Genesis

  "What did she say to you?"

  "When I brought her baby to her—Balthazar—I don't know, it was weird. I wasn't expecting a medal by any means, but I thought she would at least thank me. She just told me that I could go away."

  Will rolled down his shirtsleeve. "None of these women have been particularly likable."

  "Faith said there might be an anorexia connection."

  "There might be. I don't know a lot about it. Are anorexics generally horrible people?"

  "No, of course not. Everyone is different. Faith asked me about the same thing this afternoon. I told her that it takes a very driven personality to starve yourself like that, but it doesn't follow that they're unkind." Sara thought about it. "Your killer probably didn't choose these women because they're anorexic. He chooses them because they're awful people."

  "If they're awful people, then he'd have to know them. He'd have to have contact with them."

  "Are you finding any connections other than the anorexia?"

  "All of the mare unmarried. Two of them have kids. One of them hates kids. One of them wanted a kid, but maybe not." He added, "Banker, lawyer, real estate broker and interior designer."

  "What kind of lawyer?"

  "Corporate attorney."

  "Not real estate closings?"

  He shook his head. "The banker didn't work mortgages, either. She was in charge of community relations—doing fundraisers, making sure the president of the bank had his picture in the paper beside kids with cancer. That sort of thing."

  "They're not in a support group?"

  "There's a chat room, but we can't get into it without a password." He rubbed his eyes with his hands. "It just goes in circles."

  "You look tired. Maybe a good night's sleep will help you figure it out."

  "Yeah, I should go." But he didn't. He just sat there looking at her.

  Sara felt the noise drain from the room, and the air got stuffy, almost hard to breathe. She was acutely aware of the pressure against her skin from the gold band around her fourth finger, and she realized that her thigh was brushing his.

  Will was the first to break the spell, turning, reaching for his jacket off the back of the couch. "I really should go," he told her, standing up to put on his jacket. "I need to find a prostitute."

  She was certain she had heard wrong. "I'm sorry?"

  He chuckled. "A witness named Lola. She was the one who was taking care of the baby and she tipped us off about Anna's apartment. I've been looking for her all afternoon. I think now that it's nighttime, she's probably emerged from her lair."

  Sara stayed on the couch, thinking it was probably best to keep some distance between them so Will didn't get the wrong message. "I'll wrap up some pizza for you."

  "That's okay." He went to the other couch and extracted Betty from the dog pile. He tucked her close to his chest. "Thanks for the conversation." He paused. "About what I said . . ." He paused again. "Maybe best just to forget about it, okay?"

  Her mind reeled with something to say that wasn't flip or— worse—an invitation. "Of course. No problem."

  He smiled at her again, then let himself out of her apartment.

  Sara sat back on the couch, hissing out a breath of air, wondering what the hell had just happened. She traced back through their conversation, wondering if she had given Will a sign, an unintentional signal. Or maybe there wasn't anything there. Maybe she was reading too much into the look he gave her as they both sat on the couch. Surely, it didn't help matters that three minutes before Will had arrived, Sara was thinking lewd thoughts about her husband. Still, she went back through it again, trying to figure out what had brought them to that uncomfortable moment, or if, in fact, there had been an uncomfortable moment at all.

  It wasn't until she remembered holding his hand over the bowl, cleaning out the wounds on his knuckles, that she realized that Will Trent was no longer wearing his wedding ring.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  WILL WONDERED HOW MANY MEN IN THE WORLD WERE trolling for prostitutes in their cars right now. Maybe hundreds of thousands, if not millions. He glanced at Betty, thinking he was probably the only one doing it with a Chihuahua in his passenger seat.

  At least he hoped so.

  Will looked at his hands on the steering wheel, the Band-Aids that covered the broken skin. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten into a serious fight. It must have been when he was back at the children's home. There was a bully there who had made his life miserable. Will had taken it and taken it, and then he had snapped, and Tony Campano had ended up with his front teeth broken out like a Halloween pumpkin.

