Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(75)

Then her little face lit up in a giant toothless grin.

She beamed up at me, my beautiful baby sister, Abigail.





Chapter 25


D.D. MADE IT TO THE RESTAURANT ON TIME. Alex had selected the Legal Seafood on the water, next to the Boston aquarium. It was close to the airport, offered good food and great views. D.D. knew the restaurant well, had used to walk there from her North End condo. Walking, however, was much easier than navigating the crush of rush hour traffic.

She plodded up 93, then looped through an elaborate off-ramp pattern that mostly involved sitting at red lights for three to four turns at a time.

By the time she arrived at the waterfront location, she was tense, frazzled, and pretty sure she had sweat through the blue silk blouse she’d bought the week before, in anticipation of meeting her mother.

Across from the restaurant was a public parking garage. D.D. wound her way up the levels until she was lucky enough to discover an empty space, way in the back, as far away from the stairwell as one could get. The space was marked COMPACT ONLY. She wedged her Crown Vic carefully into the narrow confines, then eased open her door.

As she stepped out of her car, the icy cold sliced through her like a knife. She went from overheated to shivering in a matter of seconds.

She should start walking, warm herself up.

She stood there instead, feeling like a little girl again, dragging her feet as she got home from school, because she had another note from her teacher in her backpack and her mother would be angry again. Worse, her mother would never say a word. She’d just thin her lips and look at her in a way D.D. knew too well.

I am a grown adult, D.D. reminded herself. A top detective, respected by cops, feared by felons.

It wasn’t working for her yet. She wanted it to, but it wasn’t working.

She thought of Alex and baby Jack instead. The way Alex was no doubt sitting patiently with her parents, easing them into their visit, encouraging them to fuss over their grandchild. The way Alex would look up when she finally walked into the restaurant. The way he would smile, instantly, genuinely, as she appeared table-side.

D.D. started walking, one black booted step in front of another as she made her way across the garage, down the stairwell, then across the snowy street until she arrived in front of the bustling restaurant.

Final deep breath. Reminding herself that a woman who worked death investigations could surely handle one dinner with her own parents.

Her hands trembled.

She went in.


ALEX AND HER PARENTS WERE SEATED in the very back, in a corner booth. It was slightly quieter back there, but still busy enough given a Thursday night at a major Boston restaurant. A waiter had performed the high chair trick—turning it over so that Jack’s car seat fit snuggly between the wooden legs. Alex sat on the right side of the booth, her parents side by side on the left.

Her mom, Patsy, sported a Florida tan, beautiful silver-blond hair, and an elegantly carved face that had obviously served as the model for D.D.’s own. She was wearing linen slacks and a sea foam green sleeveless sweater over a thin white shirt—a snow bird trying to adjust for the northern climate, but forgetting just how cold and bitter January in Boston could be. D.D.’s father, Roy, equally fit and trim, also appeared as if he’d been plucked from the golf course, wearing a navy blue sports jacket over a white-and-blue striped polo shirt.

Alex, as she’d predicted, spotted her first. He wore one of her favorite dark red cashmere sweaters over a black turtleneck. When he saw her, his blue eyes lit up, and the corners crinkled with the full force of his smile.

She faltered. She went to take a step and actually stumbled a little. Because it hit her, halfway across the extremely loud and crowded restaurant, that the most handsome man in the place belonged to her. Smiled for her. Sat patiently, with their baby and her parents, for her.

And it terrified her, because for every ounce of love she felt for him, she felt simultaneously, like a bank of black clouds across the sun, that she wasn’t worthy. That a man this handsome, accomplished, and smart belonged more to the likes of her parents than to the likes of her.

Which pissed her off all over again. All these years later, she did not want to feel that small. Maybe she hadn’t been the child her parents had wanted her to be. But she was the adult she needed to be, and that ought to be enough.

D.D. thrust up her chin and strode across the restaurant.

She arrived in front of the table. Opened her mouth to declare loudly, “Welcome Mom, howdy Dad, have a good flight?”

Just as her pager chimed to life.


ALEX SPOKE FIRST. “Everything okay?”

D.D. unclipped the pager, read the brief message. Closed her eyes. “I gotta go.”

“What?” Her mother, addressing her for the first time, already sounded strident.

“I’m sorry.” D.D. did her best to gather her wits. She leaned over, kissed her mother on the cheek, then her father. When she spoke, however, she looked at Alex, as his expression was easier to take. “Another shooting,” she informed him.

“Same case?”

“Exactly. Near Copley, so at least I’m close.”

“I don’t understand.” D.D.’s mother again.

“I’m in the middle of a major case, a string of murders. Another just happened. I have to go.”

“But…but…you just got here.”