“Very.”
He put his hand on hers on the tabletop. They sat quietly. The waitress came and asked if they were interested in dessert. They said no. She brought them the check. Jesse paid it and added a tip.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jesse said.
“And go where?” Sunny said.
“We can start with a walk on the beach,” Jesse said.
“That feels right,” Sunny said.
“It does,” Jesse said.
And they left the restaurant.
22
EDDIE COX called in.
“Jesse,” he said. “I got a home invasion. I think you need to come down here, now, and bring Molly.”
“Where,” Jesse said.
Cox gave him the address on Beach Street.
“Here I come,” Jesse said.
“Can we do the siren?” Molly said as they drove to Beach Street.
“No need,” Jesse said.
“Damn,” Molly said, and settled back in the passenger seat with her arms folded. “What are we going to?”
“Home invasion,” Jesse said. “Must be a woman involved. Cox requested you.”
“Maybe he just wanted my superior investigative skills,” Molly said.
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
Cox’s patrol car was parked on the street in front of an ordinary-looking smallish white colonial-style house on a street of smallish colonials in the south part of town, near the commuter railroad station. There was a pear tree in the front yard.
When Jesse rang the bell, Cox opened the front door and gestured them to the living room, which ran the length of the house from back to front. A woman sat on the couch, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She was crying.
“Kids?” Jesse said.
Molly walked over and sat down on the couch beside the woman.
“In school,” Cox said. “Husband works in Boston. He’s on his way.”
“Name?” Jesse said.
Cox glanced at his notebook.
“Dorothy Browne,” he said.
Jesse nodded and walked to the couch.
“I’m Jesse Stone, Mrs. Browne. Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Jesse said.
She nodded again. Molly sat quietly beside her. Jesse waited. Mrs. Browne gathered herself.
“What if the kids had been here,” she said.
“It’s good that they weren’t,” Jesse said.
Mrs. Browne took a couple of breaths.
“Michael went to work like always, the seven- forty train from Preston Station. I got the kids onto the school bus at eight.” She smiled very faintly. “That’s always a struggle. I cleaned up breakfast dishes, made the beds, took a shower, and dressed for the day.”
Across the room from where she sat on the couch was a small, clean fireplace, and above it a large oil painting of surf breaking over the kind of rock outcroppings that lined the coast north of Boston. She stared at it blankly as she talked. Her voice was under tight control, almost monotone.
“I came downstairs all neat and clean,” she said, “with my makeup on, and he was in my living room with a ski mask on . . . I was going to have coffee and read the paper.”
Eddie Cox stood near the front door, looking uneasy. Molly sat close to Mrs. Browne on the couch. Jesse waited.
“He had a gun,” she said. “He said he wouldn’t hurt me if I did what he said. I said, I think, something like ‘What do you want?’ He said for me to take off all my clothes.”
Jesse nodded.
“So I said something really stupid like ‘Why?’ And he said, and I remember him saying it just like this, ‘Because if you don’t I will hurt you, but if you do, I won’t.’ ”
She paused and hugged herself as if she were cold. Molly patted her arm gently.
“I couldn’t seem to get started for a minute. I just stood there and he made a little gesture with the gun, and
