[Georgia 03] Fallen

less than two hours later. “Did she seem okay? What did she say?”
    “She said that you were late again, Faith, like you always are. That’s how it is. The world bends to your schedule.”
    “Christ,” she whispered. She couldn’t take this right now. She was suspended from work for God only knew how long. Her mother could be dead. Her son was devastated and she couldn’t get her brother out of her face long enough to catch her breath. Adding to the stress, her head felt like it was trapped in a vise. She fished around in her purse for her blood-testing kit. Slipping into a coma, while at the moment an attractive prospect, wasn’t going to help anything.
    Faith laid out the kit on the table. She hated being watched when she tested her blood, but Zeke didn’t seem inclined to give her any privacy. Faith changed the needle in the pen, unwrapped a sterile wipe. Zeke watched her like a hawk. He was a doctor. She could almost hear his brain cataloguing the wrong way she was doing things.
    Faith squeezed some blood onto the strip. The number flashed up. She showed Zeke the LED because she knew that he would ask.
    He said, “When was your last meal?”
    “I had some cheese crackers at the station.”
    “That’s not enough.”
    She got up and opened the refrigerator. “I know.”
    “It’s high. Probably from the stress.”
    “I know that, too.”
    “What’s your last A1C?”
    “Six point one.”
    He sat down at the table. “That’s not bad.”
    “No,” she agreed, getting her insulin out of the fridge door. It was actually a hair above her target, which was pretty damn good considering Faith had just had a baby.
    “Do you really think what you said?” He paused, and she could tell it took a lot out of him to ask the question. “Do you think we’ll get her back?”
    She sat back down. “I don’t know.”
    “Was she injured?”
    Faith shook her head and shrugged at the same time. The police weren’t sharing anything with her.
    His chest rose and fell. “Why would someone take her? Are you …” For a change, he tried to be sensitive. “Are you messed up in something?”
    “Why are you such a jerk all the time?” She didn’t expect an answer. “Mom ran a narc squad for fifteen years, Zeke. She made enemies. That was part of her job. And you know about the investigation. You know why she retired.”
    “That was four years ago.”
    “These things don’t have a time limit. Maybe somebody decided they want something from her.”
    “Like what? Money? She doesn’t have any. I’m on all her accounts. She’s got her pension from the city, some of Dad’s retirement, and that’s it. Not even Social Security yet.”
    “It has to be related to a case.” Faith drew the insulin into the syringe. “Her entire team went to prison. A lot of very bad people were pissed off to see their bought-and-paid-for cops taken out of the game.”
    “You think Mom’s guys are involved in this?”
    Faith shook her head. They had always called Evelyn’s team “Mom’s guys,” mostly because it was easier to keep track of them that way. “I have no idea who’s involved or why.”
    “Are you looking into all their old cases and interviewing perps?”
    “ ‘Perps’? Where the hell did you get that from?” Faith lifted up her shirt just enough to jab the needle into her belly. There was no immediate rush; the drug didn’t work that way. Still, Faith closed her eyes, willing the nausea to pass. “I’m suspended, Zeke. They took my badge and my gun and told me to go home. Tell me what you want me to do.”
    He folded his hands on the table and stared at his thumbs. “Can you make some phone calls? Work some sources? I don’t know, Faith. You’ve been a cop for twenty years. Call in some favors.”
    “Fifteen years, and there’s no one to call. I killed two men today. Did you not see the way that cop was looking at me? They think I’m involved in this. No one is going to do me any favors.”
    His jaw worked. He was used to his orders being followed. “Mom still has friends.”
    “And they’re all probably shitting their pants right now worried that whatever she’s messed up in that got her kidnapped is going to blow back on them.”
    He didn’t like that. His chin tucked into his chest. “All right. I guess there’s nothing you can do. We’re helpless. And so is Mom.”
    “Amanda’s not going to take this lying down.”
    Zeke snorted in disbelief. He had never liked Amanda. It was