CHAPTER ELEVEN

Faith sat at her kitchen table. Except for the nightlight on the stove, the room was bathed in darkness. She’d gotten out a bottle of wine, a glass, the corkscrew, but they all sat unused on the table in front of her. All those years, she had wanted nothing more than to have Jeremy old enough to move out of the house so she could have some semblance of a life. Now that he was gone, she felt like she had a gaping hole in her chest where her heart used to be.

Drinking wouldn’t help. She always got maudlin with wine. Faith reached for the wineglass to put it away, but ended up knocking it over instead. She grabbed for it, but the rim bounced off the edge of the table, then shattered on the tile floor. Faith knelt down, picking up the sharp shards of the broken wineglass. She thought about turning on the lights the second before a sliver cut into her skin.

“Dammit,” she muttered, putting her finger in her mouth. She walked over to the sink, let cold water pour over the wound. She turned on the light above the sink, watching the blood pool and wash away, pool and wash away.

Her vision blurred as tears welled into her eyes. She felt foolish at the melodrama, but no one was around to ask her why she was crying over what amounted to a nasty paper cut, so Faith let the tears come. Besides, she had plenty to cry about. Tomorrow morning would mark the third day since Emma had been taken.

What was Abigail Campano going to do when she woke up tomorrow? Would sleep bring some kind of amnesia, so that at first light, she would have to remember all over again that her baby was gone? What would she do then? Was she going to think about all the breakfasts she had made, all the soccer practices and school dances and homework she had helped with? Or would her thoughts move to the future rather than the past: graduation, weddings, grandchildren?

Faith took a tissue and wiped her eyes. She realized how faulty her thinking had been. No mother could sleep when her child was in danger. Faith had spent many sleepless nights of her own, and she’d known exactly where Jeremy was—or where he was supposed to be. She had worried about car accidents and underage drinking and, God forbid, some little girl he was seeing who might be just as stupid as Faith had been at that age. It was bad enough to have a son fifteen years her junior, but a grandchild who was a mere sixteen years younger than that would have been crushing.

Faith laughed out loud at the thought, tossing the tissue into the trashcan. She should call her mother and commiserate, or at the very least apologize for the millionth time, but the person Faith really wanted right now was her father.

Bill Mitchell had died of a stroke seven years ago. The whole ordeal had been mercifully quick. He had clutched his arm and fallen down on the kitchen floor one morning, then died peacefully at the hospital two nights later. Faith’s brother had flown in from Germany. Jeremy had taken off the day from school. Bill Mitchell had always been a considerate man, and even in death he managed to be mindful of the needs of his family. They were all in the room with him when he passed. They’d all had time to say good-bye. Faith did not think a day went by when she didn’t think of her father—his kindness, his stability, his love.

In many ways, Bill Mitchell had handled his teenage daughter’s pregnancy better than his wife. He had adored Jeremy, had relished the role of grandfather. It wasn’t until much later that Faith found out the real reason Bill had stopped attending his weekly Bible study meetings and quit the bowling team. At the time, he’d said he wanted to be with his family more, to do some projects around the house. Now Faith knew that they had asked him to leave because of her. Faith’s sin had rubbed off on him. Her father, a man so devout that he had once considered the ministry as a vocation, had never stepped foot in a church again, not even for Jeremy’s baptism.

Faith wrapped a paper towel around her finger to catch the remaining trickles of blood. She turned on the lights and got the broom and dustpan from the pantry. She swept up the glass, then got out the stick vacuum to get the smaller pieces. She hadn’t been home in two days, so the kitchen was messier than she usually kept it. Faith ran the vacuum over the tiles, angling the bristles into corners.

She rinsed off the dishes in the sink and put them in the dishwasher. She scoured the sink and put the dish towels in the washing machine along with a load of clothes that she found in her bathroom hamper. She was cleaning out the dryer lint trap when she remembered the uncomfortable moment with Will Trent, when just for a moment, she had thought he was asking her out on a date.

