Broken by Karin Slaughter Page A

his cell phone. “I guess I should go introduce myself to Chief Wallace.”
    “Interim Chief,” she corrected, then, “Sorry, it doesn’t matter. Frank’s not at the station right now.”
    “I’ve already left two messages for him about meeting up with me. Did he get called out?”
    “He’s at the hospital with Brad. And Lena, I imagine.”
    “I’m sure they’re taking some time to get their stories straight.”
    “Will you go to the hospital?”
    “They’re going to hate me enough without me trampling into the hospital room of an injured cop.”
    Sara silently conceded the point. “So, what are you going to do now?”
    “I want to go to the station and see where they were keeping Tommy. I’m sure they’ll have an extremely hostile patrolman there who’s going to tell me he just got on shift, doesn’t know anything, and Tommy killed himself because he was guilty.” He tapped the file.“I’ll talk to the other prisoners if they haven’t already let them go. I imagine Interim Chief Wallace won’t show up until the morning, which will give me some time to go over these files.” He leaned up to get his wallet out of his back pocket. “Here’s my business card. It’s got my cell number on the back.”
    Sara read Will’s name next to the GBI logo. “You have a doctorate?”
    He took the card back from her and stared at the printing. Instead of answering her question, he said, “The numbers are good. Can you tell me where I can find the closest hotel?”
    “There’s one over by the college. It’s not very nice, but it’s fairly clean. It’ll be quiet since the kids are on break.”
    “I’ll get supper there and—”
    “They don’t have a restaurant.” Sara felt a flash of shame for her small town. “Everything’s closed this time of night except the pizza place, and they’ve been shut down by the health department so many times that only the students will eat there.”
    “I’m sure there are some snack machines at the hotel.” He put his hand on the door handle, but Sara stopped him.
    “My mother made a huge dinner and there’s plenty left over.” She took the file from him and wrote her address on the front. “Crap,” she muttered, scratching through the street number. She had given her old address, not her parents’. “Lakeshore,” she said, pointing at the street directly across from the hospital. “Go right. Or left if you want the scenic route. It’s just a big circle around the lake.” She wrote down her cell number. “Call if you get lost.”
    “I couldn’t impose on your family.”
    “I’ve dragged you all the way down here. You could at least let me feed you. Or let my mother feed you, which would be far better for your health.” Then, because she knew he was not a stupid man, she added, “And you know I want to know what’s happening on the case.”
    “I don’t know how late I’ll be.”
    “I’ll wait up.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    Will Trent pressed his face to the closed glass door of the station house. The lights were out. There was no one at the front desk. He rapped his keys on the door for a third time, thinking if he used any more pressure, the glass would break. The building overhang wasn’t doing much to keep the rain off his head. His stomach was grumbling from hunger. He was cold and wet, and extremely irritated that he had been ordered to this small-town hellhole during his vacation.
    The worst part about this particular assignment was that this was the first time in his working life that Will had ever asked for a whole week off from work. Back home, his front yard was torn up where he had been digging a trench around the sewer line from his house to the street. Tree roots had taken over the ninety-year-old clay pipe, and a plumber wanted eight thousand dollars to change it out to plastic. Will was digging the trench by hand, trying not to destroy the thousands of dollars worth of landscaping he’d planted in the yard over the last five years,