Fallen (42 page)

He swallowed.

“Call me later.” She kissed him goodbye, then opened the door so that he could leave.

W
ILL SUBSCRIBED TO A LOT OF CAR MAGAZINES. MOSTLY
, he bought them for the pictures, but sometimes he felt compelled to read the articles. That’s how he knew that Roz Levy’s avocado green 1960 Chevrolet Corvair 700 sedan was worth considerably more than Faith’s five-dollar appraisal.

The car was a beauty, the sort of classic American carmakers used to be known for. The rear-mounted, air-cooled, horizontally opposed, aluminum flat-six engine had been engineered to directly take on the increasingly more popular compact-sized European models coming onto the market. The design was renowned for its innovative swing-axle rear suspension, which received its own chapter in Ralph Nader’s
Unsafe at Any Speed
. The spare tire was mounted in the forward luggage compartment, where the engine was normally located in other cars, nestled right next to a gasoline heater for the passenger area. Though winter was over, the tank was still filled with gas, which Will knew because his face had been pressed against the metal canister while Faith drove him to Mrs. Levy’s house. The sloshing of gasoline had been like ocean waves crashing against the shore. Or, a highly volatile accelerant churning less than a rusty millimeter from his face.

The car had been built well before the 2001 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration deadline that required all manufacturers to install a glow-in-the-dark emergency release strap in case someone got trapped in the trunk of the car. Will wasn’t sure whether he would be able to reach a handle even if one existed. The trunk was deep but not wide, more like a pelican’s mouth. He was folded into a
space meant to hold a spare tire and maybe a couple of suitcases—1960s suitcases, not the modern wheelie kinds that people nowadays used to pack their entire houses in for a weekend trip to the mountains.

In short, there existed the very real possibility that he might die in here before Roz Levy remembered that she was supposed to let him out.

There was a thin sliver of light coming through the cracked rubber seal around the hinge. Will lifted up his cell phone to check the time. He’d been in the trunk for almost two hours and had at least another half hour to go. His rifle was jammed between his legs in a way that was no longer pleasant. His paddle holster was turned so that his Glock dug into his side like an insistent finger. The bottle of water Faith had given him had long been recycled back into the plastic bottle. It was approximately six thousand degrees inside the metal tomb. He had lost feeling in his hands and feet. He was beginning to think that this was a very bad idea.

It was the words “Trojan horse” that had gotten him thinking. One call to Roz Levy proved that she wasn’t going to make this easy for them. She was still pissed about Faith taking her car. She’d refused to let any of them inside of her house. Unusually, Will was the person who suggested the idiotic thing for him to do. Faith would return the Corvair to the carport. He would hide in the trunk until a few minutes before the appointed time. Mrs. Levy would take out her trash, releasing the trunk lid along the way. Will would then crawl out and give Faith cover.

The fact that Roz Levy agreed to this alternate plan so easily made him suspect that she wasn’t going to play along, but by then another hour had passed and they didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

There were other Trojan horses, too—most of them more clever than Will’s. The good thing about Amanda’s old gals was that they were old and they were women, which went against type in this particular situation. Whoever was watching the neighborhood would be
expecting testosterone-pumped young guns with trigger fingers and short haircuts. Amanda had sent in six of her friends to various houses around the block. They’d had bakeware and cake stands in their hands, their purses dangling from their arms. Some of them carried Bibles. They would look like visitors to anyone who was paying attention.

The outside perimeter was covered by a cable truck, a mobile pet groomer’s van, and a bright yellow Prius that no self-respecting cop would ever drive. Between the three vehicles, they could monitor all traffic coming in and out of the two roads that led to the Mitchell section of the neighborhood.

Even with all of this, Will still was not happy with the plan. It was the lesser of two evils, the greater evil being no police presence at all. He didn’t like the idea of Faith being so vulnerable, even though she was armed and had proven to anyone who was paying attention that she would not hesitate to shoot somebody. He felt in his gut that Amanda was wrong. This wasn’t about money. Maybe on the surface it was. Maybe even the kidnappers themselves thought it was about cold, hard cash. But at the end of the day, their behavior belied that motivation. This was personal. Someone was working out a grudge. Chuck Finn seemed like the most likely culprit. His underlings wanted the cash. Chuck wanted revenge. It was a win-win for everyone but Faith.

