Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(35)

“He loved Sophie!”

“But he didn’t love you. That was the problem.”

“Maybe he was on steroids.” It was something. I looked at Bobby.

“ ’Roid rage doesn’t discriminate,” D.D. drawled. “Then he’d definitely whack both of you.”

“I’m just saying … He’d only been home from his last tour a couple of weeks, and this time … this time something had definitely changed.” That much wasn’t a lie. In fact, I hoped they would trace that thread. I could use a couple of crack detectives on my side. Certainly, Sophie deserved investigators smarter than me coming to the rescue.

“He was more violent,” Bobby stated carefully.

“Angry. All the time. I was trying to understand, hoping he’d settle back in. But it wasn’t working.” I twisted the top blanket with one hand, squeezed the button beneath the blanket with the other. “I just … I don’t know how it got to this. And that’s the truth. We loved each other. He was a good husband and a good father. Then …” More tears. Honest ones this time. I let a single drop trace down my cheek. “I don’t know how it got to this.”

The detectives fell quiet. My lawyer had relaxed beside me. I think he liked the tears, and probably the mention of possible steroid abuse, as well. That was a good angle.

“Where’s Sophie?” D.D. asked, less hostile now, more intent.

“Don’t know.” Another honest answer.

“Her boots are gone. Coat, too. Like someone bundled her up, took her away.”

“Mrs. Ennis?” I spoke up hopefully. “She’s Sophie’s caretaker—”

“We know who she is,” D.D. interjected. “She doesn’t have your child.”

“Oh.”

“Does Brian have a second home? Old ski lodge, fishing shack, anything like that?” Bobby this time.

I shook my head. I was getting tired, feeling my fatigue in spite of myself. I needed to get my endurance up. Build up my strength for the days and nights to come.

“Who else might know Sophie, remove her from your home?” D.D. insistent, not letting it go.

“I don’t know—”

“Brian’s family?” she persisted.

“He has a mother, four sisters. The sisters are scattered, his mother lives in New Hampshire. You’d have to ask, but we never saw them that much. His schedule, mine.”

“Your family?”

“I don’t have a family,” I said automatically.

“That’s not what the police file said.”

“What?”

“What?” my lawyer echoed.

Neither detective looked at him. “Ten years ago. When you were questioned by the police for the death of nineteen-year-old Thomas Howe. According to the paperwork, it was your own father who supplied the gun.”

I stared at D. D. Warren. Just stared and stared and stared.

“Those records are sealed,” I said softly.

“Tessa …” my lawyer began again, not sounding happy.

“But I told Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton about the incident when I first started on the force,” I stated levelly. “I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings.”

“You mean, like one of your fellow officers discovering you’d shot and killed a kid?”

“Shot and killed a kid?” I mimicked. “I was sixteen. I was the kid! Why the hell do you think they sealed the records? Anyway, the DA never brought charges, ruling it justifiable homicide. Thomas assaulted me. I was just trying to get away.”

“Shot him with a twenty-two,” Detective Warren continued as if I’d never spoken. “Which you just so happened to have on you. Also, no signs of physical assault—”

“You have been speaking to my father,” I said bitterly. I couldn’t help myself.

D.D. tilted her head, eyeing me coolly. “He never believed you.”

I didn’t say anything. Which was answer enough.

“What happened that night, Tessa? Help us understand, because this really doesn’t look good for you.”

I clutched the button tighter. Ten years was a long time. And yet, not long enough.

“I was spending the night at my best friend’s house,” I said at last. “Juliana Howe. Thomas was her older brother. The last few times I’d been over, he’d made some comments. If we were alone in a room together, he stood too close, made me feel uncomfortable. But I was sixteen. Boys, particularly older boys, made me uncomfortable.”

“Then why’d you spend the night?” D.D. wanted to know.

“Juliana was my best friend,” I said quietly, and in that moment I felt it all again. The terror. Her tears. My loss.

“You brought a gun,” the detective continued.

“My father gave me the gun,” I corrected. “I’d gotten a job in the food court at the mall. I often worked till eleven, then had to walk out to my car in the dark. He wanted me to have some protection.”

“So he gave you a gun?” D.D. sounded incredulous.

I smiled. “You’d have to know my father. Picking me up in person would have meant getting involved. Handing me a twenty-two semiauto I had no idea how to use, on the other hand, got him off the hook. So that’s what he did.”