Will caught his drift.

“Anyway.” Nick popped the ring on the can.

Sprite gushed up like Old Faithful.

“Shit!” Nick stepped back, but not quickly enough to dodge the spray. His jeans were soaked through at the crotch. Some had even sprinkled into his beard. “Shit.”

Will reached over for some paper towels.

Nick glared up at him, calculating.

Will calculated back.

There were the obvious numbers: Nick was fifteen years older and thirty pounds lighter, not to mention at least a foot shorter. Then, there were the variables: They worked together. The Sara factor. They had kept up this charade for so long that breaking it would be admitting that the game was being played in the first place.

“Boys?” Amanda had quietly appeared in the kitchen.

Nick chucked the Sprite can into the garbage on his way out the door.

Amanda raised an eyebrow at Will. “Why can’t I see your phone?”

Will had forgotten about turning off his phone. He held it up so Amanda could see.

“How many lines are you going to cross this morning?”

“Two.” He indicated the suit he’d changed into. “The first one has been rectified.”

Amanda frowned, but let it go. “Catch me up on this interminable holding pattern we’re all stuck in.”

Will heard his inner Faith pointing out that there were steps that would take them out of the holding pattern, such as talking to several different police jurisdictions about a serial killer, but he was not Faith and he had tripped over enough lines already.

He said, “We’re still waiting for Dirk Masterson’s ISP to process the subpoena. Faith’s been working through Gerald Caterino’s murder closet. I put out a state-wide APB for any missing women or women who’ve reported that they’re being stalked. Then I followed up on our other open cases.”

“Ah, actual police work,” Amanda said. “Bullet points?”

Will gave her the rundown. An arson investigation in Chattooga was about to lead to an arrest. A lie-detector exam had been scheduled for a suspect in a string of Muscogee liquor store robberies. He’d sent a sketch artist to Forsyth to talk to the possible victim of a serial rapist. The Treutlen County sheriff’s office was sending a deputy with some saliva samples to process.

“Good. I want you to email your reports to Caroline. I’ve got a busy day. She’s handling my workload.”

Caroline was Amanda’s assistant, a patient woman who was impervious to shaming. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Sara’s on her way to Grant County. The coroner gave her the key to his storage facility. I told her to call me when she has the tox screen.”

Will tried to act like he hadn’t just been punched in the face. He did not want Sara in Grant County right now, which was the kind of thought an overbearing, controlling boyfriend would have.

Amanda looked at her watch. “I’ve got Caroline working on getting Shay Van Dorne’s parents here. Hopefully, Sara will be back in time. I want this Dirk Masterson thing sorted ASAP. Make a call to the ISP. Tell them to put their skates on.”

“Do you think Masterson knows something?”

“I think I’m the boss and you do what I tell you to do.”

Will couldn’t argue with that logic. He took his sticky bun with him as he left the kitchen. He powered on his phone. It had been a dick move to hide his whereabouts from Sara. Then again, he was the one who’d set up the Find My app on her phone. He doubted she had ever even opened it.

He tapped through to her location. She was already in Grant County. Mercer Avenue. The blue pin indicated she was inside a place called the U-Store. He zoomed out the map. He toggled it into satellite mode. It looked like she was across from a rolling pasture.

With tombstones.

“Fuck me.”

No amount of eggplants and cowgirls could make this better. Will stuck the phone back in his pocket. He knocked on Faith’s door as he opened it.

She was sitting at her desk injecting herself with insulin.

Will started to back out, but she waved for him to sit, then pointed to her phone, which was on speaker.

“Sweetheart.” Faith rolled down her shirt and disposed of the insulin pen. “I can’t solve this for you. You need to talk to her in person, not on the phone, and figure it out.”

Will recognized Faith’s tone, which had the mixture of undying love and mild irritation that she only used with her children.

“Come on, Mom,” Jeremy begged. “You told me that I can always come to you for help. This is me coming to you for your help.”

