Faith slowed the Mini as she neared her house. It was past eight o’clock. She had spent the last six hours going over and over what had happened at her mother’s house, saying the same thing again and again, as her lawyer, her union rep, three Atlanta cops, and one special agent from the GBI asked questions, took notes, and basically made her feel like a criminal. On some level, it made sense that they believed Faith was wrapped up in whatever had gotten her mother kidnapped. Evelyn had been a cop. Faith was a cop. Evelyn had shot and killed a man. Faith had shot two men—two possible witnesses—seemingly in cold blood. Evelyn was missing. If Faith had been on the other side of the table, she might’ve been asking the same questions.
Did she have any enemies? Had she ever taken a bribe? Had she ever been approached to do something illegal? Had she ever taken money or gifts to look the other way?
But Faith wasn’t on that side of the table, and no matter how much she racked her brain, there was no reason she could think of that anyone would want to take her mother. The worst part about being trapped in the interrogation room was that every minute that ticked by reminded Faith that five able-bodied officers were wasting time in an airless interrogation room when they could all be out looking for her mother.
Who would do this? Did Evelyn have enemies? What were they looking for?
Faith was just as clueless now as when the interrogation began. She pulled the car up to the curb in front of her house. All the lights were on, something she had never allowed in her life. The house looked like a Christmas decoration. A very expensive Christmas decoration. Four cars were parked in the driveway. She recognized Jeremy’s old Impala that he’d bought from Evelyn when she’d gotten the Malibu, but the two trucks and black Corvette were new to her.
“Shhh …,” she shushed Emma, who was getting antsy now that the car had stopped. Defying all laws and basic common sense, Faith had put Emma in the front seat beside her. The drive from Mrs. Levy’s was just a few minutes, but it wasn’t laziness so much as neediness that made Faith want to keep her child close. She picked up Emma and held her tight. The baby’s heart beat a soothing staccato against her chest. Her breathing was soft and familiar, like tissues being pulled out of a box.
Faith wanted her mother. She wanted to put her head on Evelyn’s shoulder and feel her wiry, strong hands patting her back as she whispered that everything was going to be all right. She wanted to watch her mother tease Jeremy about his long hair and bounce Emma on her knee. Most of all, she wanted to talk to her mother about how awful today had been, to get her advice on whether or not to trust the union rep who was telling her she didn’t need a lawyer, or to listen to the lawyer who was telling her the union rep was too tight with the Atlanta force.
“Oh, God,” she breathed into Emma’s neck. Faith needed her mother.
Tears flooded into her eyes, and for once she did not try to stop them. She was alone for the first time since she’d stepped foot inside her mother’s house hours ago. She wanted to fall apart. She needed to fall apart. But Jeremy wanted his mother, too. He needed Faith to be strong. Her son needed to believe her when she said that she would do whatever it took to get his grandmother back in one piece.
Judging by the cars, there were at least three cops waiting inside with her son. Jeremy had been crying when she called him from the station—confused, worried, terrified for his grandmother as well as his mother. Amanda’s warning came back to Faith. Standing in Mrs. Levy’s living room, Faith had been surprised by Amanda’s hug, but not by her words, whispered in a low warning: “You’ve got two minutes to pull yourself together. If these men see you cry, all you will be to them for the rest of your career is a useless woman.”
Sometimes Faith thought that Amanda was fighting a battle that had been waged long ago, but sometimes she realized her boss was right. Faith used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. She pushed open the car door and slipped her purse onto her free shoulder. Emma shifted, startled by the cold air. Faith pulled up her blanket and pressed her lips to the top of the baby’s head. Her skin was warm. The fine hairs tickled Faith’s lips as she walked up the driveway.
She thought of all the things she had to do before she could go to bed. The house would need to be straightened, no matter the circumstances. Emma needed to be put to bed. Jeremy would need reassurances, and probably dinner. She would have to talk to her brother Zeke at some point. If there was any grace in the world, he was somewhere over the Atlantic right now, flying home from Germany, so she wouldn’t have to speak with him tonight. Their relationship had never been good. Thankfully, Amanda had handled the phone calls or Faith would’ve wasted most of the afternoon yelling at Zeke rather than talking to the Atlanta police. Faith felt a modicum of relief as she climbed the front stairs. Only the threat of having to talk to her brother could make the way she’d spent the last six hours look inviting. She reached for the doorknob just as the door swung open.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Faith stood with her mouth open, staring up at her brother Zeke. “How did you—”
“What happened, Faith? What did you do?”
“How—” Faith felt incapable of forming a complete sentence.
“Dude, chill.” Jeremy pushed past his uncle and took Emma from Faith’s arms. “You okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine,” she told him, but it was Zeke who had her attention. “Did you come from Germany?”
