had done to make Max Galloway
call him a lunatic. She would be the first person to admit that her
partner was far from conventional. He certainly had his own way of
doing things, but Will Trent was the best cop Faith had ever worked
with—even if he had the social skills of an awkward toddler. For instance,
Faith would've liked to have found out from her own partner
that they were assigned to this case rather than hear it from an inbred
Weimaraner from Rockdale County.

Maybe it was for the best that she had some time before she talked
to Will. She had no idea how she was going to explain why she had
passed out in the parking deck at the courthouse without actually
having to tell him the truth.

She rifled through the plastic bag filled with diabetic supplies and
pulled out the pamphlet the nurse had given her, hoping that this
time she would be able to concentrate on it. Faith didn't get much
farther than
"So, you have diabetes"
before she was telling herself once
again that there had been some kind of mistake. The insulin shot had
made her feel better, but maybe just lying down for a few minutes
had done the trick. Did she even have a history of this in her family?
She should call her mother, but she hadn't even told Evelyn that she
was pregnant. Besides, the woman was on vacation in Mexico, her
first holiday in years. Faith wanted to make sure her mother was close
to good medical care when she told her the news.

The person she should really call was her brother. Captain Zeke
Mitchell was an Air Force surgeon stationed in Landstuhl, Germany.
As a doctor, he would know everything about her condition, which
was probably why she cringed at the thought of reaching out to him.
When fourteen-year-old Faith announced that she was pregnant,
Zeke was just hitting his senior year in high school. His mortification
and humiliation had lasted twenty-four hours, seven days a week. At
home, he had to watch his slut of a teenage sister swell up like a
blimp, and at school, he had to listen to the crude jokes his friends
made about her. It was no wonder he'd joined the military straight
out of high school.

Then there was Jeremy. Faith had no idea how she would tell her
son that she was pregnant. He was eighteen, the same age Zeke had
been when she'd ruined his life. If boys did not want to know their
sisters were having sex, they sure as hell didn't want to hear the news
about their mothers.

Faith had done most of her growing up with Jeremy, and now
that he was in college, their relationship was settling into a comfortable
place where they could talk to each other as adults. Sure, she
sometimes had flashes of her son as a child—the blanket he used to
drag around with him everywhere, the way he constantly used to ask
her when he was going to get too heavy for her to carry him—but
she'd finally come to terms with the fact that her little boy was now a
grown man. How could she pull the rug out from under her son now
that he'd finally gotten settled? And it wasn't just that she was pregnant
anymore. She had a
disease
. She had something that could be carried
in families. Jeremy could be susceptible. He had a serious
girlfriend now. Faith knew that they were having sex. Jeremy's children
could become diabetic because of Faith.

"God," she mumbled. It wasn't the diabetes, but the idea that she
could end up being a grandmother before she hit thirty-four.

"How are you feeling?"

Faith looked up to find Sara Linton standing across from her with
a tray of food.

"Old."

"Just from the pamphlet?"

Faith had forgotten it was in her hand. She indicated that Sara
should sit. "Actually, I was questioning your medical abilities."

"You wouldn't be the first." She said it ruefully, and not for the
first time, Faith wondered what Sara's story was. "My bedside manner
could have been better with you."

Faith did not disagree. Back in the ER, she had wanted to hate
Sara Linton on sight for no other reason than she was the type of
woman you'd want to hate on sight: tall and thin with great posture,
long auburn hair and that unusual kind of beauty that made men fall
all over themselves when she entered a room. It didn't help matters
that the woman was obviously smart and successful, and Faith had
felt the same knee-jerk dislike she'd felt in high school when the
cheerleaders had bounced by. She'd like to think a new strength of
character, a spurt in maturity, had allowed her to overcome the petty
response, but the truth was that it was hard for Faith to hate someone
who was a widow, especially the widow of a cop.