The Kept Woman (Will Trent 8) (45 page)

Angie closed her eyes again. Dale had done the same thing when she was ten years old. Stood outside the closed door to Deidre’s apartment. Waited for Angie to open up. Deidre never hesitated to open the door. She didn’t care who was on the other side so long as he could bring a needle full of heroin closer to her arm.

Her daughter’s would-be killer?

Her own murderer?

Open the door and let him in.

‘Angela,’ Dale said, the same now as he had then.

The door rattled in the frame. There was a scraping sound. Metal against metal. The square of light narrowed, then disappeared, as a screwdriver was jammed into the opening.

Click-click-click
, like the dry fire of an empty gun.

Gently Angie eased Jo’s head to the floor. The girl groaned with pain. She was still alive, still holding on.

Angie crawled around the dark room, ignoring the chalky grit of sawdust and metal shavings grinding into her knees, the stabbing pain beneath her ribs, the steady flow of blood that left a trail behind her. She found screws and nails and then her hand brushed against something cold and round and metal. She picked up the object. In the darkness, her fingers told her what she was holding: the broken doorknob. Solid. Heavy. The four-inch spindle stuck out like an ice pick.

There was a final click of the latch engaging. The screwdriver clattered to the concrete floor. The door cracked open.

Angie stood up. She pressed her back to the wall beside the door. She thought about all the ways she had hurt the men in her life. Once with a gun. Once with a needle. Countless times with her fists. With her mouth. With her teeth. With her heart.

The door opened a few more careful inches. The tip of a gun snaked around the corner.

She gripped the doorknob so that the spindle shot out between her fingers, and waited for Dale to come in.

‘Angela?’ he said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

The last time he would ever tell her that lie.

She grabbed Dale’s wrist and pulled him into the room. He stumbled, twisting around. Moonlight played across his face. He looked surprised. He should’ve been surprised. Forty years of tricking out little girls and not one of them had ever turned on him.

Until now.

Angie drove the doorknob into the side of his neck. She felt the resistance as the rusty spindle tore through cartilage and sinew.

Dale’s breath hissed out. She tasted the decay from his rotting body.

He fell back onto the floor.

Blood splashed the front of her legs.

His arms flopped open. His lips parted. His eyes were closed. One last breath seeped out, not a snake hissing, but a tire slowly deflating. The moon had shifted outside the windows. A long shadow crept into the room, caressing Dale’s body in darkness. Hell had sent a minion to claim his miserable soul.

‘Angela.’

The name snapped Angie out of her daze. She had never told Jo her name. She was using the name that Dale had called her.

‘Angela,’ Jo repeated. She was sitting up. She held the knife steady with her hand. ‘I want to see my boy.’

Anthony. Christ, what was she going to do about Anthony?

‘Help me up.’ Jo struggled to stand.

Angie rushed over to help. She couldn’t believe the strength left in the girl.

Jo said, ‘I need to see my boy. I have to tell him—’

‘You will.’ Angie ignored her own pain as she helped raise Jo up. They both staggered a few steps before Jo walked forward on her own. Angie could see the knife now, pushed in to the hilt. Jo’s hand was dangling from her arm. The tourniquet had slipped. Blood spurted out, flicking across Dale’s body. More blood covered the floor. Jo slumped against the wall.

Jo said, ‘Just give me a second. I can do this.’ She couldn’t do it. She slid to the floor. Angie ran to catch her, but it was too late. Jo slumped to the ground. Her eyes closed. Her face went slack. Her lips still moved. ‘I can do this.’

Angie made her cop training take over. Basic triage. No time for an ambulance. She had to find a way to slow the bleeding again or Jo would never make it down the stairs. There was the tarp in her car. Duct tape. She took a step, then stopped. This was a crime scene. Two sets of footprints, two suspects. Angie had her Haix police boots in the car. Reuben Figaroa would be looking for his wife. His son. Angie needed to cover Jo’s tracks. Dale’s car. The bricks of cash in the trunk. Delilah’s credit cards. The APD. The GBI.

Will.

Rippy was his case. He would be called here. He would find Dale. He would find a lake of blood. Angie knew him. She knew
how his mind worked. He wouldn’t stop digging until he had buried them all in a grave.

‘Angela,’ Jo whispered. ‘Is it Anthony?’

Zzzt. Zzzt.

Dale’s phone was vibrating in his pocket.

