[Georgia 03] Fallen

lose.”
    He let go of her as quickly as he’d grabbed her. Faith fell to the floor. She coughed, tasting blood in her throat. He kicked her out of the way so that he could open the door. She reached out to her purse. Her fingers felt the impression of the gun. She should get up. She had to get up.
    “Ma’am?” a woman said. She peered around the door, looking down at Faith. “Do you want me to call a doctor?”
    “No,” Faith whispered. She swallowed the blood in her mouth. The inside of her jaw was ripped open. More blood trickled from her nose.
    “Are you sure? I could call—”
    “No,” Faith repeated. There was no one to call.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     
    W ILL PULLED INTO HIS DRIVEWAY AND WAITED FOR THE garage door to open. All the lights were off in his house. Betty was probably floating on her full bladder like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. At least he hoped she was. Will was in no mood to clean up a mess.
    He felt like he had killed Amanda. Not literally, not with his bare hands like he’d dreamed of doing for most of the day. Telling her what Roger Ling said, that Evelyn Mitchell was dead, was just as good as shooting her in the chest. She had deflated in front of him. All of her bravado was gone. All the arrogance and meanness and pettiness had rushed out of her, and the woman in front of him had been nothing but a shell.
    Will had had the sense to wait until they were outside the prison building to relay the news. She hadn’t cried. Instead, to his horror, her knees had buckled. That was when he put his arm around her. She was surprisingly bony. Her hip was sharp under his hand. Her shoulders were frail. She seemed ten, twenty years older by the time he fastened her seatbelt around her lap and closed the car door.
    The trip back had been excruciating. Will’s silence on the way down paled in comparison. He had offered to pull over but she’d told him not to stop. Just outside of Atlanta, he’d seen her hand grip the door. Will had never been to her house before. She lived in a condo in the middle of Buckhead. It was a gated community. The buildings were all regal looking with keyed corners and large, heavily trimmed windows. She had directed him to a unit in the back.
    Will had idled the car, but she didn’t get out. He was debating whether or not to help her again when she said, “Don’t tell Faith.”
    He’d stared at her front door. She had a flag hanging from the front post. Spring flowers. A seasonal motif. Amanda had never struck him as a flag person. He couldn’t imagine her standing on the porch in her heels and suit, leaning on tippy-toe to clip the appropriate flag onto the pole.
    “We have to verify this,” she’d said, though what Roger Ling had told Will was merely a confirmation of a truth Will realized he had been sensing for most of the day.
    Amanda must’ve known it, too. That was the only explanation for her earlier capitulation inside the prison waiting room. She had admitted that Evelyn was tainted because she’d known there was no reason to protect her anymore. The twenty-four-hour mark had come and gone. There had been no contact from the kidnappers. There was blood all over Evelyn’s kitchen floor, a lot of it—maybe most of it—from Evelyn. The young men they were dealing with had proven themselves to be remorseless killers, nothing more than assassins, even when it was against members of their own crew.
    The odds that Evelyn Mitchell had even made it through the night were close to nil.
    Will had told her, “Faith has to know.”
    “I’ll tell her when I know for sure.” Her voice sounded flat, lifeless. “We meet at seven tomorrow morning. The whole team. If you’re a minute late, then don’t bother coming.”
    “I’ll be there.”
    “We’re going to find her. I have to see her with my own eyes.”
    “Okay.”
    “And if what Roger said is true, we’ll find the boys who did this, and we will rain down hell on them. Every last one. We will hound them into the ground.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Her voice was so low and tired he could barely hear her. “I will not rest until every single one of them is put to death. I want to watch them slip the needle in and see their feet twitch and their eyes roll and their chests freeze. And if the state won’t kill them, then I’ll do it myself.” Amanda had pushed open the door and gotten out of the car. Will could see the effort it took her to keep her back straight as she walked up