Genesis (46 page)

Will paused for some more static. "I know."

"He's early-thirties, closer to my age. Pauline's brother was older,
right?"

Will wanted to talk to her about this in person rather than
through his cracked phone. "Where are you?"

"I'm right outside the Coldfields."

"Good," he told her, surprised she had gotten there so fast. "I'm
right around the corner. I'll be there in two minutes."

Will ended the call and dropped the phone on the seat beside him.
Another wire had slipped out between the clam shells. This one was
red, which was not a good sign. He glanced at his rearview mirror.
The skier was making her way toward him. She was coming up fast,
and Will pushed the car up to fifteen miles per hour so he could get
away from her.

The street signs were larger than normal, the letters a crisp white
on black, which was a horrible combination for Will. He turned as
soon as he could, not bothering to try to read the first letter on the
sign. Faith's Mini would stand out like a beacon among the Cadillacs
and Buicks the retired folks seemed to favor.

Will got to the end of the street, but there was no Mini. He turned
down the next street, and nearly smacked into the skier. She made a
motion with her hand, indicating he should roll down the window.

He put on a pleasant smile. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Right there," she said, pointing to the cottage on the corner.
This particular model had a lawn jockey outside, its white face
freshly painted. Two large cardboard boxes were by the mailbox,
each labeled in black marker. "I guess you're not taking those back in
this tiny car of yours."

"No, ma'am."

"Judith said her son was going to bring the truck later on today."
She glanced up at the sky. "Better not be too late."

"I'm sure it won't be long," Will told the skier. She didn't seem as
keen to continue the conversation this time. She tossed him a wave
as she continued her walk down the street.

Will looked at the boxes in front of Judith and Henry Coldfield's
house, reminded of the trash Jacquelyn Zabel had set outside her
mother's place. Though the cardboard boxes and black trash bags
Jackie had put on the curb weren't meant to be trash. Charlie Reed
had said he'd shooed off a Goodwill truck just before Will and Faith
arrived. Had he meant Goodwill specifically, or was he using the
word as a catch-all, the way people always called plastic bandages
Band-Aids and tissues Kleenexes?

All along, they had been looking for a physical link between
the women, one thing that tied them all together. Had Will just
stumbled onto it?

The front door to the house opened and Judith came out, walking
cautiously as she tried to navigate her way down the two porch stairs
with a large box in her hands. Will got out of the car and rushed over,
catching the box before she dropped it.

"Thank you," she told him. She was out of breath, her cheeks
flushed. "I've been trying to get this stuff out all morning and
Henry's been no help whatsoever." She walked toward the curb.
"Just put it here by the others. Tom's supposed to be by later to pick
them up."

Will set the box down on the ground. "How long have you volunteered
at the shelter?"

"Oh . . ." She seemed to think about it as she walked back toward
the house. "I don't know. Since we moved here. I guess that's a couple
of years now. Goodness, how time flies."

"Faith and I saw a brochure the other day when we were at the
shelter. It had a list of corporate sponsors on it."

"They want to get their money's worth. They're not being charitable
because it's the right thing to do. It's public relations for them."

"There was a logo for a bank on the one we saw." Even now, he
recalled the image of the four-point deer at the bottom of the pamphlet.

"Oh, yes. Buckhead Holdings. They donate the most money,
which, between you and me, isn't nearly enough."

Will felt a bead of sweat roll down his back. Olivia Tanner was the
community relations director for Buckhead Holdings. "What about a
law firm?" he asked. "Does anyone do pro-bono work for the shelter?"

Judith opened the front door. "There are a couple of firms who
help out. We're a women's only shelter, you know. Lots of the
women need help filing divorce papers, restraining orders. Some of
them are in trouble with the law. It's all very sad."

"Bandle and Brinks?" Will asked, giving her the name of Anna
Lindsey's law firm.

"Yes," Judith said, smiling. "They help out quite a lot."

"Do you know a woman named Anna Lindsey?"

She shook her head as she went into the house. "Was she staying
in the shelter? I'm ashamed to say there are so many that I often don't
have the time to speak to them individually."

Will followed her inside, glancing around. The layout was
exactly as he would have guessed from the street. There was a large
living room that looked onto a screen porch and the lake. The
kitchen was on the side of the house that had the garage, and the
other side held the bedrooms. All the doors leading off the hallway
were closed. The startling thing was that it looked as if an Easter egg
had exploded inside the house. Decorations were everywhere. There
were bunnies in pastel suits sitting on every available surface. Baskets
with plastic eggs lying in silky green grass were scattered along the
floor.

