Martin Misunderstood (10 page)

Bob sighed at the depravity. Martin knew he
was working on his own book deal (it was
amazing how many people wanted to be writers).
The relationship was not altogether one-sided,
though. Bob owned a police scanner and was
somewhat of a gossip. Most of the details Martin
used in his confessions came from the man.

'Let's go.' Bob took Martin's arm and led him
out of the room. As they walked down the
corridor toward the private rooms used for
interviews between lawyers and their clients –
and comely police detectives! – Martin felt his
pulse quicken. His breath caught as the door
opened and he saw Anther sitting at the table.
She wore a bright yellow dress and her hair was
swept up into a sexy bun.

Martin noted her pretty yellow dress and tried
to impress her with his Dutch. '
Het meisje draagt
een geile jurk!
'

She stared at him, and he felt the skin on his
face, wondering if his mother had somehow
transferred lipstick on to his cheek without
actually touching him.

An said, 'Sit down, Mr Reed.'

He sat.

'We found a body.'

'A prostitute,' Martin supplied. 'A meth
addict.'

'She was buried off of—'

'Abernathy Road,' he supplied. 'Have you
done something different with your hair?'

She patted the bun self-consciously. 'We found
a—'

'Rope,' he said. Why did they always have to
go through the motions? 'Tell me about your
day.'

'My day?' she echoed, her hand dropping to
the table. Martin wanted to reach out and touch
her, to caress her gentle hand in his, but the one
time he'd tried, An had threatened to Tase him.

Martin spoke openly – prison had made him
brazen. 'You know that I am in love with you.'

She gave a sad chuckle. 'Love doesn't pay the
rent.'

'
Ik wil de hoer graag betalen,
' he offered,
thrilled at the way the Dutch tickled his tongue.

She sighed again. 'Mr Reed—'

'I'd pay your rent every day!' he repeated, this
time in English (he had trouble with Dutch
tenses). 'Oh, An, you must know that I adore
you.'

She colored slightly. There was an awkward
moment between them. Then another, then
another, so that it was more like an awkward five
minutes before she asked, 'Did you read that
book I gave you?'

'The Danielle Steel?' Martin had never enjoyed
flowery romances, and prison was hardly the
place to show your feminine side. 'Well, yes, of
course I read it. You know I would do anything
you asked me to.'

'She married a prison inmate, you know.'

Martin did not recall that from the plot at all.
He gently corrected, 'Actually, Marie-Ange was
already married to the Comte de Beauchamp
when she suspected him of murdering—'

'No, Mr Reed. Danielle Steel the author. She
married a prison inmate. Two, actually.' An
shuffled her folders, her eyes avoiding his.
'Danny Zugelder was the first, and then the day
after she divorced him, she married William
George Toth.'

'Well, that's kind of strange,' Martin said,
wondering how the jet-setting Steel would even
meet criminals in the first place. 'I bet her mother
didn't approve.'

'Maybe she did,' An said, smoothing down the
hair at the nape of her neck. 'Maybe her mother
said something like, "I just want you to be
happy."'

Martin had heard his own mother say the same
phrase often enough, but in his experience what
she really meant was, 'Do what I fucking say you
retarded twat.'

An said, 'I imagine her mother was probably
happy to hear that her daughter was in love.'

'I imagine,' Martin answered, though he did
not buy it for a minute. He certainly would not
mind Evie hooking up with a homicidal maniac,
but if it was someone he truly cared about –
Anther, for instance – he would certainly have a
great deal to say about . . .

Martin cleared his throat, straightened his
prison coveralls. 'Married, you say?'

An nodded, flipping through her file folders
again. He saw a photo of a decapitated woman in
a trench and quickly looked away. (The crimescene
photos were still the worst part of his
confessions.)

Martin asked, 'How exactly does that work, I
wonder?'

'Well, I suppose that they had the prison
chaplain perform the ceremony.'