Jeremy supplied, “He’s living in Florida now.” He pulled Faith into the house. “Did you eat? I can make you something.”
“Yes—I mean, no. I’m fine.” She stopped worrying about Zeke for a moment and concentrated on her son. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but she saw he was putting on a brave face.
Faith tried to pull him closer, but he didn’t budge, probably because Zeke was watching their every move. She told Jeremy, “I want you to stay here with me tonight.”
He shrugged. No big deal. “Sure.”
“We’re going to get her back, Jaybird. I promise you.”
Jeremy looked down at Emma, jostling her in his arms. “Jaybird” had been Evelyn’s name for him until his entire elementary school heard her use it one day and teased him into tears. He said, “Aunt Mandy told me the same thing when she called. That she’ll get Grammy back.”
“Well, you know Aunt Mandy doesn’t lie.”
He tried to make a joke of it. “I’d hate to be those guys when she finds them.”
Faith put her hand to Jeremy’s cheek. There was stubble there, something she would never get used to. Her little boy was taller than her, but she knew that he wasn’t as strong. “Grandma’s tough. You know she’s a fighter. And you know she’ll do whatever it takes to get back to you. To us.”
Zeke made a disgusted sound, and Faith gave him a nasty look over Jeremy’s shoulder. He said, “Victor wants you to call him. You remember Victor, right?”
Victor Martinez was the last person on earth she wanted to talk to right now. She told Jeremy, “Go put Emma down for me, all right? And turn out some of those lights. Georgia Power doesn’t need all of my paycheck.”
“You sound like Grandpa.”
“Go.”
Jeremy glanced back at Zeke, reluctant to leave. His instinct had always been to protect Faith.
“Now,” she told him, gently pushing him toward the stairs.
Zeke at least had the decency to wait until Jeremy was out of earshot. He crossed his arms over his chest, puffing up his already sizable frame. “What the hell kind of mess did you get Mom into?”
“Glad to see you, too.” She pushed past him and walked down the hall toward the kitchen. Despite what she’d told Jeremy, Faith hadn’t eaten anything of substance since two o’clock, and she could feel that familiar throbbing headache and wave of nausea that signaled something wasn’t right.
“If anything happens to Mom—”
“What, Zeke?” Faith spun around to face him. He had always been a bully, and just like all of his kind, standing up to him was the only way to stop it. “What are you going to do to me? Throw away my dolls? Give me an Indian burn?”
“I didn’t—”
“I’ve spent the last six hours being grilled by assholes who think I got my mother kidnapped and went on a murderous rampage. I don’t need the same kind of crap from my asshole brother.”
She turned back around and walked toward the kitchen. There was a ginger-haired young man sitting at her table. His jacket was off. A Smith and Wesson M&P hung out of his tactical-style shoulder holster like a black tongue. The straps were tight around his chest, making his shirt blouse out. He was thumbing through the Lands’ End catalogue that had come in the mail yesterday, pretending he hadn’t just heard Faith screaming at the top of her lungs. He stood when she entered the room. “Agent Mitchell, I’m Derrick Connor with the APD hostage negotiation task force.”
“Thank you for being here.” She hoped her tone sounded genuine. “I take it there haven’t been any phone calls?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Any updates?”
“No, ma’am, but you’ll be the first to hear.”
Faith doubted that very seriously. Ginger wasn’t just here to catch phone calls. Until the brass said otherwise, Faith had a dark cloud hanging over her head. “There’s another officer here?”
“Detective Taylor. He’s checking the perimeter. I can get him for you if—”
“I’d just like some privacy, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Connor nodded to Zeke before leaving by the sliding glass door.
Faith groaned as she sat down at the table, feeling like she’d been on her feet for hours, even though she’d been sitting for most of the day. Zeke still had his arms crossed over his chest. He was blocking the doorway as if he thought she might try to bolt.
She asked, “Are you still in the Air Force?”
“I got transferred to Eglin four months ago.”
Right around the time Emma was born. “In Florida?”
“Last time I checked.” Her questions were obviously ratcheting up his anger. “I’m in the middle of a two-week in-service at the VA hospital on Clairmont. It’s a good thing I just happened to be in town or Jeremy would’ve been alone all day.”
Faith stared at her brother. Zeke Mitchell had always looked like he was standing at attention. Even at ten years old, he’d acted like an Air Force major, which was to say that he had been born with a giant steel rod shoved up his ass.
She asked, “Does Mom know you were stateside?”
“Of course she does. We were supposed to have dinner tomorrow night.”
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
“I didn’t want the drama.”
Faith let out a long sigh as she sat back in the chair. There it was—the defining word of their relationship. Faith had brought drama to Zeke’s senior year by getting pregnant. Her drama had forced him to leave high school early and sign away ten years of his life to the military. There was more drama when she decided to keep Jeremy, and a heaping pile of drama when she’d cried uncontrollably at their father’s funeral.