Will said, "Easter."

Judith beamed. "It's my second favorite time of the year."

Will loosened his tie, feeling a sweat come over him. "Why is
that?"

"The Resurrection. The rebirth of our Lord. The cleansing of all
our sins. Forgiveness is a powerful, transformative gift. I see that at
the shelter every day. Those poor, broken women. They want redemption.
They don't realize it's not something that can just be
given. Forgiveness has to be earned."

"Do they all earn it?"

"Considering your job, I think you know the answer to that better
than I do."

"Some women aren't worthy?"

She stopped smiling. "People like to think that we've moved on
from Biblical times, but we still live in a society where women are
cast out, don't we?"

"Like trash?"

"That's a bit harsh, but we all make our choices."

Will felt a bead of sweat roll down his back. "Have you always
loved Easter?"

She straightened a bowtie on one of the rabbits. "I suppose part of
it's because Henry's work only gave him off Easter and Christmas. It
was always such a special time for us. Don't you love being with family?"

He asked, "Is Henry home?"

"Not at the moment." She turned her watch around on her wrist.
"He's always late. He loses track of time so easily. We were supposed
to go to the community center after Tom picked up the kids."

"Does Henry work at the shelter?"

"Oh, no." She gave a small laugh as she walked into her kitchen.
"Henry's much too busy enjoying his retirement. Tom's good about
helping out, though. He complains, but he's a good boy."

Will remembered Tom had been trying to fix a lawnmower when
they'd found him at the charity shop. "Does he mostly work in the
store?"

"Lord, no, he hates working in the store."

"So, what does he do?"

She picked up a sponge and wiped the counter. "A little bit of
everything."

"Like what?"

She stopped wiping. "If a woman needs legal help, he tracks
down one of the lawyers, or if one of the kids makes a spill, he grabs
a mop." She smiled proudly. "I told you, he's a good boy."

"Sounds like it," Will agreed. "What else does he do?"

"Oh, this and that." She paused, thinking it through. "He coordinates
the donations. He's very good on the phone. If it sounds like
he's talking to someone who might give a bit more, he'll drive the
truck over to pick up their stuff, and nine times out of ten, he comes
back with a nice check in addition. I think he likes getting out and
talking to people. All he does at the airport is stare at blips on a screen
all day. Would you like some iced water? Lemonade?"

"No, thank you," he answered. "What about Jacquelyn Zabel?
Have you heard her name before?"

"That strikes a bell, but I'm not sure why. It's a very unusual
name."

"How about Pauline McGhee? Or maybe Pauline Seward?"

She smiled, putting her hand over her mouth. "No."

Will forced himself to slow things down. The first rule of interviewing
was to be calm, because it was hard to spot whether or not
someone else was tense when you were tense yourself. Judith had
gone still when he'd asked the last question, so he repeated it.
"Pauline McGhee or Pauline Seward?"

She shook her head. "No."

"How often does Tom pick up donations?"

Judith's voice took on a falsely cheerful tone. "You know, I'm not
sure. I've got my calendar in here somewhere. I usually mark the
dates." She opened one of the kitchen drawers and started to rummage
around. She was visibly nervous, and he knew she had opened
the drawer to give herself something to do other than look him in the
eye. She chattered on, telling Will, "Tom is so good about giving his
time. He's very involved in the youth group at his church. The whole
family volunteers at the soup kitchen once a month."

Will didn't let her get sidetracked. "Does he go out alone to pick
up donations?"

"Unless there's a couch or something large." She closed the
drawer and opened another. "I have no idea where my calendar is. All
those years I wanted my husband home with me, and now he drives
me crazy putting things up where they don't belong."

Will glanced out the front window, wondering what was keeping
Faith. "The children are here?"

She opened another drawer. "Napping in the back."

"Tom said he would meet me here. Why didn't he tell us he was at
the crime scene where your car hit Anna Lindsey?"

"What?" She looked momentarily confused, but told him, "Well,
I called Tom to come see Henry. I thought he was having a heart attack,
that Tom would want to be there, that . . ."

"But Tom didn't tell us he was there," Will repeated. "And neither
did you."