Angie Polaski. For the first time since she’d met him, Faith felt sorry for the man. Talk about sloppy seconds. Was there such a thing as sloppy thousandths? Polaski’s conquests were legend in the squad room. There were even jokes to rookies about how they had to pass through those legs to become one of the finest cops in the city.

Will had to know about the rumors—or maybe he was just one of those people who couldn’t translate the skills they showed on the job to their personal lives. Standing in his office doorway tonight, watching him work on his computer, Faith had been struck by his sense of isolation. Will had literally jumped out of his chair when he’d seen her. With the bruises around his eyes, he’d looked like a startled raccoon.

That was another thing. How was he going to keep his job after getting into a fistfight with Paul Campano? Talk about police gossip. Hamish Patel gossiped like a woman. Faith had gotten a phone call from one of her fellow homicide detectives before she’d even left Georgia Tech.

Will didn’t seem to be worried about his job. Amanda was tough, but she could also be very fair. Or maybe tolerance was the new buzzword at the GBI now. Faith had called Will an asshole and a monkey in the space of two days and he still had not thrown her off the case. He had just given her a vial of gray powder and asked her to break the law.

Her cell phone started ringing, and Faith ran to the kitchen like an anxious schoolgirl, expecting to hear Jeremy’s voice.

She said, “Let me guess, you need pizza?”

“Faith?” She felt herself frowning, trying to place the voice. “It’s Victor Martinez.”

“Oh,” was all she could manage.

He said, “Were you expecting someone else?”

“I thought you’d be my son.”

“How is Jeremy doing?”

Faith didn’t recall having told him Jeremy’s name, but she said, “He’s fine.”

“I met him this afternoon. He’s in Glenn Hall. Fine young man.”

“I’m sorry,” she began. “Why were you talking to him?”

“I’ve spoken with all the students who lived near Adam Humphrey. I wanted to check on them, make sure they knew they had someone to turn to.”

“More ass covering?”

“Have I made myself seem that callous?”

Faith stumbled through an apology. “It’s been a long day for me.”

“Me, too.”

She closed her eyes, thinking about the way Victor Martinez’s eyes crinkled when he smiled—the real smile, not the “oh-shit-you’ve-got-a-son-at-my-school” smile.

“Faith?”

“I’m here.”

“There’s an Italian restaurant on Highland. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”

“Uh …” Faith shook her head, as if she needed to clear her ears. “Yes.”

“I know it’s late, but would you meet me there for dinner? Or maybe just a drink?”

Faith was sure she had misunderstood him. She actually stuttered. “S-sure. Okay.”

“Ten minutes.”

“All right.”

“I’ll see you then.”

Faith held the phone in her hand until the recorded message beseeched her to hang up. She dropped the phone and rushed around the house like a madwoman, looking for a clean pair of jeans, then deciding on a skirt, then realizing the skirt was not only too tight but had a guacamole stain from the last time she had eaten out with a man—if you counted Jeremy as a man. She settled on a strapless sundress and headed for the front door, only to turn around and change when she caught her reflection in the mirror, the pasty skin under her arm rolling up over the dress like the top of a Starbucks sour cream blueberry muffin.

Victor was sitting at the bar when she finally made it to the restaurant. He had a half-empty glass of what looked like scotch in front of him. His tie was pulled down, his jacket on the back of his chair. The hands on the clock over the bar were coming up on eleven. Yet again, Faith found herself wondering if this was even a date. Maybe he had just asked her out as a friend, or someone who was a peer, so they could talk about Gabriel Cohen. Maybe he just didn’t like to drink alone.

He stood up when he saw her, a tired, lazy smile on his lips. If this wasn’t a date, then Faith was the biggest fool on the planet; her knees went weak at the sight of him.

Victor rubbed his hand along her arm and she fought the urge to purr. He said, “I thought you’d changed your mind.”

“Just my clothes,” she admitted. “Four times.”

He took in her outfit, which was a variation on the same work clothes he’d seen her in since they’d met yesterday. “You look very … professional.”

Faith sat down, feeling exhaustion overcome desire. She was a bit old to be acting like a heartsick schoolgirl. The last time that’d happened, she’d ended up pregnant and alone. “Believe me, considering what I found in my closet, it could have been a lot worse.”

