She squinted her eyes at the titles, then thought better of it, giving her eyes a break and clicking the button to zoom in on the photo. There were several graphic novels, which made sense, and what looked like manuals for various pieces of office equipment. The spines were all sectioned together by color rather than title. The books on the bottom shelf were taller, the words blurred from being out of the camera lens's center frame. Faith guessed from their size that they were art books—the expensive type that you put on your coffee table for show.
Faith zoomed in closer on the bottom shelf, but still could not make out any of the titles. Something was familiar about the thick gray spines of three of the books. She put her chin in her hand, wincing at the pain from her bruised jaw. Why did the spines look so familiar?
She opened one of the boxes from Warren's apartment, looking to see if any of the books had been packed. They all seemed to contain papers and receipts from over the last ten years. Faith skimmed through the stacks, wondering why in the hell Will had taken all of this crap from the scene. Was it really necessary for them to know that Warren had paid a hundred ten dollars to Vision Quest for an eye exam six years ago?
More importantly, why would Will waste Faith's time asking her to go through stuff that was basically trash? She felt her irritation building as she skimmed page after page of useless documentation. Faith could understand why Warren would keep all of this—he would have no way of knowing whether or not it would be important one day, but why would Will want it catalogued into evidence? He didn't strike her as a needle-in-a-haystack kind of person, and with Bernard and Warren behind bars, there were certainly better uses to make of her time.
Slowly, Faith sat up in her chair, holding the dated bill in her hands but not really looking at it. Her mind flashed on different scenes from the last few days: Will reaching for the directory at the dorm even though the sign clearly said it was broken. The way she had found him at the school yesterday morning, his head bent over the newspaper as he touched his finger to each word on the page. Even at Evan Bernard's house today, he had thumbed through every page of the yearbooks rather than simply turning to the index and looking up the man's name, as Faith had done when she'd found the photograph of Mary Clark.
Two days ago, after Evan Bernard's insightful diagnosis that the abductor was functionally illiterate, Faith had had but one question: How can someone get through school without learning how to read and write?
"It happens," Will had told her. He had sounded so certain. Was that because it had happened to him?
Faith shook her head, though she was only arguing with herself. It didn't make sense. You had to have an advanced degree to get into the GBI. They didn't let just anybody in. Barring that, every government agency functioned on mounds and mounds of paperwork. There were reports to fill out, requisitions to be filed, casebooks to be submitted. Had Faith ever seen Will fill out anything? She thought about his computer setup, the fact that he had a microphone. Why would he need a microphone for his computer? Did he dictate his reports?
Faith rubbed her fingers into her eyes, wondering if lack of sleep was making her see things that weren't there. This simply was not possible. She had worked with the man almost every hour of the day since this whole thing started. Faith was not so stupid that she missed something that glaringly obvious. For his part, Will was too smart to be bad at anything so basic.
She looked back at her computer screen, concentrating on the books Warren had stacked along the bottom shelf. Questions about Will still pulled at her thoughts. Could he read the titles? Could he even read the threatening notes that had been slid under Adam Humphrey's door? What else had he missed?
Faith blinked, finally realizing why the three books on the bottom shelf looked so familiar. Here she had been questioning Will's abilities when an important piece of evidence practically glowed right in front of her.
She pulled out her spiral-bound notebook, looking for the phone number she had scribbled down at the school this morning. Tim Clark answered the phone on the third ring.
"Is Mary there?"
Again, he seemed reluctant to let his wife speak to the police. "She's taking a nap."
She was probably exactly where Faith had left her, staring into the backyard, wondering how she was going to cope with her memories. "I need to speak to her. It's very important."
He sighed, letting her know he wasn't happy. Minutes later, Mary came onto the line. Faith felt bad for thinking her husband was lying. The woman sounded as if she'd just been woken from a very deep sleep.
"I'm sorry for disturbing you."
"Doesn't matter," the woman said, her words slurring. Faith didn't feel so bad when she realized Mary Clark had obviously been drinking.
"I know you don't remember the name of the girl Evan was accused of raping back at Crim," Faith began. "But remember you said he had an alibi?"
"What?"
"Back at Crim," Faith repeated, wanting to reach through the phone and shake her. "Remember you said that Evan left the school because of a rape allegation?"
"They couldn't prove anything." Mary gave a harsh laugh. "He always gets away with it."
"Right," Faith coaxed, staring at her computer screen, the familiar gray spines of the Alonzo Crim High School yearbooks on Warren Grier's bookshelf. "But that time, you said he got away with it because there was a student who served as an alibi."
"Yeah," Mary conceded. "Warren Grier." She almost spit out the words. "He said they were together after school for some tutoring or something."
Faith had to be sure. "Mary, are you telling me that Warren Grier gave Evan Bernard an alibi for a crime thirteen years ago?"
"Yeah," she repeated. "Pathetic, right? That little retard was even farther up Evan's ass than I was."
CHAPTER TWENTY
WILL REACHED FOR a paper cup but found the dispenser empty. He peered into the long cylinder mounted to the water cooler, making sure there wasn't a cup stuck in the tube.
"I got more in the back," Billy Peterson offered. He was an older cop who had been in charge of the cells for as long as anyone could remember.
"Thanks." Will stood with his hands in his pockets, afraid the tremble would come back and give him away. He felt a familiar coldness building inside of him, the same coldness he had developed when he was a child. Watch what's happening, but keep yourself removed from the fear, the pain. Don't let them know they've gotten to you because all that will do is inspire them to get more creative.
Will never talked about the things that had happened to him-not even with Angie. She had seen some of it go down, but Will had managed to keep most of his dark secrets stored tightly in his mind. Until now. The things he had told Warren Grier, the awful secrets he had shared with him, were thoughts that had been building up inside Will for a long time. Instead of feeling catharsis, he felt exposed, vulnerable. He felt like a fraud. And a heel. There was no telling what was going through Warren's mind right now as he sat alone in his tiny cell. He was probably wishing he had pulled that trigger a third time.
For just a split second, Will found himself not blaming the man. He couldn't block out the Warren from the interrogation room, the sadness in his posture, the guarded way he looked up at Will as if he expected to be kicked in the face at any moment. Will had to remind himself of what Warren had done, the people whose lives he had ruined—and still might be ruining even as he was in custody.