“I’ve been watching the news.” He said it like an indictment.
Faith pushed herself up from the table. “Then you know I killed two men today.”
“Where were you?”
Her hands shook as she opened the cabinet and took out a nutrition bar. She had said it like it was nothing—she had killed two men today. Faith had noticed during the interrogation that the more she talked about it, the more anesthetized she became to the reality of the act, so that saying it now only made her feel numb.
Zeke repeated, “I asked you a question, Faith. Where were you when Mom needed you?”
“Where were you?” She tossed the bar onto the table. Her mind was spinning out again. She should test her blood sugar before she ate anything. “I was at a training seminar.”
“You were late.”
She assumed he was making a lucky guess. “I wasn’t late.”
“I talked to Mom this morning.”
Faith felt her senses sharpen. “What time? Did you tell the police?”
“Of course I told the police. I talked to her around noon.”
Faith had gotten to their mother’s house less than two hours later. “Did she seem okay? What did she say?”
“She said that you were late again, Faith, like you always are. That’s how it is. The world bends to your schedule.”
“Christ,” she whispered. She couldn’t take this right now. She was suspended from work for God only knew how long. Her mother could be dead. Her son was devastated and she couldn’t get her brother out of her face long enough to catch her breath. Adding to the stress, her head felt like it was trapped in a vise. She fished around in her purse for her blood-testing kit. Slipping into a coma, while at the moment an attractive prospect, wasn’t going to help anything.
Faith laid out the kit on the table. She hated being watched when she tested her blood, but Zeke didn’t seem inclined to give her any privacy. Faith changed the needle in the pen, unwrapped a sterile wipe. Zeke watched her like a hawk. He was a doctor. She could almost hear his brain cataloguing the wrong way she was doing things.
Faith squeezed some blood onto the strip. The number flashed up. She showed Zeke the LED because she knew that he would ask.
He said, “When was your last meal?”
“I had some cheese crackers at the station.”
“That’s not enough.”
She got up and opened the refrigerator. “I know.”
“It’s high. Probably from the stress.”
“I know that, too.”
“What’s your last A1C?”
“Six point one.”
He sat down at the table. “That’s not bad.”
“No,” she agreed, getting her insulin out of the fridge door. It was actually a hair above her target, which was pretty damn good considering Faith had just had a baby.
“Do you really think what you said?” He paused, and she could tell it took a lot out of him to ask the question. “Do you think we’ll get her back?”
She sat back down. “I don’t know.”
“Was she injured?”
Faith shook her head and shrugged at the same time. The police weren’t sharing anything with her.
His chest rose and fell. “Why would someone take her? Are you …” For a change, he tried to be sensitive. “Are you messed up in something?”
“Why are you such a jerk all the time?” She didn’t expect an answer. “Mom ran a narc squad for fifteen years, Zeke. She made enemies. That was part of her job. And you know about the investigation. You know why she retired.”
“That was four years ago.”
“These things don’t have a time limit. Maybe somebody decided they want something from her.”
“Like what? Money? She doesn’t have any. I’m on all her accounts. She’s got her pension from the city, some of Dad’s retirement, and that’s it. Not even Social Security yet.”
“It has to be related to a case.” Faith drew the insulin into the syringe. “Her entire team went to prison. A lot of very bad people were pissed off to see their bought-and-paid-for cops taken out of the game.”
“You think Mom’s guys are involved in this?”
Faith shook her head. They had always called Evelyn’s team “Mom’s guys,” mostly because it was easier to keep track of them that way. “I have no idea who’s involved or why.”
“Are you looking into all their old cases and interviewing perps?”
“ ‘Perps’? Where the hell did you get that from?” Faith lifted up her shirt just enough to jab the needle into her belly. There was no immediate rush; the drug didn’t work that way. Still, Faith closed her eyes, willing the nausea to pass. “I’m suspended, Zeke. They took my badge and my gun and told me to go home. Tell me what you want me to do.”
He folded his hands on the table and stared at his thumbs. “Can you make some phone calls? Work some sources? I don’t know, Faith. You’ve been a cop for twenty years. Call in some favors.”
“Fifteen years, and there’s no one to call. I killed two men today. Did you not see the way that cop was looking at me? They think I’m involved in this. No one is going to do me any favors.”
His jaw worked. He was used to his orders being followed. “Mom still has friends.”
“And they’re all probably shitting their pants right now worried that whatever she’s messed up in that got her kidnapped is going to blow back on them.”
He didn’t like that. His chin tucked into his chest. “All right. I guess there’s nothing you can do. We’re helpless. And so is Mom.”
“Amanda’s not going to take this lying down.”
