Upon further consideration, breakfast first.
She cooked bacon, eggs, and had just started waffles when Alex stumbled bleary-eyed into the kitchen. He wore a gray FBI Academy sweatshirt over the white T-shirt and turquoise scrubs he favored for bed. His cheeks were shadowed with salt-and-pepper stubble. His sweatshirt bore baby spit-up on the left shoulder.
They were both old, she decided. But all in all, they still looked pretty good.
She poured him a cup of coffee.
“Don’t you have today off?” he mumbled, accepting the mug gratefully.
“Not on deck. But hopefully, a big day in our shooting case. Awaiting a call from ballistics anytime now.” She topped off her cup.
He caught her refilling, raised a brow. “Thought you’d given up the java express.”
“Yeah, but there’s something about homicide that simply demands a good cup of joe.”
Being a man who drank coffee all day long, Alex didn’t argue.
He took a seat at the table. D.D. fed him breakfast, a rare turn of events as the kitchen was generally his domain. Another cozy scene, D.D. thought in the back of her mind. Last night it had been her and Jack, mother and son. Now it was her and Alex, essentially husband and wife.
It was aggravating to think that her mother might be right.
They ate in comfortable silence. Alex read the paper, then worked on the daily crossword puzzle. D.D. puttered around the kitchen, washing dishes, drying them, putting them away. Her mind was churning. She knew herself well enough to know she was working something out. She just wasn’t sure what.
Seven thirty, Jack joined the party. Alex fed him, while she showered. Eight A.M., she decided it was still too early to bother her parents, checking her cell phone and her voice mail for work messages instead. Nothing.
Charlene Grant should be off duty now. Looking for her. 22. Not finding it. Realizing the police were onto her. Or maybe too distracted by the date, the perceived danger to herself, perhaps fresh grief over what had happened to her friends, to home in directly on the police. Maybe she’d just panic instead.
What did you do on your final day alive? Take a nap to be better prepared for the coming showdown? Pick up some hottie for last-day-on-earth sex? Indulge in a final fat-, sugar-, and calorie-laden meal?
Call the people you love and tell them good-bye?
Except Charlene didn’t really have anyone left. Just her aunt Nancy and a stray mutt.
Rosalind Grant. Carter Grant. Two dead siblings.
Christine Grant. One dead mother.
Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant. Aka Abigail. The woman at the epicenter of the storm.
D.D.’s brain went back to churning.
Nine A.M., she, Alex, and Jack were all clean and had been fed. They were as ready as they were going to get. Last check of voice mail. Nothing. Last check of cell phone. Nothing.
D.D. finally caved, calling her parents and inviting them over. Alex agreed to pick them up at their hotel as they hadn’t rented a car, not wanting to drive in Boston traffic. They were in Waltham, D.D. had wanted to say, not Boston. Boston driving was a spectator sport, like sumo wrestling, where the largest, most aggressive vehicle won. Waltham, on the other hand, toodling around the burbs…She sighed and promised herself for the umpteenth time she would not be this annoying to Jack when she grew old. Come to think of it, she’d probably be worse.
While D.D. waited, she loaded Jack into the BabyBjorn, cradling him against her chest as she vacuumed the entryway rug, tidied up the living room.
The room could use a fresh coat of paint. While they were at it, they should probably recover Alex’s faded blue bachelor sofa, buff the hardwood floors. Maybe a braided rug to soften the space, a potted plant for a touch of green. Or better yet, window treatments.
D.D. caught herself actually contemplating wallpaper, then came to her senses, snapping off the vacuum cleaner and giving herself a firm mental shake. Forget the fucking decor. She was Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren for heaven’s sake. She didn’t slipcover. She handled homicides.
Nine forty-five A.M. She gave up on checking messages and called the lab directly. Jon Cassir in ballistics did not pick up, so she left him a voice mail. Then she and baby Jack paced some more.
Detective O believed Charlie was their vigilante killer. Charlie was targeting pedophiles to make up for the powerlessness of her own abuse-filled youth, the mother who hurt her, the baby siblings she never saved. Plus, being a dead woman walking, what did she have to lose?
But Detective O also believed Charlene wasn’t a target for January 21. In fact, Charlie had probably set the whole thing up.
D.D. frowned. Those two theories were mutually exclusive. Charlene had either orchestrated the January 21 murders, meaning she wasn’t a dead woman walking, or she honestly perceived herself as doomed, hence it was okay to shoot sex offenders.
D.D. paced the length of the family room.
Charlene believed she was going to die today. Right or wrong, D.D. felt that in her bones. The girl’s gaunt appearance, her battered knuckles, the bruises around her throat. No one trained that hard without the threat of real and imminent danger hanging over her head.
Meaning D.D. had two serial crimes to analyze. The double murder of two childhood friends, making Charlene the logical next victim. Plus the serial shooting of three pedophiles, perhaps targeted by Charlene in a misguided attempt to administer justice during her last days on earth.
Except, at the scene of the third shooting, Charlene had introduced herself to the young, traumatized witness as Abigail. This, from a woman who was already carrying around the baggage of her dead siblings’ names. Assuming she felt a need to provide a name, why not Rosalind, or Carter, or, as she was prone to do, the whole enchilada, Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant? For that matter, what kind of murderer pulled the trigger, then turned around and introduced herself to the audience?
A crazy one, she could practically hear Detective O counter in her head. One that wasn’t a person at all, but a “split personality.” A woman who clearly hadn’t come to terms with her past.
Front door opened. Alex ushered in her parents.
“Where’s my grandson?” D.D.’s mom gushed, walking into the house, arms wide open. “It’s time to make some memories!”
Memories, D.D. thought dryly. All in the eye of the beholder.
In that instant, she had a very interesting idea.
ELEVEN A.M. JACK WAS BACK ASLEEP IN HIS CARRIER. D.D.’s parents were sitting on the sofa. Her mother was discussing the cold winter, the terrible Boston weather, the bad traffic, how gray it always was (for the record, the sun was shining outside, the sky brilliant blue), and the doughnut hole in the Medicare system which no one in government talked about, but which essentially meant no senior citizen had decent health coverage anymore.
“Don’t grow old,” her mother offered up in conclusion. “It’s just terrible. Why all we do is paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. And the minute you get all your doctors and medications right, they go and change it and you have to start all over again.”
Alex sat in the rocking chair, a slightly glazed look in his eyes. He was holding his fourth cup of coffee, but judging by the way he kept peering down at his mug, it wasn’t getting the job done.
D.D. couldn’t sit anymore. She was picking up baby Jack’s toys. Both of them. Then she straightened his blanket. Then she moved his carrier. Then she brought her sleeping baby two more toys and set them beside him in the car seat. Just in case.
“So when are you coming to Florida?” her mother said.
“What?”
“We were thinking March,” her mother continued, with a look at her father. “The weather’s warm, the sun shines every day, so much better than March in New England, dear. I mean, if you’re lucky the temperatures will what? Finally break into the twenties? You can bring Jack to the beach, let him dip his toes into the ocean. And we’d like to have a party, of course. Nothing too big. Just enough for our friends to meet you and Jack. Oh, and, of course, Alex.”
Alex started at the sound of his own name. He looked up, expression faintly panic stricken at what he might