He pulled his bar stool close to hers and sat. “I like it without the gun and the badge.”

She felt naked without them, actually, but she chose not to share the information.

“What’ll you have to drink?”

Faith looked at the bottles of liquor stacked behind the bar. She knew she should have chosen something ladylike—a wine spritzer or a cosmopolitan, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “Gin and tonic.”

Victor motioned over the bartender and placed the order.

Faith asked, “What happened with Gabe?”

Victor turned toward her. She could see that the sparkle in his eyes was not as intense. “Are you asking in an official capacity?”

“Yes, I am.”

He rolled his palm along the outside of his glass of scotch. “Honesty isn’t really a problem with you, is it?”

“No,” Faith admitted. She had yet to meet a man who considered this an asset.

Victor said, “Can I ask you—when you called me today, you said you didn’t want to put Gabe into the system. What did you mean by that?”

She was silent as the bartender put a large gin and tonic in front of her. Faith allowed herself a sip before telling Victor, “I think the easiest way to sum it up is to say that the police are known for using sledgehammers to drive in thumbtacks. The department has a procedure for everything. With Gabe—I would’ve placed him in protective custody, either called an ambulance or taken him to Grady hospital myself. I would tell them what he told me: He admitted to trying to kill himself before. He admitted to me that he was thinking about doing it again. Suicide is the eighth-leading cause of death among young men. We take that very seriously.”

His eyes had not left hers the entire time she’d talked. Faith could not remember the last time a man had kept eye contact with her, really listened to what she had to say. Well—unless she was reading them their rights, but that was hardly flattering.

Victor said, “So, you take him to the hospital. What happens next?”

“He would have a twenty-four-hour observation period, then if he freaked out and refused treatment, which in this case would be completely understandable, he would have a right to go before a judge and petition for his release. Depending on how he presented, whether the judge thought he was being reasonable or not, whether the doctor who evaluated him actually had time to show up in court, he would be released or sent back for a more extensive evaluation. Either way, his name would go into a computer. His personal life would forever be recorded on a national database. That’s assuming he wasn’t under arrest for something.”

“I thought the public university system was convoluted,” Victor said.

“Why don’t you tell me about that?” she suggested. “Trust me, office politics are much more interesting than police procedure.”

He draped his arm over the back of her bar stool. She could feel the heat from his body through her thin cotton blouse. “Humor me,” he said, or at least that’s what Faith heard. Her hearing had faded out as soon as he’d touched her—maybe it was the angels playing harps or the exploding fireworks. Maybe her drink was too strong or her heart was too lonely. With some effort, she made herself lean forward, taking a healthy swig from her glass.

Victor stroked her back with his thumb, either a playful, flirting gesture or a nudge to keep her talking. “What would an arrest entail?”

She took a deep breath before listing it out, “Handcuffing him, driving him to the station, fingerprinting, photos, taking away his belt, his shoestrings, his personal belongings, putting him in a cell with the dregs of society.” She leaned her chin in her hand, thinking about Gabe Cohen being locked up with the drunks and the dealers. “That late in the day, he would probably spend the night in jail, then be taken over to the courthouse in the morning, where he would wait three or four hours for his bail hearing, then he would have to wait to be processed out, then wait some more for his trial.” Faith took a heftier sip of her drink, then leaned back into his arm. “And from then on, every time he got a speeding ticket or an employer did a background check or even if a crime happened in his neighborhood and his name came up, he would be subjected to the kind of scrutiny that would make a proctologist blush.”

Victor put his thumb to work again, and again she didn’t know if it was blanket encouragement or a more intimate gesture. “You did him a favor today.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It seems like I just pawned him off on you.”

“I’m glad you did. We had a student last year who overdosed on oxycodone. She lived off campus. No one found her for a while.”

Faith could all too easily imagine what the scene had looked like. “In my experience, the ones who talk about it don’t usually do it. The quiet ones, the ones who just close in on themselves, are the ones you have to worry about.”

“Gabe wasn’t being quiet.”

“No, but maybe he was getting there.” She took another drink so she wouldn’t fidget with her hands. “You never know.”