Jo said, ‘Is it my boy? Is he calling?’

Jo’s boy was being held by someone who had him pressed against a wall, a hunting knife to his neck.

Angie flipped open Dale’s phone. She pressed it to her ear. There were sounds: a child crying, a cartoon playing too loud.

A woman said, ‘Hey, asshole, I’m losing my patience here. You want this little boy or should I sell him for parts?’

Fire burned its way into the pit of Angie’s stomach. She was ten years old again. Frightened, alone, willing to do anything to make the pain go away.

‘Dale?’ The woman waited. ‘You there?’

‘Mama?’ Angie’s ten-year-old voice came back into her mouth. ‘Is that you?’

She laughed her low, husky laugh. ‘Yeah, it’s me, baby. Did you miss me?’

Will pressed his phone tight against his ear. He heard Angie’s voice echo in his head.

It’s me, baby. Did you miss me?

Was this the Xanax? Will looked at his phone. C
ALLER
ID B
LOCKED
. He sat up. He looked around the chapel like Angie might be there. Watching him. Laughing at him. He felt his mouth moving. He didn’t hear any words coming out.

‘Will?’ Her teasing tone was gone. ‘You okay, baby? Take a breath.’

Take a breath.

Sara had said the same thing to him downstairs. Except this time, he wasn’t having a panic attack. He was filled with a blinding, uncontrollable rage. ‘You fucking bitch.’

She laughed. ‘That’s more like it.’

Rippy’s club. Angie’s purse. Her gun. Her car. Her blood. And now the body in the funeral home with her wedding ring.

She had set him up. She had gotten herself into trouble, and whatever way she’d managed to claw her way out had presented an opportunity for her to fuck with his head.

He said it again. ‘You fucking bitch.’

She laughed at him again.

Will would’ve punched her in the throat if she were standing in front of him. He would find her. He would do whatever it took to track her down and strangle the life out of her worthless body.

The chapel door opened. Faith walked in.

Will took in gulps of air, trying to swallow down his fury. His outrage. His resentment.

Faith opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong.

He motioned for her to be quiet, saying into the phone, ‘Angie, why did you do this to me?’

Faith’s jaw dropped. She froze in place.

‘Why?’ Will demanded. ‘You faked that scene at Rippy’s club. You made me think you were dead. You made me think it was your body in the basement. Why?’

Angie was silent, though she’d had an entire day to contemplate her answer.

‘Angie—’ Will’s voice cracked. He felt raw, desperate to hear an explanation. ‘Tell me, God dammit. Why did you put me through this? Why?’

Angie drew out a long, exasperated sigh. ‘Why do I do anything?’ She rattled off some familiar answers. ‘I’m a fucking
bitch. I want to ruin your life. I make you miserable. I don’t know what you look like when you’re in love because you’ve never been in love with me.’

Will turned away from Faith, afraid to show her how much he could hate somebody. ‘That’s not good enough.’

‘It’ll have to do for now.’

He couldn’t handle this. He was going to crack, end up dead on the floor, if he let himself feel all the things that were boiling up inside of him. He tried to think like an agent, not a human being who had just been skull-fucked by a psychopath. ‘Whose body is in the basement?’

‘Not yet,’ Angie said. ‘First tell me what it felt like when you thought I was dead.’

Will forced his fingers not to crush the phone. ‘What do you think it felt like?’

‘I want you to tell me.’ She waited for him to speak. ‘Tell me how you felt, and I’ll tell you who’s in the basement.’

‘I can find out myself,’ he said. ‘We’re running her prints right now.’

‘Too bad her finger pads are cracked open.’

‘We can get DNA.’

‘She won’t be in the system.’ Angie said, ‘You’ve been working this case. Other cases, too. What if I told you I could break everything wide open right now, only all you have to do is tell me how you feel?’

‘I don’t want your help.’

‘Sure you do. Remember how I helped you the last time? I know you were grateful then.’

Will couldn’t have that conversation in front of Faith. ‘Did you kill Dale Harding?’

‘Why would I confess to murder now?’

Will felt exhaustion pulling at him like a sickness. ‘Now, as in not like the other times?’

‘Careful, baby.’

He covered his face with his hand. This wasn’t happening. She had hurt other people like this, but never him. He couldn’t stop asking, ‘Why? Why did you do this?’

