The Last Widow (Will Trent 9)

“GPS,” Cathy mumbled. She wiped her eyes with her fist, but still would not look at Will.

He told them, “She made me get my hair cut different. And change my suits. I had to get rid of a lot of them.” He shook his head, because that sounded bad. “I mean, not like she forced me to, but she does this thing where she says, ‘I bet you’d look good in a shorter jacket,’ and before I know it, I’m at the mall spending money.”

Eddie gave a reluctant smile, as if he was familiar with the tactic.

“She beats my ass at tennis,” Will told them. “Seriously. She will not let me win. But I’m better at basketball. And I don’t get colds, which is good, because she gets angry when you’re sick. Not patients, but people she knows. Cares about. She says it’s not true, but it is.”

Eddie was no longer smiling, but he looked like he was waiting for more.

Will said, “We’re re-watching Buffy together. And we both like the same movies. And pizza. And she makes me eat vegetables. But I stopped eating ice cream before bed because the sugar was keeping me up, which I didn’t know about. And—”

There was too much saliva in his mouth. He had to stop to swallow.

“I’m good for her, too. That’s what I’m saying that maybe you don’t know. Hadn’t realized. I’m really good for your daughter.”

Eddie was still waiting.

“I make her laugh. Not all the time, but she laughs at my jokes. And she cleans the house, but I do the bathrooms. And she washes the laundry and I fold it. And I do the ironing. She says she’s bad at it, but I know she doesn’t like to do it.”

Will laughed, because he’d just figured that out. “She smiles when she kisses me. And—”

He couldn’t get into the details with her parents. That Sara sometimes drew tiny hearts on his calendar. That once she had spent a wonderful amount of time using her mouth to suck a heart-shaped hickey onto his stomach.

Will said, “We eat lunch together at work every Tuesday. She’s really good at her job. We talk about things. Cases. And I know—I know she was raped.”

Cathy’s lips parted in surprise.

She was looking at him now.

Will swallowed again. “She told me a while ago. Before we were dating. That she was raped. And then later, she told me the details—that he stabbed her, that she testified at the trial. What it was like to move back home. Everything she had to give up. I know that you helped her get through it. All of you. I know she was grateful, that she was lucky.”

Will gripped his hands together like he was begging them to understand.

“She told me she was raped because she trusts me. I grew up with kids who were—who were raped. More than raped.”

Christ, all he was saying was rape.

“I know it’s different because Sara was in college, but it’s not really that different, no matter what age it happens. Right? Abuse is always with you. It’s in the DNA of your shadow. You turn around, and it’s never not there. All you can do is learn to live with it.”

He walked toward Cathy. He needed to know she was listening.

“Sara told me that she would die before she was raped again. That’s why, when we were in the street today, when she was on her knees with a gun pointed at her head, she told the man to shoot her. She had two choices, and she was ready to die rather than go with them. Rather than risk being raped again. And I believed her. The guy with the gun believed her.”

Will had to sit down. He leaned across the counter. His hands were still gripped together because he was begging for an answer.

“Why did she go?” he asked Cathy. “That’s what I can’t understand. Why did she go with them?”

Tears ran down Cathy’s cheeks. She closed her eyes. Shook her head.

“Please tell me,” Will pleaded. “She looked right at me when she told him to shoot her. She wanted me to know why she had made the choice.” He waited, then said, “Sara didn’t want me to live with the guilt, but now you’re saying that—that I should.” Will would’ve gotten on his knees right now if it made Cathy give him an answer. “Please tell me why you blame me. Tell me what I did wrong.”

Cathy’s lips trembled. She turned her back to him. She rolled off a paper towel and wiped her tears. She blew her nose.

Will thought she wasn’t going to answer him, but she said, “I don’t blame you.”

You let them steal her.

“It’s not your fault.”

My son-in-law would’ve never let this happen.

Cathy turned around. She folded the paper towel and dabbed at her eyes. “They grabbed her. The two men. They lifted her up and carried her to the car. She tried to fight them. She couldn’t.”

Will shook his head, disbelieving. “They were both injured. Sara is strong. I know you don’t think she’s a fighter, but she could’ve fought them off.”

“She tried to. They overpowered her.”

“But she was driving the car.”

“She didn’t have a choice.” Cathy wiped her eyes again. “She lost her nerve. I’ve known my daughter a hell of a lot longer than you, Will Trent. It’s easy to say you’re willing to die in the moment, but that moment passed. I watched it happen. They carried Sara to the car. They handcuffed her to the steering wheel. They put a gun to her head and made her drive. You can question it all you want, but that’s what happened. That’s what I’ll put in my sworn statement.”

He tried, “But—”

Cathy’s hard look dared him to contradict her.

Eddie said, “It’s been a long day, son.” He walked around the counter. He wrapped his arms around his wife. He told Will, “Go take your shower.”

Will was glad to get away from them. So many times, he had stood exactly where Eddie now stood and held Sara.

Betty followed him down the long hallway. Will was too sore to bend down and pick her up again. She ran ahead and jumped onto the bed. Will lingered at the door. The sheets were still tangled from their bodies. He could smell Sara on everything. She didn’t use perfume, but there was something magical about the soap she used. It didn’t smell the same on anything except her body.

In the bathroom, Will didn’t know what to do with his dirty clothes. There was something permanent about putting them in the laundry basket on top of Sara’s things. A promise that she would be there to wash them and he would be there to fold them.

Will left his clothes on the floor and got into the shower.

The hot water was the first relief his body had felt in hours. He let the spray dig into his muscles, tried to keep it away from the staple in his scalp. His hair still had pieces of grass in it. The foam from the shampoo was gray from his sweat. He looked down at the drain. Sticks and twigs from Bella’s yard danced on top of the holes, trying to wash down.

Will thought about the two men picking Sara up and carrying her to the car. One had a knife in his leg. The other had a hole in his side.

He got out of the shower. He wiped the fog off the mirror. He carefully combed his hair. He brushed his teeth. He rubbed the rough stubble on his face. Will usually shaved in the morning, then again when he got home from work. Sara liked his face smooth.

He left the razor on the counter and went into the closet. Will dressed in the gray suit and blue shirt that Sara had picked out for him. He took his Sig Sauer P365 out of the gun safe. The pistol was a Christmas gift from Sara. His service Glock would either be found by the arson investigators who processed Sara’s BMW or by a cop who took it off a bad guy.

Or maybe Will would get it back and find whoever was holding Sara and shoot him in the head.

He braced himself before making his way up the hallway. Sara’s parents had moved to the couch. The same couch where Sara and Will watched TV.

Eddie said, “We’ll keep an eye on your dog.”

“Thank you.” Will grabbed his phone off the counter.

4:56 p.m.

Amanda would be waiting downstairs. Will thought about packing some clothes. He couldn’t sleep here tonight. But that would mean returning to the bedroom, then going up the hall again, which meant he’d have to say goodbye to Sara’s parents again. Which meant he would be tempted again to ask Cathy why she was lying.

He told Sara’s parents, “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

Will didn’t wait for their answer. He carefully closed the door behind him. In the hall, he pressed the button for the elevator.

His phone vibrated with a message.

He cursed, assuming it was Amanda, but the number was one he didn’t recognize. Will opened the text. A sound file had been sent at 4:54 p.m. The length of the recording was 0.01, less than a second.

Will stopped breathing.

Sara was the only person who texted him sound files.

He swallowed so hard his throat hurt. His hand was shaking. He had to tap the arrow twice to get the recording to play. The sound was faint, like someone clearing their throat.

He maxed out the volume.

He pressed the speaker to his ear.

“Wi—”

Sara.