Unseen (38 page)

Will reluctantly took the whiskey. He opened the cap. Instead of drinking the alcohol, he sniffed it. He scowled at the smell. He looked at the label even though Sara knew he couldn’t read the cursive script.

“Will, drink the goddamn whiskey.”

Her tone was sharper than she intended, but it worked.

He managed to swallow a mouthful before he gagged.

“Christ!” He heaved a cough from deep inside his chest. His eyes watered. He shook his head like a dog.

Sara crossed her arms to stop herself from soothing him. She’d been too worn out last night to think beyond closing her eyes, but now it all came rushing back. Every ounce of concern she felt kept getting overwhelmed by anger.

Will coughed a few more times. He screwed the cap back on the bottle and threw it into the trashcan.

Sara asked, “Are we going to talk about what happened?”

He blinked to clear his eyes. “Amanda—”

“Sweetheart, if you say her name one more time, one of us is going to have to leave. And it won’t be me.”

His jaw set.

Sara wasn’t going to give in. “I mean it, Will. You come in here with your face all banged up. That cut should be stitched. You’ve got blood in your ear. You probably need an MRI. And I’m just supposed to pretend none of this exists, the same way I pretend you didn’t have a childhood and you don’t have scars all over your body and—” She couldn’t go on. The list was endless. “Talk to me, Will. I can handle the strong, but I can’t take the silent anymore.”

Predictably, he did the exact opposite. He crossed his ankle over his leg. She saw the bottom of his boot. The Cat’s Paw logo was on the heel.

Sara had to close her eyes for a moment so she didn’t lose control. She counted to ten, then twenty, before she could look at him
again. “Will, your not talking to me about things is what got us into this mess in the first place.”

He swallowed. The alcohol had worked. He didn’t flinch this time. “I’m sorry.”

Sara felt like a schoolmarm, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Sorry for what?”

He picked at the stitching on his boot. “When I chased you. When I—” He stopped. “What I did when I caught you.”

Sara blushed at the memory.

He said, “I was out of control.”

She couldn’t let him take all the blame. “We were both out of control.”

“I hurt you.”

“I’m not Amish, Will. I’ve had rough sex before.”

His startled look told her he thought it was something else.

“I didn’t tell you to stop.” Sara couldn’t understand how he could be so wrong about something so obvious. “I was never afraid of you. I was furious. I wanted to hurt you. But I wasn’t afraid.”

His eyes glistened. She couldn’t tell if it was from the whiskey anymore.

“Will, I was mad at you—I’m still mad—because you lied to me. Not just once, but repeatedly. Obviously, something happened to you last night, too. We took it out on each other. It’s what adults do sometimes. But you need to know that you can’t just fuck me silly and make everything better.”

He was still upset. His voice was filled with self-recrimination. “I never wanted to be that way with you.”

“Baby—” The word came out of her mouth so naturally. Sara could see the effect it had on him, and she understood that as bad as things were for her last night, they’d gotten so much worse for Will after he left.

Sara sat down on the edge of the bed. “Please, just talk to me.”

He didn’t look at her. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
She could see his jaw clenching and unclenching. A dark red mark crisscrossed the side of his forehead. There was a waffle print to the pattern, as if someone had kicked him.

He said, “I came here for somebody else.”

“Who?”

Will gripped his hands together. He stared at the floor. When he finally spoke, his voice was so soft that she could barely hear him. “I feel like I’m disappearing.”

Of all the things he could’ve said, this was the least expected. Sara didn’t know how to respond.

Will obviously didn’t expect her to. His jaw worked again. She could tell every fiber of his being wanted to stop. Still, he said, “All my life, I’ve been invisible. At school. At the home. At work. I do my job. I go home. I get up the next morning and I do it all over again.” He gripped his hands tighter. Seconds passed before he managed to continue. “You changed that. You made me want to get up in the morning. You made me want to come home to you.” He finally met her gaze. “You’re the first person in my life who’s ever really seen me.”

Sara still couldn’t speak, but this time it was because she was too overwhelmed. The sound of his desolation broke her in two.

“I can’t go back to that.” His voice was gruff. “I can’t.”