Faith laughed. “Good try, sport, but if you think I’m going to jeopardize a relationship that saves me twenty-four thousand dollars a year in childcare, then you don’t know your mother.”

His groan sounded identical to Faith’s. “I’ll bring my laundry this weekend.”

“Bring detergent, because you’re doing it yourself.” Faith tapped her phone. She told Will, “Jeremy is pissed off at my mother. I’m trying to let this be a teaching moment.”

Will saw an opportunity. “Maybe your mom should give him some, uh, space? You know, to work through how he feels?”

Faith stared at him. “Blink once if the kidnappers can hear us.”

Will cleared his throat. He was in this now. “It’s just—so he’s hurt, right? But he probably needs time to let it go, so she should back off. And then he can tell her it’s okay, like, in a few hours? Or days, maybe? Would it be days?”

“Days seems like a long time.”

“So, hours?” he asked. “How many hours?”

“Twelve?” She saw his face. “No, three.”

Will peeled the plastic wrap off his sticky bun and took in a mouthful.

“I’m sorry.” Faith sounded genuinely disappointed with herself. “My son is fighting with my mother. I promised my daughter I would introduce her to Detective Pikachu if she let me pee in privacy. I did the motherlode cheat because that’s the only way I can give my Sims the life they deserve. Am I really the best person to ask about being an emotionally healthy adult?”

Will studied the sticky bun. The white frosting was melting. He took another large bite.

Faith said, “I’m useless. I suck. I’m a terrible human being.”

“It’s okay.” Will was desperate to erase the last five minutes of this conversation. He tried, “‘There’s a thousand reasons we should go about our day.’”

“You asshole, don’t you dare try to put a song from Frozen in my head.” She jerked her chair back to her computer, obviously getting the message. “Did you see Nick? He was looking for you.”

Nick was probably rinsing his balls in the bathroom sink. “He said his notes jogged his memory. Tolliver wasn’t satisfied with the profile.”

“You mean the Chief?”

He loved her for saying that. “Tolliver thought it was the tail wagging the dog.”

Faith drummed her fingers on the desk. “We all know the FBI isn’t infallible. Look at that scandal over ballistics testing. Or the scandal over microscopic hair analysis. Or the scandal over scandals.”

Will finished the sticky bun. “What about the photocopies of Lena’s notes?”

Faith laughed. “They read like Dickens. I mean, actual Dickens. Like, someone edited and copyedited and printed them up for public consumption. Even her handwriting looks like a typewriter.”

Will couldn’t be disappointed because he wasn’t surprised.

Faith asked, “Why did Tolliver keep her around?”

She wasn’t expecting a response, but he had one. “There’s something to be said for giving somebody a second chance. There’s also something to be said for not wanting to admit you made a mistake.”

“You think he was blinded by his own stubbornness?”

“That’s Sara’s theory, that he couldn’t admit that he was wrong about her. My theory is that Lena was his gray rabbit.” Will had seen the dynamic playing out in multiple police stations over the years. “The Chief needs some dirty work done, he sends his gray rabbit hopping into the gray areas so that he can keep his hands lily white. He can’t fire her because she knows all of his secrets. He can’t let her go because he might need her again. Usually, neither one of them sees it as a hostile, transactional relationship, but they both get something out of it. Friends in foxholes, maybe.”

Faith was silent for as long as you would expect to be silent if you were smearing a dead cop who happened to be the dead husband of one of your best friends. “That makes a hell of a lot of sense. She’s been playing the same role on the Macon force, too.”

He licked the sugar off his fingers.

“Okay, this has nothing to do with Lena.” Faith clasped her hands on the desk, facing him. “I actually do have relationship advice, and it’s the same thing I told Jeremy, and probably the last thing you want to hear: Talk to Sara. In person. Tell her how you feel. Tell her how to fix it. She loves you. You love her. Work it out.”