After That Night (Will Trent, #11)

by Karin Slaughter

The trial was only two days in, and Fanning had already managed to keep out some of what he termed Tommy’s “youthful indiscretions,” as if every youth had been arrested at eleven years old for torturing a neighbor’s dog, accused of rape their junior year of high school, and caught with a party-sized supply of MDMA in his backpack an hour before graduation. That’s what $2,500 an hour bought you: a predator turned into a choirboy.

“The detail about the wound on her side, yeah, that’s a weird coincidence.” “But?” “What’s the statistic? Every two minutes in America another woman is raped?”

This was why you checked socials on dudes before you went out with them. Why you texted your friends before and after a date. Why you kept your location services on and your mace in your purse and slept on a friend’s sweaty, fapped-out couch because it was fucking terrifying to have a vagina in this world.

“I kept you away from your uncle because I owed that much to your mother. You would not be the man you are today if you had lived in your uncle’s house.”

If the tox screen had come back from Grady Hospital or the Fulton County pathology lab, no one had bothered to append it to Barrowe’s file. The detective investigating the case had never followed up on it, either. Normally, Will would track down the detective, but he happened to know that Eugene Edgerton had died from pancreatic cancer nine years ago. He was the same detective who had worked on Sara’s sexual assault case.

My mama straight up told him that Merit was gay. My parents never had a problem with it. But Edgerton did. He started lecturing us about how young girls don’t know what they want, and he hated to tell us the truth, but Merit was cheating on her girlfriend with a guy, and that’s why she lied and claimed that she was raped.”

“When Cam was doing his Batman villain confession, did he tell you how much time passed between when your sister died and when Edgerton bribed him into changing her death certificate?”

“He did, and he was real clear on it,” Martin said. “Edgerton showed up at Cam’s exactly two weeks and one day after my sister died.” Will felt like a fist was punching up his throat. “Two weeks and one day?” “Yeah,” Martin said. “The day after Dr. Sara Linton was raped.”

“You keep using that word like I don’t know exactly who you are. Mac isn’t the only sadist in this house. You just as good as raped those women. Tommy wouldn’t be the way he is if you weren’t such a shitty mother.”

Britt was looking down at the revolver, trying to figure out why it hadn’t fired. Sara reached up to the microphone in her lapel. She pinched the wire to mute the sound. “Pull back the hammer with your thumb.” Britt pulled back the hammer. She put the gun to her head. This time, it worked.

you take the losses, you have to take the wins. Jeremy’s a good kid. Emma’s smart and funny. Aiden is a solid guy. Sara’s going to be okay. Amanda’s putting us back in the field. Those are good things.” “Whoa.” She held up her hands like she had to stop him. “What’s this touchy feely shit?

“Amanda helped you navigate the system. You didn’t realize it at the time, but she was there from the beginning. If single women had been allowed to adopt, she would’ve taken you home.”

if we don’t get to see Amanda & Will dancing together at his wedding, I don’t want to live.

“Last week, you told Eliza that you don’t have a family. But Amanda has always been your family. And now Tessa, Isabelle, my mom and dad, and more importantly me—we’re all your family, too.”

fuck I LOVE WILL & SARA SO MUCH

Mama said that I couldn’t plan everything. That for good or bad, something was going to change.” Will held on tightly to her hand. “She called it a profound opportunity, because change tells you who you really are. And she was right. After that night, my entire life changed. The person I was going to be was gone. I had two choices. I could disappear along with her, or I could fight to get back the parts of her that mattered. I’m not saying that I’m grateful for that lesson. I’m really not. But I’m grateful that it made me the kind of woman who knows how to love you.”

i’m not crying, you’re crying 😭