Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

say anything.
    Nell sniffed, but no tears came. “Do you think a wet-vac would …” Her voice trailed off again. Her grip tightened on the splintered wood around the door.
    Sara looked at Faith, who just shook her head.
    “All right.” Nell thrust herself into the room. She picked her way toward the dresser. Though she was careful, there was no way to avoid the carnage. Her sneakers walked across dried footprints. Boot prints. Shoe prints. Handprints.
    Her voice came out at a higher pitch. “Jared’s always been more comfortable in his pajamas.” She started opening drawers, which had presumably been photographed and inventoried by Charlie’s team. “No self-respecting man sits around in a hospital gown. I know he’ll want to put on something normal as soon as possible.”
    Sara stood outside the door with Faith. They both silently watched the woman riffle Lena and Jared’s private things. The top three drawers obviously belonged to Lena. Her underthings were mostly utilitarian, though Nell managed to make a huffing sound when she found something that crossed the line. The bottom drawers belonged to Jared. They were filled with basketball shorts, T-shirts, and boxers. He wore a uniform eighty percent of his day. He probably had one suit in the closet for weddings and funerals and a couple of polos and khakis for less formal occasions.
    Nell stopped her search. She rested her hands on her hips asshe looked around the room. “I know he hasn’t stopped wearing pajamas.”
    Sara kept her mouth shut right up until Nell made her way to the bedside table. “Nell.”
    She looked up, but kept her hand on the drawer pull.
    “That’s probably Lena’s.” Sara indicated the flattened book, which was clearly a romance novel, beside the hand lotion and tube of lip balm.
    When Nell didn’t move, Faith said, “You probably don’t want to know what your son’s wife keeps in her bedside table.” She added, “Or your son, for that matter.”
    “What on earth does that—”
    She was cut off by the sound of motorcycle engines. Sara turned around. The front door was wide open. She saw at least six motormen in the street. If Sara knew cops, they’d come here to look after Jared’s mother. And just in time, too.
    Faith seized on the opportunity, suggesting to Nell, “Why don’t you go talk to Jared’s friends? I’m sure they want to know how he’s doing.”
    “I don’t have time to be everybody’s mama,” Nell grumbled, but she stomped out of the room anyway.
    “Man.” Faith waited until Nell was out of earshot. “That woman has a razor for a mouth.”
    Sara kept her own counsel. “Did you talk to Charlie?”
    “He briefed me earlier.” Faith looked back at the bedroom. “Nell’s gonna get a call in a few minutes from the hospital. Jared’s fever is up.”
    “He has an infection?”
    “That’s what the nurse said.”
    Nurses were seldom wrong about these things. Sara thought of Nell’s steely determination, all the plans she’d made in the last few hours for when Jared finally woke up. “I don’t think she’ll make it if he dies.”
    “It’s always the strong ones who break the hardest.”
    Sara tucked her chin to her chest.
    Faith entered the room, walking across the dried blood with a cop’s impunity. “I guess I should look for those pajamas. Maybe that’ll make her feel like she’s helping him.”
    “Maybe.” Sara leaned against the doorjamb as Faith searched the closet. She stared at the footprints scattered across the floor. The blood was so dry that it had skeletonized, but Charlie had been careful. Sara could still track the progress. It helped that Lena had such small feet. Sara always forgot how petite she was, barely five-four and probably one-ten on a heavy day.
    Charlie Reed had said that four initial responders came from the neighborhood. Judging by the bloody prints on the floor, they had each waited by the bathroom door as the others took turns working on Jared. That left the two sets of boot prints to the assailants. They had both sported the cowboy variety, with flat plastic soles that left distinct exclamation points in the blood. One had a skull and crossbones carved into each heel. The other pair was an off brand with a generic set of furrows. Both of the attackers pronated, probably from riding motorcycles.
    But that didn’t account for all of the prints.
    Sara walked over to the bed. She knelt down, asking Faith, “Two attackers, right?”
    Faith’s