Triptych (Will Trent 1)

Angie drove right past her house, her mind still trying to grasp what she had figured out while she talked to Ken. The fact that Michael Ormewood had pursued and married a teenage girl almost fifteen years ago wasn’t exactly evidence that he was involved in something now, but the coincidence was still there and Angie had been a cop too long to believe in coincidences.

She worked a scenario in her head as she made a U-turn at the end of her street, passing by her house again and heading down Piedmont. She took a left at the light, then another left onto Ponce de Leon, as she let the possibilities play out. Michael was still using the girls, pulling rank for freebies. Baby G had figured this out. Maybe Aleesha Monroe had been one of the girls Michael used and G hadn’t liked the cut in his income. He had killed Monroe, then killed Michael’s next-door neighbor as a lesson.

But why would Baby G kill Cynthia Barrett? Even if Michael did have a thing for teenage girls, that didn’t mean he was screwing his neighbor. And it wasn’t like that kind of lechery was unusual in a man of forty. All you had to do was look at a fashion magazine or go to the local cinema to find images of scantily clad girls hanging on to men who were old enough to be their fathers. Hell, you couldn’t walk through the local shopping mall without seeing a bunch of twelve-year-olds wearing T-shirts up to their nipples and jeans down to their hooches. And their mothers were usually wearing the same thing.

Angie passed City Hall East, then took a right into Poncey-Highlands. She slowed the car, checking to make sure Will’s motorcycle was out front before she parked on the street.

She got out of the car, not giving herself time to change her mind. She used her fist to knock on his door, then pushed the bell a couple of times for good measure.

He took his sweet time opening the door. She saw he had rolled down his sleeves but not buttoned the cuffs. He was still wearing his vest and that stupid little dog was scooped into his left hand like a bag of candy.

She demanded, “Why do you always take so long to answer the fucking door?”

“What’s wrong?”

She dropped her purse by the door and walked past him into the house. An audiobook was playing in the background and a pocket watch was laid out on the worktable where he had taken it apart to repair it. She looked at the tiny springs and gears he had stuck into a piece of cork, the various instruments he used to repair the winding mechanism. Angie had always been shocked by the fact that Will could figure out how a watch worked in about ten seconds but it took him half an hour to understand a page in a book.

Will put the dog on the floor. She trotted off into the kitchen. Angie heard her drinking some water.

“What’s wrong?” Will repeated, muting the stereo.

“You need to talk to Aleesha’s pimp.”

“Baby G?” Will asked. “He’s dead.”

“What?”

“He died this afternoon,” Will told her. “His cousins got sick of being pushed around.”

“Slow down,” she said, though she was the one with the racing heart. “Tell me what happened.”

He narrowed his eyes, but still told her. “The day that Michael and I talked to Baby G, there were two kids sitting on the hood of his BMW. G said they were his cousins.”

Angie sat on the couch. “Okay.”

“He chased them off with a bat. I guess they didn’t like it. They ambushed him, shot him three times.”

“Sit down,” Angie told him. She hated when he hovered over her. “Are you sure that’s what happened? The cousins shot him?”

“As sure as you can be when you’re dealing with these thugs.” Will sat beside her. “I talked to the arresting officer this afternoon. The kids will probably be tried as adults. One’s already flipped on the other. He’s got a record, a drug bust, an assault. This would be his third strike. He’s trying to talk his way out of a life sentence.”

“Are you sure they’re not involved in the case?”

“Neither one of them even knew Aleesha.”

Angie nodded, letting him know that she had heard him. She was too shocked to talk. Whatever Baby G knew about Michael Ormewood would be taken to his grave.

Will said, “You look bad.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I had a really hard day,” she told him, suddenly feeling everything catch up with her. “I had to go to the hospital.”

He sat up, took her hand. “Are you okay?”

“Not for me.” She lied because it was easier than dealing with his anger if he found out she’d gone to Piedmont this morning to put the fear of Jesus into Ormewood’s wife. “I took one of the girls in. It wasn’t anything bad. Women stuff.”

Will nodded, and she knew he wouldn’t press her.

Christ, what a mess. She had things to tell him but didn’t know where to begin. What could she say? That the night of Ken’s party, Michael was rough with her? That Michael was the kind of guy you couldn’t change your mind with? That with him, once things got started, there was no such thing as stopping?

She could still remember how much it hurt the next day, the bruises on her thighs, the feeling that something deep inside her had been torn. Shit, she’d been drunk out of her mind, but the marks on her skin were clear enough to tell the story.

“You okay?” Will tucked her hair behind her ear. The gentle gesture was something new. He never touched her like that, or maybe she never let him.

She said, “It was hard being there,” not telling him exactly where “there” was. “I kept thinking about my mom.”

Will stroked her hair and she wanted to close her eyes, put her head on his shoulder. Angie had taken him to see her mother a couple of times. Going to her mother’s grave would have been easier for Angie than seeing Deidre lying in that hospital bed, not knowing if somewhere behind those closed eyes she was screaming for help. Why did Angie love the one person she should hate the most?

“Come here,” Will said, pulling her close, putting his arms around her. He leaned back on the couch, taking her with him. “Just stay like this for a while.”

Angie wanted to cry, but she couldn’t let herself break down in front of Will. She pressed her face to his shoulder, smelling the detergent he used and the soy sauce that had dripped onto his tie. If she could stay like this, if she could just let him hold her, then maybe things would get better. Maybe they could make each other whole.

She turned her face toward him and kissed his neck. His skin reacted, and she kissed his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

He said, “We don’t have to…”

She cupped her hand around his neck and put her lips to his. Will was reluctant, but she teased the passion out of him, using her teeth and tongue until he started kissing her in earnest. His arms tensed as he gently lifted her up and laid her back on the couch. He kept his weight on his left elbow, his hand brushing her face as he kissed her neck.

The cuff of his shirt had slipped back, and Angie saw the angry pink scar on the inside of his wrist. She had taken him to the hospital that night, stayed by his bed as she waited for him to wake up and realize that it hadn’t worked, that he was still alive.