Criminal

stood. “Duty calls.” Her feet dragged the floor as she headed toward the nurses’ station.
    Sara held up Emma and touched her nose to the baby’s. Emma showed both rows of gums, squealing in delight. If there was any question about how good a mother Faith Mitchell was, one need only look at her happy baby. Sara kissed Emma’s cheeks. The little girl giggled. A few more kisses and she started snorting. Her feet kicked in the air. Sara kissed her again.
    “His what ?” Faith shouted.
    Her voice echoed through the ER. Both mother and daughter stared openly at Sara. From this distance, they could’ve been twins. Both around the same weight and height. Both with blonde hair and a familiar set to their shoulders. Faith’s expression was troubled, and Evelyn’s was as inscrutable as usual. The older woman said something, and Faith nodded before heading toward Sara.
    “Sorry.” Faith held out her hands for Emma. “I need to go.”
    Sara passed her the baby. “Is everything okay?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Is it Ashleigh Snyder?”
    “No. Yes.” Faith’s mouth opened again, then closed. Obviously, there was something wrong. Faith didn’t shock easily, and Evelyn Mitchell wasn’t one to casually dole out information.
    Sara said, “Faith, you’re scaring me. Is Will all right?”
    “I don’t—” She stopped herself. “I can’t—” Again, she stopped. Her lips pressed together in a thin white line. Finally, she said, “You were right, Sara. Some things we have to keep separate.”
    For the second time that night, a person keeping a secret turned their back on Sara and walked away.

seven
    July 11, 1975
    FRIDAY
    Amanda scanned through her women’s studies textbook, marking the paragraphs she needed to know for her evening class. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat of Kyle Peterson’s Plymouth Fury. The police radio was turned down low, but her ear had been trained long ago to tune out anything but the pertinent calls. She turned the page and started to read the next section.
To understand the far-reaching effects of the sex/gender system, one must first deconstruct the phallic hypothesis in relation to the unconscious.
    “Brother.” Amanda sighed. Whatever the hell that meant.
    The car shook as Peterson turned over in the back seat. Amanda studied his reflection in the visor mirror, willing him not to wake. She’d already wasted nearly an hour this morning slapping away his hands, then another half hour had been consumed with apologies so that he would stop sulking. Thank God the flask in his pocket had been full enough to knock him out or Amanda would’ve never found time to read her assignment.
    Not that she understood a word of it. Some of the passages were downright obscene. If these women were so eager to find out how their vaginas worked, they should start shaving their legs and find themselves husbands.
    The radio clicked. Amanda heard the in-and-out of a man’s voice. There were pockets all over the city where the radios had little or no reception, but that wasn’t the problem. A black officer was calling for backup, which meant the white officers were blocking the transmission by clicking the buttons on their mics. In the next hour, a white officer would call for help and the blacks would do the same.
    And then someone with the Atlanta Journal or Constitution would write an article wondering why there had been a recent spike in crime.
    Amanda checked on Peterson again. He’d started snoring. His mouth gaped open beneath his shaggy, untrimmed mustache.
    She read the next paragraph, then promptly forgot everything it said. Her eyes blurred from exhaustion. Or maybe it was irritation. If she never read the words “gynecocratic” and “patriarchy” again, it would be too soon. Send Gloria Steinem into Techwood Homes and see if she still thought women could run the world.
    Techwood.
    Amanda felt the panic rising up like bile. The pimp’s hand around her throat. The feel of his erection pressing against her. The scrape of his fingernails as he tried to pull down her hose.
    She gritted her teeth, willing her heart to settle. Deep breaths. In and out. Slow. “One … two … three …” She whispered off the seconds. Minutes passed before she was able to unclench her jaw and breathe normally again.
    Amanda had not seen Evelyn Mitchell in the four days since the awful ordeal. The other woman hadn’t shown up for roll call. Her name wasn’t on the roster. Even Vanessa