Victor told her, “Gabe’s father took him to a private hospital.”

“Good.”

He loosened his tie some more. “What else happened today? How is your case going?”

“I’ve already dominated the conversation too much,” she realized, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Tell me about your day.”

“My days are tedious, trust me. I solve squabbles between students, I rubber-stamp requests for kids to build lofts in their dorms, take endless meetings on the same, and if I’m lucky enough, I get to deal with spoiled little jerks like Tommy Albertson.”

“How fascinating. Tell me more.”

He smiled at her teasing, but asked a serious question. “Do you think you’ll be able to find that girl?”

“I think that …” She felt the darkness come back, the deepening pull of the abyss. “I think I like me better when I’m not wearing my badge, too.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Tell me about Jeremy.”

Faith wondered if that was really what this date was about—idle curiosity. “We’re just another Reagan-era statistic.”

“That sounds like a stock answer.”

“It is,” she conceded. There wasn’t really a way to describe what had happened. In the course of a month, she had gone from singing Duran Duran songs into a hairbrush in front of her bathroom mirror to worrying about hemorrhoids and gestational diabetes.

Victor gently pressed, “Tell me how it was.”

“I don’t know. It was how you would think. Horrible. I kept it from my parents as long as I could and then it was too late to do anything about it.”

“Are your parents religious?”

She gathered he was asking about abortion. “Very,” she answered. “But they’re also realists. My mom in particular wanted me to go to college, to have a family when I was ready, to have choices in my life. My dad had some qualms, but he would’ve supported any decision I made. Basically, they both left it up to me.”

“So what happened?”

Faith gave him the truth. “It was too late for a legal abortion, but there was always adoption. I hate to admit it, but I was selfish and rebellious. I didn’t think about how hard it would be or how it would impact everyone in my family. Everything my parents told me to do, I did the exact opposite, damn the consequences.” She laughed, saying, “Which might explain how I got pregnant in the first place.”

He was staring at her again with the same intensity that had sent a jolt through her the first time they had met. “You’re beautiful when you laugh.”

She blushed, which was just as well because her first inclination had been to throw herself at his feet. The effect he had on her was both exciting and humiliating, mostly because she had no idea how he felt in turn. Was he asking all of these questions out of idle curiosity? Or was he really interested in something deeper? She was far too inexperienced to figure this out on her own, and much too old to be bothering.

Faith had actually brought her purse with her, a concession to femininity when her earlier dressing debacle had ended with her wearing her extremely unsexy but moderately clean work outfit. She dug around in the bag to give herself something to do other than stare like a lost puppy into the fathomless, deep black of his beautiful eyes.

Kleenex, her wallet, her badge, an extra pair of hose, a pack of gum. She had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for as she rummaged around in the bag. The back of her hand brushed against what she thought was one of those annoying little perfume samples they give you at the mall, but turned out to be the plastic vial of gray powder that Will Trent had given her. She had thrown it into the bag at the last minute, not really thinking about it. Now, she felt nauseated as she held the vial in her hand, considered the implications behind the theft.

Victor asked, “Is something wrong?”

She forced out the question before logic had time to stop her. “Does Tech have someone who specializes in …” She didn’t know what to call it. “Dirt?”

He chuckled. “We’re ranked the seventh-best public university in the country. We’ve got a whole dirt department.”

“I need to ask you a favor,” she began, but didn’t know where to go from there.

“Anything you want.”

She realized that this was her last chance to change her mind, that she could always make up an excuse, change the subject, and be the kind of straight-arrow cop that her mother had taught her to be.

Faith was a mother too, though. How would she feel if some cop out there was playing it so close to the rulebook that Jeremy’s life was lost?

Victor motioned over the bartender. “Maybe another drink will help loosen your lips.”

Faith put her hand over her glass, surprised that it was empty. “I’m driving.”

He took her hand away, holding on to it. She could feel his other hand wrap around her waist. There was no mistaking his meaning now. “Tell me your favor.” He stroked her fingers, and she felt the warmth of his skin, the firm caress of his thumb. “I’ll make sure you get home safe.”