Fractured Read Online Free PDF Page A

him rather than just another anonymous victim. She had been a baby once. Her parents had held her, protected her, given her a name. And now they had lost her.
    He asked, "What's the mother saying?"
    Leo flipped the notebook closed. "Just the bare facts. I'd bet my left one she was a lawyer before she got knocked up and gave it all up for the good life."
    "Why is that?"
    "She's being real careful about what she says, how she says it. Lots of ‘I felt this' and ‘I feared that.' "
    Will nodded. A plea of self-defense relied solely on a person's perception that he or she was in imminent danger of death at the time of the attack. Campano was obviously laying the groundwork, but Will didn't know if that was because she was smart or because she was telling the truth. He looked down at the dead man again, the blood-caked palms, the soaked shirt. There was more here than met the eye.
    Leo put his hand on Will's shoulder. "Listen, I gotta warn you-"
    He stopped as the pocket doors slid open. Amanda stood beside a young woman. Behind them, Will could see another woman sitting on a deep couch. She was wearing a white tennis outfit. What must have been her injured foot was propped up on the coffee table. Her tennis shoes were on the floor underneath.
    "Special Agent Trent," Amanda said, sliding the doors closed behind her. "This is Detective Faith Mitchell." Amanda looked Leo up and down like a bad piece of fish, then turned back to the woman. "Special Agent Trent is at your disposal. The GBI is more than happy to offer you any and all help." She raised an eyebrow at Will, letting him know that the opposite was true. Then, maybe because she thought he was stupid, she added, "I need you back in the office within the hour."
    The fact that Will had anticipated this very thing happening did not make him any more prepared. His car was parked back at city hall. Donnelly was going to be stuck on the scene until they cleared it and any one of the beat cops outside would love a chance to get Will Trent alone in the back of a squad car.
    "Agent Trent?" Faith Mitchell seemed annoyed, which made Will think he'd missed something.
    He asked, "I'm sorry?"
    "Yeah, you are," she mumbled, and Will could only blink, wondering what he had missed.
    Leo didn't seem to find anything unusual about the exchange. He asked the woman, "The mother say anything?"
    "The daughter's got a best friend." Like Leo, Faith Mitchell carried a small spiral-bound notebook in her pocket. She paged through it to reference the name. "Kayla Alexander. The mother says we can probably find her at school. Westfield Academy."
    Will recognized the expensive private high school on the outskirts of Atlanta. "Why wasn't Emma in school?"
    Faith answered Leo, though Will had asked the question. "There've been some truancy issues in the past."
    Will was hardly an expert, but he couldn't imagine a teenage girl skipping school without taking her best friend along with her. Unless she was meeting her boyfriend. He looked at the stairs again, wishing that he could go up and examine the scene. "Why wasn't the mom here today?"
    Faith said, "She's got some weekly thing at her club. She usually doesn't get back until three."
    "So, if someone was watching the house, they'd know that Emma was here alone."
    Faith told Leo, "I need some air." She walked out the door and stood at the edge of the porch with her hands on her hips. She was young, probably in her early thirties, of average height, and pretty in the way that thin blond women were naturally thought to be pretty-but there was something that kept her from being attractive. Maybe it was the scowl that had been on her face or the flash of raw hatred in her eyes.
    Leo mumbled an apology. "Sorry, man. I was trying to tell you-"
    Across the foyer, the pocket doors slid open again. Abigail Campano stood at the entrance, leg bent at an angle so she wouldn't put weight on her hurt ankle. Unlike Faith, there was something radiant about her blond hair and