“Don’t.”
“She has a right to—”
“No.” Will grabbed her arm. He let go just as quickly. “She knows everything.”
Faith examined his face. He wondered what she saw. The bruises wouldn’t show for a few hours. The side of Will’s head probably had a print from Paul Vickery’s shoe. The bridge of his nose would be red. His split lip would show blood. The scratch mark. The bite mark. What would she make of those?
She said, “We need to get to the field office.”
Will wanted to go back to Atlanta. He had to get his dog from Sara’s apartment. His toothbrush, the clothes he’d left in the drawers she’d cleared out for him. She shouldn’t have to see any reminders of Will. It was the least he could do.
“It’s over,” he told Faith. “With Sara. It’s over.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Will had never been so sure of anything in his life.
Faith closed the first aid kit. She clicked the plastic lock. “Well, that’s her loss.”
“She has good reason.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Faith insisted. “No matter what you did, Sara’s not the woman I thought she was if she can’t forgive you.”
Will held his tongue. She would find out the truth soon enough.
Faith said, “Get in the front seat. We’re going to be late.”
“For what?”
“Branson.” Faith’s tone made Will think maybe she’d said this before. “I saw her at the hospital. She’s ready to talk.”
“Why now?”
“Somebody tried to take out two of her detectives—three if you count Lena. Eric Haigh was tortured and stabbed to death. Jared Long was almost murdered. Hell yes, she’s going to talk to us. She’s getting her files. We’re supposed to meet at the field office.” Faith looked at her watch. “Ten minutes ago.”
“What files?”
“The ones from the shooting gallery.” Faith motioned for Will to move. “Denise Branson has been lying to us all along. She’s finally going to show us her files from the raid.”
Will stared into the bathroom mirror at the GBI field office, assessing his damaged face. Life had left him a wound expert. He knew the difference between a cut that scarred into a thin white line and a cut that left nothing but a faint memory. By his estimation, the only lasting reminder of the night would come from the redneck’s knife. The tiny slice below Will’s eye probably should’ve had at least one stitch. But that had to be done at a hospital, and Will was never going to another hospital ever again.
At least the nausea had passed. His head was aching at a lower frequency. The trembling had stopped, which he took as a good sign that he wasn’t having a stroke or a seizure. Swallowing was still an issue. He found this out the hard way when Faith made him drink two bottles of Coke. Then she’d stood over him while he choked down a pack of cheese crackers. Will had gotten irritated at her for bossing him around, which probably meant that whatever she was doing was working.
He looked at his neck, lightly touching the reddish bruises that were starting to come up. If Will had one talent, it was surviving. He’d made it through the night. The redneck hadn’t done too much damage. Tony Dell hadn’t killed him, though he was obviously capable. Paul Vickery had gotten in many, many good blows, but Faith had probably cracked his ankle, which was a nasty enough payback.
So, Will had survived. He had a right to feel good about that.
But then there was Sara.
When Will was a kid, he’d imagined all the slings and arrows thrown his way were easily portable. He didn’t have to keep them inside. He could shove them all into boxes. After a while, there were a lot of boxes. There was nowhere to put them. They floated over his bed at the children’s home. They followed him to school. They chased after him like bullies when he ran down the street.
As Will got older, storage became an issue. Or maybe the metaphor evolved alongside him. The floating boxes turned into pieces of paper. The papers went into files. The files were put in filing cabinets. The cabinets were locked so that he never had to see them again.
When Sara came into his life, Will forgot about the file room. He forgot about the endless pieces of paper. The rusted cabinet locks that wouldn’t turn sometimes.
That was over now.
Standing in the bathroom, Will put Sara Linton into a file and closed the drawer.
“Will?” Faith knocked lightly at the door. “Are you okay?”
He turned on the faucet to let her know he was alive. The water was icy cold. He wanted to splash some onto his face, but the liquid would probably roll right off. Faith had used so much antibiotic ointment that his skin glistened.
Will opened the door. Faith was standing there with a bottle of water in each hand.
His voice sounded like an old man’s. “Scared I’d die on the toilet?”
“That’s not funny.”
“It can happen,” he croaked. “I read about it in the paper.”
She handed him the water. “You weren’t sick again?”
“No.” He regretted the loss of her previous silence, but he wasn’t cruel enough to tell her. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Drink all of that water.” She led him down the hall. “I sent a cruiser for a knock-check on Cayla Martin’s house. Took them forever to find the place. It’s not on MapQuest, Google, anything.”
Will nodded. He would’ve never found the road without Tony’s help.
“Anyway, the point is they eventually found it. Martin was home. She said Tony Dell could go to hell for all she cared. And then she asked if there was a reward for helping to find him.”
Will nodded again. That sounded like Cayla Martin.
“The cruiser’s gonna swing by a few more times before they go off shift to make sure Dell doesn’t show up. Meanwhile, I caught up Amanda on everything that happened tonight. We’re trying to Skype her into the conference room, but there are some technical difficulties.”
Will assumed the problems weren’t on this end.
“Lonnie Gray is here. The Macon chief of police.”
“Amanda called him?”
“Denise Branson did. My hat’s off to her for manning up to the boss. They’re outside talking while we try to get the feed up. And by talking, I mean Denise is mostly listening to him screaming. Gray’s so far up her ass he’s probably in her gallbladder by now.”
Will took a sip of water. “She lose her job?”
“If she’s lucky, that’s all she’ll lose. Gray had no idea Branson was lying to us. She could be looking at obstruction charges or worse.” Faith glanced over her shoulder. “I haven’t told Gray what Vickery did to you yet.”
Will shook his head. “Don’t. I’ll settle it with Vickery.”
“You’ll have to beat Amanda to it. She’s ready to scalp him.”
Will kept shaking his head. “I wish you hadn’t told her.”
“Yeah, well, I wish I hadn’t lost my virginity during a midnight screening of Die Hard. Get over it.” Faith pushed open the door.
The conference room was eerily similar to just about every other conference room at every other GBI field office in the state. Fake oak paneling covered the walls. A long table split the center of the room. Worn pleather office chairs were crammed so tight that two large men couldn’t comfortably sit by each other. A small plasma television was on top of a rolling metal cart. Wires hung down to the various electronics on the shelf below. The screen showed what was obviously Amanda’s personal Skype photo. The image had to be from the 1980s. She was dressed for tennis. A wooden racket rested on her shoulder. A Jane Fonda headband poofed out her hair. She was smiling, which was probably the most disconcerting part.