  Will flexed his fingers again. Sara had tried to do her best with the Band-Aids, but there was no way to keep them from falling off. Will tried to catalogue the many times he had been to a doctor as a child. There was a scar on his body for just about each visit, and he used the marks to jog his memory, naming the foster parent or group home leader who had been courteous enough to break a bone or burn him or rip open his skin.

  He lost count, or maybe he just couldn't keep a thought in his head because all he kept coming back to was the way Sara Linton had looked when he first saw her in the doorway to her apartment. He knew she had long hair, but she'd always kept it up. This time, it was down—soft curls cascading past her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt that did a very good job of showing everything she had to great advantage. She was in socks, her shoes kicked off by the door. She smelled nice, too—not like perfume, but just clean and warm and beautiful. While she was fixing his hand, it had taken everything in him not to lean down and smell her hair.

  Will was reminded of a Peeping Tom he'd caught in Butts County a few years ago. The man had followed women out to the parking lot of the local shopping mall, then offered them money to smell their hair. Will could still remember the news report, the local sheriff 's deputy visibly nervous in front of the news camera. The only thing the cop could come up with to tell the reporter was, "He's got a problem. A problem with hair."

  Will had a problem with Sara Linton.

  He scratched Betty's chin as he waited for a red light to change. The Chihuahua had done a good job of ingratiating herself with Sara's dogs, but Will was not foolish enough to think he had a snowball's chance. No one had to tell him he wasn't the sort of man Sara Linton would go for. For one, she lived in a palace. Will had remodeled his house a few years ago, so he knew the cost of all the nice things he could not afford. Just the appliances in her kitchen had run around fifty thousand dollars, twice the amount he had spent on his whole house.

  Two, she was smart. She wasn't obvious about it, but she was a doctor. You didn't go to medical school if you were stupid, or Will would've been a doctor, too. It would take Sara no time at all to figure out he was illiterate, which made him glad that he wasn't going to be spending any more time around her.

  Anna was getting better. She would be out of the hospital soon. The baby was fine. There was no reason on earth for Will to ever see Sara Linton again unless he happened to be at Grady Hospital when she was on shift.

  He supposed he could hope he got shot. He'd thought Amanda was going to do exactly that when she'd taken him into the stairwell this afternoon. Instead, she had merely said, "I've waited a long time for your short hairs to grow in." Not exactly the words you expect from your superior after you've beaten a man nearly senseless. Everyone was making excuses for him, everyone was covering for him, and Will was the only one who seemed to think that what he had done was wrong.

  He pulled away from the light, heading into one of the seedier parts of town. He was running out of places to check for Lola, a revelation which troubled him, and not just because Amanda had told him to not bother coming into work tomorrow unless he tracked the whore down. Lola had to have known about the baby. She had certainly known about the drugs and what was going on in Anna Lindsey's penthouse apartment. Maybe she had seen something else—something she wasn't willing to trade because it mig
ht put her life in danger. Or maybe she was just one of those cold, unfeeling people who didn't care if a child was slowly dying. Word must have gotten around by now that Will was the kind of cop who beat people. Maybe Lola was afraid of him. Hell, there had been a moment in that hallway when Will was afraid of himself.

  He had felt numb when he got to Sara's apartment, like his heart wasn't even beating in his chest. He was thinking of all the men who had raised their fists to him when he was a child. All the violence he had seen. All the pain he had endured. And he was just as bad as the rest of them for beating that doorman into the ground.

  Part of him had told Sara Linton about the incident because he had wanted to see the disappointment in her eyes, to know with just one look that she would never approve of him. What he got instead was . . . understanding. She acknowledged that he had made a mistake, but she hadn't assumed that it defined his character. What kind of person did that? Not the kind of person Will had ever met. Not the kind of woman Will could ever understand.