"It didn't . . ." She waved her hand, dismissing it. "He wanted to
be with his father."

"These women who were abducted were cautious women. They
wouldn't open the door to just anybody. It would have to be someone
they trust. Somebody they knew was coming."

She stopped looking for the calendar. Her face showed her
thoughts as clear as a picture: She knew something was horribly
wrong.

Will asked, "Where is your son, Mrs. Coldfield?"

Tears welled into her eyes. "Why are you asking all these questions
about Tom?"

"He was supposed to meet me here."

Her voice was almost a whisper. "He said he had to go home. I
don't understand . . ."

Will realized something then—something Faith had said on the
phone. She'd already talked to Tom Coldfield. The reason she wasn't
here yet was because Tom had sent her to the wrong house.

Will made his voice deadly serious. "Mrs. Coldfield, I need to
know where Tom is right now."

She put her hand to her mouth, tears spilling from her eyes.

There was a phone on the wall. Will snatched the receiver off the
hook. He dialed in Faith's cell phone number, but his finger didn't
make it to the last digit. There was a searing pain in his back, the
worst muscle spasm he'd ever had in his life. Will put his hand to his
shoulder, his fingers feeling for a knot, but all he felt was cold, sharp
metal. He looked down to find the bloody tip of what had to be a
very large knife sticking out of his chest.

F
AITH SAT OUTSIDE THOMAS COLDFIELD'S HOUSE , HER CELL
phone to her ear as she listened to Will's cell ring. He'd said he was
two minutes away, but it was looking more like ten. The call went to
voicemail. Will was probably lost, driving around in circles, looking
for her car, because he was too pigheaded to ask for help. If she was in
a better mood, she'd go out and look for him, but she was scared of
what she'd say to her partner if she had him alone.

Every time she thought about Will lying to her, going to talk to
Jake Berman behind her back, she had to squeeze the steering wheel
to keep from punching a hole into the dashboard of the car. They
couldn't go on like this—not with Faith being a liability. If he
thought she couldn't handle herself in the field, then there was no
reason for them to be together anymore. She could put up with a lot
of Will's crazy shit, but she had to have his trust or this would never
work out. It wasn't as if Will didn't have his own liabilities. For instance,
not knowing the difference between something as freaking
simple as left and right.

Faith checked the time again. She would give Will another five
minutes before going into the house.

The doctor hadn't given her good news, though Faith had foolishly
been expecting it. From the minute she'd made the appointment
with Delia Wallace, her health had improved dramatically. She
hadn't woken up in a cold sweat this morning. Her blood sugar was
high, but not off the chart. Her mind felt sharp, focused. And then
Delia Wallace had sent it all crashing down.

Sara had ordered some kind of test at the hospital that showed
Faith's blood sugar pattern over the last few weeks. The results had
not been good. Faith was going to have to meet with a dietician. Dr.
Wallace had told her she was going to have to plan out every meal,
every snack and every single moment of her life until she died—
which she might do prematurely anyway, because her blood sugar
was fluctuating so wildly that Dr. Wallace had told Faith the best
thing she could do was take a couple of weeks off from work and
focus on educating herself about the care and maintenance of a
diabetic.

She loved when doctors said things like that, as if taking two
weeks off from work was something that could be achieved with the
snap of a finger. Maybe Faith could go to Hawaii or Fiji. She could
call up Oprah Winfrey and ask for the name of her personal chef.

Fortunately, there was some good news with the bad. Faith had
seen her baby. Well, not really
seen
it—the child was little more than
a speck right now, but she had listened to his heartbeat, watched the
ultrasound and seen the gentle up and down of the tiny blob inside
her, and even though Delia Wallace had insisted that it wasn't quite
time for such things, Faith would have sworn that she saw a tiny little
hand.

Faith dialed in Will's cell phone number again. It rang over into
voicemail almost immediately. She wondered if his phone had finally
given up the ghost. Why he would not get a new one was beyond
her. Maybe there was some sort of emotional attachment he had to
the thing.

Either way, he was holding her up. She opened the door and got
out of the car. Tom Coldfield lived only ten minutes from where his
parents had met with their unfortunate accident. His house was in
the middle of nowhere, the closest neighbor barely within walking
distance. The home itself had that boxlike feel of modern suburban
architecture. Faith preferred her own ranch house, with its sloping
floorboards and hideous fake paneling in the family room.

