Criminal (Will Trent 6)

“No,” he said. “I want the real story.”

“Oh, you know.” She blew out a puff of air. Her story was so boring. You couldn’t turn on the television without seeing some iteration of the same. Zanna hadn’t been tossed out on the streets. She hadn’t been abused. Her parents were divorced, but they were good people. The problem was Zanna. She’d started smoking weed so a boy would think she was cool. She’d started taking pills because she was bored. She’d started smoking meth to lose weight. And then it was too late to do anything else but hang on by her fingernails until the next hit.

Her mom let her live at home until she figured out Zanna was smoking more than Marlboros. Her dad let her live in his basement until his new wife found the blackened pieces of tinfoil that smelled like marshmallows. Then, they put her up in an apartment. Then they got all tough love, and two failed stints in rehab later, Zanna was out on the street, earning her fix between her legs.

“Tell me the truth,” the man said. “How did you get here?”

Zanna tried to swallow. Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t tell if it was from withdrawal or from the scary feeling she was getting off this guy. She told him what she knew he wanted to hear. “My daddy hurt me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” She sniffed and looked down at the floor. She used the back of her hand to wipe away fake tears. Her jaw could’ve come unhinged like a boa constrictor’s, so bored was Zanna with spinning this story. “I didn’t have anywhere to go. I was sleeping on the streets. Sex is something I like. And I’m good at it, so …”

He kneeled down to look at her. Even on his knees, he was taller than her. Zanna glanced at him, then quickly looked away. It was shame this guy was looking for. Older generation. They lapped it up. Zanna could give him plenty of shame. Valerie Bertinelli. Meredith Baxter. Tori Spelling. Zanna had seen the look in every single Lifetime movie she’d ever watched.

She said, “I miss him. That’s the sad part.” She looked back up at the man, blinked her eyes a few times. “I miss my daddy.”

He took her hand, gently sandwiching it between both of his. Zanna couldn’t see anything but her wrist. His touch was light on her skin, but she felt like he’d trapped her. Her breath stuttered in her chest. Panic was a natural instinct she thought she’d learned to control. There was something about this man that set off what little warning system she had left.

He said, “Suzanna, don’t lie to me.”

Bile boiled up into her mouth. “That’s not my name.” She tried to pull away. His fingers clamped around her wrist. “I didn’t tell you my name.”

“Didn’t you?”

She was going to kill that fucking pimp. He’d sell his mother for an extra twenty. “What did Terry tell you? My name is Trixie.”

“No,” the man insisted. “You told me your name is Suzanna.”

She felt pain rush up her arm. She looked down. He held both her wrists in one hand. He leaned into her legs, trapping her against the chair. “Don’t fight,” he said, his free hand wrapping around her neck. The tips of his fingers touched in the back. “I want to help you, Suzanna. To save you.”

“I-I-I’m not—” She couldn’t speak. She was choking. She couldn’t breathe. Panic jerked through her body like a live wire. Her eyes rolled upward. She felt a stream of urine dribble down her leg.

“Just relax, sister.” He hovered above her. His eyes going back and forth as if he did not want to miss a second of her fear. A smile creased his lips. “The Lord will guide my hand.”

six

Present Day

MONDAY

Sara walked through the Grady Hospital emergency room, trying not to get pulled away on cases. Even if she tattooed “off duty” on her forehead, the nurses wouldn’t leave her alone. She shouldn’t blame them. The hospital was notoriously understaffed and overburdened. There had not been a time in Grady’s 120-year history when supply was able to keep up with demand. Working here was tantamount to signing away your life, which had been just what Sara needed when she’d taken the job. She hadn’t really had a life back then. She was newly widowed, living in a different city, starting over from scratch. Throwing herself into a demanding job was the only way she’d been able to cope.

It was amazing how quickly her needs had changed in the last two weeks.

Or the last hour, for that matter. Sara had no idea what was going on between Will and Amanda. Their relationship had always puzzled her, but the exchange in the hallway before the stairs collapsed had been downright bizarre. Even after the fall, when it was clear that Amanda had been badly injured, Will seemed more intent on questioning the woman than helping her. Sara still felt shocked by his tone of voice. She’d never heard such coldness from him before. It was like he was another person, a stranger she did not want to know.

At least Sara had finally figured out the root of their conversation, though it was through no brilliant deduction of her own. The television over the nurses’ station was always tuned to the news. Closed captioning scrolled mindlessly day and night. The missing girl from Georgia Tech had made the jump to the national news, courtesy of CNN, whose world headquarters was just down the street from the university. The video of Amanda leading the press conference played on an endless loop, reporters flashing up statistics and the sort of non-information required to fill twenty-four-hour programming.

The latest speculation held that perhaps Ashleigh Renee Snyder had faked her own abduction. Students claiming to be close friends of the missing girl had come forward, giving details about her life, Ashleigh’s fears that her grades were slipping. Maybe she really was hiding somewhere. The theory was not completely without foundation. Georgia had a short history of women pretending to be kidnapped, the most famous being the so-called Runaway Bride, a silly woman who’d wasted several days of police time hiding from her own fiancé.

“Sara.” A nurse rushed up with a lab report. “I need you to—”

“Sorry. I’m off duty.”

“What the hell are you doing back here?” The woman didn’t wait around for an answer.

Sara checked the board to see if Will had been assigned a room. Generally, a case as mundane as sutures would take hours to get to, but before Sara dealt with Amanda, she’d made certain the admitting nurse hadn’t abandoned Will to the waiting room. He’d been assigned one of the curtains in the back. Sara felt her spine stiffen when she saw Bert Krakauer’s name instead of her own adjacent to Will’s.

She headed toward the back, a startling sense of ownership quickening her pace. The curtain was open. Will was sitting up in bed. A drape was around his foot. Worst of all, Krakauer had a pair of pick-ups in his hand.

“No-no-no,” she said, jogging toward the two men. “What are you doing?”

Krakauer indicated the needle holder. “They didn’t let you play with these in medical school?”

Sara gave him a tight smile. “Thanks. I’ll take over from here.” He took the hint, returning the instrument to the tray and taking his leave. Sara gave Will a sharp look as she closed the curtain. “You were going to let Krakauer sew you up?”