Sara couldn’t let him. Her anger slipped away like sand through her fingers. She gently cradled her hand to his face. She knew this man. She knew his heart. Will hadn’t hurt her on purpose. He’d been stupid and stubborn, but not malicious. And Sara couldn’t be the woman Lena Adams thought she was. She couldn’t demand perfection. She couldn’t set her standards so high that no one could meet them.

She had already lost the first love of her life. She couldn’t lose the second one.

“Okay.” She rested her hand on the nape of his neck. “We’ll be okay.”

His eyes scanned her face, looking for any sign of equivocation. “Do you mean that?”

She nodded.

He nodded, too, as if he still needed to convince himself. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I was wrong.”

“Please, don’t do it again.” Sara closed the distance between them. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I’m your girlfriend. This isn’t just about keeping things from me. It’s about trusting me. I may not understand, or agree, but you have to trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

“You’re right.” He held her close to his chest. His fingers stroked through her hair. She felt his lips press against the top of her head. “I need you to promise me something.”

She pulled back so that she could see him. “Okay.”

“Promise me we’re never going to break up again.”

She started to laugh, but there was a sincerity to his tone that stopped her.

Will said, “Actually, I’ll promise. I’ll never leave you.” He sounded more certain than she had ever heard him. “You can tell me to go, but I won’t. I’ll sleep in my car outside your house. I’ll follow you to work. To the gym. If you go out to dinner, I’ll be at the next table. If you go to a movie, I’ll be in the row behind you.”

Sara felt her brow furrow. “You’re going to stalk me?”

He shrugged his shoulder, as if this was all a done deal. “I love you.”

She finally laughed. “Well, that’s a really shitty way to say it.”

“I love you.”

Her response came as naturally as taking a breath before jumping into the deep end of the water. “I love you, too.”

He leaned in but didn’t kiss her. Despite his forceful words, he waited for permission. Sara touched her lips to his as softly as she could. The kiss was chaste, but it was enough.

He said, “We’re okay.”

She nodded. “We’re okay.”

He held her hand in both of his. He kissed her fingers. Then he turned her wrist and looked at her watch. “We need to go.”

“Where?”

He stood abruptly. “I’ll tell you about it on the way. Lena found something.”

Sara guessed, “A winning lottery ticket?”

“No.” He helped her up from the bed. “She found a little boy.”

Sara pulled her BMW
into an open garage bay. There were two other cars inside the metal structure, which was several yards from a sprawling, single-story house. They were on a horse farm. She could see a few mares and a colt out by a red barn. The sun was just cracking the horizon. The horses silently chewed some grass as they watched the garage door close.

Sara recognized the black Suburban parked beside them as a G-ride, or a government-issued SUV. She assumed either Faith or Amanda was here. The sheriff’s cruiser in the far bay probably belonged to the owner of the farm. Keeping horses was as costly as it was risky. Normally, amateur farmers had to seek out more steady employment. Sara had been thrown from a horse twice in her life. She imagined owning a horse farm was only marginally less dangerous than being a sheriff’s deputy.

Will got out of the car. He opened the back door and retrieved her medical bag from the back seat. He didn’t hand Sara the bag. He carried it for her.

“This way,” Will said, heading toward a side door.

Sara followed him as he picked his way past various small machinery taking up the last bay in the four-bay garage. She took Will’s hand to steady herself as she stepped over a tractor attachment that looked like a gigantic yard rake. He held on longer than necessary. She stroked his fingers with her thumb, wishing she could erase the past twenty-four hours and start all over again. Or maybe not. In so many strange ways, she felt closer to Will than ever before.

Faith opened the door before Will could. She avoided looking at Sara. “Find it okay?”

Sara said, “The GPS led us straight here.”

“Good.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a handful of Jolly Ranchers candy. “The boy’s still asleep. We didn’t want to wake him until we had to. Denise and her girlfriend are in the house with one of the paramedics. The doctor read the message board, so he knows not to come.”

“Sounds good.” Will took the candy and shoved it into his pocket. “I’ve got around two hours before I’m due at the hospital.

What’s the plan?”