'I suppose,' Martin agreed, even as he pictured
the scene in his mind. An would look lovely in a
white dress. Maybe they could get some rice from
the kitchen – or better yet, perhaps An could
bring some from home. The Latino gang running
the kitchen was very stingy, in Martin's opinion.
God forbid you should want an extra roll. He
imagined asking for rice would cause some kind
of riot. Shivs at dawn!

'Martin?'

He let the word hang between them for a few
seconds. An seldom used his first name, and
Martin tried to savor every time as if it was
precious. Because it was. Because, as vile and
hateful as his mother could be, she was right
about one thing: the life Martin had in prison
was much better than the one he had when he
was living under her roof. He was a murderer in
here, which actually earned him a modicum of
respect. He had his books. He had a job. And
now . . . was it possible? Was the dream complete
. . . did he actually
have
Anther?

'I'll never get out of here,' Martin reminded
her.

She was looking down, but he could see her
smiling at the thought. 'I know.'

'Even if my sentence is commuted, I'll never—'

'I know,' she repeated, looking up at him.
'You'll never be free. You'll never be able to
touch me or be with me or . . .' her voice trailed
off. 'We can't really get married, Martin. Not
officially.'

'Yes.' He could see that now. An was a
detective and Martin was a convicted triple
murderer (or would be soon. He had another
trial coming up in the spring – the evidence was
not pretty). They were cat and dog, oil and water,
night and day. There were too many things
standing between them; the rice alone was a
logistical nightmare.

An's voice was soft, lilting. 'No one can ever
know about us, Martin. It'll almost be like you're
a figment of my imagination.' Her face had
colored again, a beautiful shade of red that made
the winter-time eczema around her nostrils
almost disappear. An asked, 'Do you know what
I'm saying, Martin? Do you understand what I
mean?'

'
Ja
,' he told her. And it was true. Martin finally
understood.

Read on for an extract from
Karin Slaughter's breathtaking
new thriller . . .

A broken window. A bloody footprint. Just the
beginning . . .

When Atlanta housewife Abigail Campano comes home
unexpectedly one afternoon, she walks into a nightmare.
A broken window, a bloody footprint on the stairs and,
most devastating of all, the horrifying sight of her teenage
daughter lying dead on the landing, a man standing over
her with a bloody knife. The struggle which follows
changes Abigail's life forever.

When the local police make a misjudgement which not
only threatens the investigation but places a young girl's
life in danger, the case is handed over to Special Agent
Will Trent of the Criminal Apprehension Team – paired
with detective Faith Mitchell, a woman who resents him
from their first meeting.

But in the relentless heat of a Georgia summer, Will and
Faith realise that they must work together to find the
brutal killer who has targeted one of Atlanta's wealthiest,
most privileged communities – before it's too late . . .

Abigail Campano sat in her car parked on the
street outside her own house. She was looking up
at the mansion they had remodeled almost ten
years ago. The house was huge – too much space
for three people, especially since one of them,
God willing, would be going off to college in less
than a year. What would she do with herself once
her daughter was busy starting a new life of her
own? It would be Abigail and Paul again, just like
before Emma was born.

The thought made her stomach clench.

Paul's voice crackled through the car speakers
as he came back on the telephone. 'Babe, listen—'
he began, but her mind was already wandering as
she stared up at the house. When had her life
gotten so small? When had the most pressing
questions of her day turned into concerns about
other people, other things: Were Paul's shirts
ready at the tailor? Did Emma have volleyball
practice tonight? Did the decorator order the new
desk for the office? Did somebody remember to
let out the dog or was she going to spend the next
twenty minutes wiping up two gallons of pee off
the kitchen floor?

Abigail swallowed, her throat tightening.

'I don't think you're listening to me,' Paul said.

'I'm listening.' She turned off the car. There was
a click, then through the magic of technology,
Paul's voice transferred from the car speakers to
the cell phone. Abigail pushed open the door,
tossing her keys into her purse. She cradled the
phone to her ear as she checked the mailbox.
Electric bill, Amex, Emma's school fees . . .

Paul paused for a breath and she took that as
her cue.

