She wasn’t going to change. He knew that truth even when they finally got married, which had come about not through careful planning but because Will had bet Angie that she wouldn’t go through with it. Gambling aside, she was never going to see being with Will as anything other than a safe haven at best and a sacrifice at worst. There was a reason she never touched him unless she wanted something. There was a reason he didn’t try to call her when she disappeared.
He slid his thumb inside his sleeve and felt the beginnings of the long scar that traced up his arm. It was thicker than he remembered. The skin was still tender to the touch.
Will pulled away his hand. Angie had flinched the last time her fingers had accidentally brushed against his bare arm. Her reactions to him were always intense, never half measures. She liked to see how far she could push him. It was her favorite sport: how bad did she have to be before Will finally had enough and abandoned her just like everyone else had in her life?
They had teetered on that line many times, but somehow, she always managed to yank him back at the last second. Even now, Will felt the pull. He hadn’t seen Angie since her mother had died. Deidre Polaski was a junkie and a prostitute who’d overdosed herself into a vegetative coma when Angie was eleven. Her body had held on for twenty-seven years before finally giving up. Four months had passed since the funeral. Not much in the scheme of things—Angie had disappeared for a whole year once—but Will felt a warning in his spine that told him something was wrong. She was in trouble or she was hurt or she was upset. His body knew it just like it knew that it needed to breathe.
They had always been connected like this, even back when they were kids. Especially when they were kids. And if there was one thing Will knew about his wife, it was that she always came to him when things were bad. He didn’t know when she would show up, whether it would be tomorrow or next week, but he knew one day soon he’d come home from work and find Angie sitting on his couch, eating his pudding cups and making derogatory comments about his dog.
That was why Will had gone to Sara’s house last night. He was hiding from Angie. He was fighting the inevitable. And, if he was being honest, he had been aching to see Sara again. That she had bought his excuse about his house being upside down made him think that maybe she had wanted him there, too. As a kid, Will had trained himself to not want things he couldn’t have—the latest toys, shoes that actually fit, home-cooked meals that didn’t come out of a can. His power to deny himself disappeared where Sara Linton was concerned. He could not stop thinking about how her hand had felt on his shoulder when they’d stood in the street yesterday. Her thumb had stroked the side of his neck. She had lifted her heels off the ground so that they were the same height, and for just a second, he’d thought that she was going to kiss him.
“Christ,” Will groaned. He visualized the carnage at Evelyn Mitchell’s house, the blood and brain matter spattered across her kitchen and laundry room. And then he tried to blank his mind completely, because he was pretty sure thinking about sex and then picturing scenes of violence was how serial killers got their start.
The SUV jerked into reverse. Amanda rolled down the window. Will stood.
She told him, “That was a source at APD. Looks like our Type B-negative showed up by the Dumpster at Grady. Unconscious, barely breathing. They found his wallet in one of the trash bags. Marcellus Benedict Estevez. Unemployed. Lives with his grandmother.”
Will wondered why Sara hadn’t called him about this. Maybe she had already left work. Or maybe it wasn’t her job to keep him in the loop. “Did Estevez say anything?”
“He died half an hour ago. We’ll swing by the hospital after this.”
Will thought that was a pointless trip considering the guy was dead. “Did he have something on him?”
“No. Get in.”
“Why are we—”
“I don’t have all day, Will. Wipe the dirt out of your vagina and let’s get going.”
Will got into the SUV. “Did they confirm Estevez is blood type B-negative?”
She punched the gas. “Yes. And his fingerprints have been positively identified as one of the eight sets found in Evelyn’s house.”
He was missing something again. “That was a long conversation for just that little bit of information.”
For once, she was forthcoming. “We got a call-back on Chuck Finn. Why didn’t you tell me that you talked to his parole officer last night?”
“I suppose I was being petty.”
“Well, you certainly showed me. The parole officer did a spot check on Chuck this morning. He’s been gone for two days.”
“Wait a minute.” Will turned toward her. “Chuck’s PO told me last night that he was accounted for. He said that Chuck never missed a sign-in.”
“I’m sure the Tennessee parole office is as overburdened and understaffed as ours is. At least he had the balls to come clean this morning.” She gave him a meaningful look. “Chuck Finn signed himself out of treatment two days ago.”
“Treatment?”
“He was at Healing Winds. He’s on his third month of sobriety.”
Will felt a slight vindication.
“Healing Winds is also where Hironobu Kwon got treatment. They were there at the same time.”
Will had to be silent for a moment. “When did you find all of this out?”
“Just now, Will. Don’t pout. I know an old gal who works in records down at the drug court.” Apparently, Amanda knew an old gal everywhere. “Kwon was sent to Hope Hall for his first offense.” The drug court’s inpatient treatment facility. “The judge wasn’t inclined to give him a second chance on the state’s dime, so the mother stepped in and said she’d secured him a place at Healing Winds.”
“Where he met Chuck Finn.”
“It’s a large facility, but you’re right. It would be quite a stretch to say that these two particular men just happened to be there at the same time.”
Will was shocked to hear her concede the point, but he kept going. “If Chuck told Hironobu Kwon that Evelyn had money sitting around …” He smiled. Finally, something was making sense. “What about the other guy? The Type B-negative who showed up at Grady? Does he have any connection to Chuck or Hironobu?”
“Marcellus Estevez has never been arrested. He was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Two years ago, he moved to Carrollton to attend West Georgia College. He dropped out last quarter. He hasn’t had contact with his family since.”
Another kid in his mid-twenties who had gotten mixed up with some very bad people. “You seem to know an awful lot about Estevez.”
“APD has already spoken with his parents. They filed a missing persons report as soon as the school informed them that their son wasn’t attending class.”
“Since when is Atlanta sharing information with us?”
“Let’s just say I reached out to some old friends.”
Will was beginning to form an image of a network of steely old ballbusters who either owed Amanda a favor or had worked with Evelyn at some point in their long careers.
She said, “The point is that we don’t know how Type B, Marcellus Estevez, ties into this. Except for Hironobu Kwon and Chuck Finn, there’s no hint of a connection between anyone else in the house. They all went to different high schools. Not all of them were in college, but the ones who were didn’t go together. They didn’t meet in prison. None of them share a gang affiliation or a social club. They all have different backgrounds, different ethnicities.”