Fractured (Will Trent 2)

He said, "Yeah, they're pretty annoying. The commercials."

"Whatever." She held up his jacket. "You left this on my car."

He found his digital recorder, relieved to have it back. "These are great," he told Faith, knowing she had probably found it curious. "You wouldn't believe how bad my handwriting is."

She just stared at him again, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he tucked the recorder into his pocket. Had she figured it out? If she listened to the recorder, all she would hear is Will's voice cataloguing information about the case so he could later dictate it into his computer and generate a report. Angie had said to watch out for Faith Mitchell. Had he already given himself away?

Faith's lips pressed together in a tight line. "I need to ask you something. You don't have to answer it, but I wish you would."

Will stared straight ahead. He could see teachers going into the main building with large thermoses of coffee and stacks of papers in their hands. "Sure."

"Do you think she's dead?"

His mouth opened, but more from relief than anything else. "Honestly, I don't know." He took his time putting his jacket on the backseat with the newspaper, trying to get some of his composure back. "I take it you didn't find anything earth-shattering last night in the dorm?" He had told her to call him if there were any leads.

She hesitated, as if she had to switch gears, then answered, "Not really. Nothing of interest in Adam's things except the pot, which I think we can agree is not very interesting?" Will nodded, and she continued, "We talked to every student in both halls. No one really knew Adam except for Gabe Cohen and Tommy Albertson, and considering the positive impression I made on both of them, they were reluctant to give any more information. I sent Ivan Sambor to talk to them—you know who he is?" Will shook his head. "Big Polish guy, doesn't take shit from anybody. Frankly, he scares the bejeezus out of me. He got the same story I got: they barely knew Adam, Gabe was crashing at his place because Tommy is an asshole. Even Tommy agreed with this, by the way."

She took out her spiral-bound notebook and flipped through the pages. "Most of the freshmen in Adam's dorm are in the same classes, but we can always go to each class and look for new faces. I reached all of his teachers but one, and all of them said the same thing: first week of class/nobody knows anybody/sorry he's dead/I don't even remember what he looks like. The one I couldn't get in touch with—Jerry Favre—is supposed to call me back today."

She flipped to another page. "Nuts and bolts: The security camera shows Adam leaving the dorm around seven forty-five yesterday morning. He's got an eight-o'clock class; the teacher verified he was there. Adam gave some kind of report the whole period, so there was no sneaking out. The card reader, which doesn't mean jack, by the way—you're not the only genius who figured out the handicap door trick—has him returning to the dorm at ten-eighteen a.m., which jibes with his class ending at ten. We have what's probably the back of his head on the camera. He changed clothes, then left again at exactly ten thirty-two. That's the last we have of him, unless you're holding something back."

Will felt surprise register on his face. "What would I hold back?"

"I don't know, Will. The last time I saw you, you were rushing to the copy center to go over Kayla Alexander's Prius. That's a pretty key piece of evidence, but we've been talking for almost ten minutes about everything but the weather and you haven't told me one damn thing."

"I'm sorry," Will answered, knowing that wasn't much of a consolation. "You're right. I should have told you. I'm not used to—"

"Working with a partner," she finished, her tone telling him that the excuse was getting old.

He could not blame her for being annoyed. She was working just as hard on this case as he was, and leaving her out was unfair. In as much detail as he could muster, Will told her about the Copy Right's security camera footage, the rope and duct tape Charlie had found. "According to the video, the dark car showed up at the parking garage at exactly eleven-fifteen yesterday morning. Two passengers got out—Adam and a stranger. Kayla Alexander's Prius drove up at twelve twenty-one. We can assume Emma was taken out of the trunk and transferred to the dark car. He was gone a little over a minute later." He summed up, "So, the last time we know Adam's whereabouts is eleven-fifteen a.m. in the parking deck of the Copy Right building."

Faith had been writing the times down in her notebook, but she stopped on this last point, looking up at Will. "Why there?"

"It's cheap, it's convenient to the house. There's no full-time attendant."

Faith provided, "The nosey neighbor told on them last year when they parked in the driveway. Using the garage was a good way to get around her."

"That was my guess," Will agreed. "We're doing background checks on all the Copy Right employees. The two girls came in for the evening shift while we were there—Frieda and Sandy. They really don't go into the garage. It's dark and they don't think it's particularly safe, which is probably true, especially considering the lack of any real security."

"What about the construction workers?"

"Amanda is going to spend today tracking them down. It's not just a matter of calling up the city and asking them for a list. Apparently, the workers just show up in the morning and they're told which fire to put out first. There are all kinds of subcontractors who use subcontractors, and before you know it, you've got day laborers and undocumented workers. ..it's a mess."

"Has anyone seen the car there before?"

"The parking deck is in the back of the building. Unless the Copy Right people happen to be looking at the security camera, they have no idea who's coming and going, and of course the tape is reused, so we don't have old footage to compare." He turned to face her. "I want to talk about our suspect. I think we need to get a clearer picture in our heads about who he is."

"You mean like a profile? A loner between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five who lives with his mother?"

Will allowed a smile. "This was well coordinated. He brought the knife, the rope, the duct tape to the house. Someone let him in."

"So, you think this was really a kidnapping and Kayla and Adam got in the way?"

"It feels more personal than that," Will said. "I know I'm contradicting myself, but the scene was sloppy. Whoever killed Kayla wasn't in control. He felt real fury toward her."

"Maybe she said the wrong thing and it got out of hand."

"You have to have a conversation with someone to say the wrong thing."

"What about the second person on the Copy Right tape? Do you think that's the killer? It would make more sense if one of our victims knew him."

"Maybe," Will allowed, but that didn't feel quite right. "Adam left the dorm at ten thirty-two a.m. Somewhere between ten thirty-two and eleven-fifteen, he picked up both a car and a passenger. We've got a gap in the timeline where he's unaccounted for. That's. .." Will tried to wrap his brain around the math, but he was too tired and his head was hurting so badly that his stomach ached. "I need more coffee. How many minutes is that?"