Undone (57 page)

“Did your father ever hurt you?”

“No. He was never there to hurt me. We saw him at Christmas and Easter. That was about it.”

“Why Easter?”

“I don’t know. It was always special to my mother. She would dye eggs and hang up streamers and stuff. She would tell Tom the story of his birth, how he was special, how she had wanted a son so badly, how he’d made her life complete.”

“Is that why you chose to run away on Easter?”

“I ran away because Tom was digging another hole in the backyard.”

Faith gave her a moment to collect her thoughts. “This was in Ann Arbor?”

Pauline nodded, a faraway look in her eyes. “I didn’t recognize him, you know?”

“When he abducted you?”

“It happened so fast. I was so damn happy to see Felix. I thought I’d lost him. And then my brain started to make the connection that it was Tom standing there, but it was too late by then.”

“You recognized him?”

“I felt
him. I can’t describe it. I just knew with every part of my body that it was him.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds. “When I came to in the basement, I could still feel him. I don’t know what he did to me while I was passed out. I don’t know what he did.”

Faith suppressed a shudder at the thought. “How did he find you?”

“I think he always knew where I was. He’s good at tracking people down, watching them, figuring out their habits. I guess I didn’t make it too hard, using Alex’s name like I did.” She gave a humorless laugh. “He called me at work about a year and a half ago. Can you believe that? What are the odds that I’d take a call like that and it would be Tom on the other end?”

“Did you know it was him on the phone?”

“Fuck no. I would’ve grabbed Felix and run.”

“What did he want when he called?”

“I told you. It was a cold call.” She shook her head, disbelieving. “He told me about the shelter, that they would take donations and give blank receipts. We’ve got all these rich clients, and they give away their furniture to charity for the tax write-off. It makes them feel better about ditching a fifty-thousand-dollar living room set and buying an eighty-thousand-dollar one.”

Faith couldn’t even comprehend the numbers. “So, you decided to refer your clients to the shelter?”

“I was pissed at Goodwill. They give you a time frame, like between ten and noon. Who can wait for that? My clients are millionaires. They can’t sit around all morning waiting for some homeless dude to show up. Tom said the shelter would make an exact appointment and be there on time. And they always were. They were friendly and clean, which, trust me, is saying a lot. I told everybody to use them.” She realized what she had said. “I told everybody.”

“Including the women on your Internet board?”

She kept silent.

Faith told her what they had found out over the last few days. “Anna Lindsey’s firm started giving the shelter legal advice six months ago. Olivia Tanner’s bank became a major donor last year. Jackie Zabel called the shelter to pick up things from her mother’s house. They all heard about the shelter somewhere.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t know.”

They still hadn’t managed to break into the chat room. The site was too sophisticated, and cracking the passwords no longer had a priority for the FBI, since their guy was already sitting in jail. Faith needed the confirmation, though. She had to hear it from Pauline. “You posted about the shelter, didn’t you?”

Pauline still did not answer.

“Tell me,” Faith said, and for some reason, the request worked.

“Yeah. I posted it.”

Faith hadn’t realized that she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a slow stream. “How did Tom know they all had eating disorders?”

Pauline looked up. Some of her color seeped back into her cheeks. “How did you know?”

Faith thought about the question. They knew because they had investigated the women’s lives, just as methodically as Tom Coldfield had. He’d followed them around, spied on their most intimate moments. And none of them had known he was doing it.

Pauline asked, “Is the other woman all right? The one I was with.”

“Yes.” Olivia Tanner was well enough to refuse to talk to the police.

“She’s a tough bitch.”

“So are you.” Faith told her, “It might help to talk to her.”

“I don’t need help.”

Faith didn’t bother to argue.

Pauline said, “I knew Tom would find me eventually. I kept training myself. Making sure I could go without food. Making sure I could last.” She explained, “When it was me and Alex, he would hurt whoever screamed the loudest, whoever broke first. I made sure it wasn’t me. That’s how I helped myself.”

Will asked, “Your father never asked why your mother wanted to change your names and move?”

“She told him it was to give Tom a fresh start — give us all a fresh start.” She gave a humorless laugh, directing her words toward Faith. “It’s always about the boys, isn’t it? Mothers and their sons. Fuck the daughters. It’s the sons they really love.”

