Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(88)

Interestingly enough, her mother’s lips had never moved, her throat had never vocalized the syllables. Turned out, she didn’t have to actually speak. She could communicate an entire range of disapproval all with the single lift of her brow.

If D.D. hadn’t been so thoroughly infuriated, she would’ve been impressed.

They didn’t speak while waiting for their food. They just sat there, a father, a mother, a daughter, who all these years later couldn’t bridge the divide. And eventually D.D. had stopped feeling so angry and simply felt depressed. Because they were her parents and she loved them in her own way and understood they loved her in their own way, and what a shame it didn’t make bearing each other’s company any easier.

Food came. They ate gratefully.

D.D. had thought she just might survive the meal, when her mother chewed her last piece of cantaloupe, set down her fork, looked D.D. in the eye, and stated, “This is what I don’t understand: If Alex is good enough to father your child, why isn’t he good enough to marry? I mean really, D.D., what are you waiting for?”

D.D. had frozen, forkful of eggs Benedict midair, and stared at her mom. Then, belatedly, she’d turned her gaze to her father, who was resiliently studying the white linen tablecloth. Coward.

“I’m glad you like Alex,” D.D. had mumbled at last, then set down her fork and bolted for the bathroom. By the time she’d returned, her mother sat pinch-faced, staring straight ahead. Her father had his hand lightly on hers, but whether that was offering comfort or asking forgiveness, D.D. couldn’t tell.

They were an attractive elderly couple, she realized, approaching the table. They fit together in a way you could see from across the room. And maybe that was the problem. They were the unit. And she was forever the outsider, looking in.

She kissed her mom on the cheek, feeling the rigidness of her mother’s spine. She kissed her father as well, feeling the dry brush of his lips on her cheek. Then she paid the bill and got out of there.

At a certain point, you had to agree to disagree, even with your own parents. Logically she could accept that. But it hurt. It would always hurt.

At least she knew, somewhere deep down inside, that her mother loved her.

She wondered what Charlene thought about her mother, a woman who’d physically abused her most of her young life. But at least she’d let Charlene live, which based on the police reports D.D. had read just this morning, was more than Christine Grant had done for her other two children.

Parents and children. Mothers and daughters.

Love and forgiveness.

And homicide.

D.D. picked up the phone and made the call.





Chapter 29


I WAS TWITCHY when I first took Detective Warren’s call. Twitchier, by the time I departed for BPD headquarters. I left my aunt behind, nestled with Tulip in my room. Given her exhaustion from the early morning drive to Boston, it hadn’t taken much to convince her to rest. I’d told her I needed to tend to a few things before work. No need to mention my conversation with a local homicide investigator. That Detective Warren had located my mother. That she had more information on the baby sister and baby brother I myself had just remembered a few hours ago. No need to mention my growing conviction that the past was closing in on me for a reason. That I was remembering my failings just in time for judgment day.

Three P.M. Friday afternoon. Twenty-nine hours before 8 P.M. Saturday night. Sky had finally cleared and turned that crystalline blue that marks bitterly cold winter days in Boston.

The brightness hurt my eyes, encouraged me to keep my head down and my shoulders hunched, when I should’ve been walking shoulders back, eyes straight ahead, taking constant inventory of the world around me. Trees cast skeletal shadows on the white snowy ground. Corners were mushy with slush and filled with blind spots caused by heaping snowbanks.

What if the killer had gotten bored with January 21 as the annual day to murder a young, defenseless woman? Maybe he’d realize there was more opportunity on the 20th, when his third victim, namely me, wouldn’t be expecting it yet. Eight P.M. was also an arbitrary time, a rough average between two approximate times of death in two separate homicides. Maybe morning was better for the murderer this year. Or later Saturday night or even Sunday morning. A lot could happen in a year. The killer could’ve moved, gotten a new job, maybe fallen in love, had a child.

He or she could be following me. Right now. Maybe he/she had started a week ago. Or a year ago: Officer Tom Mackereth, carefully scoping me out on the job. Or my aunt, suddenly showing up on my front door, after nearly a year apart. Or a long-lost friend, that kid from high school I couldn’t remember but would vaguely recognize, having spent yesterday flipping through the yearbook. Someone I wouldn’t immediately assume was a threat. Someone smart enough, practiced enough, to walk right up to me without tripping any of my internal alarms.

Twelve months later, I still had more questions than answers. Mostly, I felt the stress of too many sleepless nights, the ticktock of a clock, so close now, so unbelievably close to a very personal, very gruesome deadline.

I walked down the sidewalk toward the T stop in Harvard Square, jumping at every unexpected noise, while thinking that it was a good thing I’d left my Taurus at home, because at this stage of the game, I was a danger to myself and others.

I wished it was already January 21. Frankly, I needed the fight.