Love You More

“You knew your father wouldn’t listen. Boys will be boys. Sounds like your mom had already internalized the message. That left you and Tessa. Two sixteen-year-old girls, trying to stand up to one brute of an older brother. Did she think she’d simply scare him off? Wave the gun, and that would be the end of things?”

Juliana didn’t respond. Her face was ashen.

“Except the gun went off,” D.D. continued conversationally. “And Tommy got hit. Tommy died. Your entire family fell apart. All because you and Tessa didn’t really know what you were doing. Whose idea was it to bring the gun that night?”

“Get out.”

“Yours? Hers? What were the two of you thinking?”

“Get out!”

“I’m going to check your phone records. One call. That’s all I need. One call placed from Tessa to you and your new little family is going to fall apart, too, Juliana. I’m gonna rip it apart, if I learn you’ve been holding out on me.”

“Get out!” Juliana screamed. On the floor, the baby responded to his mother’s tone and started to wail.

D.D. climbed off the sofa. She kept her eyes on Juliana MacDougall, the woman’s pale face, heaving shoulders, wild gaze. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She looked like a woman trapped by a ten-year-old lie.

D.D. gave one last try: “What happened that night, Juliana? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I loved her,” the woman said suddenly. “Tessa was my best friend in the whole world, and I loved her. Then my brother died, my family shattered, and my world went to shit. I’m not going back. Not for her, not for you, not for anyone. Whatever happened to Tessa this time around, I don’t know and I don’t care. Now get out of my home, Detective, and don’t bother me or my family again.”

Juliana held open the door. Her baby was still sobbing on the floor. D.D. took the hint and finally departed. The door slammed shut behind her, the dead bolt turning for good measure.

When D.D. turned, however, she could see Juliana through the front window. The woman had picked up her crying son, cradling the baby against her chest. Soothing the child or letting the child soothe her?

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe that’s the way these things worked.

Juliana MacDougall loved her son. As her parents had loved her brother. As Tessa Leoni loved her daughter.

Cycles, D.D. thought. Pieces of a larger pattern. Except she couldn’t quite pull it apart, or put it back together.

Parents loved their children. Some parents would go to any length to protect them. And other parents…

D.D. started to get a bad feeling.

Then her cellphone rang.

19

Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren and Detective Bobby Dodge came for me at 11:43 a.m. I heard their footsteps in the corridor, fast and focused. I had a split second; I used it to stash the blue button in the back part of the lowest drawer in the hospital bed stand.

My only link to Sophie.

My final unnecessary reminder to play by the rules.

Maybe, one day I could return and retrieve the button. If I was lucky, maybe Sophie and I could do it together, reclaiming Gertrude’s missing eye and reattaching it to her dispassionate doll’s face.

If I was lucky.

I’d just sat down on the edge of my hospital bed when the privacy curtain was ripped back and D.D. strode into the room. I knew what was coming next and still had to bite my lower lip to hold back my scream of protest.

“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my…”

I realized belatedly I was humming the song under my breath. Fortunately, neither of the detectives seemed to notice.

“Tessa Marie Leoni,” D.D. began and I steeled my spine. “You are under arrest for the murder of Brian Anthony Darby. Please rise.”

More footsteps in the corridor. Most likely the DA and his assistant, not wanting to miss the big moment. Or maybe some muckety-mucks from the BPD, always attuned to high profile photo ops. Probably some brass from the state police, as well. They wouldn’t abandon me just yet, a young, abused female officer. They couldn’t afford to appear so insensitive.

The press would be amassing in the parking lot, I realized, impressed by my own detachment as I rose to my feet, presenting both wrists to my colleagues. Shane would arrive shortly, as union rep. Also my lawyer. Or maybe they would meet me at the courthouse, where I would be formally charged with killing my own husband.

I had a flashback to another moment in time, sitting at a kitchen table, my freshly showered hair dripping down my back as a heavyset detective asked over and over again, “Where’d ya get the gun, why’d ya bring the gun, what made ya fire the gun…”

My father, standing impassively in the doorway, his arms crossed over his dirty white T-shirt. And me, understanding even then that I’d lost him. That my answers didn’t matter anymore. I was guilty, I would always be guilty.

Sometimes, that’s the price you paid for love.

Detective Warren read me my rights. I didn’t speak; what was left to say? She cuffed my wrists, prepared to lead me away, then encountered the first logistical issue. I had no clothes. My uniform had been bagged and tagged as evidence upon my admittance, delivered to the crime lab yesterday afternoon. That left me in a hospital Johnny, and even D.D. understood the political dangers of a Boston cop being photographed dragging away a battered state trooper who was wearing nothing but a hospital gown.

She and Detective Dodge had a quick conference, off to one side of the room. I sat back down on the edge of the bed. A nurse had entered and was watching the proceedings with concern. Now she crossed to me.

“Head?” she asked crisply.

“Hurts.”

She took my pulse, made me track her finger with my eyes, then nodded in satisfaction. Apparently, I was merely in pain, not in crisis. Having assured herself that her patient was in no immediate danger, the nurse retreated out the door.

“Can’t use a prison jumpsuit,” D.D. was arguing in low tones with Bobby. “Her lawyer will argue we biased the judge, bringing her before him in jailhouse orange. Hospital gown presents the same issue, except this time we look like insensitive jerks. We need clothes. Simple nondescript blue jeans, sweater. That sort of thing.”

“Get an officer to swing by her house,” Bobby muttered back.

D.D. regarded him for a second, then turned to study me.

“Got a favorite outfit?” D.D. asked.

“Wal-Mart,” I said, standing up.

“What?”

“Couple blocks over. Size 6 jeans, medium sweater. I’d appreciate underclothes, too, plus socks and shoes.”

“I’m not buying you clothes,” D.D. said crossly. “We’ll get some from your house.”

“No,” I said, and sat back down.

D.D. glared at me. I let her. She was arresting me, after all, what did she have to be so angry about? I didn’t want clothing from home, personal articles the Suffolk County Jail would seize from me and lock away for the duration of my incarceration. I would rather arrive in a hospital gown. Why not? The look bought me sympathy, and I would take all the help I could get.

Apparently, D.D. figured that out, as well. A uniformed officer was summoned, instructions given. The patrol officer didn’t even bat an eye at being told to buy women’s clothing. He disappeared out the door, which left me