Zeke snorted in disbelief. He had never liked Amanda. It was one thing for his baby sister to try to boss him around, but he wasn’t going to take it from someone who wasn’t blood. It was a strange reaction considering Zeke, Faith, and Jeremy had all grown up calling her Aunt Mandy, an endearment that Faith was fairly certain would get her fired if she used it today. Still, they had always thought that Amanda was part of their family. She was so close to Evelyn that at times she’d passed for a surrogate.
But she was still Faith’s boss, and she still kept her foot firmly planted on the back of Faith’s neck, just like she did with everyone else who worked for her. Or came into contact with her. Or smiled at her in the street.
Faith opened the nutrition bar and took a large bite. The only sound in the kitchen was her chewing. She wanted to close her eyes, but was afraid of the images she would see. Her mother tied up, mouth gagged. Jeremy’s red-rimmed eyes. The way those cops had looked at her today, like the stink of her involvement was too much to stomach.
Zeke cleared his throat. She thought that the hostilities had passed, but his posture indicated otherwise. If there was one constant in her life, it was Zeke’s enduring sense of moral superiority.
She tried to get it over with. “What?”
“That Victor guy seemed surprised to hear about Emma. Wanted to know how old she was, when she was born.”
She choked, trying to swallow. “Victor was here? In the house?”
“You weren’t around, Faith. Someone had to stay with your son until I got here.”
The string of curses that came to Faith’s mind was probably worse than anything Zeke had heard while stitching up soldiers in Ramstein.
He said, “Jeremy showed him her picture.”
Faith tried to swallow again. She felt like rusty nails were catching in her throat.
“Emma’s got his coloring.”
“This some kind of pattern with you? You like being an unwed mother?”
“Hey, didn’t they tell you when you got back that Ronald Reagan isn’t president anymore?”
“Jesus, Faith. Be serious for once. The guy has a right to know he’s a father.”
“Trust me, Victor’s not interested in being a father.” The man couldn’t even pick up his dirty socks off the floor or remember to leave the toilet seat down. God only knew what he’d forget with a baby.
Zeke repeated, “He has a right to know.”
“So, now he knows.”
“Whatever, Faith. As long as you’re happy.”
Any normal human being would’ve trounced off after dropping that bon mot, but Zeke Mitchell never walked away from a fight. He just sat there, staring at her, willing her to crank it back up. Faith reverted to old ways. If he was going to act like he was ten, then so was she. She ignored his presence, flipping through the Lands’ End catalogue, ripping out the page that showed the underwear Jeremy liked so she could order it for him later.
She flipped to the thermal shirts, and Zeke tilted back in his chair, staring out the window.
This tension was nothing new between the two of them. Faith’s selfishness was Zeke’s favorite one-note song. As usual, she accepted his disapproval as part of her penance. He had good reason to hate her. There was no moving past an eighteen-year-old boy finding out his fourteen-year-old sister was pregnant. Especially when Jeremy got older and Faith saw what it was like for teenage boys—not the walk in the park it had seemed when she was a teenage girl—Faith had felt guilty for what she’d done to her brother.
As hard as it was for her father, who was asked not to attend his men’s Bible study, and her mother, who was ostracized by most every woman in the neighborhood, Zeke had endured a special hell because of Faith’s unexpected pregnancy. He’d come home from school at least once a week with a bloody nose or black eye. When they asked him about it, he refused to talk. He sneered at Faith over the dinner table. He shot her looks of disgust if she walked by his room. He hated her for what she’d done to the family, but he would rain down hell on anyone who said a word against her.
Not that she could remember much from that time. Even now, it was one long, miserable blur of slobbering self-pity. It was hard to believe that so much had changed in twenty years, but Atlanta, or at least Faith’s part of it, had been more like a small town back then. People were still riding high on the Reagan/Bush wave of conservative values. Faith was a spoiled, selfish teenager when it happened. All she could focus on was how miserable her own life was. Her pregnancy had been a result of her first—and, at the time, she vowed last—sexual encounter. The father’s parents had immediately moved him out of state. There was no birthday party when she turned fifteen. Her friends abandoned her. Jeremy’s father never wrote or called. She had to go to doctors who probed and prodded her. She was tired all the time, and cranky, and she had hemorrhoids and back pain and everything ached every time she moved.
Faith’s father was away a lot, suddenly required to take business trips that had never before been part of his job description. The church had been the center of his life, but that center was abruptly ripped away when he was informed by the pastor that he no longer had the moral authority to be a deacon. Her mother had taken off work to be with her—whether forced or voluntary, Evelyn still would not say.
