to be a fantasy element. He strategizes before he acts. He hunts them. He follows them. This man is a predator.”
“What did you mean when you asked Tommi if she was missing something?”
“Caterino had a hair clip that was important to her. Apparently, it wasn’t in the place where she usually left it. Leslie Truong was missing a headband, but that feels different. Some clothes were missing, too. She thought her roommates were stealing from her.”
His phone rang. Jeffrey dreaded looking at the caller ID, but it wasn’t his mother again. It was the station. He answered, “What is it?”
“Leslie Truong,” Frank said. “A student found her body in the woods.”
Jeffrey felt like a broken piece of metal had imbedded itself inside his chest. “How bad is it?”
“Bad,” Frank said. “You need to bring Sara.”
Atlanta
13
Will sat at his desk inside GBI headquarters and tried to focus on the words on the paper in front of him. He used a six-inch metal ruler to anchor each line, but the letters still switched and bounced around like fleas. He had stopped carrying a notebook years ago. He dictated his observations into his phone, then he printed out the pages, then he used a comb binder to hold them all together. Will had learned the hard way that he shouldn’t trust spellcheck. Proofreading was the last hurdle. Contractions were particularly problematic. Normally, he could recognize familiar phrases and spot where the problems were. Right now, he wasn’t sure he could recognize his own face in the mirror.
He sat back in the chair. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. His back ached. His brain felt bruised. His knuckle started bleeding every time he flexed his fingers.
He had ended up at Faith’s last night, sleeping in Jeremy’s twin bed on his faded Star Wars sheets. Will’s feet had hung off the end of the mattress. He was reminded of being back in the children’s home. Which was great, because why not pile onto the misery?
There were not enough lunch trays in the world for him to compartmentalize what had happened with Sara the night before. Will had never put Sara in any category even remotely close to his ex-wife, but suddenly, Sara was doing that thing that Angie had done, the thing that had made him feel crazy and angry and frustrated and self-loathing all at the same time.
His entire relationship with Angie had been marked by anxiety. She was with him. She was with someone else. She disappeared. She came back. She pushed him to the brink. She jerked him back in line. She had chiseled away at Will since he was eleven years old. There wasn’t one moment of their life together where Will had felt safe.
And now he felt like he was teetering on the edge with Sara.
Will had known from the second he’d entered her apartment that he was going to be pissed off when he left. That was why he’d put off seeing her in the first place. From the beginning, nothing had felt right, not even the music Sara was listening to. Paul Simon. Will didn’t know what to do with that. He had thought that he was a pretty good judge of Sara’s moods based on what music she was playing. Dolly Parton meant she was sad. Lizzo got her ready for the gym. Beyoncé accompanied her on a run. She listened to NPR Tiny Desk Concerts when she was doing paperwork, Adele when she was feeling romantic and Pink when she was DTF.
He figured that Paul Simon meant she was thinking about Jeffrey.
Her dead husband’s file boxes had been stacked on the dining room table when Will had walked in. The same table where Will and Sara ate meals. The same table where they had first made love.
The sound of Will’s key in the door had clearly sent her scrambling to hide Jeffrey’s things. Will could tell from the level on the Scotch bottle that she’d had more than one drink. Her eyes were bloodshot. She’d looked shattered. He didn’t have to guess why. A few years ago, Will had overheard Sara say something to her sister about Jeffrey Tolliver’s beautiful handwriting. She was weirdly fixated on it.
Will looked down at his printed notes. The dictation app was a godsend. His handwriting was like a child’s. Even his signature was an unreadable chicken scratch. Emma had better penmanship than he did, and she was only allowed to use crayons.
“Wilbur.” Amanda opened the door as she