Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(29)

I tried to sit up, intent on retrieval. Immediately, the back of my skull roared to life, my cheek throbbing in a fresh spike of pain. The room wavered, tilted sickeningly, and I could feel my heart rate skyrocket from sudden, excruciating distress.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I forced myself to lie down, take a steadying breath. Eventually, the ceiling righted and I could swallow without gagging. I lay perfectly still, acutely aware of my own vulnerability, the weakness I couldn’t afford.

This was why men beat women, of course. To prove their physical superiority. To demonstrate they were bigger and stronger than us, and that no amount of special training would ever change that. They were the dominant gender. We might as well submit now and surrender.

Except I didn’t need to be smashed over the head with a beer bottle to understand my physical limitations. I didn’t need a hairy-knuckled fist exploding in my face to realize that some battles couldn’t be won. I’d already spent my whole life coming to terms with the fact that I was smaller, more vulnerable than others. I’d still survived the Academy. I’d still spent four years patrolling as one of the state’s few female troopers.

And I’d still given birth, all alone, to an amazing daughter.

Like hell I would submit. Like hell I would surrender.

I was crying again. The tears shamed me. I wiped my good cheek again, careful not to touch my black eye.

Forget the f*cking duty belt, our instructors had told us the first day of Academy training. Two most valuable tools an officer has are her head and her mouth. Think strategically, speak carefully, and you can control any person, any situation.

That’s what I needed. To regain control, because the Boston cops would be returning soon, and then I was probably doomed.

Think strategically. Okay. Time.

Four, five o’clock?

It would be dark soon. Night falling.

Sophie …

My hands trembled. I supressed the weakness.

Think strategically.

Stuck in a hospital. Can’t run, can’t hide, can’t attack, can’t defend. So I had to get one step ahead. Think strategically. Speak carefully.

Sacrifice judiciously.

I remembered Brian again, the beauty of that fall afternoon, and the way you can both love a man and curse him all in one breath. I knew what I had to do.

I found the bedside phone, and I dialed.

“Ken Cargill, please. This is his client, Tessa Leoni. Please tell him I need to make arrangements for my husband’s body. Immediately.”





11



Trooper Shane Lyons agreed to meet Bobby and D.D. at the BPD headquarters in Roxbury after six. That gave them enough time to stop for dinner. Bobby ordered up a giant hoagie, double everything. D.D. nursed a bowl of chicken noodle soup, liberally topped with crumbled saltines.

Sub shop had a TV blaring in the corner, the five o’clock news leading with the shooting in Allston-Brighton and the disappearance of Sophie Marissa Leoni. The girl’s face filled the screen, bright blue eyes, huge, gap-tooth smile. Beneath her photo ran the hotline number, as well as an offer of a twenty-five thousand dollar reward for any tips that might lead to her recovery.

D.D. couldn’t watch the newscast. It depressed her too much.

Eight hours after the first call out, they weren’t making sufficient progress. One neighbor had reported seeing Brian Darby driving away in his white GMC Denali shortly after four p.m. yesterday. After that, nothing. No visual sightings. No phone calls logged on the landline or messages on his cell. Where Brian Darby had gone, what he’d done, who he might have seen, no one had any idea.

Which brought them to six-year-old Sophie. Yesterday had been a Saturday. No school, no playdates, no appearances in the yard, no sightings in local cameras or magical tips pouring in through the hotline. Friday, she’d been picked up from school at three p.m. After that, it was anybody’s guess.

Tessa Leoni had reported in for her eleven p.m. graveyard shift on Saturday night. Three neighbors had noticed her cruiser departing; one had noticed its reappearance after nine the next morning. Dispatch had a full roster of duty calls, verifying Trooper Leoni had worked her shift, turning in the last batch of paperwork shortly after eight a.m. Sunday morning.

At which point, the entire family fell off the grid. Neighbors didn’t see anything. Neighbors didn’t hear anything. No fighting, no screaming, not even gunshots, though that made D.D. suspicious because how you could not hear a 9mm fire off three rounds was beyond her. Maybe people just didn’t want to hear what they didn’t want to hear. That seemed more likely.

Sophie Leoni had now been declared missing since ten this morning. Sun was down, thermostat was plunging, and four to six inches of snow were reportedly on their way.

The day had been bad. The night would be worse.

“I gotta make a call,” Bobby said. He’d finished his sandwich, was balling up the wrapping.

“Gonna tell Annabelle you’re working late?”

He gestured outside the sub shop window, where the first flakes had started to fall. “Am I wrong?”

“She okay with your schedule?” D.D. asked.

He shrugged. “What can she do? The job’s the job.”

“What about Carina? Soon she’ll figure out Daddy disappears and doesn’t always return home to play. Then there’s the missed recitals, school plays, soccer games. I scored one for the team, Dad! Except you weren’t there.”