The Silent Wife (Will Trent 10)

She dialed Tessa’s phone number as she walked down the stairs.

Tessa answered, “What’s up, Swimfan?”

Sara indulged her with a laugh. Her little sister was never going to let her forget the night Sara had spent chasing Will around town like a crazy person. “I was thinking about something.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Sara rolled her eyes. She pushed open the door to the morgue. “When I got hurt in Atlanta, I went back home. And then when I got hurt at home, I went back to Atlanta.”

Tessa gave a dramatic sigh. “I’ve forgotten how to extrapolate.”

“You were hurt, and now you’re home, and I need to support that.”

“Took you long enough.”

“Thank you for your graciousness.” Sara turned off the lights in the hall. “I called around and got a couple of recommendations for some really good midwives. They’re always looking for apprentices. I’ll email you the details when I get home.”

Tessa’s huffing sound signified she would not be that easily placated. “How are things with Will?”

Sara glanced behind her. She could see the tiny office in the back of the morgue where she’d rubbed lotion into Will’s skin. “You were right. I fixed it with a hand job.”

“Well done.” Tessa said. “I’m still mad at you.”

Sara looked at her phone. Tessa had hung up on her again.

She channeled her inner potty mouth as she walked toward the main building. She loved her little sister, but she was such a little sister.

Sara climbed another set of stairs, because her life at the GBI was a never-ending stack of Legos. She shifted her briefcase, adjusted her purse. She felt a passing nervousness at the thought of seeing Will. He had been so patient with her since Brock’s suicide. Sara’s tossing and turning was keeping him awake at night. He wouldn’t let her sleep on the couch. Will had spent his childhood dealing with trauma. He knew that sometimes, all you could do was listen.

The hallway was dark when Sara opened the door. Amanda and Faith had already left for the day. Only Will’s office light cut a white triangle across the hall carpet. Sara could hear Bruce Springsteen playing on his computer.

I’m on Fire.

Sara reached back and pulled out the tie so that her hair fell around her shoulders.

She waited for Will to notice her in his doorway.

He smiled. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Sara sat on the loveseat in the corner. She let her briefcase and purse fall to the floor. She patted the cushion next to her. “Come here. I’ve got something to show you.”

He gave her a curious look, but he sat beside her.

Sara took in a calming breath. She had silently rehearsed this moment for days, but now that the time was actually here, she had butterflies.

Will asked, “Is something wrong?”

“No, my love.”

She pulled the brown paper bag out of her briefcase. She opened the top and placed it on the couch between them.

Will laughed. He recognized the McDonald’s logo. He leaned over, peering into the bag. “That’s a Big Mac.”

Sara waited.

He took the box out of the bag. His smile faltered. “Something is in here, but it’s not the weight of a Big Mac.”

“Later, we are going to discuss how you know the weight of a Big Mac.”

“Okay,” he said. “But did you throw it away in the regular trash or the dead people trash?”

“Babe, let the hamburger go.”

He still looked disappointed, but she thought that would change soon.

Will flicked open the box.

He looked down at the blue Tiffany ring cushion Sara had placed on a bed of black tissue paper.

The titanium and platinum wedding band was dark on the outside, light on the inside. Will never wore jewelry. His wedding band from his first marriage had been purchased from a pawnshop. By Will. Angie had never given him anything.

He stared at the ring, but he didn’t speak.

Sara went through a series of silent rapprochements, because the band was probably too thick or he didn’t like the color or he’d changed his mind.

She had to ask him, “Did you change your mind?”

He carefully placed the box on the couch between them.

He said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about my job. Not the money, which isn’t much, but how I do my actual job.”

She pressed together her lips.

“What I do is, I try to put myself in the bad guy’s shoes. That’s how I figure them out.”

She could feel her throat tightening. He was completely ignoring the ring.

Will said, “I can imagine murderers and thieves and wife beaters and rapists. I can even understand Brock in a certain way. I’m really good at imagining a lot of things, but I cannot imagine what I would do if you died.”

Sara felt tears sting her eyes. The thought of losing Will was as unbearable as the thought of Will having to go through the hell she had endured when Jeffrey died.

He said, “I saw you on that Grant County tape from eight years ago, and I didn’t recognize you.”

She wiped her eyes. Eight years felt like a lifetime ago.

“In the children’s home, the way we got through it was, whatever bad thing happened to you, you just told yourself that it happened to someone else. That you weren’t that person. You split yourself off, and the new person was the one who could keep going.”

Sara kept her mouth closed. He so rarely talked about his childhood that she didn’t want to give him a reason to stop.

Will looked down at the wedding band.

She had spent too much money. He didn’t like the color. The metal was too heavy.

He said, “You know my mother was a prostitute.”

He was trying to talk her out of it. “Baby, you know that doesn’t matter to me.”

His face was still turned toward the ring. “When I got her belongings, she had all this cheap costume jewelry.”

Sara bit her tongue. The ring had not been cheap.

“Necklaces and bracelets and—what do you call that ugly thing Amanda wears on her jackets?”

“A brooch.”

“A brooch,” he said. “The necklaces were so old that the strings disintegrated. All of the silver bracelets had turned black. There were at least twenty of them. I guess she stacked them all together. What are those silver bracelets called?”

“Bangles.”

“Bangles.” He finally looked up from the ring. He rested his hand along the back of the couch. His fingers played with the ends of her hair. “What’s the kind of necklace that’s tight, like a dog collar?”

“A choker,” she said. “Do you want me to pull up some photos on my laptop?”

He gently tugged at her hair. She realized he was teasing her.

He said, “You’re so beautiful.”

Her heart skipped. There was a dreaminess to his smile. Sara had been swept off her feet before, but Will was the only man she had ever met who could make her weak in the knees.

He said, “Your eyes are such a specific color of green, almost like they’re not real.”

Will stroked her hair behind her ear. She tried not to purr like a cat.

“When I met you, I kept thinking I’d seen that color somewhere before. It drove me crazy trying to remember where.” His hand fell away, resting on the back of the couch again. “I’ve been looking at rings for months. Princess cuts and marquis and cushion, and then I went through this whole panic where I thought I had to spend eighty grand.”

“Will, you don’t—”

He reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small, silver ring. It was cheap costume jewelry. The metal was dented. The green stone was scratched down the side.

The color was almost identical to her eyes.

He said, “This was my mother’s.”

Sara’s hands had gone to her mouth. He had kept the ring in his pocket. He had been waiting for the right time.

He asked, “So?”

“Yes, my love. I would be delighted to marry you.”

Sara didn’t need to hear the question.

She was not going to screw it up this time.