Busted by Karin Slaughter Page A

Pringle’s station wagon. Their weapons were out in front of them. He heard a woman’s voice from the speakers. “Team six, check.”
    “Something’s not adding up here,” Will said, though Faith and Amanda were only half listening. Their eyes were glued to the monitors. Six men were stationed under eachwindow in the front of the house. Another team was preparing to breach the front door while several other teams secured the back.
    Will said, “There was maybe a thousand dollars in that cash register.” He started pacing back and forth in the tight quarters. The van shifted with his weight. “There’s three men outside that store: Walker, Pierce, and the third guy, the one who went around the back. There’s Billie inside. There’s Pete McClendon, who’s running some kind of French Connection. They’ve kidnapped Wayne Walker’s girlfriend, her family, her son’s girlfriend, so that’s two more guys.”
    Faith was finally paying attention. “All for a thousand dollars.”
    “I don’t care what kind of magical spell Billie casts on men, that’s just south of a hundred fifty bucks each for a whole lot of risk.” Will stopped pacing. He braced his hands above him on the ceiling. “Let’s say I believe there’s a ring of cops breaking into businesses.”
    “It’s happened before,” Amanda said.
    “More than once before,” Faith corrected. “We are talking about Clayton County.”
    “All right.” Will relented. “We’ve got a ton of break-ins on Pete McClendon’s beat. It’s one of the most crime-ridden areas of the county, which – yes – that’s saying a lot.” Will paused for a breath. “Let’s say McClendon was involved in all of those robberies. We’re talking around ten thousand dollars each job – tools, light machinery, a couple of safes. McClendon hits them at night or early in the morning, when he knows nobody is going to be there. I buy him being in on that. But what happened at the Lil’ Dixie doesn’t fit his pattern.”
    Faith said, “Broad daylight, witnesses, right out in the open during rush-hour traffic.”
    “Right,” Will said, glad she finally understood. “This doesn’t sound like a stickup. This sounds like a hit where maybe they get to keep a little cash.”
    “Pete McClendon was the target,” Amanda said. “That’s an interesting theory.”
    “Maybe not just Pete McClendon. Doug-Ray Pierce was shot, too.”
    “You think Wayne Walker wanted them both dead so he could have Billie to himself?”
    Faith said, “And his girlfriend. Don’t forget Wayne said he’s been dating Gloria for a year.”
    “About that,” Will started.
    Amanda’s cell phone rang. She held up her finger for silence. Will watched her face as she listened to the call. And then he couldn’t see her face anymore because she put her head in her hand.
    Finally, she said, “Very well. We’ll discuss this later.”
    Amanda made a show of putting her phone on the desk in front of her, setting it parallel to the edge. “That was Nick Shelton. Maw-Maw gave his men the slip.”
    Faith narrowed her eyes. “An eighty-four-year-old woman sneaked out of her house under the noses of two trained GBI agents?”
    Amanda quipped, “Thank you for the summation, Faith. It wasn’t clear to me until now.”
    The speaker crackled again. The SWAT team commander said, “Deputy Director, all teams in position. Good to go?”
    Amanda tapped the button on the microphone. “Hold. Repeat – hold.” She looked at Will. “You’ve got twenty seconds. Finish your thought.”
    Will ran through all the information they’d found while the SWAT team was staking a perimeter around Pringle’s house. “We couldn’t find one person at the school or the church who said Wayne Walker was dating Gloria Pringle. The pastor said he was under the impression that Gloria couldn’t even stand him, that there was some bad blood between them. That Wayne had bad blood with just about everybody.” Will repeated the