  Sara was right about how it was easier to do something bad the second time. Will saw it all the time at work: repeat offenders who had gotten away with it once and decided they might as well roll the dice and try it again. Maybe it was human nature to push those boundaries. A third of all DUI offenders ending up being arrested for drunk driving a second time. Over half of all the violent felons captured were already released convicts. Rapists had one of the highest recidivist rates in the prison system.

  Will had learned a long time ago that the only thing he could control in any given situation was himself. He wasn't a victim. He wasn't prisoner to his temper. He could choose be a good person. Sara had said as much. She had made it seem so easy.

  And then he had forced that weird moment when they were together on the couch, staring at her like he was an ax murderer.

  "Idiot." He rubbed his eyes, wishing he could rub away the memory. There was no use thinking about Sara Linton. In the end, it would lead to nothing.

  Will saw a group of women loitering on the sidewalk ahead. They were all dressed in various shades of fantasy: schoolgirls, strippers, a transsexual who looked a lot like the mother from Leave it to Beaver. Will rolled down his window and they all did a silent negotiation, deciding who to send over. He drove a Porsche 911 he had rebuilt from the ground up. The car had taken him almost a decade to restore. It seemed to take a decade for the prostitutes to decide who to send.

  Finally, one of the schoolgirls sauntered over. She leaned into the car, then backed out just as quickly. "Nuh-uh," she said. "No way. I ain't fuckin' no dog."

  Will held out a twenty-dollar bill. "I'm looking for Lola."

  Her lip twisted, and she snatched away the cash so quickly Will felt the paper burn his fingertips. "Yeah, that bitch'll fuck your dog. She on Eighteenth. Strolling by the old post office."

  "Thank you."

  The girl was already sashaying back to her group.

  Will rolled up the window and took a U-turn. He saw the girls in his rearview mirror. The schoolgirl had passed the twenty onto her minder, who would in turn pass it on to the pimp. Will knew from Angie that the girls seldom got to keep any cash. The pimps took care of their living quarters, their food, their clothes. All the girls had to do was risk their lives and health every night by tricking whatever john pulled up with the right amount of cash. It was modern slavery, which was ironic, considering most if not all of the pimps were black.

  Will turned onto Eighteenth Street and slowed the car to a crawl, coming up on a parked sedan under a streetlight. The driver was behind the wheel, his head back. Will gave it a few minutes and a head popped up from the man's lap. The door opened and the woman tried to get out, but the man reached over and grabbed her by the hair.

  "Crap," Will mumbled, jumping out of his car. He locked the door with the remote on his keys as he jogged toward the sedan and yanked open the door.

  "What the fuck?" the man yelled, still holding the woman by the hair.

  "Hey, Baby," Lola said, reaching her hand out to Will. He grabbed it without thinking, and she got out of the car, her wig staying in the man's hand. He cursed and threw it onto the street, pulling away from the curb so fast that the car door slammed shut.

  Will told Lola, "We need to talk."

  She bent over to get her wig, and courtesy of the streetlight, he saw straight up to her tonsils. "I'm running a business here."

  Will tried, "Next time you need help—"

  "Angie helped me, not you." She tugged at her skirt. "You watch the news? Cops found enough coke in that penthouse to teach the world to sing. I'm a fucking hero."

  "Balthazar's going to be okay. The baby."

  "Baltha-what?" She wrinkled her face. "Christ, kid barely had a chance."

  "You took care of him. He meant something to you."

  "Yeah, well." She put the wig on her head, trying to get it straight. "I got two kids, you know? Had them while I was locked up. Got to spend some time with them before the state took them away." Her arms were bone-thin, and Will was again reminded of the thinspo videos they had found on Pauline's computer. Those girls were starving themselves because they wanted to be thin. Lola was starving because she couldn't afford food.

  "Here," he said, tugging the wig straight for her.

  "Thanks." She started walking down the street back toward her group. There was the usual mixture of schoolgirls and tramps, but they were older, harder women. The streets usually got tougher the higher the numbers. Pretty soon, Lola and her gang would be on Twenty-first, a street so hopeless that dispatch at the local police station routinely sent out ambulances to pick up women who had died during the night.