And for the idiot trapped in a 1960 Corvair.

Will winced as he tried to shift his position. His back ached. His nose itched. His ass felt like he had been pressing his full weight against a piece of hardened steel for two hours. In retrospect, shoving Will into a trunk sounded more like the kind of idea Amanda would have. Painful. Humiliating. Bound to end badly for Will. He must’ve had some sort of death wish. Or maybe he just wanted to spend a couple of hours simmering in the heat because it was the only way he’d have time to think about what he’d gotten himself into. And he didn’t mean the car.

Will had never smoked a cigarette. He’d never done an illegal
drug of any kind. He hated the taste of alcohol. As a kid, he’d seen how addictions could ruin lives, and as a cop, he saw how it could end them. He’d never been tempted to imbibe. He’d never understood how people could be so desperate for the next high that they were willing to trade away their lives and everything that mattered for another hit. They stole. They prostituted themselves. They abandoned or sold their children. They murdered people. They would do anything to avoid getting dopesick, that point at which the body craved the drug so badly that it turned on itself. Muscle cramps. Stabbing pains in the gut. Blinding headaches. Cotton mouth. Heart palpitations. Sweaty palms.

Will’s physical discomfort wasn’t solely caused by the tight quarters in Mrs. Levy’s Corvair.

He was dopesick for Sara.

To his credit, he realized that his response to her was completely disproportionate to what a normal human being should be feeling right now. He was going to make a fool of himself. More so than he already had. He didn’t know how to be around her. At least not when they weren’t having sex. And they’d had a lot of sex, so it had taken Sara some time before she finally got the full-on view of Will’s astounding stupidity. And what a show he had put on for her. Shaking her hand like a realtor at an open house. He was surprised that she hadn’t slapped him. Even Amanda and Faith had been at a loss for words as they’d all waited for the elevator in the hall. His idiocy had actually rendered them speechless.

Will was beginning to wonder if there was something physically wrong with him. Maybe he was diabetic like Faith. She was always yelling at him about his afternoon sticky bun, his second breakfast, his love of cheesy nachos from the downstairs vending machine. He went through his symptoms. He was sweating profusely. His thoughts were racing. He was confused. He was thirsty and he really, really needed to urinate.

Sara hadn’t seemed mad at him when she’d told him goodbye. She
had called him sweetheart, which he’d only been called once before, and that time was by her, too. She had kissed him. It wasn’t a passionate kiss—more like a peck. The sort of thing you saw on 1950s television shows right before the husband put on his hat and went off to work. She had told him to call her later. Did she really want him to call her or had she just been making a point? Will was used to the women in his life making points at his expense. But what defined later? Did that mean later tonight or later tomorrow? Or later in the week?

Will groaned. He was a thirty-four-year-old man with a job and a dog to take care of. He had to get himself back under control. There was no way he was going to call Sara. Not later tonight or even later next week. He was too unsophisticated for her. Too socially awkward. Too desperate to be with her. Will had learned the hard way that the best thing to do when you really wanted something was to put it out of your mind, because you were never going to get it. He had to do that now with Sara. He had to do that before he got himself shot or he ended up getting Faith killed because he was acting like a lovesick schoolgirl.

The worst part was that Angie had been right about everything.

Well, maybe not everything.

Sara didn’t color her hair.

His phone vibrated. Will struggled not to castrate himself with his rifle while he pressed the Bluetooth piece into his ear. The trunk was well insulated, but he still kept his voice to a whisper. “Yeah?”

“Will?” That’s all he needed—Amanda’s voice in his head. “What are you doing?”

“Sweating,” he whispered back, wondering if she could’ve asked a more pointless question. He’d had this idea of springing out of the trunk like a superhero. After all this time, he realized he’d probably do well not to roll out onto the ground like a tongue.

