She was silent as he downshifted, making a wide turn onto Peachtree Street. Traffic was light for this time of day, which meant that there was a line of cars backed up a quarter of a mile. Will used the oncoming lane again, finally jumping onto the narrow shoulder to avoid a dump truck. Faith's hands slammed palm-down on the dashboard as he banked into a turn, sliding to a stop in front of Beeston Place Apartments.
The car rocked as Will got out. He ran to the entrance. He could hear the sirens of distant cruisers, an ambulance. The doorman was behind a tall counter reading a newspaper. He was plump, his uniform too small for his large gut.
Will pulled out his ID and flashed it in the man's face. "I need to get into the penthouse."
The doorman gave one of the surliest smiles in Will's recent memory. "You do, do you?" He spoke with an accent, Russian or Ukranian.
Faith joined them, out of breath. She squinted at his nametag. "Mr. Simkov, this is important. We think a child might be in jeopardy."
He gave a helpless shrug. "No one gets in unless they're on the list, and since you're not on the—"
Will felt something inside of him break. Before he knew what was happening, his hand shot out, grabbing Simkov by the back of his neck and slamming his head into the marble counter top.
"Will!" Faith gasped, her voice going up in surprise.
"Give me the key," Will demanded, pressing harder against the man's skull.
"Pocket," Simkov managed, his mouth pressed so hard against the counter that his teeth scraped the surface.
Will jerked him closer, checked his front pockets and found a ring of keys. He tossed them to Faith, then walked into the open elevator car, fists clenched at his sides.
Faith pressed the button for the penthouse. "Christ," she whispered. "You've proven your point, all right? You can be a tough guy. Now back off it."
"He watches the door." Will was so furious he could barely form the words. "He knows everything going on in this building. He's got the keys to every apartment, including Anna's."
She seemed to get that he wasn't putting on a show. "All right. You're right. Let's just take things down a notch, okay? We don't know what we're going to find up there."
Will could feel the tendons in his arms vibrating. The elevator doors opened onto the penthouse floor. He stalked into the hall and waited for Faith to find the correctly labeled key to open the door. She found it, and he put his hand over hers, taking over.
Will didn't go gently. He took out his gun and slammed the door open.
"Ugh," Faith gagged, holding her hand to her nose.
Will smelled it, too—that sickly sweet mixture of burning plastic and cotton candy.
"Crack," she said, waving her hand in front of her face.
"Look." He pointed to the foyer just inside the door. Curled pieces of confetti had dried in a yellow liquid on the floor. Taser dots.
There was a long hallway in front of him, two doors on one side, both closed. Ahead, he could see the living room. Couches were overturned, their stuffing torn out. Trash was everywhere. A large man lay facedown in the hall, his arms splayed, head turned to the wall. His shirtsleeve was rolled up. A tourniquet was tied around his bicep. The needle from the syringe was still jutting out of his arm.
Will pointed his Glock in front of him as he went down the hall. Faith took out her own weapon, but he signaled for her to wait. Will could already smell the body decaying, but he checked for a pulse just in case. There was a gun by the man's foot, a Smith and Wesson revolver with a custom gold grip that made it look like the kind of thing you used to find in the toy section of a dime store. Will kicked the gun away, even though the man was never going to reach for it.
Will motioned in Faith, then went back to the first closed door in the hallway. He waited until she was ready, then threw open the door. It was a closet, all the coats piled onto the floor in a heap. Will kicked the pile with his foot, checking under the coats before going to the next closed door. He waited for Faith again, then kicked open the door.
They both gagged at the stench. The toilet was overflowing. Feces was smeared on the dark onyx walls. A dark brown liquid had puddled in the sink. Will felt his skin crawl. The smell of the room reminded him of the cave where Anna and Jackie had been kept.
He pulled the door closed and indicated that Faith should follow him down the hall toward the main room. They had to step over broken glass, needles, condoms. A white T-shirt was wadded into a ball, blood smeared on the outside. A sneaker was upended beside it, the laces still tied.
The kitchen was off the living room. Will checked behind the island, making sure no one was there, while Faith picked her way around upended furniture and more broken glass.
She said, "Clear."
"Me too." Will opened the cabinet under the sink, looking for the trashcan. The bag was white, just like the ones they had found inside the women. The can was empty, the only clean thing in the whole apartment.
"Coke," Faith guessed, indicating a couple of white bricks on the coffee table. Pipes were scattered around. Needles, rolled-up bills, razor blades. "What a mess. I can't believe people were living in this."
Will was never surprised by the depths to which a junkie would stoop, or by the destruction that followed them. He had seen nice suburban houses turned into dilapidated meth dens over the course of a few days. "Where'd everybody go?"
She shrugged. "A dead body wouldn't scare them enough to leave this much coke behind." She glanced back at the dead man. "Maybe he's supposed to be security."
They searched the rest of the place together. Three bedrooms, one of them a nursery decorated in shades of blue, and two more bathrooms. All of the toilets and sinks were backed up. The sheets were balled up on the beds, the mattresses were overturned. Clothes were ripped out of the closets. All the televisions were gone. There was a keyboard and mouse on the desk in one of the spare rooms, but no computer. Obviously, whoever had taken over the place had stripped it bare.
Will holstered his gun as he stood at the end of the hallway. Two paramedics and a uniformed patrolman were waiting at the front door. He motioned them in.
"Dead as a doornail," one of the paramedics pronounced, doing only a cursory check for vitals on the junkie by the coat closet.
The cop said, "My partner's talking to the doorman." He used a measured tone, directing his words toward Will. "Looks like he fell. Hit his eye."
Faith shoved her gun into its holster. "Those floors are pretty slippery downstairs."
The cop nodded his complicity. "Looked slippery."
Will returned to the nursery. He riffled through the baby clothes on tiny hangers in the closet. He went back to the crib and lifted the mattress.
"Be careful," Faith warned. "There could be needles."
"He doesn't take the kids," he said, more to himself than Faith. "He takes the women, but he leaves the kids."
"Pauline wasn't abducted from her house."
"Pauline is different." He reminded her, "Olivia was taken in her backyard. Anna was taken at her front door. You saw the Taser dots. I bet Jackie Zabel was taken at her mother's house."
"Maybe a friend has Anna's baby."
Will stopped searching, surprised by the desperation in Faith's tone. "Anna doesn't have friends. None of these women have friends. That's why he takes them."