Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,102

where things went and he knew when they were out of place.

Still, something was off. The room just felt different.

The junk drawer looked the same, the ring of keys still tucked into the corner under a couple of store receipts. Will checked through them until he found a smaller key like the one Cedric had. Every cop who came into this building had to pass those mailboxes. Will had, too, though, and he hadn’t asked if Monroe had any mail. Then again, Will wasn’t the lead detective on the case. With Michael on leave, the inimitable Leo Donnelly was now in charge.

Will made sure to lock the door, checking it twice before heading back down the stairs. As with every other surface in the Homes, the mailboxes were sprayed with graffiti, and Will identified Aleesha’s by the obscene drawing that pointed up to it. He slid in the key and turned the lock with some difficulty. He found the problem when the door swung open. The small compartment was packed with mail. Will took out the envelopes in clumps, noting the colors and the bright logos adorning the outsides. There was a plain white envelope in with the rest. A bulge was in the bottom corner, and he felt it with his fingers, guessing something metal was inside. From the shape, he thought it might be a cross. Someone had addressed the envelope by hand in a looping cursive that Will could not begin to decipher.

He looked at his watch, really looked at it like he never did, until he could make out the time. It was almost midnight. Angie would probably be getting home from work soon.

Will sat on Angie’s front porch, the hard concrete making his bottom numb. He had no idea where she was and his cell phone battery had finally died, so he wasn’t even sure of the time.

He had put the phone to good use before it had quit on him, calling a contact at the Atlanta police, making sure the report on Jasmine Allison wasn’t filed away like the thousands of other missing persons reports the city collected each year. They had put out an APB on Jasmine, and Luther Morrison had found a highly annoyed cop knocking at his front door. The patrolman had searched the house and discovered an underage girl there, but it wasn’t the underage girl they were looking for.

Will had a bad feeling about Jasmine’s disappearance. According to Cedric, Jasmine had seen something, talked to someone who was connected to the murder. That made her either valuable or expendable, depending on who you talked to, but as far as the city of Atlanta was concerned, Will’s bad feeling didn’t warrant an all-out manhunt.

This train of thought had persuaded Will to break down and call Michael Ormewood to find out if the girl had said anything to him before she’d escaped up the stairs. Michael could have been the last person to see her. Unfortunately, the detective either wasn’t home or wasn’t picking up the phone.

Angie’s black Monte Carlo SS pulled into her driveway. The engine sounded like it was running on gravel, and he couldn’t help but wince at the knocking that continued when she turned off the ignition. Will had spent a year restoring that car for her. Nights, weekends, a whole vacation. He had been on a mission to give her something nice, prove that he could build something with his hands without being told by a stupid manual that bolt A matches with nut C. The fresh oil stains on the driveway were like a kick in the face.

Angie threw open the car door and demanded, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He couldn’t help but notice that she was dressed for work. The way she sat in the car gave him and everyone else on this side of the street a clear view right up her short skirt.

Will asked, “What did you do to the car?”

“Drove it.” She got out and slammed the door so hard the car shook.

“There’s oil all over the driveway.”

“You don’t say.”

“Did you even get it serviced?”

“Where would I do that?”

“There are ten billion garages around here. You can’t throw a rock without hitting one.”

“If I was going to throw a rock, it’d be at your head, you stupid shit.” She pushed him away from the front door so that she could open it. “I’m tired and I’m pissed off and I just want to get to bed.” She tossed him