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"Who found him?"
"A customer. She spotted him sleeping in the car, then got the manager."
"He was probably exhausted from fear," Faith murmured. "What about video?"
"The only working camera outside sweeps back and forth across the front of the building."
"What happened to the other cameras?"
"Bad guys shot them out." Leo shrugged, as if this was to be expected. "The SUV was just out of the frame, so we've got no footage of the car. We've got McGhee walking in with her kid, walking out alone, running back in, running back out. My guess is she didn't notice the kid was gone until she got to her car. Maybe somebody outside kept him hidden, then used him as bait to lure her close enough, then smash and grab."
"Anyone else on the camera coming out of the store?"
"It pans left to right. The kid was definitely in the store. I'm guessing whoever snatched him was watching the camera. They sneaked by when it swept the other side of the lot."
Faith asked, "Do you know what school Felix goes to?"
"Some fancy private school in Decatur. I called them already." He took out his notebook and showed it to Faith so she could write down the information. "They said the mom doesn't have an emergency contact listed. The dad jerked off in a cup; end of involvement. No grandparents have ever shown up. FYI, personal observation, folks at her job ain't too crazy about the chick. Sounded like they thought she was a real bitch." He took a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and showed it to Faith. "Here's a copy of her license. Good-lookin' broad."
Over her shoulder Will looked at the picture. It was black-and white, but he took a good guess. "Brown hair. Brown eyes."
"Just like the others," Faith confirmed.
Leo said, "We already got guys at McGhee's house. None of the neighbors seem to know who the hell she is or really care that she's gone. They say she kept to herself, never waved, never went to the block parties or whatever they did. We're gonna try her work—it's some hoity-toity design firm on Peachtree."
"You run a credit check on her?"
"She's flush," Leo answered. "Mortgage looks good. Car's paid for. Has money in the bank, the market, and an IRA. She's obviously not working off a cop's salary."
"Any recent activity on her credit cards?"
"Everything was still in her purse—wallet, cards, sixty bucks cash. Last time she used her debit card was at the City Foods this morning. We put a flag on everything in case somebody wrote the numbers down. I'll let you know if we get a hit." Leo glanced around. They were standing outside the emergency room entrance. He lowered his voice. "Is this related to your Kidney Killer?"
"Kidney Killer?" Will and Faith asked in unison.
"Y'all are cute," Leo said. "Like the Bobbsey Twins."
"What are you talking about, the Kidney Killer?" Faith sounded as puzzled as Will felt.
"Rockdale County's leaking worse than my prostate," Leo confided, obviously delighted to be spreading the news. "They're saying your first victim had her kidney removed. I guess this is some kind of organ-harvesting thing. A cult maybe? I hear you can make big bucks for a kidney, around a hundred grand."
"Jesus Christ," Faith hissed. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"Her kidney wasn't taken?" Leo seemed disappointed.
Faith didn't answer, and Will wasn't about to give Leo Donnelly any information that he could take back to the squad room. He asked, "Has Felix said anything?"
Leo shook his head, flashing his badge so they'd be buzzed back into the ER. "The kid clammed up. I called in social services, but they got fuck-all out of him. You know how they are at that age. Little thing's probably retarded."
Faith bristled. "He's probably upset because he saw his mother abducted. What do you expect?"
"Who the hell knows? You've got a kid. I figured you'd be better at talking to him."
Will had to ask Leo, "Don't you have kids?"
Leo shrugged. "Do I look like the kind of man who has a good relationship with his children?"
The question did not really need an answer. "Was anything done to the boy?"
"The doc says he's okay." His elbow dug into Will's ribs. "Speaking of the doc, shit, she's something else. Fucking gorgeous. Red hair, legs up to here."
Faith had a smile on her lips, and Will would have asked her about Victor Martinez again if Leo hadn't been standing there with his elbow jammed into Will's liver.
There was a loud beeping from one of the rooms, and nurses and doctors ran past, crash carts and stethoscopes flying. Will felt his gut tighten at the familiar sights and sounds. He had always dreaded doctors—especially the Grady docs who had served the kids at the children's home where Will grew up. Every time he'd been taken out of a foster home, the cops had brought him here. Every scrape, every cut, every burn and bruise, had to be photographed, catalogued and detailed. The nurses had been doing it long enough to know that there was a certain detachment needed for the job. The doctors weren't as practiced. They would yell and scream at social services and make you think that for once, something was going to change, but then you found yourself right back in the hospital a year later, a new doc railing and screaming the same things.
Now that Will was in law enforcement, he understood how their hands were tied, but that still didn't change the way his gut twisted every time he walked into the Grady emergency room.
As if he sensed the ability to make the situation worse, Leo patted Will on the arm, saying, "Sorry about Angie splitting, man. Probably for the best."
Faith was silent, but Will felt lucky she wasn't capable of shooting flames from her eyes.
Leo said, "I'll go find out where the doc is. They were keeping the kid in the lounge, trying to get him to calm down."
He left, and Faith's continued silence as she stared at Will spoke volumes. He tucked his hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall. The emergency room wasn't as busy as it had been last night, but there were still enough people milling around to make it difficult to have a private chat.
Faith didn't seem to mind. "How long has Angie been gone?"
"A little under a year."
Her breath caught. "You've only been married for nine months."
"Yeah, well." He glanced around, not wanting to have this conversation here or anywhere else. "She only married me to prove that she actually was going to marry me." He felt himself smiling despite the situation. "It was more to win an argument than to actually get married."
Faith shook her head as if she could make no sense of what he was saying. Will wasn't sure he could help her. He had never understood his relationship with Angie Polaski. He had known her since he was eight years old and there wasn't much he had figured out in the ensuing years, except that the minute she felt to close to him, she headed for the door. That she always eventually came back was a pattern Will had come to appreciate for its simplicity.
He told her, "She leaves me a lot, Faith. It wasn't a surprise."