What Faith did remember was that she and her mother were both trapped at home every day, eating junk food that made them fat and watching soap operas that made them cry. For her part, Evelyn bore Faith’s shame like a hermit. She wouldn’t leave the house unless she had to. She woke every Monday morning at the crack of dawn to go to the grocery store across town so that she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. She refused to sit in the backyard with Faith even when the air conditioning broke and the living room turned into a kiln. The only exercise she took was a walk around the neighborhood, but that only happened late at night or early morning before the sun came up.
Mrs. Levy from next door left them cookies on the doorstep, but she never came in. Occasionally, someone would leave religious tracts in the mailbox that Evelyn burned in the fireplace. Their only visitor the entire time was Amanda, who didn’t have the option of dropping off her de facto sister-in-law’s social calendar. She would sit in the kitchen with Evelyn and talk in a low voice that Faith couldn’t hear. After Amanda left, Evelyn would go into the bathroom and cry.
It was no wonder that one day Zeke came home from school not with a busted lip but with a copy of his enlistment papers. He had five more months to go until graduation. His ROTC service and SAT scores had already lined up a full ride to Rutgers. But he took his GED and entered the pre-med program almost a full year ahead of schedule.
Jeremy was eight years old the first time he met his uncle Zeke. They had circled each other like cats until a game of basketball had smoothed things over. Still, Faith knew her son and she recognized his reticence toward a man he felt wasn’t treating his mother right. Unfortunately, he’d had a lot of opportunity over the years to hone this particular emotion.
Zeke dropped his chair back onto the floor, but still did not look at her.
Faith chewed the nutrition bar slowly, forcing herself to eat despite the nausea that gripped her stomach. She looked out the sliding door and saw the kitchen table, Zeke’s posture, straight as a board, reflected back. There was a glow of red beyond the glass. One of the detectives was smoking.
The phone rang, and they both jumped. Faith scrambled to answer the cordless just as the detectives came in from the backyard.
“No news,” Will told her. “I was just checking in.”
Faith waved away the cops. She took the phone with her into the living room, asking Will, “Where are you?”
“I just got home. There was a jackknifed trailer on 675. It took three hours to clear.”
“Why were you down there?”
“The D&C.”
Faith felt her stomach lurch.
Will didn’t bother with small talk. He told her about his prison visit, Boyd Spivey’s murder. Faith put her hand to her chest. When she was younger, Boyd had been a frequent guest at family dinners and backyard barbecues. He’d taught Jeremy how to ride a bike. And then he’d flirted so openly with Faith that Bill Mitchell suggested the man find an alternative way to spend his weekends. “Do they know who did it?”
“The security camera happened to be out in that one section. They’ve got the place in lockdown. All the cells are being tossed. The warden’s not hopeful they’ll find much of anything.”
“There was outside help.” A guard must have been bribed. No inmate would have the time it took to disable a camera mounted inside a prison corridor.
“They’re talking to the staff, but the lawyers are already on scene. These guys aren’t your everyday suspects.”
“Is Amanda all right?” Faith shook her head at her stupidity. “Of course she’s all right.”
“She got what she wanted. We get a back door into your mom’s case because of this.”
The GBI had jurisdiction over all death investigations inside state prisons. “I guess that’s some kind of positive news.”
Will was quiet. He didn’t ask her if she was doing okay, because he obviously knew the answer. Faith thought of the way he had held her hands that afternoon, making her pay attention as he coached her on what to say. His tenderness had been unexpected, and she’d had to bite the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood so that she wouldn’t break down and cry.
Will said, “Do you know that I’ve never seen Amanda go to the bathroom?” He stopped himself. “Not in person, I mean, but when we left the prison, she pulled over at the gas station and went inside. I’ve never seen her take a break like that. Have you?”
Faith was used to Will’s odd tangents. “I can’t say that I have.” Amanda had been at those family dinners and barbecues with Boyd Spivey. She had joked with him the way cops do—questioning his manhood, praising his progress on the force despite his lack of mental prowess. She wasn’t completely made of stone. Watching Boyd die would’ve taken something out of her.
Will said, “It was very disconcerting.”
“I can imagine.” Faith pictured Amanda at the gas station, going into the stall, shutting the door, and allowing herself two minutes to mourn a man who had once meant something to her. Then she’d probably checked her makeup, fixed her hair, and dropped the key back with the gas station attendant, asking him if they locked the bathroom door to keep someone from cleaning it.
Will said, “She probably sees urinating as a weakness.”
“Most people do.” Faith sat back on the couch. He had given her the best gift she could possibly receive right now: a moment of distraction. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being there today. For getting Sara to come. For telling me what to—” She remembered that the phone was tapped. “For telling me that everything was going to be okay.”
He cleared his throat. There was a short silence. He was awful at this sort of thing, almost as bad as she was. “Have you thought about what they were looking for?”
