Free Fallen by Karin Slaughter Page A

complaining about having to go do computer training, and he told her he was going to wash his car and take care of the yard. Will lived 2.3 miles away from where they were sitting. He could’ve gotten here in under five minutes.
    But Faith hadn’t called him.
    “What is it?” she asked. “Did I miss something?”
    He cleared his throat. “What was the song that was playing when you pulled up?”
    “AC/DC,” she said. “ ‘Back in Black.’ ”
    The detail seemed strange. “Is that what your mom usually listens to?”
    She shook her head. She was obviously still in shock, her mind reeling from what had happened.
    He wrapped his hands around her arms, trying to get her to concentrate. “Think this through, all right?” He waited for her to look at him. “There are two dead men in the house. Both are Asian. The guy in the backyard is Mexican. Los Texicanos.”
    She focused herself. “The Asian in the bedroom—he was wearing this loud Hawaiian shirt. He sounded southside.” She meant his accent. “He had a gun on the Texicano. He was threatening to kill him.”
    “Did he say anything else?”
    “I shot him.” Her lip started to tremble again.
    Will had never seen Faith cry and he didn’t want to now. “The guy in the shirt had a gun pointed at someone’s head,” he reminded her. “The Texicano was already beaten up, possibly tortured. You feared for his life. That’s why you pulled the trigger.”
    She nodded, though he could see self-doubt brimming in her eyes.
    He said, “After Hawaiian Shirt went down, the Texicano ran out into the yard, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And you chased after him, and he raised his gun toward those little girls and fired, so you shot him, too, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “You were protecting the hostage in the bedroom and you were protecting those two girls in your neighbor’s backyard. Right?”
    “Yes,” she said, her voice stronger. “I was.”
    She was getting back to her old self. Will allowed himself to feel a little bit of relief. He dropped her hands. “You remember the directive, Faith. Deadly force is authorized when your life or the lives of others are at stake. You did your job today. You just have to articulate what you were thinking. People were in danger. You shoot to immediately stop the threat. You don’t shoot to wound.”
    “I know.”
    “Why didn’t you wait for backup?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “The dispatcher told you to wait outside. You didn’t wait outside.”
    Faith still didn’t answer.
    Will sat back on the table, hands between his knees. Maybe she didn’t trust him. They had never talked openly about the case he’d built against her mother, but he knew Faith assumed that it was the detectives on the squad, not the captain in charge, who had messed up. As smart as she was, she was still naïve about the politics of the job. Will had noticed in every corruption case he’d worked that the heads that tended to roll in this business were the ones that didn’t have gold stars on their collars. Faith was too low on the food chain to have that kind of protection.
    He said, “You must’ve heard something inside. A yell? A gunshot?”
    “No.”
    “Did you see something?”
    “I saw the curtain move, but that was after—”
    “Good, that’s good.” He leaned forward again. “You saw someone inside. You thought your mother might be in there. You sensed an immediate danger to her life and went in to secure the scene.”
    “Will—”
    “Listen to me, Faith. I’ve asked a lot of cops these same questions, and I know what the answer is supposed to be. Are you listening to me?”
    She nodded.
    “You saw someone inside the house. You thought your mother might be in serious danger—”
    “I saw blood on the carport. On the door. A bloody handprint on the door.”
    “Exactly. That’s good. That gives you cause to go in. Someone was badly injured. Their life was at stake. The rest of it happened because you were provoked into a