Fractured (Will Trent 2)

"Forty-five," Faith supplied. "We need to know where and how he got the car. No one we spoke with in the dorms last night either let Adam borrow a car or knows where he got access to one. I guess we could look at the security card reader again, cross-reference it with the times Adam was in the dorm?"

"It's something to consider." He nodded at her notebook.

"Let's come up with some questions. Number one, where is Adam's student ID?"

She started writing. "He might've left it in the car."

"What if the killer took it as a souvenir?"

"Or to use it to get into the dorm," she countered. "We need to alert campus security to cancel his card."

"See if there's a way they can leave it active but flag it somehow so we know if someone tries to use it."

"Good point." She kept writing. "Question number two, where did he get the car?"

"Campus is the obvious answer. Check to see if there were any stolen cars. Does Gabe Cohen or Tommy Albertson have a car?"

"Freshmen can't really park on campus, and it's impossible to find a safe place in the city to park, so if they have a vehicle, they tend to leave it at home. That being said, Gabe has a black VW with yellow stripes that his father drives. Albertson has a green Mazda Miata that he left back in Connecticut."

"Neither one of those fits the car on the video."

She stopped writing. "Adam could have a car we don't know about."

"He'd be keeping it from his parents, too. They said he didn't have one." Will thought about something Leo Donnelly had said yesterday. "Maybe he went off campus to get a car. Public transportation is in and out of there all day. Let's put a team on tracking down security cameras from buses. What's the nearest MARTA station?" he asked, referring to the city's bus and train system.

Faith closed her eyes, obviously thinking. "Midtown Station," she finally remembered.

Will stared out the window at the school parking lot. More faculty had shown up, and a few students were straggling in. "It'd take about twenty minutes to drive here, though. Then another twenty, twenty-five minutes to the parking garage."

"There's our forty-five minutes. Adam drove here to pick up Emma, then took her to the parking garage."

"The arm in the videotape," he said. "It was pretty small. I suppose it could have been a girl's hand that reached out and caught the keys."

"I've been assuming that Kayla drove Emma from school to the house in her Prius, and that Adam somehow met them there."

"Me, too," Will admitted. "Do you think it's possible Adam drove Emma to the garage, and then they both walked to the house?"

"The killer could've walked from Tech."

"He knew Adam's car was in the garage." Will turned to Faith. "If he knew he was going to take Emma Campano from the scene, he would have to have a place to keep her. Somewhere quiet and isolated—not in the city because the neighbors would hear. Not a dorm room."

"If he didn't dump the body."

"Why take her just to dump her?" Will asked, and the question was one that gave him pause. This was why he had wanted to talk through a profile of the suspect. "The killer came to the house with gloves, rope, tape and a knife. He had a plan. He went there to subdue someone. He left Adam's and Kayla's bodies at the house. If the goal was to kill Emma, he would have killed her there. If the goal was to abduct her, to take her away so that he could spend more time with her, then he accomplished his goal."

"And APD gave him plenty of time to do it," Faith added ruefully.

Will felt a sense of urgency building up at the thought. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since the girl had been taken. If her abductor had removed her from the scene so that he could take his time with her, then maybe Emma Campano was still alive. The question was, how much longer did she have?

He checked his cell phone, noting the time. "I've got to be at the Campanos at nine."

"Do you think they know something?"

"No," he admitted. "But I'm going to have to ask Paul for a DNA sample."

Faith's uneasy expression probably mimicked his own, but Amanda had told him to do it and Will really didn't have a choice.

He said, "Let's talk to the teachers, get a general sense of the girls. If they think there's anyone else in particular we need to talk to—a student or janitor—I'll leave you to do that. If nothing turns up, then I want you to go sit in on the autopsies. Adam Humphrey's parents will be in later this evening. We need to have some answers for them."

Her expression changed, and Will thought he was getting to know her well enough to see when Faith Mitchell was upset about something. He knew that her son was the same age as Adam Humphrey. Watching the eighteen-year-old being dissected would be horrible for anyone, but a parent would bring a special kind of pain to the experience.

He tried to be gentle, asking, "Do you think you can handle it?"

She riled, taking his question the wrong way. "You know, I got up this morning and I told myself that I was going to work with you and keep up a good attitude, and then you have the nerve to question me—a detective on the God damn homicide squad who steps over dead bodies almost every day of her life—about whether or not I can handle one of the basic requirements of my job." She put her hand on the door latch. "And while we're at it, asshole, where the hell do you get off driving a Porsche and investigating my mother for stealing?"

"I just—"

"Let's just do our jobs, okay?" She threw open the door. "You think you can do me that professional courtesy?"

"Yes, of course, but—" She turned to face him, and Will felt his mouth moving but there were no words coming out. "I apologize," he finally said, not knowing exactly what he was apologizing for, but knowing it couldn't possibly make things worse.

She exhaled slowly, staring at the coffee cup in her hand, obviously trying to decide how to respond.

Will said, "Please don't throw hot coffee at me."

She looked up at him, incredulous, but his request had worked to break the tension. Will took the time to give himself some credit. This wasn't the first time he'd had to extricate himself from a tenuous situation with an angry woman.

Faith shook her head. "You are the strangest man I have ever met in my life."

She got out before he could respond. Will took it as a positive sign that she didn't slam the door.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE HEAT OUTSIDE was so intense that Faith couldn't finish her coffee. She dropped the cup in the waste can before heading toward the administration building. She had spent more time in schools over the past two days than she had her entire junior year.

"Ma'am," one of the hired security men said, tipping his hat to her.

Faith nodded, feeling sorry for the man. She could still remember what it felt like to wear her full uniform in the Atlanta heat. It was like rolling yourself in honey and then walking into a kiln. Because this was a school zone, no weapons were allowed on campus unless they had a police badge accompanying them. Despite the baton on one side of the man's belt and a can of mace on the other, he looked about as harmless as a flea. Fortunately, only a cop would notice these things. The rentals were here to give the parents and kids a feeling of safety. In a crazy, mixed-up world where rich white girls could be killed or kidnapped, the show of force was pretty much expected.