by Lisa Gardner
Now, of course, I was starting to realize how foolish I’d been. Brian had to die and someone else take the blame for his death? If Brian had to die, why not tamper with his brakes, or cause an “accident” next time he went skiing? Brian was alone most of the time, plenty of things the man in black could’ve done other than shoot Brian and order his wife to take the blame. Why that? Why me?
Sophie would be miraculously found? How? Wandering in a major department store, or maybe waking up at a highway rest stop? Obviously the police would question her, and children were notoriously unreliable witnesses. Maybe the man could scare her into saying nothing, but why take that risk?
Not to mention once my daughter was returned to me, what incentive did I have to stay quiet? Maybe I’d go to the police then. Why take that risk?
I was thinking more and more that the kind of person who could shoot a man three times in cold blood probably didn’t take unnecessary risks.
I was thinking more and more that the kind of person who could shoot a man three times in cold blood had a lot more going on than he was admitting.
What had Brian done? Why did he need to die?
And did he realize, in the last second of his life, that he’d almost certainly doomed me and Sophie, as well?
I felt the metal bars press against either side of my hand, not round as I’d assumed, but fashioned in a shape similar to the slats in vertical blinds.
The man wanted me in prison, I realized now. He, and the people he no doubt worked for, wanted me out of the way.
For the first time in three days, I smiled.
Turned out, they had a little surprise coming. Because in the bloody aftermath, my ears still ringing, my eyes wide with horror, I’d latched onto one thought. I needed to buy time, I needed to slow things down.
Fifty thousand dollars, I’d offered the man who’d just killed my husband. Fifty thousand dollars if he’d give me twenty-four hours to “get my affairs in order.” If I was going to take the blame for my husband’s death, end up in jail, I had to make arrangements for my daughter. That’s what I’d told him.
And maybe he didn’t trust me, and maybe he had been suspicious, but fifty grand was fifty grand, and once I explained to him that I could put Brian’s body on ice …
He’d been impressed. Not shocked. Impressed. A woman who could preserve her husband’s body with snow was apparently his kind of gal.
So the nameless hit man had accepted fifty grand, and in return I had twenty-four hours to “get my story straight.”
Turns out, there’s a lot you can do in twenty-four hours. Especially when you’re the kind of woman who can dispassionately shovel snow over the man who’d once promised to love her, to take care of her, to never leave her.
I didn’t think of Brian now. I wasn’t ready, couldn’t afford to go to that place. So I focused on what mattered most.
Who do you love?
The hit man was right. That’s what life comes down to in the end. Who do you love?
Sophie. Somewhere out there in that same darkness, my daughter. Six years old, heart-shaped face, big blue eyes, and a toothless smile that could power the sun. Sophie.
Brian had died for her. Now I would survive for her.
Anything to get my daughter back.
“I’m coming,” I whispered. “Be brave, sweetheart. Be brave.”
“What?” Erica said, from the top bunk where she was mindlessly flipping cards.
“Nothing.”
“Window won’t break,” she stated. “No escaping that way!” Erica cackled as if she’d told a great joke.
I turned toward my roommate. “Erica, the pay phone in the commons area—can I use that to make a call?”
She stopped playing her cards.
“Who you gonna call?” she asked with interest.
“Ghostbusters,” I said, straight-faced.
Erica cackled again. Then she told me what I needed to know.
24
Bobby wanted to stop for dinner. D.D. did not.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” Bobby informed her.
“And you need to stop fussing over me!” she snapped back, as they drove through the streets of Boston. “I never liked it before and I don’t like it now.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said no. And you can’t make me.”
D.D. twisted in the passenger’s seat until she could glare straight at him. “You do realize pregnant women are expected to be hormonal and crazy. Meaning I could kill you now, and as long as there’s one mother on the jury, I’d get away with it.”
Bobby smiled. “Ahh, Annabelle used to say the same thing!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake—”
“You’re pregnant,” he interrupted her. “Men like to fuss over pregnant women. It gives us something to do. We also, secretly, love to fuss over babies. Why, the first time you bring in the infant to meet your squad … I bet Phil will knit a pair of booties. Neil … I’m guessing he’ll provide Looney Tunes Band-Aids and the baby’s first bike helmet.”
