[Georgia 03] Fallen

they’d had a lot of sex, so it had taken Sara some time before she finally got the full-on view of Will’s astounding stupidity. And what a show he had put on for her. Shaking her hand like a realtor at an open house. He was surprised that she hadn’t slapped him. Even Amanda and Faith had been at a loss for words as they’d all waited for the elevator in the hall. His idiocy had actually rendered them speechless.
    Will was beginning to wonder if there was something physically wrong with him. Maybe he was diabetic like Faith. She was always yelling at him about his afternoon sticky bun, his second breakfast, his love of cheesy nachos from the downstairs vending machine. He went through his symptoms. He was sweating profusely. His thoughts were racing. He was confused. He was thirsty and he really, really needed to urinate.
    Sara hadn’t seemed mad at him when she’d told him goodbye. She had called him sweetheart, which he’d only been called once before, and that time was by her, too. She had kissed him. It wasn’t a passionate kiss—more like a peck. The sort of thing you saw on 1950s television shows right before the husband put on his hat and went off to work. She had told him to call her later. Did she really want him to call her or had she just been making a point? Will was used to the women in his life making points at his expense. But what defined later? Did that mean later tonight or later tomorrow? Or later in the week?
    Will groaned. He was a thirty-four-year-old man with a job and a dog to take care of. He had to get himself back under control. There was no way he was going to call Sara. Not later tonight or even later next week. He was too unsophisticated for her. Too socially awkward. Too desperate to be with her. Will had learned the hard way that the best thing to do when you really wanted something was to put it out of your mind, because you were never going to get it. He had to do that now with Sara. He had to do that before he got himself shot or he ended up getting Faith killed because he was acting like a lovesick schoolgirl.
    The worst part was that Angie had been right about everything.
    Well, maybe not everything.
    Sara didn’t color her hair.
    His phone vibrated. Will struggled not to castrate himself with his rifle while he pressed the Bluetooth piece into his ear. The trunk was well insulated, but he still kept his voice to a whisper. “Yeah?”
    “Will?” That’s all he needed—Amanda’s voice in his head. “What are you doing?”
    “Sweating,” he whispered back, wondering if she could’ve asked a more pointless question. He’d had this idea of springing out of the trunk like a superhero. After all this time, he realized he’d probably do well not to roll out onto the ground like a tongue.
    “We’re set up at Ida Johnson’s.” Evelyn’s backyard neighbor. Will wasn’t sure how Amanda had sweet-talked the woman into letting a bunch of cops sit in her house. Maybe she’d promised that Faith wouldn’t shoot any more drug dealers in her yard again. “I just heard a call on the scanner. There was a drive-by shooting in East Atlanta. Two dead. Ahbidi Mittal and his team just left Evelyn’s house so they can process the car. High profile. A woman and her kid. White, blonde, middle class, pretty.”
    So, now they knew how the kidnappers planned to get Evelyn’s house cleared out. Amanda had made some discreet calls earlier and found out that the CSU team had at least another three days on the house. They knew that Evelyn’s abductors had some drive-by experience. Obviously, these particular bad guys weren’t afraid of killing innocent bystanders, and they knew exactly the right victim profile to make sure every news station in Atlanta halted programming to cover the events live at the scene.
    The most troubling part to Will was that this proved they had no problem murdering a mother and her child.
    Amanda said, “Evelyn’s backyard is dug up.”
    Maybe it was the heat. Will had the image of a dog looking for a bone.
    “She must’ve told them the money was in the backyard. Holes are everywhere.”
    That had been one of Will’s early guesses. He saw how stupid it was now. People didn’t hide money like that anymore. Even Evelyn had a bank account. Everything was on a file in a computer these days.
    He kept his tone low. “Did Mrs. Levy see them digging?”
    Amanda was uncharacteristically silent.
    “Amanda?”
    “She’s not answering her phone right