Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(19)

“Her pajamas?”

“Trooper Leoni said her daughter was wearing a long-sleeved set, pink with yellow horses. No sign of them.”

D.D. had a thought. “What about her coat, hat, and snow boots?”

“Don’t have that in my notes.”

For the first time, D.D. felt a glimmer of hope. “Missing coat and hat means she was roused out of bed in the middle of the night. Not given the time to change, but the chance to bundle up.”

“No need to bundle up a corpse,” Bobby remarked.

They left the room and pounded down the stairs. Inspected the coat closet, then the bin of shoes and winter accessories tucked by the front door. No little kid coat. No little kid hat. No little kid boots.

“Sophie Leoni was bundled up!” D.D. declared triumphantly.

“Sophie Leoni left the house alive.”

“Perfect. Now, all we gotta do is find her before nightfall.”


They returned upstairs long enough to examine the windows for signs of forced entry. Finding none, they headed downstairs for the same drill. Both doors featured relatively new hardware and bolt locks, none of which showed signs of tampering. The windows in the sunroom, they discovered, were so old and moisture-warped they refused to budge.

All in all, the house appeared secure. To judge from the look on Bobby’s face, he hadn’t expected anything different and neither had D.D. Sad rule in missing kid cases—most of the time, the trouble came from inside the home, not outside it.

They toured the family room, which reminded D.D. of the bedroom. Plain walls, wooden floors topped by a beige area rug. The black leather L-shaped sofa seemed more like a his purchase than a hers. A fairly new-looking laptop computer sat at one end of the couch, still plugged into the wall. Room also boasted a flat-screen TV, mounted above a sleek entertainment unit that housed a state-of-the-art audio system, Blu-ray DVD player, and Wii gaming console.

“Boys and their toys,” D.D. remarked.

“Engineer,” Bobby said again.

D.D. examined a small art table set up in the corner for Sophie. On one side of the table sat a stack of blank white paper. In the middle was a caddy filled with crayons. That was it. No works in progress on the table. No displays of completed genius on the walls. Very organized, she thought, especially for a six-year-old.

The starkness of the home was starting to wig her out. People did not live like this and people with kids definitely should not live like this.

They crossed into the kitchen, where D.D. stood as far away from the outline of the corpse as she could. Bloodstain, shattered glass, and toppled chairs aside, the kitchen was as meticulous as the rest of the house. Also tired and dated. Thirty-year-old dark wood cabinets, plain white appliances, stained Formica countertop. First thing Alex would do to this house, D.D. thought, was gut and modernize the kitchen.

But not Brian Darby. He spent his money on electronics, a leather sofa, and his car. Not the house.

“They made an effort for Sophie,” D.D. murmured out loud, “but not for each other.”

Bobby looked at her.

“Think about it,” she continued. “It’s an old vintage house that’s still an old vintage house. As you keep pointing out, he’s an engineer, meaning he’s probably got some basic skills with power tools. Combined household income is a good two hundred grand a year, plus Brian Darby has this whole sixty days of vacation thing going on. Meaning they have some expertise, some time, and some resources they could spend on the home. But they don’t. Only in Sophie’s room. She gets the fresh paint, new furniture, pretty bedding, etc. They made an effort for her, but not for themselves. Makes me wonder in how many other areas of their life that same rule applied.”

“Most parents focus on their kids,” Bobby observed mildly.

“They haven’t even hung a picture.”

“Trooper Leoni works long hours. Brian Darby ships out for months at a time. Maybe, when they’re home, they have other priorities.”

D.D. shrugged. “Like what?”

Bobby nodded. “Come on. I’ll show you the garage.”


The garage freaked D.D. out. The broad, two-bay space was lined on all three sides with the craziest Peg-Board system she’d ever seen. Seriously, floor to ceiling of Peg-Boards, which were then fitted with shelving brackets and bike holders and plastic bins for sporting goods and even a custom golf bag holder.

D.D. took in the space and was struck by two things at once: Brian Darby did apparently have a lot of outdoor hobbies, and he needed professional help for his anal-retentiveness.

“The floor is clean,” D.D. said. “It’s March, it’s snowy, and the entire city has been sanded within an inch of its life. How can the floor be this clean?”

“He parked his car on the street.”

“He parked his sixty thousand dollar SUV on one of the busiest streets in Boston rather than dirty his garage?”

“Trooper Leoni also parked her cruiser out front. Department likes us to keep our vehicles visible in the neighborhood—presence of a cop car is viewed as a deterrent.”

“This is nuts,” D.D. stated. She crossed to one wall, where she found a large broom and dustpan racked side by side. Next to them sat two plastic garbage cans and a blue bin for recycling. Recycling bin revealed half a dozen green beer bottles. Garbage cans were already empty—the bags probably having been removed by the crime-scene techs. D.D. strolled by his and her dirt bikes, plus a pink number that clearly belonged to Sophie. She found a row of backpacks and a shelf dedicated to hiking boots of various weights and sizes, including a pink pair for Sophie. Hiking, biking, golfing, she determined.