“That’s all I can think about.” She heard the refrigerator door open and close. Zeke was probably making a list of foods she shouldn’t stock in the house. “What’s next?”
He hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“Amanda and I are going down to Valdosta first thing.”
Valdosta State Prison. Ben Humphrey and Adam Hopkins. They were talking to everyone from her mother’s old team. Faith should’ve expected this, but the news of Boyd’s death had thrown her off. She should’ve known that Will was going to reopen the case.
Faith said, “I should keep this line open in case someone calls.”
“All right.”
She hung up the phone because there was nothing more to say. He still thought her mother was guilty. Even after working with Faith for almost two years, seeing that she did things the right way because that was the kind of cop her mother had raised her to be, Will still thought Evelyn Mitchell was dirty.
Zeke loomed in the doorway. “Who was that?”
“Work.” She stood up from the couch. “My partner.”
“The asshole who tried to put Mom in prison?”
“The very same.”
“I still don’t know how you can work with that douche.”
“I cleared it with Mom.”
“You didn’t clear it with me.”
“Should I have sent the request to Germany or Florida?” He stared at her.
Faith wasn’t going to explain herself to her brother. It was Amanda who had asked her to partner with Will, and Evelyn had told Faith to do what was best for her career. She didn’t have to point out that it was not a bad idea to get out of the Atlanta Police Department, where Evelyn’s forced retirement was considered either a coast or a crime depending on whom you asked. “Did Mom ever talk to you about the investigation?”
“Shouldn’t you ask your partner about that?”
“I’m asking you,” Faith snapped. Evelyn had refused to discuss the case against her, and not just because Faith could’ve been called as a potential witness. “If she said something, even something that was a little off but you didn’t think about it at the time …”
“Mom doesn’t shop talk with me. That’s your job.”
There was the same tinge of accusation in his voice, as if Faith had the power to find their mother and was simply choosing not to exercise it. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost nine, too late to be doing this. “I’m going to bed. I’ll send down Jeremy with some sheets. The couch is pretty comfortable.”
He nodded, and Faith saluted his dismissal. She was halfway up the stairs when he spoke. “He’s a good kid.” Faith turned around. “Jeremy. He’s a good kid.”
She smiled. “Yeah, he is.” She was almost to the top of the stairs when the other shoe dropped.
“Mom did a good job.”
Faith continued up the stairs, refusing to take the bait. She checked on the baby. Emma smacked her lips when Faith leaned down to kiss her forehead. She was in that deep, blissful sleep that only babies know. Faith checked the monitor to make sure it was on. She stroked her hand down Emma’s arm, letting the baby’s tiny fingers wrap around her one, before leaving.
In the next room, Jeremy’s bed was empty. Faith lingered at the door. She hadn’t changed his room, though it would’ve been nice to have an office. His posters were still on the wall—a Mustang GT with a bikini-clad blonde leaning over the hood, another with a half-naked brunette draped across a Camaro, a third and fourth showing concept cars with the ubiquitous big-bosomed model. Faith could still remember coming home from work one day to find his “Bridges of the Southeastern United States” posters replaced with these gems. Jeremy still thought that he’d cleverly tricked her into believing that puberty had brought on a sudden interest in automobiles.
“I’m in here.”
She found him in her room. Jeremy was lying on his stomach, head at the foot of her bed, feet in the air, iPhone in his hands. The sound on the TV was muted but the closed captioning was on.
She asked, “Everything okay?”
He tilted the iPhone in his hands, obviously playing a game. “Yeah.”
Faith remembered the fertile girlfriend. It was strange she wasn’t here. They were usually attached at the hip. “Where’s Kimberly?”
“We’re taking a break,” he said, and she almost sobbed with relief. “I heard you and Zeke yelling.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
He tilted the phone the other way.
She said, “I’ve been wanting one of those.” He got the hint and put the device in his pocket. “I know you heard the phone ring. It was Will. He’s working with Aunt Amanda.”
He stared at the TV. “That’s good.”
Faith started to untie his sneakers. In typical teenage boy logic, he’d thought keeping his feet raised off the bed would stop debris from raining down. “Tell me what happened when Zeke got here.”
“Dude was being an asshole.”
“Tell me like I’m your mother.”
She saw him color slightly in the glow of the TV. “Victor stayed with me. I told him he didn’t have to, but he said he wanted to, so …”
Faith untied his other sneaker. “You showed him Emma’s picture?”
He kept staring at the set. Jeremy had really liked Victor—probably more than Faith had, which was only part of the problem.
She told him, “It’s all right.”
“Zeke was kinda shitty—I mean rude—to him.”
“In what way?”
“Just kinda poking his chest out and pushing him around.”
Just being Zeke. “Nothing happened, right?”
“Nah, Victor’s not the type.”