D.D. stared at him. She hadn’t thought of booties, Band-Aids, or bringing the kid to work. She was still working on baby, let alone Life with Baby.
She had a text from Alex: Heard about the arrest, how goes the rest of the battle?
She hadn’t answered. She didn’t know what to say. Sure, they’d arrested Tessa Leoni, but they’d also failed to find six-year-old Sophie. And the sun had gone down for the second time, now thirty-six hours since the initial Amber Alert, but probably two full days since Sophie had gone missing. Except, most likely the Amber Alert didn’t matter. Most likely Tessa Leoni had killed her entire family, including Sophie.
D.D. wasn’t working a missing persons case; she was leading a murder investigation to recover a child’s body.
She wasn’t ready to think about that yet. Not prepared for Alex’s gentle, but always probing questions. Nor did she know how to segue from that conversation to Oh yes, and I’m pregnant, which you haven’t heard yet, but Bobby Dodge knows all about, having been informed by a female murder suspect.
These were exactly the kind of situations that made D.D. a workaholic. Because finding Sophie and nailing Tessa would make her feel better. While talking to Alex about the new world order would only be falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit’s hole.
“What you need is a falafel,” Bobby said now.
“Gesundheit,” D.D. answered.
“Annabelle loved them when she was pregnant. It’s meat, isn’t it? You can’t stand the smell of meat.”
D.D. nodded. “Eggs don’t do wonders for me either.”
“Hence, Mediterranean food, with its many and varied vegetarian dishes.”
“Do you like falafels?” D.D. asked suspiciously.
“No, I like Big Macs, but that’s probably not going to work for you right now—”
D.D. shook her head.
“So falafels it is.”
Bobby knew a place. Apparently a favorite of Annabelle’s. He went inside to order, D.D. stayed in the car to avoid kitchen odors and catch up on voice mail. She started by returning Phil’s call, asking him to rerun Brian Darby’s financials, while digging deeper for other accounts or transactions, possibly under a family name or an alias. If Darby had a gambling habit, they should be able to see its impact on his bank account, with large sums of money coming and going, or perhaps a series of cash withdrawals from ATMs at Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun, or other casinos.
Then she transferred to Neil, who’d been working the hospital beat. Neil had been asking about Tessa’s medical history. Now D.D. wanted to know about Brian’s. In the past twelve months, any incidents of broken kneecaps (maybe a ski injury, D.D. mused)—or, say, a fall down a long flight of stairs. Neil was intrigued, saying he’d start right on it.
The hotline was receiving fewer Sophie sightings, but more calls concerning the white Denali. Turned out the city was filled with white SUVs, meaning the taskf
orce needed additional manpower to chase down all leads. D.D. suggested that the hotline squad pass all vehicle sightings to the three-man team currently tracing the truck’s final hours. Which, she informed them, should be working 24/7, all OT requests automatically approved and if they needed more bodies, then snag more officers.
Tracking down the final drive of Brian Darby’s SUV was a clear priority—pinpoint where the Denali had gone Saturday afternoon, find Sophie’s body.
The thought depressed D.D. She ended her calls and stared out the window instead.
Chilly night. Pedestrians hustled by on the sidewalk, collars turned up tight around their ears, gloved hands thrust deep into coat pockets. No snow yet, but it felt like it was coming. A cold raw night, which fit D.D.’s mood.
She didn’t feel good about arresting Tessa Leoni. She wanted to. The female trooper bothered her. Both too young and too composed. Too pretty and too vulnerable. All bad combinations in D.D.’s mind.
Tessa was lying to them. About her husband, her daughter, and if Hamilton’s theory was correct, about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars currently missing from the troopers’ union. Had Tessa stolen the money? Was this part of her “new life”? Steal a quarter of a million, eliminate the family, and ride off into the sunset, young, pretty, and rich?