'If she doesn't mean anything to you, why did you
give her a car? Why did you take her to a place
where you knew my friends might show up?'
Abigail said the words as she walked up the driveway
but she didn't feel themdeep in her gut like she
had the first few times this had happened. Her only
question then had been, 'Why am I not enough?'

Now, her only question was, 'Why are you
such a needy bastard?'

'I just needed a break,' he told her, another old
standard.

She dug her hand into her purse for her keys as
she climbed the porch stairs. She had left the club
because of him, skipped her weekly massage and
lunch with her closest friends because she was
mortified that they had all seen Paul out with
some bottle-blonde twenty-year-old he'd had the
gall to take to their favorite restaurant. She didn't
know if she would ever be able to show her face
there again.

Abigail said, 'I'd like a break, too, Paul. How
would you like it if I took a break? How would
you like it if you were talking to your friends one
day and you knew something was going on, and
you had to practically beg them to tell you what
was wrong before they finally told you that they
saw
me
with another man?'

'I'd find out his fucking name and I'd go to his
house and I'd kill him.'

Why did part of her always feel flattered
when he said things like that? As the mother of
a teenage girl, she had trained herself to look
for the positive aspects of even the most savage
remarks, but this was ridiculous. Besides, Paul's
knees were so bad that he could barely take the
garbage down to the curb on trash day. The
biggest shock in all of this should have been
that he could still find a twenty-year-old to
screw him.

Abigail slid her key into the old metal lock on
the front door. The hinges squeaked like in a
horror movie.

The door was already open.

'Wait a minute,' she said, as if interrupting,
though Paul hadn't been talking. 'The front door
is open.'

'What?'

He hadn't been listening to her, either. 'I said
the front door is already open,' she repeated,
pushing it open wider.

'Aw, Jesus. School's only been back for three
weeks and she's already skipping again?'

'Maybe the cleaners—' She stopped, her foot
crunching glass. Abigail looked down, feeling a
sharp, cold panic building somewhere at the base
of her spine. 'There's glass all over the floor. I just
stepped in it.'

Paul said something she didn't hear.

'Okay,' Abigail answered, automatic. She
turned around. One of the tall side windows by
the front door was broken. Her mind flashed on
a hand reaching in, unlatching the bolt, opening
the door.

She shook her head. In broad daylight? In this
neighborhood? They couldn't have more than
three people over at a time without the batty old
woman across the street calling to complain
about the noise.

'Abby?'

She was in some kind of bubble, her hearing
muffled. She told her husband, 'I think someone
broke in.'

Paul barked, 'Get out of the house! They could
still be there!'

She dropped the mail onto the hall table,
catching her reflection in the mirror. She had
been playing tennis for the last two hours. Her
hair was still damp, stray wisps plastered to the
back of her neck where her ponytail was starting
to come loose. The house was cool, but she was
sweating.

'Abby?' Paul yelled. 'Get out right now. I'm
calling the police on the other line.'

She turned, mouth open to say something –
what? – when she saw the bloody footprint on
the floor.

'Emma,' she whispered, dropping the phone as
she bolted up the stairs toward her daughter's
bedroom.

She stopped at the top of the stairs, shocked at
the broken furniture, the splintered glass on the
floor. Her vision tunneled and she saw Emma
lying in a bloody heap at the end of the hallway.
A man stood over her, a knife in his hand.

For a few seconds, Abigail was too stunned to
move, her breath catching, throat closing. The
man started toward her. Her eyes couldn't focus
on any one thing. She went back and forth
between the knife clenched in his bloody fist and
her daughter's body on the floor.

'No—'

The man lunged toward her. Without
thinking, Abigail stepped back. She tripped,
falling down the stairs, hip and shoulder blades
thumping the hard wood as she slid head first.
There was a chorus of pain from her body: elbow
hitting the stiles on the railing, anklebone
cracking against the wall, a searing burn in her
neck as she tried to keep her head from popping
against the sharp tread of the stairs. She landed in
the foyer, the breath knocked out of her lungs.

