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Will finally looked up, and she told him, "Sixth floor."
She watched him go into the building, passing Armando on the way out, who tossed Sara a wave and said something about seeing her soon. Sara shut the window, praying Will had not heard the exchange, or at least had the decency to pretend. She checked the apartment, making sure nothing was too horrendously out of place. There were two couches in the middle of the living room, one packed with dogs, the other with pillows. Sara fluffed these up, tossing them back onto the couch in what she hoped was an artful arrangement.
Thanks to two hours of elbow grease, the kitchen was sparkling clean, even the copper backsplash behind the stove, which was gorgeous until you realized it took two different kinds of cleaners. She passed the flat screen television on the wall and stopped cold. She'd forgotten to dust the screen. Sara tugged down the sleeve of her shirt over her hand and did the best she could.
By the time she opened her door, Will was getting off the elevator. Sara had only met the man a few times, but he looked awful, like he hadn't slept in weeks. She saw his left hand, noticed the skin on the back of his knuckles was split apart in a way that might suggest his fist had smashed repeatedly into someone's mouth.
Occasionally, Jeffrey had come home with the same kinds of cuts. Sara always asked about them, and he always lied. For her part, she made herself believe the lies because she wasn't comfortable with the idea of his walking outside the law. She wanted to believe that her husband was a good man in every way. Part of her wanted to think that Will Trent was a good man, too, so she was prepared to believe whatever story he came up with when she asked, "Is your hand all right?"
"I hit someone. The doorman at Anna's building."
Sara was caught off-guard by his honesty. She took a second to form a response. "Why?"
Again, he seemed to give her the truth. "I just snapped."
"Are you in trouble with your boss?"
"Not really."
She realized she was keeping him in the hall and stepped aside so he could come in. "That baby is lucky you found him. I don't know that he could've gone another day."
"That's a convenient excuse." He looked around the room, absently scratching his arm. "I've never hit a suspect before. I've scared them into thinking I might, but I've never actually done it."
"My mother always told me there's a fine line between never and always." He looked confused, and Sara explained, "Once you do something bad, it's easier to do it again the next time, then the next time, and before you know it, you're doing it all the time and it doesn't bother your conscience."
He stared at her for what felt like a full minute.
She shrugged. "It's up to you. If you don't like crossing that line, then don't do it again. Don't ever make it easy."
There was a mixture of surprise in his face, then something like relief. Instead of acknowledging what had just happened, he told her, "I hope Betty wasn't too much trouble."
"She was fine. She's not yippy at all."
"Yeah," he agreed. "I didn't intend to dump her on you like that."
"It was no problem," Sara assured him, though she had to admit that Faith Mitchell was right about Sara's motivations this morning. Sara had offered to watch the dog because she wanted details about the case. She wanted to contribute something to the investigation. She wanted to be useful again.
Will was just standing there in the middle of the room, his three-piece suit wrinkled, the vest loose around his stomach as if he'd lost weight recently. She had never seen anyone look so lost in her life.
She told him, "Have a seat."
He seemed undecided, but finally took the couch across from the dogs. He didn't sit the way men usually sit—legs apart, arms spread along the back of the couch. He was a big guy, but he appeared to work very hard not to take up a lot of space.
Sara asked, "Have you had supper?"
He shook his head and she put the pizza box on the coffee table. The dogs were very interested in this development, so Sara sat on the couch with them in order to keep them in line. She waited for Will to take a slice, but he just sat there opposite, hands resting on his knees.
He asked, "Is that your husband's ring?"
Startled, she turned to the ring, which was flat on the polished mahogany. The letter was on the other end of the mantel, and Sara had a flash of concern that Will would figure out what was inside.
"Sorry," he apologized. "I shouldn't pry."
"It's his," she told him, realizing that she'd been pressing her thumb into the matching ring on her finger, spinning it around in a nervous habit.
"What about . . ." He touched his hand to his chest.
Sara mimicked the movement, feeling exposed as she found Jeffrey's college ring beneath her thin shirt. "Something else," she answered, not going into detail.
He nodded, still looking around the room. "I was found in a kitchen trash can." His words were abrupt, surprising. He explained, "At least that's what my file says."
Sara didn't know how to respond, especially when he laughed, as if he'd made an off-color joke at a church social.
"Sorry. I don't know why I said that." He pulled a piece of pizza out of the box, catching the dripping cheese in his hand.
"It's all right," she told him, putting her hand on Bob's head as the greyhound's snout slid toward the coffee table. She couldn't even comprehend what Will was saying. He might as well have told her he had been born on the moon.
She asked, "How old were you?"
He waited until he'd swallowed, then told her, "Five months." He took another bite of pizza and she watched his jaw work as he chewed. Sara's mind conjured up an image of Will Trent at five months old. He would've just started trying to sit up on his own and recognizing sounds.
He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. "My mother put me there."
"In the trashcan?"
He nodded. "Someone broke into the house—a man. She knew he was going to kill her, and probably me, too. She hid me in the trashcan under the sink, and he didn't find me. I guess I must've known to be quiet." He gave a crooked half-grin. "I was in Anna's apartment today, and I looked in every trash can. All the time, I was thinking about what you said this morning, about how the killer put the trash bags inside of the women to send a message, because he wanted to tell the world that they were trash, meaningless."
"Obviously, your mother was trying to protect you. She wasn't sending a message."
"Yeah," he said. "I know."
"Did they . . ." Her mind wasn't working well enough to ask questions.
"Did they catch the guy who killed her?" Will asked, finishing her sentence. He glanced around the room again. "Did they catch the person who killed your husband?"
He had asked a question, but he wasn't looking for an answer. He was making the point that it didn't matter, something Sara had felt from the moment she'd been told the man who'd orchestrated Jeffrey's death was dead. She said, "Every cop who knows, that's all they care about. Did they catch the guy."