Or did it come back to the husband? Had he accrued gambling debts no honest man could pay? Maybe embezzling state police monies was his idea and she’d been pressured into going along. Stand behind your man. Except then, once she had the cash, realized the full risk she’d taken, and considered the lure of total freedom … Why hand over the ill-gotten gains if you could keep them all for yourself?
She’d had a pretty good plan, too. Set up her husband as a child murderer and wife beater. Then off him in self-defense. Once the dust settled, Tessa could quietly resign from the police and move to another state, where she could be a widow who’d inherited two hundred and fifty thousand in life insurance.
Plan would’ve worked, D.D. thought, if the ME hadn’t noticed the cellular damage caused by freezing.
Maybe that’s why Tessa had been putting pressure on Ben to release her husband’s body. To try to avoid the autopsy altogether, or if it did happen, for it to be rushed. Ben would get in, out, done, and nobody would be the wiser.
Way to go, Ben, D.D. thought, then realized she was exhausted. She hadn’t eaten today, she hadn’t slept much last night. Her body was shutting down on her. She needed a nap. She needed to call Alex.
Dear God, what was she ever going to say to Alex?
Car door popped open. Bobby climbed in. He was holding a brown paper bag that wafted all sorts of curious scents. D.D. inhaled, and for once, her stomach didn’t rebel. She breathed in deeper, and just like that, she was starving.
“Falafel!” she ordered.
Bobby patted her hand, already digging out the wrap. “Now, who was saying men shouldn’t fuss.…”
“Gimme, gimme, gimme!”
“Love you, too, D.D. Love you, too.”
———
They ate. Food was good. Food was energy. Food was power.
When they were done, D.D. demurely wiped her mouth, cleaned her hands, and returned the trash to the brown paper bag.
“I have a plan,” she said.
“Does it involve me going home to my wife and baby?”
“No. It involves going to Trooper Lyons’s house, and questioning him in front of his wife and children.”
“I’m in.”
She patted his hand. “Love you, too, Bobby. Love you, too.”
Lyons lived in a modest 1950s raised ranch, seven blocks over from Brian Darby. From the street, the house appeared dated but well maintained. Tiny front yard, currently cluttered with a collection of plastic snow shovels and sleek sleds. The remains of a snowman and what appeared to be a snow fort lined the driveway, where Lyons’s cruiser was parked at attention.
Bobby had to circle the block a couple of times for parking. When no spots became available, he parked illegally behind Lyons’s cruiser. What was the point of being a cop if you couldn’t bend a few rules?
By the time D.D. and Bobby got out of the car, Lyons was standing on the front porch. The burly trooper wore faded jeans, a heavy flannel shirt, and an unwelcoming scowl.
“What?” he asked by way of greeting.
“Got a couple of questions,” D.D. said.
“Not at my house you don’t.”
D.D. eased back, let Bobby take the lead. He was a fellow state officer, not to mention better at playing good cop.
“Not intruding,” Bobby said immediately, tone placating. “We were at the Darby house,” he lied, “thought of a couple of things, and since you’re right around the corner …”
“I don’t bring work home.” Lyons’s ruddy face was still guarded, but not as hostile. “I got three kids. They don’t need to be hearing about Sophie. They’re freaked out enough as it is.”
“They know she’s missing,” D.D. spoke up. He shot her a look.
“Heard it on the radio when their mother was driving them to school. Amber Alerts.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Can’t avoid ’em. Guess that’s the whole point. But they know Sophie. They don’t understand what could’ve happened to her.” His voice grew rougher. “They don’t understand why their father, the super-cop, hasn’t brought her home yet.”
“Then we’re all on the same page,” Bobby said. He and D.D. had made it to the front stoop. “We want to find Sophie, bring her home.”
Lyons’s shoulders came down. He seemed to finally relent. After another moment, he opened the door, gestured them inside.