The dog. Where was the stupid dog?

Abigail rolled onto her back, wiping blood out
of her eyes, feeling broken glass grind into her
scalp.

The man was rushing down the stairs, the
knife still in his hand. Abigail didn't think. She
kicked up as he came off the last tread, lodging
the toe of her sneaker somewhere between his
asshole and his scrotum. She was far off the
mark, but it didn't matter. The man stumbled,
cursing as he went down on one knee.

She rolled onto her stomach and scrambled
toward the door. He grabbed her leg, yanking her
back so hard that a white-hot pain shot up her
spine and into her shoulder. She clutched at the
glass on the floor, trying to find a piece to hurt
him with but the tiny shards only ripped open the
skin of her hand. She started kicking at him, legs
flailing wildly behind her as she inched toward
the front door.

'Stop it!' he screamed, both his hands clamping
down on her ankles. 'God dammit, I said stop!'

She stopped, trying to catch her breath, trying
to think. Her head was still ringing, her mind
unable to focus. Two feet ahead, the front door
was still open, offering a view down the gentle
slope of the walk to her car parked on the street.
She twisted around so she could face her
attacker. He still held her ankles to keep her from
kicking. The knife was beside him on the floor.
His eyes were a sinister black – two pieces of
granite showing beneath heavy lids. His broad
chest rose and fell as he panted for breath. Blood
soaked his shirt.

Emma's blood.

Abigail tensed her stomach muscles and
lunged up toward him, fingers straight out as her
nails stabbed into his eyes.

He slapped the side of her ear with his open
palm but she kept at it, digging her thumbs into
his eye sockets, feeling them start to give. His
hands clamped around her wrists, forcing her
fingers away. He was twenty times stronger than
her, but Abigail was thinking of Emma now, that
split second when she'd seen her daughter
upstairs, the way her body was positioned, her
shirt pushed up over her small breasts. She was
barely recognizable, her head a bloody, red mass.
He had taken everything, even her daughter's
beautiful face.

'You bastard!' Abigail screamed, feeling like
her arms were going to break as he pried her
hands away from his eyes. She bit his fingers until
teeth met with bone. The man screamed, but still
held on. This time when Abigail brought up her
knee, it made contact squarely between his legs.
The man's bloody eyes went wide and his mouth
opened, releasing a huff of sour breath. His grip
loosened but still did not release. As he fell onto
his back, he pulled Abigail along with him.

Automatically, her hands wrapped around his
thick neck. She could feel the cartilage in his
throat move, the rings that lined the esophagus
bending like soft plastic. His grip went tighter
around her wrists but her elbows were locked
now, her shoulders in line with her hands as she
pressed all of her weight into the man's neck.
Lightning bolts of pain shot through her shaking
arms and shoulders. Her hands cramped as if
thousands of tiny needles stabbed into her
nerves. She could feel vibrations through her
palms as he tried to speak. Her vision tunneled
again. She saw starbursts of red dotting his eyes,
his wet lips opening, tongue protruding. She was
sitting on him, straddling him, and she became
aware of the fact that she could feel the man's
hipbones pressing into the meat of her thighs as
he arched up, trying to buck her off.

Unbidden, she thought of Paul, the night they
had made Emma – how Abigail had known, just
known, that they were making a baby. She had
straddled her husband like this, wanting to make
sure she got every drop of him to make their
perfect child.

And Emma
was
perfect . . . her sweet smile, her
open face. The way she trusted everyone she met
no matter how many times Paul warned her.

Emma lying upstairs. Dead. Blood pooled
around her. Underwear yanked down. Her poor
baby. What had she gone through? What
humiliation had she suffered at the hands of this
man?

Abigail felt a sudden warmness between her
legs. The man had urinated on them both. He
stared at her – really saw her – then his eyes
glassed over. His arms fell to the side, hands
popping against the glass-strewn tile. His body
went limp, mouth gaping open.

Abigail sat back on her heels, looking at the
lifeless man in front of her.

She had killed him.