She turned to Faith. ‘Go to Harding’s place of residence. I’ll have the warrant signed by the time you get there. Harding called himself a private investigator. It makes sense that he was investigating a woman, possibly for Rippy. She could be another victim or she could’ve been blackmailing him for money, or both. Harding will have a file, photographs, notes, hopefully a home address for the girl.’
She pointed to Will. ‘Go with her. Harding can’t be living in luxury. There will be liquor stores, check-cashers, strip joints in his neighborhood. They’ll probably sell burner phones. Cross the IMEIs with any security footage to see if we can pin a phone number to Harding, then cross-reference the numbers against any that are linked to Kip Kilpatrick or Marcus Rippy.’
There was a chorus of ‘Yes, ma’am’s,’ all around.
Will heard metal scraping concrete. The scissor lift had brought Charlie Reed to the second floor. He had a grim look on his face as he approached them.
Amanda said, ‘Spit it out, Charlie. We’re already against the clock.’
Charlie fidgeted with his cell phone. ‘I got back the info on the Glock 43.’
‘And?’
Charlie kept his gaze glued to Amanda. ‘Maybe we should—’
‘I said spit it out.’
He took a deep breath. ‘It’s registered to Angie Polaski.’
Will felt a sudden tightness in his chest. He tasted acid on his tongue.
Dark hair. Smart mouth. Killer body.
There was a burning sensation on the side of his face. People staring at him. Waiting for his reaction. A bead of sweat rolled into his eye. He looked up at the ceiling because he didn’t trust himself to look at anything else.
It was Collier who finally broke the silence with a question. ‘What am I missing here?’ No one answered, so he asked, ‘Who’s Angie Polaski?’
Sara had to clear her throat before she could speak. ‘Angie Polaski is Will’s wife.’
TWO
Sara watched Will brace his hand against the wall to steady himself. She should do something—comfort him, tell him it was going to be all right—but she just stood there struggling against the usual spark of rage that accompanied any mention of his erratic, hateful wife.
Angie Polaski had been flitting in and out of Will’s life like a mosquito since he was eleven years old. They had grown up together at the Atlanta Children’s Home, both surviving abuse, neglect, abandonment, torture. Not all of this had come at the hands of the system. Of all the pains visited down upon Will during his adolescence, nothing compared to the torments Angie had put him through. Still kept putting him through, because it made a cruel kind of sense that they were all assembled here in this building with a pool of blood congealing around her latest victim.
Dale Harding was collateral damage. Will was always Angie’s primary target, the one she kept hitting again and again.
Was this finally the end of her?
‘It can’t—’ Will stopped. His eyes scanned the murder room. ‘She can’t be—’
Sara tried to push down her anger. This wasn’t just another one of Angie’s peevish grabs for attention. She could see Will making the same connections: the violent struggle, the life-threatening injury, the veritable lake of blood.
Wounded. Dangerous. Desperate.
Angie.
‘She—’ Will stopped again. ‘Maybe she’s—’ He slumped against the wall. His breathing was erratic. ‘Oh God. Oh Jesus.’ He put his hand to his mouth. ‘She can’t be—’ His voice cracked. ‘It’s her.’
‘We don’t know that.’ Sara tried to make her voice reassuring. She reminded herself that this wasn’t about Angie. This was about Will. Seeing him in so much pain was like a knife twisting in her chest. ‘Her gun could’ve been stolen, or—’
‘It’s her.’ He turned his back to them and walked a few feet away, but not before Sara saw the anguished expression on his face. She felt overwhelmed by her own uselessness. Angie was someone they both desperately wanted to be rid of, but not like this. At least not that Sara would ever say aloud. She had to admit that she had always known that Angie would never gracefully bow out. Even in death—or near-death—she had found a way to drag Will down with her.
Amanda asked, ‘Charlie, what’s the address on the registration?’
‘The same as on her driver’s license.’ Charlie looked at the screen on his phone. ‘Ninety-eight—’
‘Baker,’ Will interrupted, still not turning around. ‘That’s her old address. What about the phone number?’
Charlie read off a number, and Will shook his head. ‘Disconnected.’
Amanda asked Will, ‘Do you know where she is?’
He shook his head again.
‘When did you last see her?’
Will paused a moment before answering, ‘Saturday.’
Sara felt the knife in her chest make a final, violent twist. ‘Saturday?’
They had slept over at his house. They had made love. Twice. Then Will had told Sara he was going for a run and secretly met with his wife.
Sara’s mouth could barely form words. ‘You saw her two days ago?’
Will said nothing.
Amanda gave a quick, agitated sigh. ‘Do you have a phone number? A place of employment? Any means to get in touch with her?’
He shook his head to every question.
Sara stared at his back, his broad shoulders that she had wrapped her arms around. His neck that she had kissed. His thick dirty-blond hair that she’d run her fingers through. Tears welled into her eyes. Had he been seeing Angie all this time? All of those late nights at work. All of those early meetings. All of those two-hour runs and pick-up games of basketball.
‘All right.’ Amanda clapped her hands for attention. Her voice was raised to fill the building. ‘Crime scene people, take a fifteen-minute break. Get hydrated. Sit in the air conditioning.’
There was a groan of appreciation as the white-suited techs made their way toward the exits. They would probably start gossiping as soon as they were outside.
Sara wiped her eyes before her tears could fall. She was at work. She had to focus on what was in front of her, what she could control. She told Amanda, ‘We can do blood typing in the mobile lab. Results are almost instantaneous.’ She tried in vain to swallow the lump in her throat. ‘It’s not DNA, but we can use ABO typing as a rule-out against Angie. Or as a rule-in, depending what her blood type is.’ She had to stop to swallow again. She couldn’t tell if she was making any sense. ‘We can establish a loose narrative. Does the blood type from the spatter on the stairs match the type of the bloody footprints that go toward the room? Do those samples match the blood type inside the room? Is it the same type as the arterial spray? The hand swipe?’ Sara pressed together her lips. How many times was she going to say the word type? Someone could turn it into a drinking game. ‘I’ll need Angie’s blood type. And we’ll need to backstop all of this with DNA. But the blood typing could at least tell us something.’
Amanda gave a curt nod. ‘Do it. Angie was a cop for ten years. I’ll pull the blood info from her file.’ She sounded uncharacteristically flustered. ‘Faith, hit the phones. We need a current address, phone, employer, anything you can find. Collier, yours and Ng’s orders haven’t changed. I want you to get teams to search the ware—’