They entered into a small mudroom, wood-paneled walls covered in coats, ceramic-tiled floor overrun with boots. House was small, and it only took D.D. a minute to figure out who ran the roost, three young boys, ages five to nine, who rushed into the crowded space to greet the newcomers, talking over one another in their excitement, before their mother, a pretty thirty-something woman with shoulder-length brown curls, tracked them down, looking exasperated.
“Bedtime!” she informed the boys. “To your rooms. I don’t want to see you again until you’ve brushed your teeth and changed into pajamas!”
Three boys stared at her, didn’t budge a muscle.
“Last one to the top of the stairs is a rotten egg!” the oldest boy suddenly yelled, and the three roared off like rockets, piling over one another in their haste to get to the stairs first.
Their mother sighed.
Shane shook his head.
“This is my wife, Tina,” he offered, making the introduction. Tina shook their hands, smiling politely, but D.D. could read tension in the fine lines bracketing the woman’s mouth, the way she looked instinctively at her husband, as if for assurance.
“Sophie?” she whispered, the name hitching in her throat.
“No news,” Shane said softly, and he laid his hands on his wife’s shoulders in a gesture D.D. found genuinely touching. “Got some work to do here, okay? I know I said I’d put the boys to bed.…”
“It’s okay,” Tina said automatically.
“We’ll be in the front room.”
Tina nodded again. D.D. could feel her eyes on them as they followed Shane from the mudroom into the kitchen. She thought the woman still looked worried.
Off the kitchen was a small front room. Looked like it had once been a three-season porch that Lyons had finished off with windows, installing a small gas-burning stove for heat. The room was decorated Rugged Male, with a big-screen TV, two oversized brown recliners, and a plethora of sports memorabilia. The Man Cave, D.D. deduced, where the stressed-out state trooper could retreat to recover from his day.
She wondered if the wife had an equivalent Crafts Room or Day Spa, because personally, she was betting life with three boys topped eight hours on patrol any day of the week.
Room didn’t really offer seating for three, unless you counted the beanbags piled in the corner, so they stood
.
“Nice home,” Bobby said, once again good cop.
Lyons shrugged. “We bought it for the location. You can’t see it right now, but the back lawn rolls down into a park, giving us plenty of green space. Great for barbecues. Essential for three boys.”
“That’s right,” D.D. spoke up. “You’re known for your cookouts. That’s how Tessa and Brian met.”
Lyons nodded, didn’t say anything. He had his arms crossed over his chest, a defensive stance, D.D. thought. Or maybe an aggressive stance, given how it bulged the muscles of his shoulders and chest.
“We talked to Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton,” Bobby commented.
Was it D.D.’s imagination, or did Lyons just tense?
“He mentioned several of the outings you’ve organized, you know—boys’ night out to Red Sox games, Foxwoods.”
Lyons nodded.
“Sounds like Brian Darby often joined.”
“If he was around,” Lyons said. Another noncommittal shrug.
“Tell us about Foxwoods,” D.D. said.
Lyons stared at her, then returned his gaze to Bobby. “Why don’t you just ask me the question.”
“All right. To your knowledge did Brian Darby have a gambling problem?”
“To my knowledge …” The trooper suddenly sighed, uncrossed his arms, shook them out. “Goddammit,” he said.
D.D. took that as a yes.
“How bad?” she asked.
“Don’t know. He wouldn’t talk about it with me. He knew I disapproved. But Tessa called me, ’bout six months ago. Brian was on tour, upstairs bathtub had sprung a leak. I gave her the name of a plumber, which she then contacted. Couple of pipes had to be replaced, some drywall patched. When all was said and done, guess it cost a good eight hundred, nine hundred bucks. Except when she went to withdraw it from savings, the money wasn’t there.”
“It wasn’t there?” D.D. repeated.
Lyons shrugged. “According to Tessa, they should’ve had thirty grand in savings, except they didn’t. I ended up loaning her the money to pay the contractors. Then, when Brian got back …”
“What happened?”
“We confronted him. Both of us. Tessa wanted me there. She said, if it was just her, it would sound like a nagging wife. But if it was both of us, Brian’s wife and best friend, he’d have to pay attention.”
