Free Faithless by Karin Slaughter Page B

change, and he would see instead the girl he had shot and killed a year ago. She had been just a child, little more than thirteen, with more bad stuff going on in her world than most adults experience in a lifetime. The teen had been desperate for someone to help her, threatening to kill another kid in the hopes that it would end her own suffering. Jeffrey had been forced to shoot her in order to save the other kid. Or maybe not. Maybe things could have been different. Maybe she wouldn’t have shot the kid. Maybe they would both be alive now and the girl in the box would just be another case instead of a nightmare.
    Jeffrey sighed as he walked along the sidewalk. There were more maybe’s in his life than he knew what to do with.
    Sara’s clinic was on the opposite side of the street from the station, right by the entrance to Grant Tech. He glanced at his watch as he opened the front door, thinking that at a little after seven she would already be in. The clinic didn’t see patients until eight on Mondays, but a young woman was already pacing the front waiting room, jiggling a crying baby as she walked the floor.
    Jeffrey said, “Hey.”
    “Hey, Chief,” the mother said, and he saw the dark circles under her eyes. The baby on her hip was at least two, with a set of lungs on him that rattled the windows.
    She shifted the kid, lifting her leg for support. She probably weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, and Jeffrey wondered how she managed to hold on to the baby.
    She saw him watching and told him, “Dr. Linton should be right out.”
    Jeffrey said, “Thanks,” taking off his suit jacket. The east-facing side of the waiting room was built with glass brick, so even on the coldest winter morning the rising sun could make you feel like you were in a sauna.
    “Hot in here,” the woman said, resuming her pacing.
    “Sure is.”
    Jeffrey waited for her to say more, but she was concentrating on the child, shushing him, trying to soothe his crying. How mothers managed to keep from falling over into a coma when they had small children was beyond Jeffrey. At times like this, he understood why his own mother had kept a flask in her purse at all times.
    He leaned back against the wall, taking in the toys stacked neatly in the corner. There were at least three signs posted around the room that warned, “NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED.” Sara figured if a kid was sick enough to go to the doctor, the parents should be paying attention, not yakking on the phone. He smiled, thinking of the first and only time Sara had carried a phone in her car. Somehow, she kept accidentally hitting the speed dial, so that Jeffrey would answer his phone and hear her singing along to the radio for minutes at a time. It had taken three calls before he figured out he was hearing Sara trying to harmonize with Boy George and not some sick freak beating up a cat.
    Sara opened the door beside the office and went to the mother. She didn’t notice Jeffrey, and he kept quiet, taking her in. Normally, she pulled her long auburn hair back into a ponytail while she worked, but this morning it was loose around her shoulders. She was wearing a white button-down shirt and a black A-line skirt that hit just below the knee. The heel on her shoe wasn’t high, but it did something nice to her calf that made him smile. In the outfit, anyone else would look like a waitress from an uptown steakhouse, but on Sara’s tall, slim frame, it worked.
    The mother shifted the baby, saying, “He’s still fussy.”
    Sara put her hand to the boy’s cheek, shushing him. The child calmed as if a spell had been cast, and Jeffrey felt a lump rising in his throat. Sara was so good with children. The fact that she couldn’t have any of her own was something they seldom talked about. There were some things that just cut too close.
    Jeffrey watched as Sara took a few more seconds with the baby, stroking his thin hair over his ear, a smile of sheer pleasure on her lips. The moment felt