[Georgia 03] Fallen

Familiar.
    Jeremy immediately picked up on the change. “What’s wrong?”
    Faith’s breath was trapped in her chest. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
    “Mom?”
    “Tired,” she managed. “I’m just tired.” Her lungs ached for oxygen. She felt sweat break out all over her body. “Get the sheets before Zeke comes up here.”
    “Are you—”
    “It’s been a long day, Jeremy. I need to go to sleep.”
    He was still reluctant. “All right.”
    “Can you shut my door?” She wasn’t sure she could move even if she wanted to.
    Jeremy gave her another worried look as he pulled the door closed. Faith heard the click of the latch, then the soft padding of his feet as he walked down the hall to the laundry room. It was only when she heard the third stair from the bottom squeak that Faith allowed herself to pull her hand out from under the pillow.
    She opened her clenched fist. The sharp pain of fear receded and now all Faith could feel was blinding fury.
    The message on Jeremy’s iPhone. His high school. His birth year.
    Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open .
    Her son had lain in this bed, his feet inches from what she had found.
    I’m sure the bad guys will get fingered .
    The words only made sense when Faith held her mother’s severed finger in her hand.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    S ARA LINTON WAS NO STRANGER TO SELF-LOATHING. SHE’D felt ashamed when her father saw her steal a candy bar from the honor box at church. She’d felt humiliated when she caught her husband cheating on her. She’d felt guilty when she lied to her sister about liking her brother-in-law. She’d felt embarrassed when her mother pointed out that she was too tall to wear capri pants. What she’d never felt like was trashy, and the knowledge that she was no better than a reality TV star cut her to the core of her being.
    Even now, hours later, Sara’s face still burned at the thought of her confrontation with Angie Trent. There was only one other time in her life that she could recall a woman talking to her the way Angie had. Jeffrey’s mother was a mean drunk, and Sara had caught her on a very bad night. The only difference in this instance was that Angie had absolutely every right to label Sara a whore.
    Jezebel , Sara’s mother would’ve said.
    Not that Sara was going to tell her mother about any of this.
    She muted the television, the sound grating on her nerves. She’d tried reading. She’d tried cleaning up her apartment. She’d clipped the dogs’ toenails. She’d washed dishes and folded clothes that were so wrinkled from being piled on her couch for so long that she’d had to iron them before they would fit in the drawers.
    Twice, she’d headed toward the elevator to take Will’s car back to his house. Twice she’d turned back around. The problem was his keys. She couldn’t leave them in the car and she sure as hell wasn’t going to knock on the front door and hand them to Angie. Leaving them in his mailbox was not an option. Will’s neighborhood wasn’t bad, but he lived in the middle of a major metropolitan city. The car would be gone in the time it took Sara to walk back home.
    So she just kept assigning herself busywork, all the while dreading Will’s arrival like a root canal. What would she say to him when he finally came to get his car? Words failed, though Sara had silently rehearsed plenty of speeches about honor and morality. The voice in her head had taken on the cadence of a Baptist preacher. This was all so sordid. It wasn’t right. Sara was not going to be some tawdry other woman. She wasn’t going to steal someone’s husband, even if he was ripe for the taking. Nor was she going to engage in a catfight with Angie Trent. Most of all, she wasn’t going to step into the middle of their incredibly dysfunctional relationship.
    What kind of monster bragged about her husband trying to kill himself? It made Sara’s stomach turn. And then there was the larger issue: to what depths had Will sunk where slicing a razor up his arm seemed like the only solution? How obsessed was he with Angie that he would do such a terrible thing? And how sick was Angie that she’d held him while he did it?
    These questions were best handled by a psychiatrist. Will’s childhood obviously had not been a walk in the park. That fact alone could cause some damage. His dyslexia was an issue, but it didn’t seem to stop his life. He had his quirks, but they were endearing, not off-putting. Had he worked through his