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Faith put the paper on his desk and slid the address across to him.
Will gave it a cursory glance. "There's a heart around it."
"Sam drew it."
Will folded the paper and put it in his vest pocket. "Are you seeing him?"
Faith was loathe to use the words "booty call," so she just shrugged. "It's complicated."
He nodded—the same nod they always used when there was something personal that wasn't going to be discussed.
She was sick of this. What was going to happen in a month when she started showing more? What was going to happen in a year when she collapsed on the job because she miscalculated her insulin? She could easily see Will making excuses for her weight gain or simply helping her up and telling her she should be careful where she stepped. He was so damn good at pretending the house wasn't on fire even as he ran around looking for water to put it out.
She threw up her hands in surrender. "I'm pregnant."
His eyebrows shot up.
"Victor's the father. I'm also diabetic. That's why I passed out in the garage."
He seemed too shocked to speak.
"I should've told you before. That's what my secret appointment is in Snellville. I'm going to the doctor so she can help me with this diabetes thing."
"Sara can't be your doctor?"
"She referred me to a specialist."
"A specialist means it's serious."
"It's a challenge. The diabetes makes it more difficult. It's manageable, though." She had to add, "At least that's what Sara said."
"Do you need me to go to your appointment with you?"
Faith had a glimpse of Will sitting in the waiting room of Delia Wallace's office with her purse in his lap. "No. Thank you. I need to do this on my own."
"Does Victor—"
"Victor doesn't know. No one knows except you and Amanda, and I only told her because she caught me shooting up with insulin."
"You have to give yourself shots?"
"Yeah."
She could almost see his mind working, the questions he wanted to ask her but didn't know how to frame.
Faith said, "If you want another partner—"
"Why would I want another partner?"
"Because it's a problem, Will. I don't know how much of a problem, but my blood sugar drops or goes up, and I get emotional, and I either bite your head off or feel like I'm going to burst into tears, and I don't know how I'm going to do my job with this thing."
"You'll work it out," he said, always reasonable. "I worked it out. My problem, I mean."
He was so adaptive. Anything bad that happened, no matter how horrible, he just nodded and moved on. She supposed that was something he'd learned at the orphanage. Or maybe Angie Polaski had drilled it into him. As a survival skill, it was commendable. As the basis of a relationship, it was irritating as hell.
And there was absolutely nothing Faith could do about it.
Will sat up in his chair. He did his usual trick, making a joke to ease the tension. "If I get a vote, I would rather you bite my head off than start crying."
"Back at you."
"I need to apologize." Suddenly, he was serious again. "For what I did to Simkov. I've never laid hands on anyone like that before. Not ever." He looked her directly in the eye. "I promise it won't happen again."
All Faith could say was, "Thank you." Of course she didn't agree with what Will had done, but it was hard to shout out recriminations when he was so obviously already doing a good job of hating himself.
It was Faith's turn to lighten things up. "Let's stay away from good cop/bad cop for a while."
"Yeah, stupid cop/bitchy cop works a lot better for us." He reached into his vest pocket and handed her back Jake Berman's details. "We should call Coweta and have them put eyes on Berman to make sure he's the right guy."
The wheels in Faith's brain took their time moving in a new-direction. She looked at Sam's block handwriting, the stupid heart around the address. "I don't know why Sam thinks he can track down the guy in five minutes when our entire data processing division can't find him in two days."
Faith took out her cell phone. She didn't want to bother with the proper channels, so she called Caroline, Amanda's assistant. The woman practically lived in the building, and she picked up the phone on the first ring. Faith relayed Berman's address and asked her to have the Coweta County field agent verify that this was the Jake Berman they had been looking for.
"Do you want him to bring the guy in?" Caroline asked.
Faith thought about it, then decided she didn't want to make the decision on her own. She asked Will, "Do you want them to bring in Berman?"
He shrugged, but answered, "Do we want to tip him off ?"
"A cop knocking on his door is a tip-off no matter what."
Will shrugged again. "Tell him to try to verify Berman's identity from a distance. If it's the right guy, then we'll go down there and snatch him up. Give the agent my cell number. We'll go after you finish talking to Simkov."
Faith passed this on to Caroline. She ended the call, and Will turned his computer monitor toward her, saying, "I got this email from Amanda."
Faith slid over the mouse and keyboard. She changed the color settings so her retinas didn't spontaneously combust, then double-clicked on the file. She summarized for Will as she read. "Tech hasn't been able to break into any of the computers. They say the anorexia chat room is impossible to open without a password—it's got some kind of fancy encryption. The warrants for Olivia Tanner's bank should be in this afternoon so we can get into her phone and files." She scrolled down. "Hmm." She read silently, then told Will, "Okay, well, this might be something to take to the doorman. The fire exit door on the penthouse floor had a partial on the handle— right thumb."
Will knew Faith had spent most of yesterday afternoon combing through Anna Lindsey's building. "How are the stairs accessed?"
"Either the lobby or the roof," she said, reading the next passage. "The fire escape ladder that runs down the back of the building had another print that matched the one from the door. They're sending it to the Michigan State Police to run comparables. If Pauline's brother has a record, it should come up. If we can get a name, then we're halfway there."
"We should check for parking tickets in the area. You can't just park anywhere in Buckhead. They're pretty good about catching you."
"Good idea," Faith said, opening up her email account to send out the request. "I'll open it up to parking tickets in or around the area of all the last known locations of our victims."
"Son of Sam was caught by a parking ticket."
Faith tapped the keys. "You've got to stop watching so much television."
"Not much else to do at night."
She glanced at his hands, the new scratches.
He asked, "How did he get Anna Lindsey out of the building? He couldn't have thrown her over his shoulder and taken her down the fire escape ladder."
Faith sent off the email before answering. "The exit door for the stairs was wired. An alarm would have gone off if anyone had opened the door." She asked, "Did he take her down the elevator and into the lobby?"
