about his wife, but thought that having a state trooper for a spouse was tough on the guy. Oh, and in the past three weeks, since returning home from his last tour, Darby was definitely in a mood, but not willing to talk about it.”
“What do you mean by ‘in a mood’?”
“Personal trainer said he seemed darker, temperamental. She’d asked a couple of times, guessing trouble on the home front, but he wouldn’t comment. For what it’s worth, that makes him something of a novelty. Apparently, most clients pour out their souls while working out. Go to a gym, enter a confessional.”
D.D. perked up. “So something was on his mind, but Darby wasn’t talking about it.”
“Maybe he discovered his wife was having an affair,” Neil commented from the back. “You said when he returned, meaning, he’d just left his wife all alone for sixty days…”
“In addition to the rec room on the ship,” Phil spoke up, “there’s a computer room for the crew. I’m working on the warrant now to get copies of all of Darby’s ingoing and outgoing e-mail. Might find something there.”
“So Tessa meets another man,” D.D. mused, “decides to off her husband. Why homicide? Why not divorce?”
She posed the question generally, a challenge to the room.
“Life insurance,” an officer spoke up.
“Expediency,” said another. “Maybe he threatened to fight a divorce.”
“Maybe Darby had something on her, threatened to make trouble if she divorced him.”
D.D. wrote down each comment, seeming particularly interested in the third bulletin. “By her own admission, Tessa Leoni is an alcoholic, who’d already killed once when she was sixteen. Figure if that’s what she’s willing to admit to, what
D.D. turned back to the group. “Okay, then why kill her daughter? Brian’s a stepdad, so he doesn’t have grounds to challenge for custody. It’s one thing to end a marriage. Why kill her own kid?”
Room was slower with this one. Of all people, it was Phil who finally ventured an answer: “Because her lover doesn’t want kids. Isn’t that how these things work? Diane Downs, etc., etc. Women kill their children when their children are inconvenient for them. Tessa was looking to start a new life. Sophie could not be part of that life, so Sophie had to die.”
No one had anything to add to that.
“We need to identify the lover,” Bobby murmured.
“We need to find Sophie’s body,” D.D. sighed more heavily. “Prove once and for all just what Tessa Leoni is capable of.”
She set down her marker, looked over the whiteboard.
“All right, people. These are our assumptions: Tessa Leoni killed her husband and child, most likely sometime Friday evening or Saturday morning. She froze her husband’s body in the garage. She disposed of her daughter during a Saturday afternoon drive. Then she reported to work-most likely while unthawing her husband’s body in the kitchen-before returning home, letting her lover beat the shit out of her, and calling her fellow state troopers. It’s some story. Now get out there, and find me some
“Amber Alert?” Phil asked, as he rose to his feet.
“We keep it active until we find Sophie Leoni, one way or the other.”
The taskforce understood what she meant: until they found the child, or until they recovered the child’s body. The detectives filed out of the room. Then it was just Bobby and D.D., standing together, alone.
He pushed away from the wall first and headed for the door.
“Bobby.”
There was just enough uncertainty in her voice to make him turn.
“I haven’t even told Alex,” she said. “All right? I haven’t even told Alex.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” She shrugged. “Because.”
“Are you going to keep the baby?”
Her eyes widened. She motioned frantically to the open door, so he humored her by closing it. “Now see, this is why I didn’t say anything,” she exploded. “This is precisely the kind of conversation I didn’t want to have!”
He remained standing there, staring at her. She had one hand splayed across her lower abdomen. How had he never noticed that before, he the former sniper? The way she cradled her belly, almost protectively. He felt stupid, and realized now he’d never needed to ask the question. He knew the answer just by looking at the way she was standing: She was keeping the baby. That’s what had her so terrified.
Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was going to be a mom.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said.
“Oh God!”
“D.D., you have been great at everything you’ve ever wanted to do. Why should this be any different?”
“Oh God,” she said again, eyes wilder.
“Can I get you anything? Water? A pickle? How about ginger chews? Annabelle lived on ginger chews. Said they settled her stomach.”
“Ginger chews?” She paused. Appeared a little less frantic, a little more curious. “Really?”
Bobby smiled at her, crossed the room, and because it felt like the right thing to do, he gave her a hug. “Congratulations,” he whispered in her ear. “Seriously, D.D. Welcome to the ride of your life.”
“You think?” She looked a little misty-eyed, then surprised them both by hugging him back. “Thanks, Bobby.”
He patted her shoulder. She leaned her head into his chest. Then they both straightened, turned to the whiteboard, and got back to work.
21
I stood, my hands shackled at my waist, as the district attorney read off the charges. According to the DA, I had deliberately and willfully shot my own husband. Furthermore, they had reason to believe I may have also killed my own daughter. At this time, they were entering charges of Murder 1, and requesting I be held without bail, given the severity of the charges.
My lawyer, Cargill, blustered his protest. I was an upstanding state police trooper, with a long and distinguished career (four years?). The DA had insufficient evidence against me, and to believe such a reputable officer and dedicated mother would turn on her entire family was preposterous.
The DA pointed out ballistics had already matched the bullets in my husband’s chest to my state-issued Sig Sauer.
Cargill argued my black eye, fractured face, and concussed brain. Obviously, I’d been driven to it.
The DA pointed out that might have made sense, if my husband’s body hadn’t been frozen after death.
This clearly perplexed the judge, who shot me a startled glance.
Welcome to my world, I wanted to tell him. But I said nothing, showed nothing, because even the smallest gesture, happy, angry, or sad, would lead to the same place: hysteria.
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie.
I was going to burst into song. Then I would simply scream because that’s what a mother wanted to do when she pulled back the covers of her child’s empty bed. She wanted to scream, except I’d never had a chance.
There had been a noise downstairs. Sophie, I’d thought again. And I’d sprinted out of her bedroom, running downstairs, racing straight into the kitchen, and there had been my husband, and there had been a man holding a gun against my husband’s temple.
“Who do you love?” he’d said, and that quickly, my choices had been laid out for me. I could do what I was told
