The Silent Wife. Karin Slaughter

lungs tightened as she pushed out the word. “Jeffrey.”

      “Yeah.” He paused again. “Really bad things.”

      Her hand went to her throat. Unbidden, she thought about the way Jeffrey used to stroke her neck when they were lying in bed. She banished the memory. “Nesbitt is saying that he was framed? That the department acted illegally?”

      “Yes.”

      Sara nodded, because this wasn’t a new charge. “He tried to sue Jeffrey’s estate in civil court.” In effect, he had tried to sue Sara. At the time, she was still struggling to come to terms with Jeffrey’s death. Sleeping too much, crying too much, taking too many sleeping pills and not caring whether or not she woke up. “The case was dismissed. What does he want now?”

      “He’s offering to trade some information if we re-open the investigation.”

      Sara could not stop nodding. It was her body’s way of trying to make sense of this, as if she could anticipate everything that was coming and had no problem accepting it. “What information?”

      Will laid out the details, but everything he said turned nonsensical. Sara had nearly drowned in her own grief after losing Jeffrey. She had moved to Atlanta to get away from his ghost on every street corner. She had met Will. She had fallen in love with him. She was on the precipice of starting a new life and now—

      “Sara?” Will said.

      She tried to strip away her emotions and take this to its logical conclusion. It wasn’t easy. Her heart was punching like a fist against her ribcage. She said, “You’re going to have to talk to Lena about Nesbitt’s case.”

      He hesitated before saying, “Yes.”

      “And Lena will tell you Nesbitt is full of shit, because he’s always been full of shit. Or maybe he’s not, because Lena is a liar, and she’s a bad cop. But Nesbitt’s a pedophile and he’s in prison, so who are people going to believe?”

      “Yes.” His tone was still off, but everything felt off. “There’s something else.”

      “Of course there is.”

      “Nesbitt claims there are other victims. The first one—”

      “Rebecca Caterino.” The girl’s name was seared into her memory. “She went by Beckey.”

      “Nesbitt says there were more victims after his arrest.” Will paused again. “He says that a serial killer is working all over the state.”

      Sara still could not parse the information. Her hand covered her mouth. Every part of her body wanted to end this conversation. “Do you believe him?”

      “I don’t know. Faith and Amanda told me not to tell you anything until we have more information, but I felt like you would want to know. Immediately. And this is the first chance I had to talk. I’m in the bathroom. Faith is waiting for me in the car.” He stopped, obviously expecting a response, but Sara was without words. “You wanted me to tell you about this, right?”

      Sara couldn’t honestly say. “What else?”

      “I got Amanda to agree to let you examine the latest victim. Alleged victim. We’re still not sure.” He stopped to swallow. “She wanted you to go in without any preconceptions, I guess. Like if you saw something, a detail or a signature, that reminded you of the Grant County case, but I—”

      “Was Faith on board with lying to me, too?”

      He didn’t answer.

      Sara scanned the parking lot. She spotted Faith’s red Mini down by the employee entrance. Her friend was sitting in the passenger’s seat, head bent toward her lap. She was probably reading Daryl Nesbitt’s case file because she had already told Will to lie to Sara so that part of her job was done.

      “Will?”

      Sara could hear him breathing, but he still didn’t answer.

      She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She looked down at her hand.

       Carpals. Metacarpals. Proximal, intermediate and distal phalanges.

      There were twenty-seven bones in the hand. If she got through them all without Will speaking, she was going to hang up and leave.

      He cleared his throat.

       Scaphoid. Lunate. Triquetral. Pisiform. Trapezium. Trapezoid.

      “Sara?” he finally said. “Did I do the wrong thing?”

      “No.”

      She ended the call. She slipped the phone back into her pocket. She continued across the parking lot. Sara felt blurred, like she was two inches outside of her body. One part of her was in the present, living her life with Will. The other part was being pulled back into Grant County. Jeffrey. Frank. Lena. The woods. The victim. The grim circumstances of the case.

      Sara struggled against the competing images. She searched for solid, verifiable things.

      Gary and Charlie were standing at the back of the crime scene van.

      Faith was still in her Mini.

      Amanda was in her white Audi A8. Her phone was to her ear. Her salt-and-pepper helmet of hair had tilted forward like a bell as she leaned against the headrest. She saw Sara and motioned her over.

      The passenger-side window slid down. Amanda said, “You’re with me. There’s an interesting case in Sautee.”

       She wanted you to go in without any preconceptions.

      Sara lifted the door handle. She was on autopilot. Her brain was too overloaded to process anything but muscle commands. She opened the door. She started to get in.

      “Sara?” Will was jogging toward the car. He looked exactly how she felt—blindsided. He was out of breath when he reached her. His eyes took in Amanda, Charlie, Gary, Faith. They all probably knew about Nesbitt and they had all somehow agreed to keep Sara in the dark.

      She told Will, “I want a salad for dinner.”

      He hesitated before nodding.

      She pressed her hand to his chest. His heart thumped wildly beneath her palm. “I’ll call you when I’m on the way home.”

      She kissed him on the mouth the same way she normally would. She sat in Amanda’s car. Will closed the door. Sara put on her seatbelt. Will waved. Sara waved back.

      Amanda pulled out of the parking space. She took a left onto the main road. She didn’t speak until they were turning onto the interstate. “Sautee Nacoochee is in White County, approximately fifty miles from here. A twenty-nine-year-old female named Alexandra McAllister was found in the Unicoi State Park at approximately six yesterday morning. She was reported missing by her mother eight days ago. There was a large-scale search that yielded nada. Two hikers were out with their dog. The dog found the body in a heavily wooded area between two trails. The county coroner has officially ruled it as an accidental death. My gut tells me otherwise.”

       There’s something else.

      “I’ve called in some favors to get us a look-see at the body,” Amanda said. “We’ve got our big toe in, but they can pull us back at any time, so let’s tread softly.”

       More victims. Other women. Serial killer.

      Sara had seen Daryl Nesbitt in person only once. He was sitting beside his lawyer in the courtroom. Sara was standing with Buddy Conford, the man she had hired to represent her in the civil case against Jeffrey’s estate. She was swaying so badly that Buddy had to hold her up. The loss of Jeffrey had stopped her world from spinning. Sara had always thought of herself as strong. She was smart, driven, capable of pushing herself to the extreme. Jeffrey’s murder had changed her at a molecular level. The woman who’d never let anyone outside of family see her