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CHAPTER ONE
FAITH MITCHELL DUMPED THE CONTENTS OF HER PURSE ONTO the passenger seat of her Mini, trying to find sou reht about the box of nutrition bars in her kitchen pantry, and her sto open
The co was supposed to last three hours, but that had stretched into four and a half thanks to the jackass in the front roho kept asking pointless questions The Georgia Bureau of Investigation trained its agents ion Statistics and data on cri drummed into their heads They had to be up to date on all of the latest technology They had to qualify at the range twice a year They ran mock raids and active shooter simulations that were so intense that for weeks after, Faith couldn’t go to the bathroo shadows in doorways Usually, she appreciated the agency’s thoroughness Today, all she could think about was her four-month-old baby, and the promise Faith had made to her mother that she would be back no later than noon
The clock on the dash read ten after one o’clock when she started the car Faithlot in front of the Panthersville Road headquarters She used Bluetooth to dial her ave back a static-y silence Faith hung up and dialed again This tinal
Faith tapped her finger on the steering wheel as she listened to the bleating Her mother had voicemail Everybody had voicemail Faith couldn’t renal on the telephone She had alotten the sound There was probably a crossed wire so up and tried the number a third time
Still busy
Faith steered with one hand as she checked her BlackBerry for an email from her mother Before Evelyn Mitchell retired, she had been a cop for just shy of four decades You could say a lot about the Atlanta force, but you couldn’t claim they were behind the times Evelyn had carried a cell phone back when they were more like purses you strapped around your shoulder She’d learned how to use ehter had She’d carried a BlackBerry for almost twelve years
But she hadn’t sent a e today
Faith checked her cell phone voicee froet her teeth cleaned, but there was nothing new She tried her phone at hoone there to pick up so for the baby Faith’s house was just down the road from Evelyn’s Maybe Emma had run out of diapers Maybe she’d needed another bottle Faith listened to the phone ring at her house, then heard her own voice answer, telling callers to leave a e
She ended the call Without thinking, she glanced into the back seat Emma’s e out over the top of the plastic
“Idiot,” Faith whispered to herself She dialed her mother’s cell phone nus Evelyn’s voicemail picked up
Faith had to clear her throat before she could speak She are of a treuess you took Eed onto the interstate She was about twenty minutes outside of Atlanta and could see fluffy white clouds draped like scarves around the skinny necks of skyscrapers “Just call e of her brain
Grocery store Gas station Pharmacy Her mother had a car seat identical to the one in the back of Faith’s Mini She was probably out running errands Faith was over an hour late Evelyn would’ve taken the baby and … Left Faith ato be out The woman had been on call for the o to the toilet without letting someone know Faith and her older brother, Zeke, had joked about it when they were kids They always knehere their mother was, even when they didn’t want to Especially when they didn’t want to
Faith stared at the phone in her hand as if it could tell her as going on She are that sheThe landline could be out Her mother wouldn’t know this unless she tried to , or both Her BlackBerry could be in her car or her purse or solanced back and forth between the road and her BlackBerry as she typed an email to her mother She spoke the words aloud as she typed—
“On-my-way Sorry-I’m-late Call-me”
She sent the e with the spilled items frou the purse lint clinging to her tongue She turned on the radio, then snapped it back off The traffic thinned as she got closer to the city The clouds ht rays of sunshine The inside of the car began to bake
Ten e, and she eating from the heat in the car She cracked the sunroof to let in some air This was probably a simple case of separation anxiety She’d been back at work for a little over twowhen Faith left E akin to a seizure take hold Her vision blurred Her heart shook in her chest Her head buzzed as if a million bees had flown into her ears She was more irritable than usual at work, especially with her partner, Will Trent, who either had the patience of Job or was setting up a believable alibi for when he finally snapped and strangled her
Faith couldn’t recall if she had felt this same anxiety with Jeree Faith had been eighteen when she entered the police acaderabbed onto the idea of joining the force as if it was the only life preserver left on the Titanic Thanks to two ment in the back of a ly bad taste in ht from puberty to hteen, she had relished the idea of earning a steady paycheck so that she could move out of her parents’ house and raise Jere to work every day had been a step toward independence Leaving him in day care had seemed like a small price to pay
Now that Faith was thirty-four, with a e, a car pay more than to move back into herShe wanted to open the refrigerator and see food that she didn’t have to buy She wanted to turn on the air conditioner in the su to pay the bill She wanted to sleep until noon, then watch TV all day Hell, while she was at it, she o, so that he could make her pancakes at breakfast and tell her how pretty she was
No chance of that now Evelyn seemed happy to play the role of nanny in her retire to get any easier Her own retirement was almost twenty years away The Mini had another three years of payments and would be out of warranty well before that Ehteen years, if not more And it wasn’t like when Jeremy was a baby and Faith could dress him in mismatched socks and yard sale hand-me-downs Babies today had to coordinate They needed BPA-free bottles and certified organic applesauce froot into the architectural progra at sixhis laundry Most worryingly, her son had found a serious girlfriend An older girlfriend with curvy hips and a ticking biological clock Faith could be a grandmother before she turned thirty-five