[Georgia 03] Fallen

stopped. Sara watched the scalpel swing up, the blade slice into the man’s flesh. He kept his hand wrapped tightly around hers as over and over again he plunged the scalpel into his own throat.

CHAPTER TEN
     
    W ILL HAD BEEN TRAPPED IN THE CAR SO LONG WITH AMANDA that he was worried he was going to develop Stockholm syndrome. He was already feeling himself weaken, especially after Miriam Kwon, mother of Hironobu Kwon, had spit in Amanda’s face.
    In Ms. Kwon’s defense, Amanda hadn’t exactly been tender toward the woman. They had practically ambushed her on her front lawn. She’d obviously just come from arranging her son’s funeral. Pamphlets with crosses on them were clutched in her hand as she approached the house. Her street was lined with cars. She’d had to park some distance away. She looked exhausted and limp, the way any mother would look after choosing the coffin in which her only son would be buried.
    After mumbling the perfunctory condolences on behalf of the GBI, Amanda had gone straight for the jugular. From Ms. Kwon’s reaction, Will gathered the woman hadn’t been expecting her dead son’s name to be sullied in such a manner, despite the nefarious circumstances surrounding his death. It was the nature of Atlanta news stations that every dead young man under the age of twenty-five was celebrated as an honor student until proven otherwise. According to his criminal record, this particular honor student had been a fan of Oxycontin. Hironobu Kwon had been arrested twice for selling the drug. Only his academic promise had saved him from serious jail time. The judge had ordered him to rehab three months ago. Apparently, that hadn’t worked out too well.
    Will checked the time on his cell phone. The recent change to daylight savings time had switched the phone into military hours. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to change it back to normal. Thankfully, it was half past noon, which meant he didn’t have to count on his fingers like a monkey.
    Not that he didn’t have ample time to perform mathematical equations. Despite traveling almost five hundred miles this morning, they had nothing to show for it. Evelyn Mitchell was still missing. They were about to hit the twenty-four-hour mark since her abduction. The dead bodies were stacking up, and the only clue Will and Amanda had been given thus far had come from the mouth of a death row inmate who had been murdered before the state could kill him.
    Their trip to Valdosta State Prison may as well have never happened. Former drug squad detectives Adam Hopkins and Ben Humphrey had stared at Amanda as if gazing through a piece of glass. Will had expected as much. Years ago, they had each refused to talk to Will when he’d shown up on their respective doorsteps. Lloyd Crittenden was dead. Demarcus Alexander and Chuck Finn were probably just as unreachable. Both ex-detectives had left Atlanta as soon as they were released from prison. Will had talked to their parole officers last night. Alexander was on the West Coast trying to rebuild his life. Finn was in Tennessee, wallowing in the misery of drug addiction.
    “Heroin,” Will said.
    Amanda turned to him, looking as if she’d forgotten that he was in the car. They were heading north on Interstate 85, toward another bad guy who was more than likely going to refuse to talk to them.
    He told her, “Boyd Spivey said that Chuck Finn had a belly habit for heroin. According to Sara, Ricardo was packed full of heroin.”
    “That’s a very tenuous connection.”
    “Here’s another one: Oxy usually leads to heroin addiction.”
    “These straws are mighty thin. You can’t throw a brick without hitting a heroin addict these days.” She sighed. “If only we had more bricks.”
    Will tapped his fingers against his leg. He’d been holding back something all morning, hoping he’d catch Amanda off guard and get the truth. Now seemed as good a time as any. “Hector Ortiz was Evelyn’s gentleman friend.”
    The corner of her mouth turned up. “Is that so?”
    “He’s Ignatio Ortiz’s brother, though I gather from your expression that this isn’t a news flash.”
    “Ortiz’s cousin,” she corrected. “Are these observations courtesy of Dr. Linton?”
    Will felt his teeth start to grind. “You already knew who he was.”
    “Would you like to waste the next ten minutes discussing your feelings or do you want to do your job?”
    He wanted to spend the next ten minutes throttling