Faith put her hand to her stomach. The gesture had become second nature over the last few days. All along, she had been thinking that the child inside of her was a boy; another Jeremy who would draw pictures and sing to her. Another toddler who would puff out his chest when he told his friends that his mom was a cop. Another young man who was respectful of women. Another adult who knew from his single mother how hard it was to be the fairer sex.

Now Faith prayed that she would have a daughter. Every woman they had met on this case had found a way to hate herself long before Tom Coldfield had gotten hold of her. They all were used to depriving their bodies of everything from nourishment to warmth to something as vital as love. Faith wanted to show her own child a different path. She wanted a girl she could raise who might have a chance of loving herself. She wanted to see that girl grow into a strong woman who knew her value in the world. And she never wanted either of her children to meet someone as bitter and damaged as Pauline McGhee.

Will told Pauline, “Judith’s in the hospital. The bullet just missed her heart.”

The woman’s nostrils flared. Tears came into her eyes, and Faith wondered if there was still a part of her, no matter how small, that wanted some kind of bond with her mother.

Faith offered, “I can take you to see Judith if you want.”

She snorted a laugh, angrily wiping away her tears. “Bitch, don’t even. She was never there for me. I’m sure as shit not going to be there for her.” She shifted her son on her shoulder. “I need to get him home.”

Will tried. “If you could just—”

“Just what?”

He didn’t have an answer for her. Pauline stood up and walked to the door, trying to hold Felix as she reached for the knob.

Faith told her, “The FBI will probably be getting in touch with you.”

“The FBI can kiss my ass.” She managed to get the door open. “And so can you.”

Faith watched her walk down the hallway, shifting Felix as she turned toward the elevators. “God,” she said softly. “It’s hard to feel sorry for her.”

“You did the right thing,” Will told her.

Faith saw herself in Tom Coldfield’s hallway again, her gun pointed at Pauline’s head, Tom bucking on the floor. They weren’t trained to wing suspects. They were trained to fire a rapid bullet spread straight over the center of the chest.

Unless you were Amanda Wagner. Then you squeezed off a single shot that did enough damage to take them down but not take their life.

Will asked, “If you had to do it again, would you let Pauline kill Tom?”

“I don’t know,” Faith confessed. “I was operating on autopilot. I just did what I was trained to do.”

“Considering what Pauline’s been through…” Will began, then stopped himself. “She’s not very nice.”

“She’s a cold-blooded bitch.”

“I’m surprised I haven’t fallen in love with her.”

Faith laughed. She had seen Angie at the hospital when they brought Will out of surgery. “How is Mrs. Trent doing?”

“She’s making sure my life insurance policies are paid up.” He took out his phone. “I told her I’d be back by three.”

Faith didn’t make a comment about the new phone, or the wary look on his face. She supposed Angie Polaski was back in Will’s life now. Faith would just have to get used to her, the same way you tolerated an annoying sister-in-law or the boss’s whorishly obnoxious daughter.

He pushed back his chair. “I guess I should go.”

“You want me to drive you home?”

“I’ll walk.”

He only lived a few blocks over, but he’d been in surgery less than seventy-two hours ago. Faith opened her mouth to protest, but Will stopped her.

“You’re a good cop, Faith, and I’m glad you’re my partner.”

There were few things he could have said that would have stunned her more. “Really?”

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Before she could respond, he told her, “If you ever see Angie on top of me like that, don’t give her a warning, all right? Just pull the trigger.”

SARA STOOD BACK AS THEY ROLLED HER PATIENT OUT OF THE trauma room. The man had been in a head-on collision with a motorcyclist who thought red lights were only for cars. The cyclist was dead, but the man had a good chance thanks to the fact that he was wearing his seatbelt. Sara was constantly amazed at the number of people she saw in the Grady ER who believed seatbelts were unnecessary. She had seen almost as many in the morgue during her years as coroner for Grant County.

Mary came into the room to clean up the mess for the next patient. “Good save,” she said.

Sara felt herself smiling. Grady saw only the worst of the worst. She didn’t hear that often enough.

