Free Undone by Karin Slaughter

if permission to leave had been asked and granted.
    “Thank you,” Faith told the two men. “Please call me if you think of anything else.”
    Jake was already halfway to the door, but Rick lingered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t much help. There was a lot going on, and—” Tears welled into his eyes. He was obviously still haunted by what had happened.
    Faith put her hand on his arm, keeping her voice low. “I really don’t care about what you guys were doing out there.” Rick colored. “It’s none of my business. All I care about is finding out who hurt this woman.”
    He looked away. Immediately, Faith knew that she had pushed him in exactly the wrong direction.
    Rick gave a tight nod, still not meeting her eye. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
    Faith watched him leave, wanting to kick herself. Behind her, she heard Galloway mutter several curses. She turned as he pushed back from the table so hard that his chair clattered to the floor. “Your partner is a fucking lunatic. One hundred fucking percent.”
    Faith agreed—Will was never one to do things halfway—but she never badmouthed her partner unless it was to his face. “Is that just an observation, or are you trying to tell me something?”
    Galloway tore off the page with the phone numbers and slapped it down on the table. “You got your case.”
    “What a surprising turn of events.” Faith flashed him a smile, handing him a card. “If you could please fax all witness statements and preliminary reports to my office. Number’s on the bottom.”
    He snatched the card, bumping into the table as he walked away, grumbling, “Keep smiling, bitch.”
    Faith leaned down and picked up the chair, feeling a bit woozy as she straightened. The nurse educator had been more of the former than the latter, and Faith was still unsure about what to do with all the diabetic instruments and supplies she had been given. She hadnotes, forms, a journal and all sorts of test results and papers to give to her doctor tomorrow. None of it made sense. Or maybe she was too shocked to process it all. She had always been very good at math, but the thought of measuring her food and calculating insulin made her brain go all fuzzy.
    The final blow had been the result of the pregnancy test that had been kindly tagged on to all the other bloodwork. Faith had been clinging to the possibility that the over-the-counter tests were inaccurate—all three of them. How exact could the technology be for something that you peed on? She had vacillated daily between thinking she was pregnant and thinking that she had a stomach tumor, not exactly sure which news would be more welcome. When the nurse had happily informed her, “You’re going to have a baby!” Faith had felt like she was going to pass out again.
    There was nothing she could do about it now. She sat back down at the table, looking at Rick Sigler’s and Jake Berman’s phone numbers. She would have made a bet that Jake’s was false, but Faith wasn’t new to this game. Max Galloway had been annoyed when she had asked to see the men’s driver’s licenses and copied down the information in her notebook. Then again, maybe Galloway wasn’t a total idiot. She’d seen him scribbling down his own copy of the phone numbers while he was on his cell. The thought of Galloway having to come ask Faith for Jake Berman’s details made her smile.
    She checked the clock again, wondering what was keeping the Coldfields. Galloway had told Faith the couple had been instructed to come to the cafeteria for their interviews as soon as the ER cleared them, but the couple seemed to be taking their own sweet time. Faith was also curious about what Will had done to make Max Galloway call him a lunatic. She would be the first person to admit that her partner was far from conventional. He certainly had his own way of doing things, but Will Trent was the best cop Faith had ever worked with—even if he had the social skills of an awkward toddler.