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"Why was she cleaning out your mother's house? Why not pay someone else to do the dirty work?"
"She didn't trust anybody else. She always had the right way to do things, and whoever you were, you were always doing it wrong."
That, at least, jibed with what Candy said. Everything else was a completely different picture, which made sense considering that Joelyn was not particularly close to her sister. He asked, "Does the number eleven mean anything to you?"
She furrowed her brow. "Not a damn thing."
"What about the words 'I will not deny myself '?"
She shook her head again. "But it's funny . . . As rich as she was, Jackie denied herself all the time."
"Denied herself what?"
"Food. Alcohol. Fun." She gave a rueful laugh. "Friends. Family. Love." Her eyes filled with tears—the first real tears Will had seen her cry. He pushed away from the door and left, finding Faith waiting in the hallway for him.
"Anything?" she asked.
"She lied about the adoption thing. At least she said she did."
"We can check it out with Candy." Faith took out her phone and flipped it open. She talked to Will as she dialed. "We were supposed to meet Rick Sigler at the hospital ten minutes ago. I called him to postpone, but he didn't pick up."
"What about his friend, Jake Berman?"
"I put some uniforms on it first thing. They're supposed to call if they find him."
"You think it's odd that we can't track him down?"
"Not yet, but talk to me at the end of the day if we still can't find him." She put the phone to her ear, and Will listened as she left a message for Candy Smith to return her call. Faith closed the phone and gripped it in her hand. Will felt dread well up inside him, wondering what she was going to say next—something about Amanda, a diatribe against Sara Linton, or Will himself. Thankfully, it was about the case.
She said, "I think Pauline McGhee is part of this."
"Why?"
"It's just gut. I can't explain it, but it's too coincidental."
"McGhee is still Leo's case. We've got no jurisdiction over it, no reason to ask him for a piece of it." Still, Will had to ask, "You think you can nuance him?"
She shook her head. "I don't want to make trouble for Leo."
"He's supposed to call you, right? When he tracks down Pauline's parents in Michigan?"
"That's what he said he'd do."
They stood at the elevator, both quiet.
Will said, "I think we need to go to Pauline's work."
"I think you're right."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FAITH PACED THE LOBBY OF XAC HOMAGE, THE RIDICULOUSLY named design firm that employed Pauline McGhee. The offices took up the thirtieth floor of Symphony Tower, an architecturally awkward skyscraper that loomed over the corner of Peachtree and Fourteenth Street like a large speculum. Faith shuddered at the image, thinking about what she had read in Jacquelyn Zabel's autopsy report.
In keeping with the pretentiousness of their name, Xac Homage's window-lined lobby was furnished with low-to-the-floor couches that were impossible to sit in without either clenching every muscle in your ass or just falling back into a slouch that you would need help getting out of. Faith would've gone for the slouch if she hadn't been wearing a skirt that was prone to riding up even when she wasn't sitting like a gangster's whore in a rap video.
She was hungry but didn't know what to eat. She was running out of insulin and she still wasn't sure she was calculating the dosages correctly. She hadn't made an appointment with the doctor Sara had recommended. Her feet were swollen and her back was killing her and she wanted to beat her head against the wall because she could not stop thinking about Sam Lawson no matter how hard she tried.
And she had a sneaking suspicion from the way Will kept giving her sidelong glances that she was acting like a raving lunatic.
"God," Faith mumbled, pressing her forehead into the clean glass that lined the lobby. Why did she keep making so many mistakes? She wasn't a stupid person. Or maybe she was. Maybe all these years she had been fooling herself, and she was, in fact, one of the stupidest people on earth.
She looked down at the cars inching along Peachtree Street, ants scurrying across the black asphalt. Last month at her dentist's office, Faith had read a magazine article that posited that women were genetically wired to become clingy with the men they had sex with for at least three weeks after the event because that's how long it took for the body to figure out whether or not it was pregnant. She had laughed at the time, because Faith had never felt clingy with men. At least not after Jeremy's father, who had literally left the state after Faith had told him she was pregnant.
And yet, here she was checking her phone and her email every ten minutes, wanting to talk to Sam, wanting to see how he was doing and find out whether or not he was mad at her—as if what had happened was her fault. As if he had been such a magnificent lover that she couldn't get enough of him. She was already pregnant; it couldn't be her genetic wiring that was causing her to act like a silly schoolgirl. Or maybe it was. Maybe she was just a victim of her own hormones.
Or maybe she shouldn't be getting her science from Ladies Home Journal.
Faith turned her head, watching Will in the elevator alcove. He was on his cell phone, holding it with both hands so it wouldn't fall apart. She couldn't be mad at him anymore. He had been good with Joelyn Zabel. She had to admit that. His approach to the job was different than hers, and sometimes that worked for them and sometimes that worked against them. Faith shook her head. She couldn't dwell on these differences right now—not when her entire life was on the edge of a gigantic cliff, and the ground would not stop shaking.
Will finished his call and walked toward her. He glanced at the empty desk where the secretary had been. The woman had left to get Morgan Hollister at least ten minutes ago. Faith had images of the pair of them furiously shredding files, though it was more likely that the woman, a bottle blonde who seemed to have trouble processing even the smallest request, had simply forgotten about them and was on her cell phone in the bathroom.
Faith asked, "Who were you talking to?"
"Amanda," he told her, taking a couple of candies out of the bowl on the coffee table. "She called to apologize."
Faith laughed at the joke, and he joined her.
Will took some more candy, offering the bowl to Faith. She shook her head, and he continued, "She's doing another press conference this afternoon. Joelyn Zabel's dropping her lawsuit against the city."
"What prompted that?"
"Her lawyer realized they didn't have a case. Don't worry, she's going to be on the cover of some magazine next week, and the week after, she's going to be threatening to sue us again because we haven't found her sister's killer."
It was the first time either of them had voiced their real fear in all of this: that the killer was good enough to get away with his crimes.
Will indicated the closed door behind the desk. "You think we should just go back?"
"Give it another minute." She tried to wipe away her forehead print on the window, making the smear worse. The momentum of the tension between them had somehow shifted in the ride over, so that Will was no longer worried about Faith being mad at him. It was now Faith's turn to be worried that she'd upset him.