Every year when she got her tax rebate, she told herself she was
going to have something done to the paneling, and every year Jeremy
magically managed to need something around the same time as the
check came in. Once, she thought she was going to get away clean,
but the little scamp had broken his arm while trying to prove to his
friends that he could jump his skateboard off the roof of the house
and onto a mattress they had found in the woods.

She put her hand to her stomach. That paneling was going to be
up until she died.

Faith fished in her purse for her ID as she walked to the front
door. She was wearing heels and one of her nicest dresses, because for
some reason this morning it had seemed important to look respectable
in front of Delia Wallace—a silly affectation, since Faith
had spent their entire time together in a thin paper gown.

She turned around, looking out into the empty street. Still no
sign of her partner. She didn't understand what was taking him so
long. Tom had told Faith on the phone that he'd already given Will
directions to his house. Even taking into account the left/right thing,
Will was good at finding his way. He should be here by now.
Regardless, he should definitely be answering his phone. Maybe
Angie had called again. The way Faith was feeling toward Will right
now, she hoped his wife was being every bit her pleasant self.

Faith rang the doorbell and waited much too long for the door to
be answered, considering she had been parked in the driveway for
nearly a quarter of an hour.

"Hi." The woman who came to the door was thin and angular,
but not pretty by any stretch. She gave Faith an awkward, forced
smile. Her blonde hair was lank across her forehead, the dark roots
growing in. She had that run-down look you get when you have
small children.

"I'm Special Agent Faith Mitchell," Faith said, holding up her
badge.

"Darla Coldfield." The woman's voice was one of those breathy
whispers that implied delicacy. She picked at the collar of the purple
blouse she was wearing. Faith could see the edge was worn, threads
sticking up where she had picked open the seam.

"Tom said he'd meet me here."

"He should be home any second." The woman seemed to realize
she was blocking the doorway. She stepped aside. "Won't you come
in?"

Faith walked into the foyer, which was lined with black and white
tile. She saw that the tile went all the way through to the back of the
house, into the kitchen and family room. Even the dining room and
study on either side of the front door was tiled.

Still, she made the perfunctory noise about the woman having a
lovely home, her own footsteps echoing in her ears as they made
their way to the family room. The furnishings were more masculine
than Faith would have guessed. There was a brown leather couch and
matching recliner. The rug on the floor was black with not a speck of
dirt of fuzz showing. There were no toys, which was odd considering
the Coldfields had two children. Maybe they weren't allowed in
the room. She wondered where they spent their time. The part of the
house she had seen was hot and uncomfortable even though it was
cool outside. Faith felt her skin on the edge of breaking into a sweat.
Sun was streaming through the windows, yet every light in the place
was on.

Darla asked, "Would you like some tea?"

Faith was looking at her watch again, wondering about Will.
"Sure."

"Sweet? Unsweet?"

Faith's answer was not as automatic as it should have been.
"Unsweet. Have you lived here long?"

"Eight years."

The place looked about as lived in as a vacant warehouse. "You
have two kids?"

"A boy and a girl." She smiled uncertainly. "Do you have a partner?"

The question seemed strange, given the conversation. "I have a
son."

She smiled, putting her hand to her mouth. She had probably
picked up the gesture from her mother-in-law. "No, I meant someone
you work with."

"Yes." Faith looked at the family photos on the mantel. They
were taken from the same series as the one Judith Coldfield had
shown them at the shelter. "Maybe you could call Tom and see
what's keeping him?"

Her smile faltered. "Oh, no. I wouldn't want to bother him."

"It's police business, so I really do need you to bother him."

Darla pressed her lips together. Faith couldn't read her expression.
She was almost completely blank. "My husband doesn't like to
be rushed."

"And I don't like to be kept waiting."

Darla gave her that same weak smile from before. "I'll go get that
tea for you."

She started to leave, but Faith asked, "Do you mind if I use your
bathroom?"

Darla turned again, her hands clasped in front of her chest. Her
face was still blank. "Down the hall, on the right."

"Thank you." Faith followed her directions, her heels clicking
like a drum major's on the tile as she walked past a pantry and what
must have been the door to the basement. She was getting a creepy
feeling off of Darla Coldfield, but she couldn't quite figure out why.
Maybe it was Faith's instinctive hatred of women who constantly deferred
to their husbands.

