Undone (Will Trent 3)

Will chuckled at this last bit.

"We're waiting on Rockdale County to fax over the crime-scene reports and whatever witness statements they have. Other than that, that's all I've got." Faith closed her notebook. "So, what did you do this morning?"

He nodded toward the cup holder. "I got you some hot chocolate."

Faith stared longingly at the take-away cup, dying to lick off the foamy puddle of whipped cream that had squirted through the slit in the lid. She had lied to Sara Linton about her usual diet. The last time Faith had jogged anywhere, she had been rushing from her car to the front door of the Zesto's, hoping to get a milkshake before they closed. Breakfast was usually a Pop-Tart and a Diet Coke, but this morning, she had eaten a boiled egg and a piece of dry toast, the kind of thing they served at the county jail. The sugar in the hot chocolate would probably kill her, though, and she said, "No thanks," before she could change her mind.

"You know," he began, "if you're trying to lose weight, I could—"

"Will," she interrupted. "I've been on a diet for the last eighteen years of my life. If I want to let myself go, I'm going to let myself go."

"I didn't say—"

"Besides, I've only gained five pounds," she lied. "It's not like I need a Goodyear sign strapped to my ass."

Will glanced at the purse in her lap, his mouth drawn. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

"If you're not going to . . ." He let his words trail off, taking the cup out of the holder. Faith turned on the radio so she wouldn't have to listen to him swallow. The volume was low, and she heard the dull murmur of news coming from the speakers. She pressed the buttons until she found something soft and innocuous that wouldn't get on her nerves.

She felt the seatbelt tense as Will slowed for a pedestrian darting across the road. Faith had no excuse for snapping at him, and he wasn't a stupid man—he obviously knew that something was wrong but, as usual, didn't want to push. She felt a pang of guilt for keeping secrets, but then again, Will wasn't exactly known for sharing. It had only been by accident that she'd stumbled onto the realization that he was dyslexic. At least, she thought it was dyslexia. There was certainly some reading issue there, but God knew what it was. Faith had figured out from watching him that Will could make out some words on his own, but it took forever, and he was wrong more often than not about the content. When she'd tried to ask him about the diagnosis, Will had shut her down so tersely that Faith had felt her face flush in embarrassment for asking the question in the first place.

She hated to admit that he was right to hide the problem. Faith had worked on the force long enough to know that most police officers were barely out of the primordial ooze. They tended to be a conservative lot, and they didn't exactly embrace the unusual. Maybe dealing with the most freakish elements society had to offer made them reject any semblance of abnormality in their own ranks. Whatever the reason, Faith knew that if word of Will's dyslexia got out, there wasn't a cop around who would let it pass. He already had trouble fitting in. This would make him a permanent outsider.

Will took a right on Moreland Avenue, and she wondered how he knew which way to go. Directions were an issue for him, left and right an insurmountable problem. Despite this, he was incredibly adept at hiding his disability. For those times when his shockingly good memory wouldn't suffice, he had a digital recorder that he kept in his pocket the way that most cops kept a notebook. Sometimes he slipped up and made a mistake, but most of the time, Faith found herself in awe of his accomplishments. He had gotten through school and then college with no one recognizing there was a problem. Growing up in an orphanage hadn't exactly given him a good start in life. His success was a lot to be proud of, which made the fact that he had to hide his disability even more heartbreaking.

They were in the middle of Little Five Points, an eclectic part of the city that blended seedy bars and fashionably overpriced boutiques, when Will finally spoke. "You okay?"

"I was just thinking," Faith began, though she didn't share her actual thoughts. "What do we know about the victims?"

"Both of them have dark hair. Both are fit, attractive. We think the woman at the hospital's name is Anna. The license says the one hanging in the tree is Jacquelyn Zabel."

"What about fingerprints?"

"There was a latent on the pocketknife that belongs to Zabel. The print on her license came back unknown—it doesn't match Zabel and there's no match on the computer."

"We should compare it to Anna's fingerprints and see if she's the one who made it. If Anna touched the license, then that puts both Anna and Jacquelyn Zabel in the cave together."

"Good idea."

Faith felt like she was pulling teeth, though she couldn't blame Will for being gun-shy, considering how mercurial her mood was lately. "Have you found out anything else about Zabel?"

He shrugged, as if there wasn't much, but reeled off, "Jacquelyn Zabel is thirty-eight, unmarried, no children. The Florida Law Enforcement Bureau is giving us an assist—they're going to go through her place, do a phone dump, try to find next of kin other than the mother who was living in Atlanta. The sheriff says no one in town knows Zabel that well. She has one sort-of friend next door who's been watering her plants but doesn't know anything about her. There's been an ongoing feud with some of the other neighbors about people leaving out their trashcans on the street. The sheriff said Zabel's made a few nuisance complaints in the past six months over loud noises from pool parties and cars being parked in front of her house."

Faith bit back the urge to ask him why he hadn't told her all this in the first place. "Has the sheriff ever met Zabel?"

"He said he took a couple of the nuisance calls himself and didn't find her to be a very pleasant person."

"You mean, he said she was a bitch," Faith clarified. For a cop, Will had a surprisingly clean vocabulary. "What did she do for a living?"

"Real estate. The market's been off, but she looks pretty set— house on the beach, BMW, a boat at the marina."

"Wasn't the battery you found in the cave for marine use?"

"I had the sheriff check her boat. The battery's still there."

"It was worth a shot," Faith mumbled, thinking they were still grasping at straws.

"Charlie says the battery we found in the cave is at least ten years old. All the numbers are worn off. He's going to see if he can get some more information on it, but chances are it's a wash. You can pick up those things at yard sales." Will shrugged, adding, "The only thing it tells us is that the guy knew what he was going to do with it."

"Why is that?"

"A car battery is designed to deliver a short, large current like you need to crank your car. Once the car starts, the alternator takes over, and the battery isn't needed again until the next time you need to start the engine. A marine battery like from the cave is what's called a deep cycle battery, meaning it gives a steady current over a long period of time. You'd ruin a car battery pretty quickly if you tried to use it the way our guy was. The marine battery would last for hours."