Faith pressed, "You've never been to church? Really?"

Will shut his mouth, thinking he had foolishly opened the wrong door.

Faith slowed the car as they pulled up to a light. She mumbled to herself, "I don't think I've ever met anyone who's never been to church."

"Can we change the subject?"

"It's just strange."

Will stared blankly out the window, thinking he had been called strange at one point or another by every person he had ever met. The light changed, and the Mini rolled ahead. City Hall East was a five-minute drive from the park. This morning, it seemed to be taking hours.

Faith said, "Even if Sara's right, she's doing it again, trying to talk her way onto this case."

"She's a coroner. At least, she used to be. She helped Anna at the hospital. It's normal for her to want to know what's going on."

"This is a murder investigation, not Big Brother," Faith countered. "Does she know where you live?"

Will hadn't considered the possibility, but he wasn't as paranoid as Faith. "I don't see how."

"Maybe she followed you."

Will laughed, then stopped when he realized she was being serious. "She lives right down the street. She was just running in the park with her dogs."

"It's just all very convenient."

He shook his head, exasperated. He wasn't going to let Faith use Sara Linton as a stand-in for her problems with him. "We've gotta get past this, Faith. I know you're ticked at me about yesterday, but going into this interview, we've got to be working as a team."

She accelerated as the light changed. "We are a team."

For a team, they didn't talk much the rest of the short trip. It wasn't until they were at City Hall East, riding up on the elevator, that Faith finally spoke.

"Your tie is crooked."

Will's hand went to the knot. Sara Linton probably thought he was a slob. "Better?"

Faith was scrolling through her BlackBerry, even though there was no signal in the elevator. She glanced up and gave him a quick nod before turning her attention back to the device.

He was trying to think of something to say when the doors opened. Amanda was waiting outside the elevator, checking her email just like Faith, except on an iPhone. Will felt like an idiot to be empty-handed, the same way he'd felt when Sara Linton had shown up with her big, impressive dogs and he'd scooped Betty into his palm like a ball of yarn.

Amanda used her finger to scroll through emails, her voice taking on a distracted quality as she led them down the hall toward her office. "Catch me up."

Faith ran down the list of things they didn't know, which were innumerable, and the things they did know, which were practically nonexistent. All the while, Amanda read her emails, walking and pretending to listen to Faith tell her what Amanda had surely already read in their report.

Will wasn't a fan of multi-tasking, mostly because it was more like half-tasking. It was humanly impossible to give two different things your complete attention. As if to prove this, Amanda looked up from her screen, asking, "What?"

Faith repeated, "Linton thinks there might be a biblical angle."

Amanda stopped walking. She held the iPhone at her side, giving them her full attention. "Why?"

"Eleventh rib, eleven trash bags, Easter at the end of the week."

Amanda used her iPhone again, talking as she punched the touch screen. "We've got Legal in for Joelyn Zabel. She's brought her lawyer, so I asked for three of ours. We've got to play this as if the world is listening because I'm sure whatever we say to her will be spun back out to the public at large." She looked at them both meaningfully. "I will do most of the talking. You ask your questions, but don't extemporize."

"We're not going to get anything out of Zabel," Will said. "Just with the lawyers, we've already got four people in the room. Add us and that's seven, with her at the center of it all, knowing she's going to have the cameras rolling as soon as she leaves the building. We need to take this down a notch."

Amanda looked back at her iPhone. "And your brilliant idea for doing this is?"

Will couldn't think of one. All he could say was, "Maybe we could talk to her after her television interviews, catch her at her hotel without all the press and attention."

Amanda did not do him the courtesy of looking up. "Maybe I'll win the lottery. Maybe you'll get a promotion. Do you see where these maybes are taking us?"

Frustration and lack of sleep caught up with him. "Then why are we here? Why aren't you taking Zabel and letting us get on with doing something more useful than giving her source material for her book deal?"

Amanda finally looked up from her iPhone. She handed the device to Will. "I'm at a loss, Agent Trent. Why don't you read this for me and let me know what you think?"

He felt his vision go sharp, and there was an odd, high-pitched ringing in his ears. The iPhone hung in the air like a well-baited hook. There were words on the screen. That much he could tell. Will tasted blood from biting the edge of his tongue. He reached to take the device, but Faith snatched it from Amanda before he could.

Her voice was terse as she read, "'Eleven generally represents judgment or betrayal in the Bible. . . .There were eleven commandments originally, but the Catholics combined the first two and the Protestants combined the last two in order to make it an even ten.'" She scrolled down. "'The Philistines gave Delilah eleven hundred pieces of silver to bring down Samson. Jesus told eleven parables on the way to his death in Jerusalem.' " She paused again, scrolling. "'The Catholic Church accepts eleven books as canonical in the apocrypha.'"

Faith handed back the device to Amanda. "We could do this all day. Flight 11 on 9/11 hit one of the Twin Towers, which themselves looked like the number 11. Apollo 11 made the first moon landing. World War I ended on eleven-eleven. You should get an eleventh circle in hell for what you just did to Will."

Amanda smiled, tucking the iPhone into her pocket, continuing down the hall. "Remember the rules, children."

Will didn't know if she meant the rules that put her in charge or the ones she'd given them about interviewing Joelyn Zabel. There was no time to reflect, however, because Amanda walked through the anteroom to her office and opened the door. She made introductions all around as she went behind her desk and took a seat. Her office was, of course, larger than any other in the building, closer to the size of the conference room on Will and Faith's floor.

Joelyn Zabel and a man who could only be her lawyer were in the visitors' seats opposite Amanda. There were two chairs beside Amanda's desk, one each for Faith and Will, he supposed. The state lawyers were on a couch in the back of the room, three in a row, their black suits and muted silk ties giving them away. Joelyn Zabel's lawyer was dressed in a blue the color of a shark, which seemed more than fitting, considering his smile reminded Will of the aquatic carnivore.

"Thank you for coming in," Faith said, shaking the woman's hand, then taking a seat.

Joelyn Zabel looked like a chubbier version of her sister. Not that she was fat, but she had a healthy curve to her hips whereas Jacquelyn had been boyishly thin. Will caught the scent of cigarette smoke as he shook her hand.

Tags: Karin Slaughter Will Trent Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net