Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(40)

His mother was a nag. His wife was a nag. And in another fifteen years he'd look just like his father, slightly hunched shoulders, chin tucked against his chest in perfect turtle posture, and selectively deaf in both ears.

He should've divorced her right then, but there were the children to consider. Yeah, his two darling, beautiful children, who already looked at him with his wife's accusing stare every time he was late for dinner.

He found himself thinking of Catherine again. The way she'd first come to him nine months ago. Her fingers brushing up his arm. Her long black hair teasing his cheek as she leaned over his shoulder to study Nathan's medical records.

She'd come to his office one day without Nathan, wearing a long black overcoat. She'd walked into his office. She'd locked the door behind herself. She'd looked him right in the eye and said, “I need you.”

Then she'd thrown open her coat to reveal nothing but smooth white skin and tantalizing bits of black lace. He'd taken her right then and there, up against the wall, his trousers around his knees, her legs around his waist.

She'd climaxed so hard, she'd sunk her teeth into his shoulder. Then they'd tumbled to the floor and next thing he knew, she was on her hands and knees and he was riding her from behind, already as hard and horny as a teenager catching his second wind.

Afterwards, when both of them were too exhausted to move, when he could barely summon his receptionist by phone to tell her to cancel all his appointments for the afternoon, he'd seen the contusion on Catherine's left side.

It was nothing, she'd told him. She stumbled against the counter in the kitchen. That day, neither of them had commented on the bruise's perfect palmlike shape.

She'd wept the day she'd finally told him about Jimmy. They'd been in a hotel room in Copley Square. She'd just spent twenty minutes on her knees doing stuff he'd only ever read about in magazines. Now he held her close, stroking her hair.

I need you, she'd whispered against his chest. Oh God, Tony, you don't know what it's like. I am so afraid . . .

He should leave this stupid hospital, Tony thought now, walking through the empty parking garage, his footsteps ringing off the cement. He was sick and tired of people telling him what to do—his wife, the head of Pediatrics, a prick like Judge Gagnon. What was the point of working so hard for so many years if he never got to do anything he wanted to do?

He loved Catherine Gagnon. He was tired of all this shit. Screw his wife, screw the kids. He'd drive to Catherine's house right this minute. Tell her he took it back. He was sorry he'd let her down, sorry he'd told her he couldn't help Nathan.

Hell, he was sorry he'd sat in front of some state cop this afternoon, feeling like half a man as he tried to explain how he could love Cat and yet do nothing to protect her from Jimmy. The way that trooper had looked at him . . .

That was it. He would buck the system. He would stand on his own two feet. Just this once, he would do what he wanted to do, and screw the other women in his life.

Tony got to his car. He got out his keys, his hand already shaking in excitement.

It wasn't until he unlocked the door that he finally heard the noise behind him.




T HE FOOTSTEPS MOVED quietly down the hall. Rubber soles treading carefully on white vinyl floors. The soft rustle of curtains. The beep beep of heart monitors, the hiss of numerous ventilators.

The nurse was gone, tending someone somewhere.

The hallway was dark and still.

The man tiptoed, tiptoed, tiptoed, until finally, the right room.

A shadow fell across the foot of the bed. Four-year-old Nathan stirred. He turned his head toward the sound. He opened his eyes to drugged half slits.

The man held his breath.

And Nathan whispered, “Daddy.”





B OBBY WAS DOOMED. His head had finally just hit the pillow when his phone rang again. He didn't think of Susan this time. Instead, his thoughts went straight to Catherine. He'd been dreaming, he realized. He'd been dreaming of Jimmy Gagnon's widow, and she had been naked with her long black hair splayed across his chest.

“I just want to get some sleep,” he snarled into the receiver.

“Still feel like playing detective, Officer Dodge?”

It took him a moment to place the voice. Harris, the Gagnons' earnest detective. Bobby's gaze went to the bedside clock. Dial glowed two a.m. Christ, he had to get some sleep. “What?” he asked.

“Got any friends with the Boston PD?” Harris said. “I think there's a crime scene you're going to want to visit.”

“Who?”

Harris paused a heartbeat. “Dr. Tony Rocco. Parking garage of the hospital. Don't wear good shoes. I understand it's messy.”




D ETECTIVE D.D. WARREN had been with Boston Homicide for over eight years. A petite blonde with a lithe build and killer blue eyes, she worked the Rocco crime scene in slim-cut jeans, stiletto boots, and a caramel-colored leather jacket. Sex and the City meets NYPD Blue. Lots of the guys were staring. Given that D.D. ate, slept, and breathed her job, none of them stood a chance.

She and Bobby went way back. They'd dated eons ago, when they'd both been new recruits, her starting out for the city, him for the state. They could sympathize with each other's demanding days, without having to be in direct competition. Bobby couldn't remember anymore why they'd broken it off. Too busy, probably. It didn't really matter. They worked better as friends. He appreciated the meteoric rise of her career—she'd probably be lieutenant soon—and she was always interested in his work with STOP.