The Last Widow
The Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller! The highly anticipated new thriller from internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter, featuring Will Trent and Sara Linton It begins with an abduction. The routine of a family shopping trip is shattered when Michelle Spivey is snatched as she leaves the mall with her young daughter. The police search for her, her partner pleads for her release, but in the end…they find nothing. It’s as if she disappeared into thin air. A month later, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, medical examiner Sara Linton is at lunch with her boyfriend Will Trent, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. But the serenity of the summer’s day is broken by the wail of sirens. Sara and Will are trained to help in an emergency. Their jobs – their vocations – mean that they run towards a crisis, not away from it. But on this one terrible day that instinct betrays them both. Within hours the situation has spiralled out of control; Sara is taken prisoner; Will is forced undercover. And the fallout will lead them into the Appalachian mountains, to the terrible truth about what really happened to Michelle, and to a remote compound where a radical group has murder in mind…
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Karin Slaughter 2019
Will Trent is a trademark of Karin Slaughter Publishing LLC.
Lyrics from:
“I’m on Fire” (written by Bruce Springsteen)
“Sara Smile” Hall & Oates (written by Daryl Hall, John Oates)
“Whatta Man” Salt-n-Pepa ft. En Vogue (written by Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor, Cheryl James with samples from the original song written by David Crawford and performed by Linda Lyndell)
“Love and Affection” (written by Joan Armatrading)
“Sure shot” Beastie Boys (written by Adam Keefe Horovitz, Adam Nathaniel Yauch, Jeremy Steig, Mario Caldato, Michael Louis Diamond, Wendell T. Fife)
“Two Doors Down” (written by Dolly Parton)
“Smalltown Boy” Bronski Beat (written by Steve Bronski, Jimmy Somerville, Larry Steinbachek)
“Because the Night” Patti Smith Group (written by Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith)
“What I Am” Edie Brickell & New Bohemians (written by Edie Brickell, Kenny Withrow, John Houser, John Bush, John Aly)
“Give It Away” Red Hot Chili Peppers (written by Michael Balzary (Flea), John Frusciante, Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith)
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photograph © Karina Vegas/Arcangel Images
Karin Slaughter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008303389
Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008303402
Version: 2019-05-21
“We’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’swhat it is to be alive.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
Contents
Part One: Sunday, July 7, 2019
One Month Later: Sunday, August 4, 2019
Part Two: Monday, August 5, 2019
Michelle Spivey jogged through the back of the store, frantically scanning each aisle for her daughter, panicked thoughts circling her brain: How did I lose sight of her I am a horrible mother my baby was kidnapped by a pedophile or a human trafficker should I flag store security or call the police or—
Ashley.
Michelle stopped so abruptly that her shoe snicked against the floor. She took a sharp breath, trying to force her heart back into a normal rhythm. Her daughter was not being sold into slavery. She was at the make-up counter trying on samples.
The relief started to dissipate as the panic burned off.
Her eleven-year-old daughter.
At the make-up counter.
After they had told Ashley that she could not under any circumstances wear make-up until her twelfth birthday, and then it would only be blush and lip gloss, no matter what her friends were doing, end of story.
Michelle pressed her hand to her chest. She slowly walked up the aisle, giving herself time to transition into a reasoned and logical person.
Ashley’s back was to Michelle as she examined lipstick shades. She twisted the tubes with an expert flick of her wrist because of course when she was with her friends, Ashley tried on all their make-up and they practiced on each other because that was what girls did.
Some girls, at least. Michelle had never felt that pull toward primping. She could still recall her own mother’s screeching tone when Michelle had refused to shave her legs: You’ll never be able to wear pantyhose!
Michelle’s response: Thank God!
That was years ago. Her mother was long gone. Michelle was a grown woman with her own child and like every woman, she had vowed not to make her mother’s mistakes.
Had she over-corrected?
Were her general tomboyish tendencies punishing her daughter? Was Ashley really old enough to wear make-up, but because Michelle had no interest in eyeliners and bronzers and whatever else it was that Ashley watched for endless hours on YouTube, she was depriving her daughter of a certain type of girl’s passage into womanhood?
