Fractured (Will Trent 2)

He pocketed the phone as he walked toward Amanda's car, rattling off orders for Faith. "Call in a couple of units to help you canvass the dorms. Maybe somebody else knows more about Adam. Search his things, see if there are any more pictures of Emma. Take out anything his parents don't need to see. Go back at that Gabe kid if you think it'll work. If not, give him the night to stew. We can both hit him tomorrow."

She tried to process all of this. "What time do we start?"

"Is seven too early?"

"No."

"Meet me at Westfield Academy. I want to screen the staff."

"Wasn't Leo—"

"He's not on this anymore." Will opened the car door. "I'll see you in the morning."

Faith opened her mouth to ask him what the hell happened to Leo, but Amanda started to pull away before his butt hit the seat. Faith saw that Will's jacket was still on the Mini's hood and waved for them to stop, but Amanda either didn't see her or didn't care. Faith supposed the good news was that she was still on the case. The bad news was that she was definitely still at the scut-work level. She was probably going to be here until three in the morning.

Leo was the first casualty. Faith would be damned if she'd be the second.

She checked Will's jacket and found a handful of latex gloves. She also found something far more curious: a digital voice recorder. Faith turned over the small device in her hand. All the letters had been rubbed off from use. The screen said there were sixteen messages. She guessed the red button was record, so the one beside it would have to be play.

Her cell phone rang and Faith almost dropped the recorder. She recognized Jeremy's number and looked up at the second floor of Glenn Hall. She counted five spaces over and found him standing at his window, watching her.

He said, "Isn't it illegal to go through somebody's pockets like that?"

She put the recorder back in the jacket. "I'm getting really tired of dealing with smart-aleck kids who know their legal rights."

He snorted.

"Answer a question for me: if you didn't have your key card, how would you get into the building?"

"Press the handicap button."

Faith shook her head at the situation. So much for tracking people who'd been in and out of the dorm. "So, do you need pizza money or your laundry done or are you just making sure I don't come up there and embarrass you in front of your friends?"

"I heard about that kid," he said. "It's all over the dorm."

"What are they saying?"

"Not a lot," Jeremy admitted. "Nobody really knew him, you know? He was just some guy you passed in the hall on the way to the toilet."

She heard the sympathy in his voice, and Faith felt a tinge of pride that her son showed such humanity. She had met the alternative and it wasn't pretty.

He asked, "Do you think you'll find that girl?"

"I hope so."

"I can keep my ear to the ground."

"No, you will not," she countered. "You're going to school to learn how to be an engineer, not a cop."

"There's nothing wrong with being a cop."

Faith could think of several things, but she didn't want him to know. "I should go, honey. I'm going to be here late."

He didn't hang up. "If you wanted to do some laundry..."

She smiled. "I'll call you before I leave."

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah?"

He was silent, and she wondered if he was going to tell her that he loved her. That was how they trapped you, after all. You walked the floor with them and cleaned up after them and took all the grief and the noise and the swarthy Latin men who looked at you as if you had horns, and then they hooked you back in with those three simple words.

Not this time, though. Jeremy asked, "Who was that guy you were with? He didn't look like a cop."

Her son was right about that. She picked up Will Trent's jacket to lock it back in the car. "Nobody. Just a guy who works for your aunt Amanda."

CHAPTER FOUR

THE COPY RIGHT COPY CENTER was on the street-level floor of an ancient three-story building. It was one of the few structures on Peachtree Street yet to be torn down and replaced by a skyscraper, and the entire building had an air of resignation, as if at any moment it expected to be razed. The high-volume copy machines, made visible through the plate-glass windows by harsh, fluorescent lights, gave the place a dystopic, science fiction feel. Blade Runner meets Kinko's.

"Shit," Amanda hissed as the uneven road scraped against the bottom of her car. The asphalt was patched with heavy metal plates that overlapped like thick Band-Aids. Pylons and signs blocked off an entire lane on Peachtree, but the construction workers were long gone.

She sat up, gripping the wheel as the car bounced onto the ramp leading to the parking deck. Amanda pulled up behind a crime-scene van and put the car in park.

"Seven hours," she said. That was how long Emma had been missing.

Will got out of the car, adjusting his vest, wishing that he had his jacket even though the promise of night had done nothing to alleviate the sweltering heat. One of the employees of the CopyRight had seen the abduction alert on television. He had spotted the car while taking a cigarette break and made the call.

Will followed Amanda down the gently sloping ramp that led to the parking garage behind the building. The space was small by Atlanta standards, maybe fifty feet wide and just as deep. Overhead, the ceiling was low, the concrete beams hanging down less than a foot from the top of Will's head. The second-story ramp was blocked off with concrete barriers that looked as if they had been there a while. A service road ran off the back, and he saw that it was connected to the adjacent buildings. Three cars were in a blocked-off area, he assumed for employee parking. The floodlights were yellow to help keep mosquitoes at bay. Will put his hand to his face, feeling the scar there, then made himself stop the nervous habit.

There was no gate for the parking lot, no booth with an attendant. Whoever owned the lot relied on the honesty of strangers. The honor box by the entrance had numbers corresponding to the spaces. Visitors were expected to fold four single dollar bills into a tight wad and shove them through tiny slits by way of payment. A slim, sharp piece of metal hung on a wire to help people cram in the money.

Amanda's heels clicked across the concrete as they walked toward Kayla Alexander's white Prius. A team had already surrounded the car. Cameras flashed, evidence was sifted, plastic bags were filled. The techs were all suited up, sweating from the unrelenting heat. The humidity made Will feel like he was breathing through a wet piece of cotton.

Amanda looked up, surveying the area. Will followed her gaze. There was one lone security camera up on the wall. The angle was more for catching people going into the building than watching cars parked in the lot.

"What have we got?" Amanda asked.

She spoke softly, but this was her team and they had all been waiting for her to ask the question.

Charlie Reed stepped forward, two plastic evidence bags in his hands. "Rope and duct tape," he explained, indicating each. "We found these in the trunk."

Will took the bag of rope, which appeared to be unused clothesline; there was a plastic tie around the neatly folded line. One side was faintly red where the fibers had wicked up blood. "Was it coiled up like this when you found it?"