Faith assumed as much. Victor Martinez worked in an office, read The Wall Street Journal, wore bespoke suits, and washed his hands sixteen times a day. He was about as passionate as a box of hair. It was Faith’s lot in life that she would only ever be able to fall in love with the kind of man who would wear sleeveless T-shirts and punch her brother in the face.
She slid off Jeremy’s shoe, frowning at the state of his sock. “Toes go on the inside, college boy.” She made a mental note to get him more socks when she ordered his underwear. His jeans were looking ratty, too. So much for the three hundred dollars left in her checking account. Thank God they had suspended her with pay. Faith was going to have to dip into savings just to keep her son from looking like a hobo.
Jeremy rolled over onto his back to face her. “I showed Victor Emma’s Easter picture.”
She swallowed. Victor was a smart man, but it didn’t take a genius to do the math. Even without that, Faith was blonde and fair. Emma had her father’s dark coloring and rich brown eyes. “The one where she’s wearing the bunny ears?”
He nodded.
“That’s a good one.” Faith could see the guilt well up in him like water spilling out of a glass. “It’s all right, Jay. He would’ve found out eventually.”
“Then why didn’t you tell him?”
Because Faith was just the right mixture of emotionally stunted and controlling, which was something Jeremy would find out when his future wife screamed it in his face. For now, Faith said, “It’s not something I’m going to talk to you about.”
He sat up to face her. “Grandma likes Will.”
Faith guessed he’d overheard her conversation with Zeke. “She told you that?”
He nodded. “She said he was an all right guy. That he treated her fairly, and that he had a hard job to do but he wasn’t mean about it.”
Faith didn’t know whether her mother had been assuaging Jeremy’s concerns or revealing her true opinion. Knowing her mother, it was probably a mixture of both. “Did she ever talk to you about why she retired?”
He tugged at a loose thread on the bedspread. “She said she was the boss, so it was her fault for not noticing what was going on.”
This was more than she’d ever told Faith. “Anything else?”
He shook his head. “I’m glad Aunt Amanda has Will helping her. She can’t do everything by herself. And he’s really smart.”
Faith stopped his hand and held it until Jeremy looked up at her. The television offered the only light in the room. It gave his face a green cast. “I know you’re worried about Grandma, and I know there’s nothing I can say to make this better for you.”
“Thanks.” He was being sincere. Jeremy had always appreciated honesty.
She pulled him up from the bed and wrapped her arms around him. His shoulders were thin. He was gangly, not yet the man he was going to be no matter the fact that he ate his weight in macaroni and cheese every day.
He let her hug him for longer than usual. She kissed his head. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“That’s what Grandmamma always says.”
“And she’s always right.” Faith squeezed him closer.
“Mom, you’re suffocating me.”
Reluctantly, she let him go. “Get some sheets for Uncle Zeke. He’s going to sleep on the couch.”
Jeremy slid his feet back into his sneakers. “Has he always been that way?”
Faith didn’t pretend to miss his meaning. “When we were little, every time he had to fart, he would run into my room and tear it loose.”
Jeremy started laughing.
“And then he said if I told on him, he’d gorge himself on beans and cheese and then hold me down and do it in my face the next time.”
That sent him over the edge. He bent over, holding his stomach as he brayed like a donkey. “Did he do it?”
Faith nodded, which made him laugh even harder. She let him enjoy her humiliation a little longer before nudging him on the shoulder. “Time to go to bed.”
He wiped tears from his eyes. “Man, I’ve got to do that to Horner.”
Horner was his dorm mate. Faith doubted anyone would notice one more noxious odor in their shared quarters.
“Get Zeke a pillow from the closet.” She pushed him out of the room. He was still laughing as he walked down the hallway. It was a small price to pay to see the worry momentarily absent from her son’s face.
Faith pulled back the comforter on her bed. Dirt from Jeremy’s sneakers was smeared into the sheets. She was too tired to change the bed. She was too tired to put on her nightgown or even brush her teeth. She slipped off her shoes and got into bed wearing the same GBI regs she’d put on at five o’clock that morning.
The house was quiet. Her body was so tense that she felt like she was lying on a board. Emma’s soft snores came through on the baby monitor. Faith stared up at the ceiling. She’d forgotten to turn off the television. Light flashed like a strobe from the action movie Jeremy had been watching.
Boyd Spivey was dead. It seemed impossible to grasp. He was a big guy, larger than life, the sort of cop you imagined going out in a blaze of glory. He was the exact opposite of his partner. Chuck Finn was dour, full of gloomy predictions and terrified that he would be shot in the line of duty. His defense during the investigation was the only one Faith had found credible during the whole mess. Chuck had claimed he was just following orders. To those who knew him, it seemed entirely plausible. Detective Finn was the quintessential follower, which was exactly the personality type that men like Boyd Spivey knew how to exploit.
