Amanda held her cell phone in the air, triumphant. “Roger Ling wants to talk.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

FAITH FELT AS CLOSE TO A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN AS SHE’D ever been in her life. Her teeth kept chattering despite the sweat dripping down her body. She’d thrown up her breakfast and had to force down lunch. Her head ached so badly that it hurt to even close her eyes. Her blood sugar levels were just as fragile. She’d had to call her doctor’s office to find out what to do. They had threatened to put her in the hospital if she didn’t get her numbers under control. Faith had promised to report back, then she’d gone into the bathroom, turned on the shower as hot as she could stand it, and sobbed for half an hour.

The same series of thoughts kept running through her mind like tires wearing a groove in a gravel road. They had been in her house. They had touched her things. Touched Jeremy’s things. They knew when he was born. They knew his schools. They knew his likes and dislikes. They had planned this—all of it, down to the last detail.

The threat was like a death sentence. Mouth shut. Eyes open. Faith didn’t think her eyes could open any wider or her mouth could close any tighter. She’d searched the house twice. She was constantly checking her phone, her email, Jeremy’s Facebook page. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. She had been trapped in the house like a caged animal for nearly ten hours.

And still nothing.

“Hey, Mom?” Jeremy came into the kitchen. Faith was sitting at the table, staring at the backyard, where Detective Taylor and Ginger were talking earnestly to the ground. She could tell from their bored demeanors that they were just waiting for the word from their boss so they could get back to their real jobs. As far as they were concerned, this case had come to a screeching halt. Too many hours had passed. No one had made contact. She could read the truth in their eyes. They honestly believed that Evelyn Mitchell was dead.

“Mom?”

Faith rubbed Jeremy’s arm. “What is it? Is Emma up?” The baby had slept too long last night. She was fussy and irritable, and had screamed for nearly a full hour before finally relenting to her afternoon nap.

“She’s fine,” Jeremy answered. “I was gonna go for a walk. Get out of the house for a minute. Take some fresh air.”

“No,” she told him. “I don’t want you leaving the house.”

His expression told her how hard her voice was.

She squeezed his arm. “I want you to stay here, all right?”

“I’m tired of being cooped up inside.”

“So am I, but I want you to promise me you won’t leave the house.” She played at his emotions. “I’ve already got Grandma to worry about. Don’t make me add you to my list.”

His reluctance was obvious, but he told her, “All right.”

“Just do something with your uncle Zeke. Play cards or something.”

“He pouts when he loses.”

“So do you.” Faith shooed him out of the kitchen. She charted his path through the house and up to his room by the familiar squeaks in the floorboards and on the stairs. She should put Zeke to work on her list of handyman repairs. Of course, that would involve actually talking to him, and Faith was doing her best to avoid her brother. Miraculously, he seemed to be doing the same. He’d been in the garage for the last three hours, working on his laptop.

Faith pushed herself up from the table and started pacing in hopes that she could work out some of her nervous energy. That didn’t last long. She leaned over the table and tapped the keyboard on her laptop to wake it up. She moused up to reload Jeremy’s Facebook page. The rainbow wheel started to spin. Jeremy was probably playing some game upstairs that was slowing down the wireless network.

The phone rang. Faith jumped. She startled any time there was an unexpected noise. She was as nervous as a cat. The back door slid open. Ginger waited while she took the receiver off the hook. She could tell from his tired expression that he felt this was not only perfunctory, but beneath his talents.

She put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Faith.”

It was Victor Martinez. She waved away Ginger. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

Now that the easy part was out of the way, neither of them seemed capable of talking. She hadn’t spoken to Victor in thirteen months, not since she’d sent him a text that he needed to get his stuff out of her house or she was going to leave it on the street.

Victor broke the silence. “Is there any news on your mother?”

“No. Nothing.”

“It’s been over twenty-four hours, right?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak. Victor had a habit of pointing out the obvious, and his love of crime shows meant that he knew as well as Faith that time was against them.

“Is Jeremy all right?”

“Yes. Thank you for bringing him home yesterday. And staying with him.” She thought to ask, “You didn’t see anything unusual when you were here, right? No one hanging around the house?”

“Of course not. I would’ve told the police.”

“How long were you here before they arrived?”

“Not long. Your brother came about an hour later and I left.”

Faith’s exhausted brain struggled to do the math. Evelyn’s kidnappers hadn’t hesitated. They’d driven straight here from her house. They were familiar enough with the space to walk right upstairs to her room and plant the finger under Faith’s pillow. Maybe they were watching the house even before that. Maybe they had listened to Faith’s phone calls or checked her calendar on her laptop and knew that she would be away. Nothing in the house was password protected because she had always assumed that she was safe here.

Faith had missed something Victor said. “What?”

“I said, your brother’s kind of an asshole.”

Faith snapped, “It’s not exactly an easy time for him, Victor. Our mother is missing. God knows whether she’s dead or alive. Zeke dropped everything to be with Jeremy. I’m sorry if you thought he was rude. It’s kind of hard to be friendly right now.”

“Hold on, all right? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Her breathing was revved up again. Faith tried to get her control back. She wanted to yell at someone. That person probably didn’t need to be Victor.

“Are you there?” he asked.

Faith couldn’t drag this out any longer. “I know that Jeremy showed you Emma’s picture.”

He cleared his throat.

“What you’re thinking about her …” Faith pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids. “You’re right.”

He was silent for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he said, “She’s beautiful.”

Faith dropped her hand. She looked up at the ceiling. Her hormones were so out of whack that the stupidest thing could set her off. She cradled the phone against her shoulder and tried to reload Jeremy’s Facebook page again.

“I’d like to meet her when this is all over.”

Faith watched the wheel spin on the computer screen as the processor worked. She couldn’t think about seeing Victor with Emma. Holding her in his arms. Stroking her hair. Pointing out that looking into her light brown eyes was like looking into a mirror. Faith could only think about right now, and how every second that ticked by made it less likely that Evelyn Mitchell would see her granddaughter’s first birthday.

Tags: Karin Slaughter Will Trent Mystery
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