Will remembered Tom had been trying to fix a lawnmower when they'd found him at the charity shop. "Does he mostly work in the store?"
"Lord, no, he hates working in the store."
"So, what does he do?"
She picked up a sponge and wiped the counter. "A little bit of everything."
"Like what?"
She stopped wiping. "If a woman needs legal help, he tracks down one of the lawyers, or if one of the kids makes a spill, he grabs a mop." She smiled proudly. "I told you, he's a good boy."
"Sounds like it," Will agreed. "What else does he do?"
"Oh, this and that." She paused, thinking it through. "He coordinates the donations. He's very good on the phone. If it sounds like he's talking to someone who might give a bit more, he'll drive the truck over to pick up their stuff, and nine times out of ten, he comes back with a nice check in addition. I think he likes getting out and talking to people. All he does at the airport is stare at blips on a screen all day. Would you like some iced water? Lemonade?"
"No, thank you," he answered. "What about Jacquelyn Zabel? Have you heard her name before?"
"That strikes a bell, but I'm not sure why. It's a very unusual name."
"How about Pauline McGhee? Or maybe Pauline Seward?"
She smiled, putting her hand over her mouth. "No."
Will forced himself to slow things down. The first rule of interviewing was to be calm, because it was hard to spot whether or not someone else was tense when you were tense yourself. Judith had gone still when he'd asked the last question, so he repeated it. "Pauline McGhee or Pauline Seward?"
She shook her head. "No."
"How often does Tom pick up donations?"
Judith's voice took on a falsely cheerful tone. "You know, I'm not sure. I've got my calendar in here somewhere. I usually mark the dates." She opened one of the kitchen drawers and started to rummage around. She was visibly nervous, and he knew she had opened the drawer to give herself something to do other than look him in the eye. She chattered on, telling Will, "Tom is so good about giving his time. He's very involved in the youth group at his church. The whole family volunteers at the soup kitchen once a month."
Will didn't let her get sidetracked. "Does he go out alone to pick up donations?"
"Unless there's a couch or something large." She closed the drawer and opened another. "I have no idea where my calendar is. All those years I wanted my husband home with me, and now he drives me crazy putting things up where they don't belong."
Will glanced out the front window, wondering what was keeping Faith. "The children are here?"
She opened another drawer. "Napping in the back."
"Tom said he would meet me here. Why didn't he tell us he was at the crime scene where your car hit Anna Lindsey?"
"What?" She looked momentarily confused, but told him, "Well, I called Tom to come see Henry. I thought he was having a heart attack, that Tom would want to be there, that . . ."
"But Tom didn't tell us he was there," Will repeated. "And neither did you."
"It didn't . . ." She waved her hand, dismissing it. "He wanted to be with his father."
"These women who were abducted were cautious women. They wouldn't open the door to just anybody. It would have to be someone they trust. Somebody they knew was coming."
She stopped looking for the calendar. Her face showed her thoughts as clear as a picture: She knew something was horribly wrong.
Will asked, "Where is your son, Mrs. Coldfield?"
Tears welled into her eyes. "Why are you asking all these questions about Tom?"
"He was supposed to meet me here."
Her voice was almost a whisper. "He said he had to go home. I don't understand . . ."
Will realized something then—something Faith had said on the phone. She'd already talked to Tom Coldfield. The reason she wasn't here yet was because Tom had sent her to the wrong house.
Will made his voice deadly serious. "Mrs. Coldfield, I need to know where Tom is right now."
She put her hand to her mouth, tears spilling from her eyes.
There was a phone on the wall. Will snatched the receiver off the hook. He dialed in Faith's cell phone number, but his finger didn't make it to the last digit. There was a searing pain in his back, the worst muscle spasm he'd ever had in his life. Will put his hand to his shoulder, his fingers feeling for a knot, but all he felt was cold, sharp metal. He looked down to find the bloody tip of what had to be a very large knife sticking out of his chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FAITH SAT OUTSIDE THOMAS COLDFIELD'S HOUSE , HER CELL phone to her ear as she listened to Will's cell ring. He'd said he was two minutes away, but it was looking more like ten. The call went to voicemail. Will was probably lost, driving around in circles, looking for her car, because he was too pigheaded to ask for help. If she was in a better mood, she'd go out and look for him, but she was scared of what she'd say to her partner if she had him alone.
Every time she thought about Will lying to her, going to talk to Jake Berman behind her back, she had to squeeze the steering wheel to keep from punching a hole into the dashboard of the car. They couldn't go on like this—not with Faith being a liability. If he thought she couldn't handle herself in the field, then there was no reason for them to be together anymore. She could put up with a lot of Will's crazy shit, but she had to have his trust or this would never work out. It wasn't as if Will didn't have his own liabilities. For instance, not knowing the difference between something as freaking simple as left and right.
Faith checked the time again. She would give Will another five minutes before going into the house.
The doctor hadn't given her good news, though Faith had foolishly been expecting it. From the minute she'd made the appointment with Delia Wallace, her health had improved dramatically. She hadn't woken up in a cold sweat this morning. Her blood sugar was high, but not off the chart. Her mind felt sharp, focused. And then Delia Wallace had sent it all crashing down.
Sara had ordered some kind of test at the hospital that showed Faith's blood sugar pattern over the last few weeks. The results had not been good. Faith was going to have to meet with a dietician. Dr. Wallace had told her she was going to have to plan out every meal, every snack and every single moment of her life until she died— which she might do prematurely anyway, because her blood sugar was fluctuating so wildly that Dr. Wallace had told Faith the best thing she could do was take a couple of weeks off from work and focus on educating herself about the care and maintenance of a diabetic.
She loved when doctors said things like that, as if taking two weeks off from work was something that could be achieved with the snap of a finger. Maybe Faith could go to Hawaii or Fiji. She could call up Oprah Winfrey and ask for the name of her personal chef.
Fortunately, there was some good news with the bad. Faith had seen her baby. Well, not really seen it—the child was little more than a speck right now, but she had listened to his heartbeat, watched the ultrasound and seen the gentle up and down of the tiny blob inside her, and even though Delia Wallace had insisted that it wasn't quite time for such things, Faith would have sworn that she saw a tiny little hand.