Fallen (Will Trent 5)

Back then, Faith had been so wrapped up in herself that all she cared about was her own misery, her own shattered life, her own lost opportunities. Looking back now, she saw the obvious signs. Evelyn wouldn’t go outside during the daytime. She wouldn’t answer the door. She woke at the crack of dawn to shop at a grocery store on the other side of town. The phone rang plenty of times, but Evelyn refused to answer it. She isolated herself. She cut herself off from the world. She slept on the couch instead of in her marital bed. Except for Amanda, she talked to no one, saw no one, reached out to no one. And all the while, she had given Faith the one thing every child secretly longs for: every ounce of her attention.

And then everything had changed when Evelyn returned from her vacation with Amanda. She called it “my time away,” like she’d gone down to the springs to take the cure. She was different, happier, as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Faith had seethed with jealousy to find her mother so altered, so seemingly carefree. Before the trip, they had luxuriated in their shared misery, and Faith could not understand how her mother could so easily let it go.

Faith was weeks from delivering Jeremy, but Evelyn’s life went back to normal—or as normal as could be expected with a sulky, spoiled, extremely pregnant teenager in the house. She started going back to their regular grocery store. She had lost a few pounds during her time away, and she set about taking off the rest with strict diet and exercise. She forced Faith to take long walks after lunch and eventually started calling old friends, her tone of voice indicating that she’d survived the worst of it and, now that the end was near, was ready to jump back into the fray. Her pillow was no longer on the couch, but back on the bed she shared with her husband. She let the city know she’d be returning after Jeremy was born. She had her hair cut in a new, short style. In general, she started acting like her old self. Or at least a new version of her old self.

There had been cracks in the happy façade, something Faith only now realized.

For the first few weeks of Jeremy’s life, Evelyn cried every time she held him. Faith could remember finding her mother sobbing in the rocking chair, holding Jeremy so close that she was afraid the baby couldn’t breathe. As with everything, Faith was jealous of the bond between them. She had sought ways to punish her mother, keeping Jeremy away from her. Staying out late with him. Taking him to the mall or the movies or any number of places a baby didn’t belong—just to be spiteful. Just to be mean.

And all the while Evelyn had been aching not just for a child, but for her child. This angry, soulless young man who now pointed a gun at her head.

Faith felt the phone stop ringing. Almost immediately, it started back again. She told her mother, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

Evelyn shook her head. It didn’t matter. But it did.

“I’m so sorry, Mama.”

Evelyn glanced down, then back at Faith. She was sitting on the edge of the chair, her injured leg straight out in front of her. The dead man lay on the floor less than two feet away. The Glock was still stuck in the back of his pants. It might as well be miles away. Evelyn could hardly jump up and grab the gun. Still, she could’ve reached up and taken off the tape covering her mouth. The adhesive was already detaching. The corners of the silver tape were folding back. Why was she pretending to be silenced? Why was she being so passive?

Faith stared at her mother. What did she want her to do? What could she do?

A heavy thunk got their attention. They both looked at the man.

One by one, he pushed the remaining books off the shelves. “What was it like growing up here?”

Faith was silent. She wasn’t going to have this conversation.

“Mommy and Daddy sittin’ around the hearth.” He kicked the Bible on the floor. Pages fluttered as it flew across the room. “Musta been real nice coming home every day to milk and cookies.” He kept the gun at his side as he walked toward Evelyn. Halfway there, he turned back, pacing in a tight line. His street slang slipped again. “Sandra had to work every day. She didn’t have time to come home and make sure I was doing my homework.”

Neither had Evelyn. Bill worked from home. It was her father who’d made sure they had snacks and did their book reports.

“You kept all his shit in your closet. What’s up with that?”

He meant Jeremy. Faith still didn’t answer. Evelyn had made her keep everything because she had known that one day, Faith would cherish it more than anything else save for Emma’s things.

She looked at her mother. “I’m so sorry.”

Evelyn glanced back down at the dead man again, the Glock. Faith didn’t know what her mother wanted her to do. He was at least fifteen feet away.

“I asked you a question.” He’d stopped pacing. He stood in the middle of the floor, directly across from Faith. The Tec-9 was pointed straight at Evelyn’s head. “Answer me.”

She wasn’t going to tell him the truth, so she gave him the last clue that had clicked it all into place. “You changed out the lock of hair.”

His smile turned her blood cold. Faith had realized this morning that the strand of Jeremy’s hair hadn’t darkened with time. The baby blue bow holding the lock of hair together was different from the one that held Jeremy’s. The edges were crisp, not frayed, where Faith had rubbed them like a talisman the last few months of her pregnancy with Emma.

The silverware. The pens. The snow globes. Sara was right. It was something a kid would do for attention. When Faith first met the man in the bathroom, she had been so concerned with remembering his description that she hadn’t processed what she was seeing. He was Jeremy’s age. He was around Faith’s height. He had chewed his lip the way Jeremy did. He had Zeke’s bully bluster. And he had Evelyn’s blue eyes.

The same almond shape. The same deep blue with specks of green.

Faith said, “Your mother obviously loved you. She kept a lock of your hair.”

“Which mother?” he asked, and Faith was startled by the question.

Had Evelyn kept a lock of his hair for all of these years? Faith had an image of her mother at the hospital, holding her baby for what she knew would be the last time. Was it Amanda who had thought to find a pair of scissors? Had she helped Evelyn clip a piece of hair and tie it in a blue bow? Had Evelyn kept it with her for the last twenty years, taking it out every now and then to feel the soft, baby-fine strands between her fingers?

Of course she had.

You didn’t give up a child and not think about him every day, every moment, for the rest of your life. It wasn’t possible.

He asked, “Don’t you even want to know my name?”

Faith’s knees were shaking. She wanted to sit down, but she knew that she couldn’t move. She was standing in the front foyer. The kitchen door was on her left. The front door was behind her. The hall was to her right. At the end of the hall was the bathroom. Beyond that bathroom was Will and his Colt AR-15A2 and his excellent shot, if she could just get this bastard to make a move toward her.

He turned the gun on its side, gangster-style, as he lined up the sights. “Ask me my name.”

“What’s your name?”

“What’s your name, little brother?”

She tasted bile on her tongue. “What’s your name, little brother?”