Genesis (37 page)

He had asked a question, but he wasn't looking for an answer. He
was making the point that it didn't matter, something Sara had felt
from the moment she'd been told the man who'd orchestrated
Jeffrey's death was dead. She said, "Every cop who knows, that's all
they care about. Did they catch the guy."

"Eye for an eye." He pointed to the pizza. "Mind if I—"

He had finished half the pie. "Go ahead."

"It's been a long day."

Sara laughed at the understatement. He laughed, too.

She pointed to his hand. "Do you want me to take care of that?"

He glanced at the wounds as if he'd just realized something was
wrong. "What can you do?"

"You've waited too long for stitches." She stood up to get her first
aid kit from the kitchen. "I can clean it. You need to start some
antibiotics so it doesn't get infected."

"What about rabies?"

"Rabies?" She tied up her hair with a band she found in the
kitchen drawer, then hooked her reading glasses on her shirt collar.
"The human mouth is pretty dirty, but it's very rare—"

"I mean from rats," Will said. "There were some rats in the cave
where Anna and Jackie were kept." He scratched his right arm again,
and she realized now why he had been doing it. "You can get rabies
from rats, right?"

Sara froze, her hand reaching up to take a stainless steel bowl from
the cabinet. "Did they bite you?"

"No, they ran up my arms."

"
Rats
ran up your arms?"

"Just two. Maybe three."

"Two or three
rats
ran up your arms?"

"It's really calming the way you keep repeating everything I say,
but in a louder voice."

She laughed at the comment, but still asked, "Were they acting erratic?
Did they try to attack you?"

"Not really. They just wanted to get out. I think they were as
scared of me as I was of them." He shrugged. "Well, one of them
stayed down. He was eyeballing me, you know, kind of watching
what I was doing. He never came near me, though."

She put on her reading glasses and sat beside him. "Roll up your
sleeves."

He took off his jacket and rolled up the shirtsleeve on his left arm,
though he had been scratching his right. Sara didn't argue. She
looked at the scratches on his forearm. They weren't even deep
enough to bleed. He was probably remembering it a lot worse than it
actually was. "I think you'll be fine."

"You're sure? Maybe that's why I went a little crazy today."

She could tell he was only half kidding. "Tell Faith to call me if
you start foaming at the mouth."

"Don't be surprised if you hear from her tomorrow."

She rested the stainless steel bowl in her lap, then put his left hand
in the bowl. "This might sting," she warned, pouring peroxide over
the open wounds. Will didn't flinch, and she took his lack of reaction
as an opportunity to do a more thorough job.

She tried to take his mind off what she was doing, and, frankly,
her own curiosity was raised. "What about your father?"

"There were extenuating circumstances," was all he offered.
"Don't worry. Orphanages aren't as bad as Dickens would lead you
to believe." He changed the subject, asking, "Do you come from a
big family?"

"Just me and my younger sister."

"Pete said your dad's a plumber."

"He is. My sister worked in the business with him for a while, but
now she's a missionary."

"That's nice. You both take care of people."

Sara tried to think of another question, something to say that
would make him open up, but nothing would come to mind. She had
no idea how to talk to someone who didn't have a family. What stories
of sibling tyranny or parental angst could you share?

Will seemed equally at a loss for words, or maybe he was just
choosing to be silent. Either way, he didn't speak until she was doing
her best to cover the broken skin by crisscrossing several Band-Aids
over his knuckles.

He said, "You're a good doctor."

"You should see me with splinters."

He looked at his hand. Flexed his fingers.

She said, "You're left-handed."

He asked, "Is that a bad thing?"

"I hope not." She held up her left hand, which she'd been using to
clean his wounds. "My mother says it means you're smarter than
everybody else." She started cleaning up the mess. "Speaking of my
mother, I called her about the question you had—the apostle who
replaced Judas? His name was Matthias." She laughed, joking, "I'm
pretty sure if you meet anyone by that name, you've probably found
your killer."

He laughed, too. "I'll put out an APB."

"Last seen wearing a robe and sandals."

He shook his head, still smiling. "Don't make light of it. That's
the best lead I've heard all day."

"Anna's not talking?"

"I haven't talked to Faith since . . ." He waved his injured hand.
"She would've called if anything came up."

"She's not what I thought," Sara told him. "Anna. I know this is
odd to say, but she's very dispassionate. Unemotional."

"She's been through a lot."

"I know what you mean, but it's beyond that." Sara shook her
head. "Or maybe it's my ego. Doctors aren't used to being talked to as
if they're servants."

"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.

W
ILL 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 might 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?"

"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?"