Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(55)

He didn’t say anything. Just stared at me with cool gray eyes. Did he think I was threatening his family? Was I?

Maybe I just needed to make conversation, because otherwise I might say all the wrong things. For example, I used snow, because it was easy enough to shovel and didn’t leave behind trace evidence such as a dozen empty ice bags. And Brian was heavy, heavier than I’d imagined. All that working out, all that pumping up, just so myself and a hit man could lug an extra forty pounds down the stairs and into his precious, never-any-tool-out-of-place garage.

I’d cried when I scooped the snow on top of my husband’s dead body. The hot tears formed little holes in the white snow, then I had to pile on more snow and all the while my hands were shaking uncontrollably. I kept myself focused. One shovel full of snow, then a second, then a third. It took twenty-three.

Twenty-three scoops of snow to bury a grown man.

I’d warned Brian. I’d told him in the beginning that I was a woman who knew too much. You don’t mess with a woman who knows the kind of things I know.

Three tampons to plug the bullet holes. Twenty-three scoops of snow to hide the body.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth.…

Love you more, he’d told me as he died.

Stupid, sorry son of a bitch.

I didn’t speak anymore. D.D. and Bobby also sat in silence for a good ten, fifteen minutes. Three members of law enforcement not making eye contact. Finally, the door banged open and Ken Cargill barged in, black wool coat flapping around him, thinning brown hair mussed. He drew to a halt, then noticed my shackled wrists and turned on D.D. with all the fury of a good defense lawyer.

“What is this!” he cried.

“Your client, Tessa Marie Leoni, has been charged in the death of her husband, Brian Anthony Darby. We have read her her rights, and are now awaiting transport to the courthouse.”

“What are the charges?” Cargill demanded to know, sounding appropriately indignant.

“Murder one.”

His eyes widened. “Murder with premeditated malice and forethought? Are you out of your mind? Who authorized these charges? Have you even looked at my client lately? The black eye, the fractured cheek, and oh yes, the concussion?”

D.D. simply stared at him, then turned back to me. “Ice or snow, Tessa? Come on, if not for us, then for your lawyer’s sake, tell him how you froze the body.”

“What?”

I wondered if all lawyers went to acting school, or if they just came by it naturally, the way cops did.

The first uniformed officer was back, breathing hard; apparently he’d run all the way through the hospital with the oversized Wal-Mart bag. He thrust it at D.D., who did the honors of explaining my new wardrobe to Cargill.

D.D. unshackled my wrists. I was handed the pile of new clothes, hangers and other sharp objects removed, then allowed to disappear into the bathroom to change. The Boston patrol officer had done a decent job. Wide-leg jeans, stiff as boards with their newness. A green crewneck sweater. A sports bra, plain underwear, plain socks, bright white tennis shoes.

I moved slowly, dragging the bra, then the sweater, over my battered head. The jeans were easier, but tying my shoelaces proved impossible. My fingers were shaking too hard.

Do you know what had been the hardest part about burying my husband?

Waiting for him to bleed out. Waiting for his heart to stop and the last ounce of blood to still and cool in his chest, because otherwise he would drip. He would leave a trail, and even if it was small and I cleaned it up with bleach, the luminol would give it away.

So I sat, on a hard chair in the kitchen, holding a vigil I never thought I’d have to hold. And the whole time, I just couldn’t decide, which was worse? Shooting a boy, and running away with the blood still fresh on my hands? Or shooting a man, and sitting there, waiting for his blood to dry so I could clean up properly?

I’d placed three tampons in the holes in the back of Brian’s chest, as a safety measure.

“What are you doing?” the man had demanded.

“Can’t leave a blood trail,” I’d said calmly.

“Oh,” he’d said, and let me go.

Three bloody tampons. Two front teeth. It’s funny, the talismans that can bring you strength.

I hummed the song. I tied my shoes. Then, I stood up, and took one last minute to study myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize my own reflection. That distorted face, hollowed-out cheeks, lank brown hair.

It was good, I thought, to feel like a stranger to myself. It suited all the things about to happen next.

“Sophie,” I murmured, because I needed to hear my daughter’s name. “Sophie, love you more.”

Then I opened the bathroom door and once more presented my wrists.

The cuffs were cool; they slid on with a click.

It was time. D.D. on one side. Bobby on the other. My lawyer bringing up the rear.

We strode into the bright white corridor, the DA pushing away from the wall, ready to lead the parade in triumphant glory. I saw the lieutenant colonel, his gaze steady as he regarded his shackled officer, his face impossible to read. I saw other men in uniform, names I knew, hands I had shook.

They did not look at me, so I returned the favor.

We headed down the corridor, toward the big glass doors and the screaming mob of reporters waiting on the other side.