But Faith didn’t want to think about Boyd or Chuck or any of her mother’s team right now. The investigation had eaten up six months of her life. Six months of sleepless nights. Six months of worrying that her mother was going to have a heart attack or end up in prison or both.
Faith made herself close her eyes. She wanted to think of good times with her mother, to recall some moment of kindness or summon the pleasure of her company. What she saw instead was the man in her mother’s bedroom, the black hole in the center of his forehead where Faith had shot him. His hands jerked up. The hostage stared at Faith in disbelief. His mouth gaped open. She saw the silver grill on his teeth, that his tongue was pierced with a matching silver ball.
Almeja, he had said.
Money.
Faith heard the floorboards creak in the hall. “Jeremy?” She pushed herself up on her elbow and turned on the bedside lamp.
He gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry, I know you’re tired.”
“Do you want me to take the sheets down to Zeke?”
“No, it’s not that.” He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket. “Something came up on my Facebook page.”
“I thought you stopped using that when I made you friend me.” Faith had never been the kind of parent to completely trust her kid. Her own parents had trusted her and look where that had gotten them. “What’s going on?”
His thumbs moved across the screen as he talked. “I got bored. I mean, not bored, but there was nothing to do, so …”
“It’s okay, baby.” She sat up in bed. “What is it?”
“Lots of people have been posting stuff. I guess they heard about Grandma on the news.”
“That’s nice,” Faith said, though she found it a bit ghoulish and, to borrow a word from her brother, dramatic. “What are they saying?”
“Mostly just that they’re thinking about me and stuff like that. But there’s this.” He turned the phone around and handed it to her.
Faith read the message aloud. “ ‘Hey, Jaybird, hope you’re okay. I’m sure the bad guys will get fingered. Just remember what your grandma used to say: keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.’ ” Faith checked the screen name. “GoodKnight92. Is that someone you went to Grady with?” Jeremy’s high school’s mascot was the knight, and he had been born in 1992.
He shrugged. “Never heard of him.”
Faith noted that the post had come in at 2:32 that afternoon, less than an hour after Evelyn had been abducted. She tried not to sound concerned when she asked, “When did he friend you?”
“Today, but a lot of people did. They kind of all came out of the woodwork.”
She gave him the phone. “What does his profile say?”
“Just that he lives in Atlanta and works in distribution.” He thumbed through the screen and showed it to Faith.
Her eyes were so tired she had trouble focusing. Faith held the phone close to her face so she could read the words. There was nothing more, not even a picture. Jeremy was GoodKnight’s only friend. Faith felt her cop’s intuition telling her something was wrong, but she handed back the phone as if it was nothing. “I’m sure it’s someone you went to Morningside with. You were teased so bad about Grandma calling you Jaybird that you begged me to let you switch to another school.”
“It’s weird, though—right?”
She wasn’t going to let him worry. “Most of your friends are weird.”
He wouldn’t be soothed. “How does he know that about Gran always saying that?”
“It’s a pretty common saying,” Faith answered. “Mouth shut, eyes open. I had a drill instructor at the academy who practically tattooed it on his forehead.” She forced a lightness into her tone. “Come on. It’s nothing. It’s probably a cop’s kid. You know the rule. Something bad happens and we’re all family.”
That finally seemed to mollify him. Jeremy had been dragged to his share of hospitals and strangers’ homes when a police officer had been wounded or killed. He put the phone back into his pocket.
She asked, “You sure you’re okay?”
He nodded.
“You can sleep in here if you want.”
“That’d be weird, Mom.”
“Wake me if you need me.” Faith lay back down, slipping her hand under the pillow. Her fingers touched something wet. Familiar.
Jeremy immediately picked up on the change. “What’s wrong?”
Faith’s breath was trapped in her chest. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Mom?”
“Tired,” she managed. “I’m just tired.” Her lungs ached for oxygen. She felt sweat break out all over her body. “Get the sheets before Zeke comes up here.”
“Are you—”
“It’s been a long day, Jeremy. I need to go to sleep.”
He was still reluctant. “All right.”
“Can you shut my door?” She wasn’t sure she could move even if she wanted to.
Jeremy gave her another worried look as he pulled the door closed. Faith heard the click of the latch, then the soft padding of his feet as he walked down the hall to the laundry room. It was only when she heard the third stair from the bottom squeak that Faith allowed herself to pull her hand out from under the pillow.
She opened her clenched fist. The sharp pain of fear receded and now all Faith could feel was blinding fury.
The message on Jeremy’s iPhone. His high school. His birth year.
Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.
Her son had lain in this bed, his feet inches from what she had found.
I’m sure the bad guys will get fingered.
The words only made sense when Faith held her mother’s severed finger in her hand.