After That Night (Will Trent, #11)

by Karin Slaughter

Remember to speak from the scar, not the wound. Anonymous

“Somebody offered me twenty bucks for a blowjob. That’s low, right? I’ve got all my teeth.” “Teeth aren’t necessarily a positive.”

And at the end of the day, it’s easier to just shut up about it and try to live your life and hope—pray like hell—that it doesn’t come up, so you don’t have to deal with it again and again and again.”

“It’s funny how you never meet a white supremacist who’s also a feminist.”

“Give a man a parachute, he flies one time. Push a man out of an airplane, he flies for the rest of his life.”

One good thing about growing up in state care was that it taught you people had to figure out their own shit. You couldn’t do it for them.

Sometimes, the world could make you feel so numb that the only emotion that could cut through was pain.

Something is bound to happen. And it might be good, or it might be bad, but you’ll learn something from it. And that is a profound opportunity. Change tells you who you really are.”

The Birken Bitches run quite a racket during the holidays trying to see who can raise enough money to feed the poor. It’s a shame they don’t simply pay their fair share of taxes and let the poor feed themselves.”

“The current incel movement is the main cog driving the online male supremacist machine. Mostly white, mostly young, all males, all expressing hatred, misogyny, self-pity, self-loathing, a sense of entitlement to sex, a love of violence against women, and the obligatory side of racism.”

There was a weird sort of hierarchy among rape victims. Sara was considered one of the lucky ones. The crime was blatantly obvious. Sara was a white, middle-class doctor with a good reputation and strong familial support. The detective had been sympathetic, the prosecutor had been self-righteous, and the jury had delivered some form of justice. Fewer than 1 percent of rapes led to a felony conviction.

“Squirrels lose seventy-five percent of the nuts they bury. That’s how we get trees.”

Will rubbed his jaw. He had only ever been able to read two expressions on Amanda’s face: condescension and irritation. He didn’t know what she was thinking now.

They’d reached the Andalusia Bar and Grill, which, according to its website, was named after Flannery O’Connor’s farm, not the autonomous community in Peninsular Spain.

“Nobody warns you that ninety-nine percent of being a mother is walking around in a daze asking yourself what the fuck just happened.”

Now Faith understood. “All of Dr. Nygaard’s surgical residents and fellows.” “Where do you always have to give a current address and phone number?” “A doctor’s office.” “Merit, Dani, Leighann. That’s how the victims are selected. Mac McAllister worked on their hearts.”

You’re not getting any younger. You can’t reel him back in with a tight snatch and high tits.” Britt leaned across the counter. “How you get their attention, how you keep it, that’s the game. Marriage is a blood sport. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying.”

Britt’s laugh was as hard as her face. “You stupid bitch. You really think it’s that easy? Men can do whatever they want. They treat women like tampons. We soak up their rage and abuse, and when we get too soiled by their slime, they change us out for a brand-new one.” “You’re only talking about a certain type of man.” “It’s all of them. They take and take and give you nothing.”

Sara looked at the closed drawer. Another piece of the puzzle had slipped into place. As a pediatrician, she had written her share of Albuterol scripts. The medication caused a dry mouth and left a chalky aftertaste. She always told her patients to chew sugarless gum or suck on hard candies. Because of this, their breath tended to have a cloyingly sweet smell. Merit Barrowe had told Cam that the man who’d raped her had breath that smelled sweet, like cough medicine. Leighann Park had told Faith that the man who’d raped her had breath that smelled sweet, like cherry Mountain Dew.

Amanda was inside the house. She was running down the hall. Her footsteps echoed like drumbeats. She had gone in the wrong direction. “Sara!” 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.

No woman ever gets celebrated like a bad woman.” Will had seen this for himself. Britt McAllister was on the front page of every website and newspaper. She’d been turned into several memes, mostly with a tennis racket. Her former friends at the country club were giving exclusive interviews. Dateline and 48 Hours had both rushed out episodes. Hulu was filming a documentary. Some other streamer was working on a biopic. So was HBO. Britt had finally found a way to overshadow the men in her life.

The recording Sara had made put everything in context, but the final nail in the coffin was the science. Dani and Leighann’s DNA on the sheepskin rug matched back to Mac and Tommy McAllister. Chaz Penley’s DNA was on the walls of the black room. Richie Dougal’s DNA was on the floor of the closet. As if that wasn’t enough, there was a server in the basement that contained over thirty videos. It was jacked into the home theater system. The Club hadn’t been content to leave it at terrorizing women. They had critiqued their methods afterward.

Why didn’t they find the servers in the basement?” “The warrant specified they could only look for the security camera DVRs, which were kept in a room off the garage. The McAllisters’ lawyer made sure they didn’t poke around. The cops weren’t allowed anywhere near Britt’s Rape Closet.” Faith used the paper towel to wipe the counter. “I’ve seen mobile homes taken back to the studs for a warrant on a dime bag of pot. The Constitution is great if you can afford it.”

“What about you? Are you doin’ all right?” Faith would normally toss the question back to him, but she leaned against the counter. “I’m raising a daughter in a world where people will either blame her or ignore her if she’s drugged and raped, in a state that would let her die of a placental abruption, and my son wants to work in a field where a shocking number of his potential co-workers have been accused of domestic violence and still manage to stay on the job. So, yeah. I’m terrific.”

Instead, he told her, “Emma seems happy to be back home.” She snorted. “You should’ve seen her yesterday. The cheese on her sandwich touched her plate, which apparently opened a portal into the gateways of hell.”

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? Are you gonna show me on the doll where the bad man hurt you?” “You’re always telling me to talk more.” “Not like Oprah Winfrey.”

“Okay,” Faith told Emma. “Thanks for the food. Let’s cheese it.” There were more hugs and goodbyes because, apparently, nobody respected a firm handshake anymore.

“If Britt McAllister proved anything, it’s that being a mother doesn’t make you a better person.”

“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.”

His eyes had started to water. “You know this is gonna be forever, right?” “I do.”