Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,119

been one of the girls Michael used and G hadn’t liked the cut in his income. He had killed Monroe, then killed Michael’s next-door neighbor as a lesson.

But why would Baby G kill Cynthia Barrett? Even if Michael did have a thing for teenage girls, that didn’t mean he was screwing his neighbor. And it wasn’t like that kind of lechery was unusual in a man of forty. All you had to do was look at a fashion magazine or go to the local cinema to find images of scantily clad girls hanging on to men who were old enough to be their fathers. Hell, you couldn’t walk through the local shopping mall without seeing a bunch of twelve-year-olds wearing T-shirts up to their nipples and jeans down to their hooches. And their mothers were usually wearing the same thing.

Angie passed City Hall East, then took a right into Poncey-Highlands. She slowed the car, checking to make sure Will’s motorcycle was out front before she parked on the street.

She got out of the car, not giving herself time to change her mind. She used her fist to knock on his door, then pushed the bell a couple of times for good measure.

He took his sweet time opening the door. She saw he had rolled down his sleeves but not buttoned the cuffs. He was still wearing his vest and that stupid little dog was scooped into his left hand like a bag of candy.

She demanded, “Why do you always take so long to answer the fucking door?”

“What’s wrong?”

She dropped her purse by the door and walked past him into the house. An audiobook was playing in the background and a pocket watch was laid out on the worktable where he had taken it apart to repair it. She looked at the tiny springs and gears he had stuck into a piece of cork, the various instruments he used to repair the winding mechanism. Angie had always been shocked by the fact that Will could figure out how a watch worked in about ten seconds but it took him half an hour to understand a page in a book.

Will put the dog on the floor. She trotted off into the kitchen. Angie heard her drinking some water.

“What’s wrong?” Will repeated, muting the stereo.

“You need to talk to Aleesha’s pimp.”

“Baby G?” Will asked. “He’s dead.”

“What?”

“He died this afternoon,” Will told her. “His cousins got sick of being pushed around.”

“Slow down,” she said, though she was the one with the racing heart. “Tell me what happened.”

He narrowed his eyes, but still told her. “The day that Michael and I talked to Baby G, there were two kids sitting on the hood of his BMW. G said they were his cousins.”

Angie sat on the couch. “Okay.”

“He chased them off with a bat. I guess they didn’t like it. They ambushed him, shot him three times.”

“Sit down,” Angie told him. She hated when he hovered over her. “Are you sure that’s what happened? The cousins shot him?”

“As sure as you can be when you’re dealing with these thugs.” Will sat beside her. “I talked to the arresting officer this afternoon. The kids will probably be tried as adults. One’s already flipped on the other. He’s got a record, a drug bust, an assault. This would be his third strike. He’s trying to talk his way out of a life sentence.”

“Are you sure they’re not involved in the case?”

“Neither one of them even knew Aleesha.”

Angie nodded, letting him know that she had heard him. She was too shocked to talk. Whatever Baby G knew about Michael Ormewood would be taken to his grave.

Will said, “You look bad.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I had a really hard day,” she told him, suddenly feeling everything catch up with her. “I had to go to the hospital.”

He sat up, took her hand. “Are you okay?”

“Not for me.” She lied because it was easier than dealing with his anger if he found out she’d gone to Piedmont this morning to put the fear of Jesus into Ormewood’s wife. “I took one of the girls in. It wasn’t anything bad. Women stuff.”

Will nodded, and she knew he wouldn’t press her.

Christ, what a mess. She had things to tell him but didn’t know where to begin. What could she say? That the night of Ken’s party, Michael was rough with her? That Michael was the kind of guy you couldn’t change your mind with? That with him, once things