Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

out and conquered the world.
    She said, “I’m not sure it’s my place.”
    “Adams was your husband’s partner.”
    “She was,” Sara confirmed, though she gathered Gray didn’t know about their complicated history. She paused before adding, “I really should go. Nell’s waiting for me.”
    “Thank you.” He grasped her hand between his. “And remember, if there’s anything I can do for you, just ask.”
    Sara could only nod again, which was the response Chief Grayseemed to need. He touched her elbow before walking away. Sara watched him approach one of his detectives. The man’s relaxed posture immediately took on a military stance. He nodded at Sara with a familiar, exaggerated deference she’d come to expect whenever any officer learned that she was a cop’s widow.
    Sara nodded back, thinking the sentiment was comforting until it became suffocating. She did not want to be tragic. She had fought the stigma for years at Grady, where a cop was generally posted outside every third room. Oddly, it wasn’t until Sara had started dating Will that people had let her step down from the pedestal.
    She didn’t have it in her to climb back up again.
    Sara followed the green stripe on the floor, knowing it would lead to the elevators, just as she knew the blue signage would direct her to the ICU. There was a reassuring sameness to private hospitals, with their bright lights and cheerful paintings that announced to the world that the majority of their patients were paying customers.
    Sara pressed the button beside the elevator door. It was hard to believe that just a few hours ago, she’d done the same in Atlanta. As with the exterior, Grady’s interior was different compared to Macon General. Everything here was clean and modern, befitting the clientele. Most of the hospital’s money probably came from luxurious birthing suites, routine colonoscopies, and MRIs on baby boomers’ knees. The paint was not chipped from the walls. Buckets were not strategically placed under leaking pipes. There was no permanent police precinct on site or a holding area for prison inmates and the criminally insane.
    Frankly, Sara preferred Grady.
    The elevator doors slid open with a tiny squeak. Sara got into the car. She was alone. The doors closed. She pressed the button by the blue sign. She watched the numbers flash on, then off, as the car traveled up to the fifth floor. With each burst of light, she suppressed the urge to speak the phrase that was playing over andover in her head:
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here
.
    Even before Jeffrey died, Sara had never liked Lena Adams. She was dangerous. Arrogant. Sloppy. Jeffrey constantly complained about Lena’s headstrong ways, but Sara knew how her husband’s mind worked. There was no sexual attraction between them—sometimes Sara wished it had been that simple. Lena was simply a challenge that Jeffrey could not walk away from. She was a destructive little sister to his all-forgiving big brother. Jeffrey loved her toughness. He loved her fight. He loved that no matter how hard Lena was hit, she always got back up after being knocked down.
    And if Lena couldn’t quite pick herself up, Jeffrey was always there to lend a hand. It was easy to take risks when you knew someone else would bear the consequences, which was exactly what had happened five years ago. Once again, Lena had gone off on her own, recklessly pursuing some very bad people. When they’d proven to be too dangerous for Lena to handle, she’d called Jeffrey to save her, just like she’d done countless times before. Only this time, this last time, the bad people hadn’t backed down. This time, instead of making Lena pay, they had murdered Jeffrey.
    Sara had no doubt that this same scenario had played out with Jared. Motorcycle cops didn’t have hit squads break into their houses. Sara would’ve bet her life savings on Lena yet again pissing off some very bad men who’d decided just like the last bad men that the best way to punish Lena was to take away the thing she loved most.
    As if Lena Adams was capable of loving anything.
    The elevator doors slid open. Same crisp white. Same bright lights. Sara was on autopilot as she followed the arrows to the ICU waiting room. She walked by a tall man wearing a blue and orange baseball hat. He didn’t recognize her, but Sara instantly knew Jerry Long, Darnell’s husband and Jeffrey’s boyhood friend. Everyone called