Criminal

number. For a split second, he considered sending the call to voicemail, but he knew from experience that Amanda would not be easily deterred.
    He answered, “Trent.”
    “Where are you?”
    For some reason, he found the question intrusive. “Why?”
    Amanda gave a weary sigh. He could hear noises on her end—the low murmur of a crowd, a repetitive clicking sound. “Just answer me, Will.”
    “I’m at Sara’s.” She didn’t respond, so he asked, “Do you need me?”
    “No, I most certainly do not. You’re still on airport duty until further notice. Do you understand me? Nothing else.”
    He stared at the phone for a moment, then put it back to his ear. “All right.”
    Abruptly, she ended the call. Will had the distinct feeling she would’ve slammed down the receiver if such a thing were possible on a cell phone.
    Instead of leaving, he stood in the foyer, trying to figure out what had just happened. Will replayed the conversation in his head. No obvious explanation jumped out. Will was used to his boss being obtuse. Anger was hardly a new emotion. But while Amanda had certainly hung up on him before, Will couldn’t fathom why she cared where he was at the moment. Actually, he was surprised that she was even talking to him. He hadn’t heard her voice in two weeks.
    Deputy Director Amanda Wagner was an old-timer, from that group of cops who easily bent the rules to make a case but stuck to the manual when it came to the dress code. The GBI required all non-undercover agents to keep their hair half an inch off their collar. Two weeks ago, Amanda had actually slapped a ruler to the back of Will’s neck, and when he hadn’t taken the hint, she’d transferred him to airport duty, which required Will to hang out in various men’s toilets, waiting for someone to sexually proposition him.
    Will’s mistake was mentioning the ruler to Sara. He’d told her the story as a sort of joke as well as an explanation for why he needed to run up the street to the barbershop before they went to dinner. Sara hadn’t told Will not to get his hair cut. She was so much smarter than that. She’d told him she liked his hair the length that it was. She’d told him that it looked good on him. She’d stroked the back of his neck while she said this. And then she had suggested that instead of going to the barber, they go into the bedroom and do something so filthy that Will had experienced a few seconds of hysterical blindness.
    Which was why he was looking at spending the rest of his career doing a Mr. Bojangles under the bathroom stall of every men’s toilet in the busiest passenger airport in the world.
    But it didn’t explain why Amanda had felt the need to locate Will on this particular day at this particular time.
    Or the sound of people gathered in the background. Or the familiar clicking noise.
    Will went back into the living room. The dogs shifted on the couch, but Will didn’t sit down. He picked up the remote and turned on the television. A basketball game was on. He flipped to the local station. Monica Pearson, the Channel 2 anchor, was sitting behind her news desk. She was doing a story on the Beltline, the new transportation system that was hated by everyone in Atlanta except for the politicians. Will’s finger was on the power button when the story changed. Breaking news. The image of a young woman appeared over Pearson’s shoulder. Will turned up the volume as the story was tossed to a live news conference.
    What he saw made him sit down.
    Amanda Wagner stood at a wooden podium. A handful of microphones were in front of her. She was waiting for silence. Will heard the familiar sounds: cameras clicking over the low murmur of the crowd.
    He’d seen his boss do hundreds of news conferences. Usually, Will was in the back of the room, trying to stay off camera, while Amanda basked in the glow of undivided attention. She loved being in charge. She lived to control the slow trickle of information that fed the media. Except for now. Will studied her face as the camera closed in. She looked tired. More than that—she looked worried.
    She said, “The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released an Alert Bulletin on Ashleigh Renee Snyder. The nineteen-year-old female was reported missing at approximately three-fifteen this afternoon.” Amanda paused, giving the newspaper journalists time to scribble down the description. “Ashleigh lives in the Techwood area and is a sophomore at the Georgia Institute of