Inside the bathroom, she went straight to the sink, where she
splashed cold water on her face. The lights were just as intense in the
powder room, and Faith flipped down the switches, but nothing happened.
She flipped them back up and then back down again. Still the
lights stayed on. She looked up. The bulbs were probably a hundred
watts each.

Faith blinked her eyes several times, thinking that looking directly
into a burning lightbulb was probably not the smartest thing
she had ever done. She grabbed the doorknob to the linen closet to
keep herself steady as she waited for the feeling to pass. Maybe she
would wait in here for Will instead of sitting on the sofa drinking tea
with Darla Coldfield, straining to make small talk. The bathroom
was nice if sparsely furnished. The room was L-shaped, with a linen
closet filling in the void between the top and bottom of the L. Faith
guessed the laundry room was on the other side of the wall. She
could hear the gentle rumble of a clothes dryer through the partition.

Because Faith was a nosey person, she opened the closet door.
There was a slow squeak from the hinges, and she stood there waiting
for Darla Coldfield to come in and chastise her for being rude. When
this did not happen, Faith looked inside. The space was deeper than
she would've guessed, but the shelves were narrow—stacked with
towels that were neatly folded and a set of sheets with racecars on
them that probably belonged to the children.

Where were the children? Maybe they were outside playing.
Faith closed the closet door and looked out the small window. The
backyard was empty—not even a swingset or tree house. Maybe the
kids were taking naps in preparation for Granma and Grandpa's visit.
Faith had never let Jeremy sleep before her parents came to visit.
She'd wanted her mother and father to run him ragged so that he was
tired enough to sleep in the next morning.

She groaned out a long sigh as she sat on the toilet beside the sink.
She was still feeling lightheaded, probably from the heat. Or maybe
from her blood sugar. She had been on the high side at the doctor's
office.

She put her purse on her lap and dug around for her monitor.
There had been a huge display for different blood glucose monitors
on the wall in the doctor's office. Most of them were either cheap or
free, because the real money came from the specialized strips they all
used. Each manufacturer had a different one, so once you chose a
monitor, you were locked in forever. Unless you dropped it on the
bathroom floor and broke it.

"Shit," Faith mumbled, leaning down to pick up the monitor,
which had slipped out of her hand and skittered over by the wall. She
heard a faint, sonorous noise coming from the machine.

Faith picked up the monitor, wondering what damage she had
done. The readout on the machine was still at zero, waiting for a
strip. She shook the device, holding it to her ear and listening for the
sound again. She leaned down, trying to duplicate the motion that
had caused the monitor to make the noise. The sound repeated, more
like the kind of thing you would hear on a playground this time—
loud and frenzied.

And not coming from the monitor.

Could it be a cat? Some animal caught in the heating ducts?
Jeremy's gerbil had been killed in the dryer one Christmas, and Faith
had sold the machine to a neighbor rather than deal with the carnage.
But whatever this thing was, it was alive, and obviously intended to
stay that way. She leaned down a third time, hovering near the heating
grate at the base of the toilet.

The noise was clearer this time, but still muffled. Faith got down
on her knees, pressing her ear to the grate. She thought of all the animals
that could make that sort of noise. It sounded almost like words.

Help.

It wasn't an animal. It was a woman calling for help.

Faith's hand went into her purse, pulling out the velvet bag where
she kept her Glock when she wasn't wearing it on her hip. Her hands
were sweating.

There was a sudden, loud knock on the door; Darla. "Are you
okay in there, Agent Mitchell?"

"I'm fine," Faith lied, trying to keep her voice normal. She found
her cell phone, tried to ignore that her hands had started shaking. "Is
Tom here yet?"

"Yes." The woman went silent. Just that one word hanging in the
air.

"Darla?" There was no answer. "Darla, my partner is on the way.
He's going to be here any minute." Faith's heart was pounding so
hard that her chest hurt. "Darla?"

There was another bang on the door, but this one was sharper.
Faith dropped the phone and held the gun with both hands, ready to
fire at whoever came into the bathroom. The Glock did not have a
conventional safety. The only way it could be fired was if you pulled
the trigger all the way back. Faith aimed at the center of the doorway,
bracing herself to yank back the trigger as hard as she could.

Nothing. No one came through the door. The knob was not
turning. Quickly, she glanced down, looking for her cell phone. It
was behind the toilet. She kept her gun trained on the door while she
reached down for the phone, snatching it up.