Sara felt her stomach lurch at the thought of him going back undercover, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

Faith said, “The other paramedic is on her way with the bus. I was about to head over to dispatch. I want to be sitting on the supervisor so no one panics when they go off-radio. We don’t know how far this thing reaches. I’ll stay there until I get the word that the boy’s in Atlanta.”

Will asked, “Who’s going to follow the ambulance? Sara’s not going without backup.”

“Denise will be behind them the whole way. She’ll have her piece and her shotgun. Amanda thinks a larger escort team would alert Big Whitey.”

Will held out his phone to Sara. “Use this to check in with Faith every half hour.”

Sara tried not to bristle at being ordered around. “I’ve got my hospital BlackBerry.”

“The 689 number?” She nodded, and he pocketed his phone. “I’m serious. These people don’t mind collateral damage. You need to call Faith every half hour until you’re safe at the hospital.”

Sara wasn’t sure this was necessary, but Will didn’t give her a chance to disagree. He headed toward the house. She saw him take one of the candies out of his pocket. Instead of peeling away the wrapper, he bit it off with his teeth.

Again, Sara followed Will. He was back in top form—back in charge. Even in that awful maintenance uniform, he seemed like his old self. She watched him walk, the easy, athletic gait, the muscular line of his broad shoulders. Her big, tough cop. If Sara was trim, at least she was the kind of trim who didn’t settle.

Faith walked beside Sara. She was silent as they trudged across the yard. The tension crackled between them like static electricity.

Sara said, “You are a fantastic liar.”

Faith grinned. “I really am.”

Sara couldn’t stop herself from smiling back.

Faith asked, “Did Will fill you in?”

“He told me everything.”

Faith raised an eyebrow.

“Everything that’s happened in Macon,” Sara amended. Will had started talking the minute they’d left the hotel room. She’d never heard him speak for such an extended period of time. He’d told her about Lena’s emailed tip, the rednecks, the boy found in the basement and Denise Branson’s part in protecting him. The only detail Sara could’ve done without was the fact that Will had been riding a motorcycle, but even her shocked gasp did not stop him from talking. She’d actually slowed the car at one point, relishing his sudden candor, wishing he would extend it to the rest of his life. His childhood. His family. His bad marriage.

There weren’t enough miles in the road.

Faith said, “Remember when you told me a while ago that you had to be on Will’s side?”

Sara remembered the conversation well. Faith had asked her for details about Will’s background. Sara hadn’t felt right about sharing what little she knew. “I get it. You need to be on his side, too.”

Faith smiled, obviously relieved.

Sara asked, “Did the doctor give you any treatment information?”

“The first few days, he gave the boy fluids, a round of antibiotics,
but that was it. He’s mostly been dropping by to give him a sense of routine and make sure nothing new pops up.”

“That probably helped more than anything else. Kids always need structure.”

“He’s still in survival mode. Denise thinks his food might’ve been drugged while they held him. He won’t drink Coke, but he’ll drink bottled water. He tears everything apart like he’s looking for a pill. He’ll eat a bite, then wait to see if it makes him sick or sleepy, then he’ll eat another bite. They’ve tried feeding him stuff that isn’t easily tampered with, like fruit roll-ups and deli meats. He still breaks it apart before he eats it.”

Sara nodded because there was nothing to say. She felt overwhelmed by the knowledge of the terrible things that happened to children. Faith must’ve been feeling the same. She was quiet until they reached the house.

The door opened and a petite African American woman came out. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, but she had a gun on her hip and looked capable of using it. Her toned arms indicated she was no stranger to farm work. She spoke in a surprisingly soft voice. “Are you the doctor?”

“Yes,” Sara told her.

The woman rested her hand on the butt of her gun as she stepped aside, letting them enter the house.

The kitchen was warm and cheerful. Obviously, the owner wasn’t into decorating, but she’d managed to create a welcoming space with lots of soft wood tones. Sara guessed Denise Branson was the woman sitting at the table. She had the look of someone who’d lost everything that mattered. She slumped at the table. A mug of tea was in front of her. Rather than drink it, she aimlessly stirred the tea bag around by the string.