Genesis by Karin Slaughter Read Free Book Online

cracked the sky, illuminating the road. "I can't help
you."
    "I got information to exchange."
    "Then tell that to your lawyer." His phone beeped, and he recognized
his boss's number. "I have to go." He clicked over before the
woman could say anything else. "Will Trent."
    Amanda Wagner inhaled, and Will braced himself for a barrage of
words. "What the hell are you doing leaving your partner at the hospital
and going on some fool's errand for a case that we have no jurisdiction
over and haven't been invited to attend—in a county, I might
add, where we don't exactly have a good relationship?"
    "We'll get asked to help," he assured her.
    "Your woman's intuition is not impressing me tonight, Will."
    "The longer we let the locals play this out, the colder the trail is
going to get. This isn't our abductor's first time, Amanda. This wasn't
an exhibition game."
    "Rockdale has this covered," she said, referring to the county that
had police jurisdiction over the area where the car accident occurred.
"They know what they're doing."
    "Are they stopping cars and looking for stolen vehicles?"
    "They're not completely stupid."
    "Yes, they are," he insisted. "This wasn't a dump job. She was
held in the area and she managed to escape."
    Amanda was silent for a moment, probably clearing the smoke
coming out of her ears. Overhead, a flash of lightning slashed the
sky, and the ensuing thunder made it hard for Will to hear what
Amanda finally said.
    "What?" he asked.
    She curtly repeated, "What's the status of the victim?"
    Will didn't think about Anna. Instead, he recalled the look in Sara
Linton's eyes when they rolled the patient up to surgery. "It doesn't
look good for her."
    Amanda gave another, heavier sigh. "Run it down for me."
    Will gave her the highlights, the way the woman had looked, the
torture. "She must have walked out of the woods. There's got to be a
house somewhere, a shack or something. She didn't look like she'd
been out in the elements. Somebody kept her for a while, starved
her, raped her, abused her."
    "You think some hillbilly snatched her?"
    "I think she was kidnapped," he replied. "She had a good haircut,
her teeth were bleached white. No track marks. No signs of neglect.
There were two small plastic surgery scars on her back, probably
from lipo."
    "So, not a homeless woman and not a prostitute."
    "Her wrists and ankles were bleeding from being bound. Some of
the wounds on her body were healing, others were fresh. She was
thin—too thin. This took place over amore than a few days—maybe
a week, two weeks, tops."
    Amanda cursed under her breath. The red tape was getting pretty
thick. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was to the state what the
Federal Bureau of Investigation was to the country. The GBI coordinated
with local law enforcement when crimes crossed over county
lines, keeping the focus on the case rather than territorial disputes.
The state had eight crime labs as well as hundreds of crime-scene
techs and special agents on duty, all ready to serve whoever asked for
help. The catch was that the request for help had to be formally
made. There were ways to make sure it came, but favors had to be
played, and for reasons not discussed in polite company, Amanda had
lost her heat in Rockdale County a few months ago during a case involving
an unstable father who abducted and murdered his own children.
    Will tried again. "Amanda—"
    "Let me make some calls."
    "Can the first one be to Barry Fielding?" he asked, referring to the
canine expert for the GBI. "I'm not even sure the locals know what
they're dealing with. They haven't seen the victim or talked to the
witnesses. Their detective wasn't even at the hospital when I left."
She didn't respond, so he prodded some more. "Barry lives in
Rockdale County."
    A heavier sigh than the first two came down the line. Finally, she
said, "All right. Just try not to piss off anyone more than usual.
Report back to me when you've got