“Yes—I mean, no. I’m fine.” She stopped worrying about Zeke for a moment and concentrated on her son. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but she saw he was putting on a brave face.
Faith tried to pull him closer, but he didn’t budge, probably because Zeke was watching their every move. She told Jeremy, “I want you to stay here with me tonight.”
He shrugged. No big deal. “Sure.”
“We’re going to get her back, Jaybird. I promise you.”
Jeremy looked down at Emma, jostling her in his arms. “Jaybird” had been Evelyn’s name for him until his entire elementary school heard her use it one day and teased him into tears. He said, “Aunt Mandy told me the same thing when she called. That she’ll get Grammy back.”
“Well, you know Aunt Mandy doesn’t lie.”
He tried to make a joke of it. “I’d hate to be those guys when she finds them.”
Faith put her hand to Jeremy’s cheek. There was stubble there, something she would never get used to. Her little boy was taller than her, but she knew that he wasn’t as strong. “Grandma’s tough. You know she’s a fighter. And you know she’ll do whatever it takes to get back to you. To us.”
Zeke made a disgusted sound, and Faith gave him a nasty look over Jeremy’s shoulder. He said, “Victor wants you to call him. You remember Victor, right?”
Victor Martinez was the last person on earth she wanted to talk to right now. She told Jeremy, “Go put Emma down for me, all right? And turn out some of those lights. Georgia Power doesn’t need all of my paycheck.”
“You sound like Grandpa.”
“Go.”
Jeremy glanced back at Zeke, reluctant to leave. His instinct had always been to protect Faith.
“Now,” she told him, gently pushing him toward the stairs.
Zeke at least had the decency to wait until Jeremy was out of earshot. He crossed his arms over his chest, puffing up his already sizable frame. “What the hell kind of mess did you get Mom into?”
“Glad to see you, too.” She pushed past him and walked down the hall toward the kitchen. Despite what she’d told Jeremy, Faith hadn’t eaten anything of substance since two o’clock, and she could feel that familiar throbbing headache and wave of nausea that signaled something wasn’t right.
“If anything happens to Mom—”
“What, Zeke?” Faith spun around to face him. He had always been a bully, and just like all of his kind, standing up to him was the only way to stop it. “What are you going to do to me? Throw away my dolls? Give me an Indian burn?”
“I didn’t—”
“I’ve spent the last six hours being grilled by assholes who think I got my mother kidnapped and went on a murderous rampage. I don’t need the same kind of crap from my asshole brother.”
She turned back around and walked toward the kitchen. There was a ginger-haired young man sitting at her table. His jacket was off. A Smith and Wesson M&P hung out of his tactical-style shoulder holster like a black tongue. The straps were tight around his chest, making his shirt blouse out. He was thumbing through the Lands’ End catalogue that had come in the mail yesterday, pretending he hadn’t just heard Faith screaming at the top of her lungs. He stood when she entered the room. “Agent Mitchell, I’m Derrick Connor with the APD hostage negotiation task force.”
“Thank you for being here.” She hoped her tone sounded genuine. “I take it there haven’t been any phone calls?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Any updates?”
“No, ma’am, but you’ll be the first to hear.”
Faith doubted that very seriously. Ginger wasn’t just here to catch phone calls. Until the brass said otherwise, Faith had a dark cloud hanging over her head. “There’s another officer here?”
“Detective Taylor. He’s checking the perimeter. I can get him for you if—”
“I’d just like some privacy, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Connor nodded to Zeke before leaving by the sliding glass door.
Faith groaned as she sat down at the table, feeling like she’d been on her feet for hours, even though she’d been sitting for most of the day. Zeke still had his arms crossed over his chest. He was blocking the doorway as if he thought she might try to bolt.
She asked, “Are you still in the Air Force?”
“I got transferred to Eglin four months ago.”
Right around the time Emma was born. “In Florida?”
“Last time I checked.” Her questions were obviously ratcheting up his anger. “I’m in the middle of a two-week in-service at the VA hospital on Clairmont. It’s a good thing I just happened to be in town or Jeremy would’ve been alone all day.”
Faith stared at her brother. Zeke Mitchell had always looked like he was standing at attention. Even at ten years old, he’d acted like an Air Force major, which was to say that he had been born with a giant steel rod shoved up his ass.
She asked, “Does Mom know you were stateside?”
“Of course she does. We were supposed to have dinner tomorrow night.”
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
“I didn’t want the drama.”
Faith let out a long sigh as she sat back in the chair. There it was—the defining word of their relationship. Faith had brought drama to Zeke’s senior year by getting pregnant. Her drama had forced him to leave high school early and sign away ten years of his life to the military. There was more drama when she decided to keep Jeremy, and a heaping pile of drama when she’d cried uncontrollably at their father’s funeral.
“I’ve been watching the news.” He said it like an indictment.
Faith pushed herself up from the table. “Then you know I killed two men today.”
“Where were you?”
Her hands shook as she opened the cabinet and took out a nutrition bar. She had said it like it was nothing—she had killed two men today. Faith had noticed during the interrogation that the more she talked about it, the more anesthetized she became to the reality of the act, so that saying it now only made her feel numb.
Zeke repeated, “I asked you a question, Faith. Where were you when Mom needed you?”
“Where were you?” She tossed the bar onto the table. Her mind was spinning out again. She should test her blood sugar before she ate anything. “I was at a training seminar.”
“You were late.”
She assumed he was making a lucky guess. “I wasn’t late.”
“I talked to Mom this morning.”
Faith felt her senses sharpen. “What time? Did you tell the police?”
“Of course I told the police. I talked to her around noon.”
Faith had gotten to their mother’s house less than two hours later. “Did she seem okay? What did she say?”
“She said that you were late again, Faith, like you always are. That’s how it is. The world bends to your schedule.”
“Christ,” she whispered. She couldn’t take this right now. She was suspended from work for God only knew how long. Her mother could be dead. Her son was devastated and she couldn’t get her brother out of her face long enough to catch her breath. Adding to the stress, her head felt like it was trapped in a vise. She fished around in her purse for her blood-testing kit. Slipping into a coma, while at the moment an attractive prospect, wasn’t going to help anything.