“We’re set up at Ida Johnson’s.” Evelyn’s backyard neighbor. Will wasn’t sure how Amanda had sweet-talked the woman into letting
a bunch of cops sit in her house. Maybe she’d promised that Faith wouldn’t shoot any more drug dealers in her yard again. “I just heard a call on the scanner. There was a drive-by shooting in East Atlanta. Two dead. Ahbidi Mittal and his team just left Evelyn’s house so they can process the car. High profile. A woman and her kid. White, blonde, middle class, pretty.”

So, now they knew how the kidnappers planned to get Evelyn’s house cleared out. Amanda had made some discreet calls earlier and found out that the CSU team had at least another three days on the house. They knew that Evelyn’s abductors had some drive-by experience. Obviously, these particular bad guys weren’t afraid of killing innocent bystanders, and they knew exactly the right victim profile to make sure every news station in Atlanta halted programming to cover the events live at the scene.

The most troubling part to Will was that this proved they had no problem murdering a mother and her child.

Amanda said, “Evelyn’s backyard is dug up.”

Maybe it was the heat. Will had the image of a dog looking for a bone.

“She must’ve told them the money was in the backyard. Holes are everywhere.”

That had been one of Will’s early guesses. He saw how stupid it was now. People didn’t hide money like that anymore. Even Evelyn had a bank account. Everything was on a file in a computer these days.

He kept his tone low. “Did Mrs. Levy see them digging?”

Amanda was uncharacteristically silent.

“Amanda?”

“She’s not answering her phone right now, but I’m sure she’s just taking a nap.”

He couldn’t swallow. It wasn’t funny anymore now that it might actually happen.

“She’ll have her alarm set to wake her.”

Will wondered how the old woman was going to hear her alarm
if she couldn’t hear a phone. And then he stopped worrying, because he was going to pass out from heat stroke long before that happened.

Amanda said, “I’ve got two friends with me and another old gal in the street. She’ll keep an eye on Faith while she’s on route to the house. Bev’s with the Secret Service. She requisitioned a mail truck.”

Will wished that he were more surprised by this information. If Amanda told him that she called an old gal at the White House and borrowed the nuclear codes, he would just nod.

“Everything’s lining up.” Amanda always got chatty right before a case was about to break, and now was no exception. “Faith is waiting at her house. She went to three different banks this morning to support her safe deposit box story. We had one of the managers hand her the cash at the last drop. All the bills are registered. There’s a tracker in the lining of the duffel.” She was silent for a moment. “I think she’ll be okay. Sara got her evened out for now. I’m worried that she’s not taking care of herself.”

Will was worried about that, too. He’d always thought of Faith as indestructible. She seemed capable of handling any crisis. Maybe that had come from being thrust into motherhood before she was ready. Mrs. Levy’s words about the pregnancy scandal rocking the neighborhood kept coming back to him. Faith obviously still carried some shame. She had blushed when she explained her mother’s words to Sara, though Evelyn was obviously just using what might be her last words to her daughter to lift away some of that guilt. Faith’s entire life had been shattered by her pregnancy. Somehow, she had managed to pick up the pieces. Evelyn had been there to offer her support, but Faith had done all the heavy lifting. Getting her GED. Joining the Academy. Going back to college. Raising her kid. She was one of the strongest women Will had ever met. In some ways, she was even stronger than Amanda.

And she deserved the truth.

Will whispered, “Why did you lie to Faith about her father being a gambler?”

Amanda didn’t answer.

He started to ask her again. “Why did you—”

“Because he was,” Amanda said. “I would think after this morning, you would recognize that there are other things a man can gamble with besides money.”

Will swallowed the last bit of saliva in his mouth. He wasn’t up to Amanda’s riddles right now. “Evelyn was on the take.”

“She made a big mistake a long time ago, and she’s been paying for it ever since.”

He struggled to keep his voice quiet. “She took money—”

“I’ll make you a promise, Will. If we get Evelyn out of this, then she’ll tell you the whole truth about everything. You can have a whole hour with her. She’ll answer any question you have.”

He glanced around the trunk, the slit of light coming through the cracked rubber seal. “And if we don’t?”