Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(129)

“And yet you’re happy?”

“Because I knew it. When O and I interviewed Charlie the first time, the girl looked guilty as hell. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t because she was running around Boston shooting pedophiles. But I knew she’d been running around the city doing something.”

“What was the something?”

“Having a shoot-out with a lovely gentleman named Stan Miller. Known as the neighborhood bully. Security guard, wife beater, allegedly had a thing for hammers. He was found impaled on a collapsed fire escape about seven weeks ago. Quite dead, apartment shot to pieces, wife and two kids nowhere to be found. Still missing, as a matter of fact. I’d look harder, but based on neighborhood scuttlebutt, their disappearance is probably in their own best interest.”

“But he died of fire escape, not GSW.”

“Another tricky detail should I pursue a case. Can only prove a person with Charlie Grant’s gun shot at Stan Miller, not that a person with Charlie Grant’s gun killed Stan Miller.”

“And yet you’re happy.”

Baby Jack was giggly. Baby Jack blew rice cereal all over the high chair and half of D.D.’s face. And yet she was still happy. She sat back, stirring rice cereal, waiting for the next chance to use it.

She eyed her partner.

“I like knowing things. I like knowing what Charlie Grant did, and it’s possible I dropped her a note, because I like letting her know that I know what she did. Girl’s a vigilante. She should know a Boston homicide cop is staring over her shoulder. It’s good for her.”

“Ah. You’re torturing her. Now I see why you’re happy.”

“I’m monitoring her. Will help keep her honest, and I like to think at least some part of her will appreciate that.”

Baby Jack stopped blowing zerberts. D.D. reverted to more fishy faces and scored, in rapid succession, two more bites of rice cereal.

“So, I’m thinking September,” she said casually.

Alex eyed her. “Vacation? Getaway.” He closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “We really are going to see your parents.”

“Not if I can help it. But my guess is, they’d come here. Can’t miss their only daughter’s wedding.”

She looked up at him. He opened his eyes, startled, maybe even bemused. Her heart was pounding. She’d figured that might happen, but the depth of her own nervousness surprised her.

“Wedding?” he asked.

“The fall. With all the leaves turning on the trees. I think that would be pretty.”

“Am I involved?”

“I thought I’d be the one in white…okay, ivory, and you’d be the one in the monkey suit.”

He nodded slowly. “Should I ask how you arrived at this decision, or just jam the ring on your finger before you change your mind?”

“Well, it might take us a couple a weeks to find the ring…”

“Shut up,” Alex said. Then, “Stay right there.” He pushed back his chair rather awkwardly, then staggered out of the room, while D.D. sat there, still holding rice cereal, with bits of baby spittle across her cheek.

She turned to Jack, who waved his pudgy fists in the slightly reclined high chair.

“I think your father is loco,” she informed him.

He blew more zerberts.

Alex returned, now holding an unmistakable blue box that made D.D.’s eyes widen. “No way!”

“Fourteen months ago. I have been waiting fourteen months. Have I mentioned yet what a stubborn, infuriating, completely maddening woman you are?”

D.D.’s heart was pounding again. “Not the words of praise I was expecting during a proposal.”

But it didn’t matter. Had never mattered. Alex was on his knee, in their kitchen, with their baby covered in rice cereal and D.D. half-sprayed in rice cereal and it was exactly as it should be.

“D. D. Warren, will you marry me?”

“Alex Wilson, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” they said together, and he opened the box, and she gasped because it was a sapphire studded band, just like something she’d actually wear. Then she cried a little and he cried a little and baby Jack blew more zerberts so they hugged and kissed him, too, until they were all covered in rice cereal, even the sparkly sapphire band.

“I don’t get it,” Alex said, when the dust had settled and Jack was halfway cleaned up and they’d decided to pop champagne. “Why now? You discover you can’t arrest a murderer, and that makes you decide to finally marry me?”

“No. I discovered I could handle a little on-the-job frustration, because I now have more in my world than just the job. I have you, and Jack. Not to mention, when I got the report, I realized I didn’t even care if Phil and Neil knew. I just wanted to come home and tell you.”

She eyed her fiancé, sitting beside her on the couch, and she said more softly, more seriously, “You did what I feared most, Alex. And I had to have that happen, to realize it wasn’t so bad.”

“What did I do?”

“You changed me.” She shrugged. “My whole life, that’s what I’ve fought. I was the oddball in my own family, the little tomboy freak. And my parents didn’t get me, and definitely didn’t approve of me, and while some kids might have worked harder for their parents’ approval, I went the other way. I dug in my heels. And I decided no matter what, I’d always be me, even if that meant I might sometimes be, say…a little prickly, a little forceful. It was okay, because I was being me.”