“How’s that hysterical pregnant cop doing? Mitchell?”

“Faith,” Sara supplied. “Good, I guess.” She hadn’t talked to Faith since the woman had been airlifted to the emergency room two weeks ago. Every time Sara thought to pick up the phone to check on her, something stopped her from making the call. For her part, Faith hadn’t called, either. She was probably embarrassed that Sara had seen her at such a low moment. For a woman who hadn’t been sure whether or not she was going to keep her baby, Faith Mitchell had sobbed like a child when she thought she’d lost it.

Mary asked, “Isn’t your shift over?”

Sara glanced at the clock. Her shift had ended twenty minutes ago. “You need help?” She indicated various detritus she’d thrown on the floor minutes earlier as she’d worked to save her patient’s life.

“Go on,” Mary told her. “You’ve been here all night.”

“So have you,” Sara reminded her, but she didn’t have to be told twice to leave.

Sara walked down the hall toward the doctors’ lounge, stepping aside as gurneys whizzed by. Patients were stacked up like sardines again, and she ducked under the counter at the nurses’ station to take a shortcut away from them. CNN was on the television over the desk; she saw that the Tom Coldfield case was still in the news.

As big as the story was, Sara found it remarkable that more people had not come forward to tell their version of events. She hadn’t expected Anna Lindsey to exploit herself for money, but the fact that the other two surviving women were equally as tight-lipped was surprising in this age of instant movie deals and television exclusives. Sara had gleaned from the news reports that there was more to the story than GBI was letting on, but she was hard-pressed to find anyone who was willing to share the truth.

She certainly could not be faulted for trying. Faith had been incapable of communicating anything when she’d been brought into the ER, but Will Trent had been kept overnight for observation. The kitchen knife had missed all the major arteries, but his tendons were another story. He was looking at months of physical therapy before he got back his full range of motion. Despite this, Sara had gone into his room the next morning with the blatant intent of pumping him for information. He’d been different with her, and kept pulling up the bedsheet, finally tucking it under his chin in an oddly chaste manner, as if Sara had never seen a man’s chest before.

Will’s wife had shown up a few minutes later, and Sara had realized instantly that the awkward moment she’d had with Will Trent on her couch was purely a figment of her imagination. Angie Trent was striking and sexy in that dangerous-looking way that drives men to extremes. Standing beside her, Sara had felt slightly less interesting than the hospital wallpaper. She had made her excuses and left as quickly as politeness would allow. Men who liked women like Angie Trent did not like women like Sara.

She was relieved by the revelation, if only slightly disappointed. It had been nice thinking that a man had found her attractive. Not that she would do anything about it. Sara would never be able to give her heart away to another human being the way she had with Jeffrey. It wasn’t that she was incapable of love; she was simply incapable of repeating that kind of abandon.

“Hey there.” Krakauer was walking out of the lounge as she went in. “You off?”

“Yes,” Sara told him, but the doctor was already down the hall, staring straight ahead, trying to ignore the patients who were calling to him.

She went to her locker and spun the dial. She took out her purse and dropped it on the bench behind her. The zipper gaped open. She saw the edge of the letter tucked in between her wallet and her keys.

The Letter. The explanation. The excuse. The plea for absolution. The shifting of blame.

What could the woman who had single-handedly brought about Jeffrey’s death possibly have to say?

Sara took out the envelope. She rubbed it between her fingers. There was no one else in the lounge. She was alone with her thoughts. Alone with the diatribe. The ramblings. The juvenile justifications.

What could be said? Lena Adams had worked for Jeffrey. She was one of his detectives on the Grant County police force. He had covered for Lena, bailed her out of trouble and fixed her mistakes for over ten years. In return, she had put his life in jeopardy, gotten him mixed up with the kind of men who killed for sport. Lena had not planted that bomb or even known about it. There was no court of law that would condemn her for her actions, but Sara knew — knew to the core of her being — that Lena was responsible for Jeffrey’s death. It was Lena who had gotten him involved with those bloodless mercenaries. It was Lena who had put Jeffrey in the way of the men who murdered him. As usual, Jeffrey had been protecting Lena, and it had gotten him killed.