‘I wanted you to know what it would feel like to really lose me.’ She was silent for a few beats. ‘I saw you today. Don’t ask me where. The look on your face when you thought I was really dead. I bet you wouldn’t miss Sara that way.’

‘Don’t say her name.’

‘Sara,’ Angie repeated, because she would not be told what to do. ‘I saw you, Will. I know that look. I saw it when you were a kid. I saw it last year. I know who you are. I know you better than anybody else on earth.’

The letter. She was quoting from her own letter. ‘Who’s in the basement?’

‘Does it matter?’

Will didn’t know what mattered. Nothing mattered. Why had she done this to him? He had only ever loved her. Taken care of her. Made sure she was safe. She had never done that for him. Not now. Not ever.

She asked, ‘Has Faith managed to get a ping on me yet?’

Will turned around. Faith was on her phone, probably requesting a trace.

‘Josephine Figaroa,’ Angie said.

‘What?’

‘The girl in the basement. Josephine Figaroa. My daughter. Your daughter. Our child, together.’ She paused. ‘Dead.’

Will felt his mouth open. His heart was shaking so hard that he had to sit down. A child. Their child. Their baby. ‘Angie,’ he said. ‘Angie.’

There was no response. She’d ended the call.

He put his hand to his mouth. His breath was cold against his palm. Angie had killed him from the inside, slicing into his heart with a surgeon’s precision. A child. A daughter. His fucked-up genes inside of her.

And now she was dead.

Faith knelt beside him. ‘Will?’

He couldn’t speak. He could only think about a little girl sitting at the back of a classroom struggling to follow what the teacher said because her stupid father couldn’t teach her how to read.

She would have ended up trapped in the system, the same as Will. Abandoned, the same as Will.

How could Angie be so cruel?

‘Will,’ Faith repeated. ‘What did she say?’

‘Josephine Figaroa.’ He had to force the name out. ‘In the basement. Angie’s daughter. Josephine Figaroa. That’s her name.’

‘The basketball player’s wife?’ Faith rubbed his back. ‘We’ll deal with that in a minute. Do you need me to get Sara?’

‘No,’ he said, but Sara was already coming through the door behind them. Amanda was with her. They both looked worried.

And then Faith told them about Angie’s phone call and they looked furious.

‘What?’ Sara demanded. ‘What?’ She couldn’t stop saying the word.

Amanda gripped the side of the podium. She spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Did you run a trace?’

Faith said, ‘We couldn’t lock in. She must’ve timed it.’

‘God dammit.’ Amanda looked down at the floor. She took a shallow breath. When she looked back up, her game face was on. ‘Did we get a phone number?’

‘It’s blocked, but we can pull it on—’

‘I’m on it.’ Amanda started working her BlackBerry. ‘Was Charlie able to match the fingerprints?’

‘No,’ Faith said. ‘Her finger pads were too—’

‘Cracked,’ Will said. ‘Angie knew that. She said the DNA won’t be in the system.’

Sara said, ‘Angie’s blood type was at the scene.’ She kept shaking her head, completely baffled. ‘Her purse. Her gun. I don’t understand. Why would she do this?’

Faith asked, ‘Would Angie’s daughter have the same blood type?’

Sara didn’t answer. She was shell-shocked, the same as she’d been this morning.

‘Daughter?’ Amanda asked.

Will couldn’t answer.

Amanda asked, ‘In the interest of futility, did Angie mention why she did all of this?’

‘She’s a monster,’ Will said, the same words that people had been saying about her for over thirty years. At the children’s home. At foster homes. At the police station. Will never argued them down, but he never believed them either. They didn’t know
Angie. They didn’t know the hell she had been through. They didn’t know that sometimes the pain was so bad that the only thing that made you feel better was lashing out at other people.

She had never lashed out at Will before. Not like this.

‘If it really is Josephine Figaroa, we’ll have fresh prints in the system,’ Faith said. ‘She was arrested last Thursday. She had Oxy in her car. I saw it on the news.’

Amanda asked, ‘Angie said this woman is her daughter?’

‘Yes.’ Will couldn’t tell them that Josephine was his daughter too. He had to get some clarity. He needed time to think. Angie had lied about so many things. Why should he trust her now?

‘Figaroa,’ Amanda said. ‘Why does that name sound familiar?’

‘Her husband is Reuben Figaroa. He’s a basketball player.’