The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (top 20 books to read TXT) 📕

thousands of pages of other investigative materials we turned over to Millwood. Even a good lawyer could miss it. Liesa is certainly due a lucky break. But the hunch is that the wheel of fortune will turn against her again. No one has ever made any money betting that Millwood won’t be prepared.

I ask, “Anyone seen Liesa yet?”

“I stopped by. She didn’t want to talk. Asked me to leave.”

“Her husband did just die.”

“Sure. You gonna take a go at her?”

“Nah. No point. She’s not a talker. I’ll see her at the funeral, see what shakes out. Until then let her bury Sam and comfort her children. We need to avoid antagonizing her. She may be a witness at the trial.”

“You think?”

“Her car was near the Barton house that night. If Millwood figures that out, all bets are off. He’ll figure a way to drag Liesa in.”

Scott puts the remaining beers in the fridge and heads for the door. “Two and a half weeks,” he says. I nod and contemplate the work yet to be done. I’ll sputter to the finish line, even as I worry about my hold on events. But I can’t wash my hands of this case. I drove north today to convict Bernard Barton and stay close to Lara Landrum. And that’s what I’ll do.

A few weeks ago, I bought Lara and me burner phones to facilitate surreptitious communication. After Scott departs, I text her to meet me at the condo immediately.

***

The empty condo torments me, just like Lara’s non-answer to the text I sent a little while ago. Midnight approaches, and temptation hangs on me. The need to possess her lodged itself into my brain earlier in the evening and refuses to disembark. I cannot shake the desire and am unsure if I even want to. I feel sick.

Will she even show?

When I was twelve, I accompanied my father on a visit to a great plantation in south Georgia where horses were bred. To the discomfort of us both, Daddy and I were treated to a front row seat of the physical joining of stud and mare. The corralled madness of the two beasts—both primed for it by the machinations of the breeders just prior to the moment of union—demonstrated the raw power of the sexual urge. I felt the same pent up stirrings with Amber as we walked the hotel halls to our wedding suite. I feel the same need to animalize Lara now.

The turning of the key in the lock halts my movement in mid-step. Like an alert hunting dog, my ears point themselves in the suspected direction of the desired prey. Before the door even closes, I cover the distance between us and swallow her with my mouth. Token resistance—more a product of surprise than disinterest—melts into mutuality. We never make it past the kitchen.

Lara slumps to the hardwoods in the aftermath. I bend over the sink, turn on the faucet, and splash cold water on my face. Naked and exposed, my mind is blank. Lara sits before me, her legs splayed randomly on the floor, the refrigerator supporting her back. Neither of us says anything for a while. What is she thinking? I have no idea. She is the foreign language I cannot decipher—an Asiatic-type dialect made up of characters, not letters, foreclosing all hope of comprehension.

Without looking at me, she says, “I almost killed myself today.”

I hold my tongue, not understanding. The scene is surreal—the prolonged silence, the smell of sex still fresh in the air, the casual mention of aborted suicide. I feel like everything is happening apart from myself. I’m an observer, and the man near the sink is a hapless stranger out of step with the world around him. She finally looks at me, demanding a response to her words—the intensity in her face matching the intensity of her body just a few minutes before.

I answer, “I don’t need any more dead bodies before trial.”

“Bastard. I don’t know if you’re serious or kidding.”

“I don’t know, either.”

Without Lara, the picture of Sara Barton’s bruised back would likely never make it into evidence. No one living could authenticate it. I reach that calculation immediately on the spot—thinking like a lawyer my old professors would call it. Standing naked in that kitchen, my response to a confession of near suicide is to analyze the rules of evidence.

“You know why I didn’t kill myself? I couldn’t solve the problem of how. I don’t own a gun and I’ve never fired one in my entire life. That’s out. I left all my pills in Los Angeles. Can’t use those. Slitting my wrists is too bloody. Watching yourself bleed out has to be excruciating. That left hanging, which seems to be the method of choice for celebrities these days. But that involved too much engineering. I’m no good at engineering. So I’m here, sitting naked on your kitchen floor, like the good little whore you think I am.”

The discomfort on my face must’ve been evident because she bursts out laughing at me. The frankness rattles my conscience.

“Look at you,” she says. “Do my words bother you? Should nice Southern girls not speak in such ways? I’m simply stating a fact. You’re a lawyer. You like facts. You summoned me over here tonight like I was an obedient whore. You pounced on me like a whore. And you used me like a whore to satisfy your cravings.”

“Stop.”

“You want everything to be nice and clean in your little bubble. You pretend that you’re some kind of respectable man. Stop and open your eyes! I’m ugly. You’re ugly. We’re ugly. You think your hands are clean? I almost killed myself today, and I come here tonight for you to treat me like a whore. How do you think that makes me feel? Is that what you want? A whore? Was your wife a whore?”

“Don’t talk about her.”

“Did you treat her like a whore, too? Is that how you like your women? Amber the whore. I bet