The Silent Wife (Will Trent #10) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,96

into small rooms with a bowling alley hallway down the middle. He glanced at the photographs hanging on the walls. He assumed that Tommi Humphrey was an only child. The pictures showed a happy young woman, usually surrounded by a group of friends. She had played flute in the marching band. She had competed in several science fairs. She had a series of dogs, then a cat, then a boyfriend who had taken her to the prom. The last photo was of Tommi holding a moving box outside what was obviously one of the dorm rooms at Grant Tech.

There were no more pictures after that.

Jeffrey pushed open a sliding glass door. He could see Sara sitting at a picnic table with a painfully thin young woman. Bright white skin. Her hair was short and black now. Tommi Humphrey must’ve been in her early twenties, but she looked somehow older and younger at the same time. She was smoking a cigarette. Even from several yards, he could see the tremble in her hand.

Sara did not look surprised to see him. She told the girl, “This is Jeffrey.”

Tommi turned slightly, but did not look at him.

Jeffrey took his cue from Sara. She indicated the other side of the table.

He sat back on the bench. He kept his hands in his lap. He had interviewed many rape victims in his law enforcement career. The first thing he’d learned was that they never acted a particular way. Some were angry. Some entered into a fugue state. Some wanted revenge. Most desperately wanted to leave. A few had even laughed when they told their stories. He had noted the same unpredictable affects among veterans returning from war. Trauma was trauma. Every person reacted differently.

Sara spoke to Jeffrey, but she looked at Tommi. “Sweetheart, what you just told me is so important. Can you tell Jeffrey?”

Jeffrey gripped his hands under the table. His only option was to sit still and be quiet.

Sara said, “If it’s easier, I can tell him. You’ve already given me permission. We want to do whatever is easiest for you.”

Tommi tapped her cigarette on the side of an overflowing ashtray. Her breath had the audible rasp of a chain smoker. Jeffrey thought about all of the photographs lining the hallway. Sara was right to compare what had happened to an atomic blast. Before the assault, Tommi had been ebullient, popular, happy. Now, she was a dark shadow of her former self.

Sara said, “We could leave right now, if that’s what you want. But it would be helpful if Jeffrey could hear it in your own words. I promise you on my life that nothing will happen. This isn’t official. You’re not making a statement. No one will even know about this conversation. Right?”

She had asked Jeffrey this question. He struggled to answer, not because he didn’t agree but because he felt like saying the wrong thing at this moment could break this poor woman all over again.

All he could risk telling her was, “Right.”

Tommi’s chest rose as she inhaled deeply on the cigarette. She held the smoke in her lungs. She finally looked up. Her eyes still did not meet Jeffrey’s. Her gaze fell somewhere behind him. Smoke plumed out of her mouth. “I was a junior.”

Her tone was monosyllabic. There was something final about the way she spoke about herself in the past tense.

“I was walking back from the campus gym. I don’t know what time it was. It was dark.” She put the cigarette to her lips. He could see her fingers were stained from nicotine. “I heard someone behind me. He was swinging something at my head. I didn’t see what it was. It was hard. I was stunned. He grabbed me. He dragged me into his van. He tried to get me to drink something.”

Jeffrey found himself leaning forward, ears straining to hear.

“I choked on it. Coughed it up.” She put her hand to her neck. “It was in a bottle. The liquid.”

Jeffrey watched tears roll down her face. He started to reach for his handkerchief, but Sara pulled a tissue from her sleeve.

Tommi didn’t wipe her eyes. She clenched the tissue in her fist.

She said, “It was Gatorade. Or another sports drink. The blue flavor. It made my neck sticky.”

Jeffrey saw the quiver in her fingers as she touched her neck to show him where.

“He was mad that I spit it out. He hit me on the back of the head. He told me not to fight