Will stood up, because he had been raised by a woman old enough to be his grandmother, and Mrs Flannigan had taught them manners more suited to the Greatest Generation.
Mrs Lindsay seemed to appreciate the gesture. She smiled sweetly as she sat down on the couch opposite Will.
She asked, ‘Is it still hot as the dickens outside?’
He took his seat. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Lord help us.’ She smiled at him again, then picked up a magazine. Sports Illustrated. Marcus Rippy was on the cover palming a basketball. Will looked out the window because seeing the man’s face made him want to throw his chair across the room.
Mrs Lindsay tore out a subscription card and started to fan herself.
Will crossed his leg over his knee. He sat back in the deep chair. His calf was throbbing. There was a dot of blood on the leg of his jeans. He felt like a lifetime had passed since his foot had broken through the rotted floor of the condemned office building. At home, he’d wrapped his bleeding calf in gauze, but apparently that hadn’t solved the problem.
He looked at his watch. He ignored the dried blood on the back of his hand. He checked his phone, which was packed with threats from Amanda. The only sound in the room was Mrs Lindsay turning an occasional page in her magazine and the sporadic clattering of the receptionist’s long fingernails hitting her keyboard. Tap. Tap. Tap. She was far from proficient. Will couldn’t stop himself from duplicating the mantra from the elevator.
Angie. Angie. Angie.
She disappeared all the time. Months would go by, sometimes an entire year, and then one day Will would be eating dinner over the kitchen sink or lying on the couch watching TV and Angie would let herself into the house and act like only a few minutes had passed since the last time she’d seen him.
She would always say, ‘It’s me, baby. Did you miss me?’
That’s what she was doing now. She had disappeared, and she would be back, because she always came back eventually.
Will uncrossed his legs. He leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. He twisted the cheap wedding ring around his finger. He’d bought the gold band for twenty-five bucks at a pawnshop. He had wanted to look legitimately married for the bank manager. Will could’ve saved the cash. The manager had barely glanced at his ID before giving him access to Angie’s entire financial life.
He picked at the ring. The gold was chipping off. It was nicer than the one Angie had given him.
Will dropped his hands. He wanted to stand up and pace, but he felt instinctively that the receptionist would not like that. Neither, he imagined, would Mrs Lindsay. Nothing was worse than watching someone else pace back and forth, plus it was a giant tip-off that you were nervous about something, and he didn’t want Kip Kilpatrick to know that he was nervous.
Should he be nervous? Will had the upper hand. At least he thought he did, but Kilpatrick had blindsided him before.
Will picked up a magazine. He recognized the Robb Report logo. There was a Bentley Bentayga SUV on the cover. Will paged to the article. Numbers had never been a problem for him. He found the car’s specs and traced his finger under the text. The words were easier to make out because they were familiar from other specs in other magazines, because he loved cars. Twin turbo 6.0 liter W12. 600 h.p. and 664 lb-ft of torque. Top speed of 187 m.p.h. The interior photographs showed hand-embroidered leather seats and delicate reeding around the chrome gauges.
Will drove a thirty-seven-year-old Porsche 911, but the car was no classic. His first mode of transportation had been a Kawasaki dirtbike, a sweet ride if you could show up for work covered in sweat or soaked in rain. One day Will had spotted a burned-out chassis abandoned in a field near his house. He’d paid some homeless guys to help him carry what was left of the Porsche back to his garage. The car was drivable after six months, but lack of money and a daunting technical schematic meant that it took Will almost ten years to fully restore it.
Sara had taken him to test-drive a brand-new 911 at Christmas. The trip to the dealership had been a surprise. Will had felt like an imposter standing in the showroom, but Sara had been right at home. She was used to being around money. Her apartment was a penthouse loft that cost north of a million bucks. Her BMW X5 had every bell and whistle. Sara had that confidence that came from knowing she could afford to buy what she wanted. Like the way she had stood in those open houses yesterday, looking around the large open spaces, silently thinking about the things she would change to make it more suited for her tastes, completely missing the fact that Will’s hands were shaking as he held the flier and counted the number of zeroes in front of the decimal.
Will’s Social Security number had been stolen by a foster parent when he was six years old. He didn’t find this out until he was twenty and tried to open his first bank account. His credit was in the toilet. He’d had to pay cash for everything until he was twenty-eight, and then the only credit card he could use was the one attached to his ATM. Even his house had been paid for with cash. He’d bought it at a tax foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps. For the first three years, he’d slept with a shotgun beside his bed because crack addicts kept showing up expecting to score some rocks from the gang that used to squat there.
Will still couldn’t get a credit card. Because of his cash-only policy, he had gone from bad credit to no credit. He literally did not show up with any of the ratings agencies. If Sara thought they were going to be able to buy a house together, she’d better be prepared to exchange her million-dollar penthouse loft for a shoebox. After ignoring Amanda all day, Will probably didn’t have a job anymore.
‘Are you a ball player?’
Will looked up from the magazine. Mrs Lindsay was talking to him.
‘No, ma’am,’ he told her, and then because as far as he knew, it was still technically true, he said, ‘I’m a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.’
‘Isn’t that interesting?’ She played with the pearls around her neck. ‘Now, the GBI is the state police?’
‘No, ma’am. We’re a statewide agency that provides assistance with criminal investigations, forensic laboratory services and computerized criminal justice information.’
‘Sort of like the FBI, but to the state?’
She had picked it up quicker than most. ‘Yes, ma’am, exactly.’
‘All kinds of cases?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Every kind.’
‘How interesting.’ She started to rummage inside her purse. ‘Are you here for your job? I hope no one is in trouble?’
Will shook his head. ‘No, ma’am. Just some routine questions.’
‘What’s your full name?’
‘Will Trent.’
‘Will Trent. A man with two first names.’ She took out a small notebook with a church glass pattern on the vinyl cover. She picked at the pen inside the spiral.
Will leaned up so he could get his wallet. He fished out one of his business cards. ‘This is me.’
She studied the card. ‘Will Trent, Special Agent, Georgia Bureau of Investigation.’ She smiled at him as she tucked the card into her notebook and returned it to her purse. ‘I like to remember people I meet. How long have you been married?’
Will glanced down at the pawnshop ring on his finger. Was he a widower? What did you call yourself if your wife died when you no longer wanted to be married to her?
‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Lindsay apologized. ‘I’m being nosey. My daughter is always telling me I’m too curious for my own good.’
‘No, ma’am. That’s all right. I’m kind of nosey, too.’
‘I should hope so, considering your job.’ She laughed, so Will laughed too. She told him, ‘I was married for fifty-one years to a wonderful man.’
‘You were a child bride?’
She laughed again. ‘You’re very kind, Special Agent Trent, but no. My husband passed away three years ago.’
Will felt a lump come into his throat. ‘And you have a daughter?’
‘Yes.’ That was all she said. She clutched her purse in her lap. She kept smiling at him. He smiled back.
And then he saw her bottom lip start to quiver.