Undone (Will Trent, #3)

by Karin Slaughter

Faith put the insulin pen down on the counter. “I’ll do it.” “Do you have this diabetes thing under control?” Faith’s expression must’ve been answer enough. “I’ll send one of my agents who can actually do their job.”

“I should’ve told you before. That’s what my secret appointment is in Snellville. I’m going to the doctor so she can help me with this diabetes thing.” “Sara can’t be your doctor?” “She referred me to a specialist.” “A specialist means it’s serious.” “It’s a challenge. The diabetes makes it more difficult. It’s manageable, though.” She had to add, “At least that’s what Sara said.” “Do you need me to go to your appointment with you?” Faith had a glimpse of Will sitting in the waiting room of Delia Wallace’s office with her purse in his lap. “No. Thank you. I need to do this on my own.” “Does Victor—” “Victor doesn’t know. No one knows except you and Amanda, and I only told her because she caught me shooting up with insulin.” “You have to give yourself shots?” “Yeah.” She could almost see his mind working, the questions he wanted to ask her but didn’t know how to frame. Faith said, “If you want another partner—” “Why would I want another partner?” “Because it’s a problem, Will. I don’t know how much of a problem, but my blood sugar drops or goes up, and I get emotional, and I either bite your head off or feel like I’m going to burst into tears, and I don’t know how I’m going to do my job with this thing.”

He didn’t like the idea of being so dependent on her—especially since she was pregnant. She’d probably be out at least a week when the baby came.

The doctor hadn’t given her good news, though Faith had foolishly been expecting it. From the minute she’d made the appointment with Delia Wallace, her health had improved dramatically. She hadn’t woken up in a cold sweat this morning. Her blood sugar was high, but not off the chart. Her mind felt sharp, focused. And then Delia Wallace had sent it all crashing down. Sara had ordered some kind of test at the hospital that showed Faith’s blood sugar pattern over the last few weeks. The results had not been good. Faith was going to have to meet with a dietitian. Dr. Wallace had told her she was going to have to plan out every meal, every snack and every single moment of her life until she died—which she might do prematurely anyway, because her blood sugar was fluctuating so wildly that Dr. Wallace had told Faith the best thing she could do was take a couple of weeks off from work and focus on educating herself about the care and maintenance of a diabetic.

I’ve spent the last seventeen years writing about Sara and other strong women, and one dynamic has not changed: it’s incredibly difficult to write about an accomplished, smart woman without people hating her. As a society, we’re wired to celebrate those characteristics in men, but we’re incredibly suspect, and critical, of women who share the same qualities.

But why is every other female character a “bitch” or a “whore”? Maybe you think it’s hard to write an accomplished female character that people actually like because of your own internalized misogyny. 😑

Reader, you think you want stories about people being happy, but you really don’t. Happy people are boring. Either they have to keep fighting and breaking up or they have to cheat on each other or something awful has to happen to keep them interesting.

Couldn’t you have let them be happy in their relationship but solving crimes together??

For me, it’s not the writing that takes the most time; it’s thinking about the characters. Will Trent was a character I thought about for three years.

And you spent about 30 seconds researching dyslexia.