  He tried, "I could arrest you for obstructing a crime."

  She kept walking. "Might be nice in jail. Getting kind of cold out here tonight."

  "Did Angie know about the baby?"

  She stopped.

  "Just tell me, Lola."

  Slowly, she turned around. Her eyes searched his; not looking for the right answer, but looking for the answer that he wanted to hear. "No."

  "You're lying."

  Her face remained emotionless. "He really okay? The baby, I mean."

  "He's with his mom now. I think he'll be okay."

  She dug around in her purse, finding a pack of cigarettes and some matches. He waited for her to light up, take a drag. "I was at a party. This guy I know, he said there was this pad in some fancy apartment building. The doorman's easy. Lets people in and out. Mostly, it was high-class stuff. You know, people who needed a nice place for a couple of hours, no questions asked. They come in and party, the maid comes the next day. The rich people who own the different apartments get back from Palm Beach or wherever and have no idea." She picked a stray piece of tabacco off her tongue. "Something happened this time, though. Simkov, the doorman, pissed off somebody in the building. They gave him a two-week notice. He started letting in the lower clientele."

  "Like you?"

  She lifted her chin.

  "What'd he charge?"

  "Have to talk to the boys about that. I just show up and fuck."

  "What boys?"

  She exhaled a long plume of smoke.

  Will let it go, knowing not to push her too hard. "Did you know the woman whose apartment you were in?"

  "Never met her, never seen her, never heard of her."

  "So, you get there, Simkov lets you up, and then what?"

  "At first it's nice. Usually, we've been in one of the lower apartments. This was the penthouse. Lots of your better consumers. Good stash. Coke, some H. The crack showed up a couple of days later. Then the meth. Went downhill from there."

  Will remembered the trashed state of the apartment. "That happened fast."

  "Yeah, well. Drug addicts aren't exactly known for their restraint." She chuckled at a memory. "Couple of fights broke out. Some bitches got into it. Then the trannies went to town and—" She shrugged, like What do you expect?

  "What about the baby?"
br />   "Kid was in the nursery first time I got there. You got kids?"

  He shook his head.

  "Smart choice. Angie's not exactly the mothering type."

  Will didn't bother to agree with her, because they both knew that was the God's honest truth. He asked, "What did you do when you found the baby?"

  "The apartment wasn't a good place for him. I could see what was coming. The wrong kind of people were showing up. Simkov was letting anybody in. I moved the kid down the hall."

  "To the trash room."

  She grinned. "Ain't nobody worried about throwing away the trash at that party."

  "Did you feed him?"

  "Yeah," she said. "I fed him what was in the cabinets, changed his diaper. I did that with my own kids, you know? Like I said, they let you keep them for a while before they're turned over. I learned all about feeding and that kind of shit. I took pretty good care of him."

  "Why did you leave him?" Will asked. "You were arrested on the street."

  "My pimp didn't know about this—I was off the books, just having a good time. He tracked me down and told me to get back to work, so I did."

  "How did you get back upstairs to take care of the baby?"

  She jerked her hand up and down. "I tossed off Simkov. He's all right."

  "Why didn't you tell me when you called that first night that there was a baby involved?"

  "I figured I'd take care of him when I got out," she admitted. "I was doing a good job, right? I mean, I was doing good by him, keeping him fed and changing his little diapers. He's a sweet little boy. You seen him, right? You know he's sweet."

  That sweet little boy was dehydrated and hours from dying when Will had seen him. "How did you know Simkov?"

  She shrugged. "Otik's a longtime customer, you know?" She gestured toward the street. "Met him here on Millionaire's Row."

  "I wouldn't exactly call him a stand-up guy."

  "He did me a favor letting me go up there. I made some good cash. I kept the kid safe. What else you want from me?"