Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(90)

“Where’d you go?” Bobby asked with a frown. “Thought I’d lost you.”

Then his gaze fell upon the pregnancy test kit. His eyes widened. He didn’t say another word.

D.D. handed over her credit card, accepted her grocery bags. She didn’t say a word either.

They’d just made it out to the car when her cellphone rang. She checked the caller ID—Phil from headquarters.

Work. Just what she needed.

She punched Talk, listened to what Phil had to say, and whether from his news or her feeding frenzy, she finally felt better about the day.

She put away her phone, turned back to Bobby, who stood beside his car in the snow.

“Guess what? Tessa Leoni placed a phone call while under the fine care of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department. Nine p.m. last night, she contacted her childhood BFF, Juliana Sophia Howe.”

“Sister of the guy she shot?”

“Exactly. Now, if you were arrested for murdering your spouse, what are the odds you’d call a family member of the last person you killed?”

Bobby frowned. “Don’t like it.”

“Me either.” D.D.’s face lit up. “Let’s go get her!”

“Deal.” Bobby opened his door, then paused. “D.D.…” His gaze flickered to her grocery bags. “Happy?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding slowly. “I think I am.”


When Bobby and D.D. finally completed the treacherous drive to Juliana’s house, they discovered the small home lit up bright as day against fat, slow falling snowflakes. A silver SUV and darker sedan were parked in the driveway.

As Bobby and D.D. approached, the front door opened and a man appeared. He wore a suit, still dressed for his workday, but now lugging a baby and a diaper bag. He met Bobby and D.D.’s gaze as they stepped onto the front porch.

“I already told her to call a lawyer,” he said.

The caring husband, D.D. deduced. “She need one?”

“She’s a good person and a great mother. You want someone to prosecute, go back and shoot her brother again. He deserves this abuse. Not her.”

Having said his piece, Juliana’s husband pushed past both of them and strode through the snow for the dark blue sedan. Another minute to strap the baby in the back, then Juliana’s family was out of the way.

“Definitely expecting our visit,” Bobby murmured.

“Let’s go get her!” D.D. said again.

Caring husband hadn’t fully closed the door behind him, so Bobby finished pushing it open. Juliana was sitting on the couch directly across from the door. She didn’t get up, but regarded them evenly.

D.D. entered first. She flashed her creds, then introduced Bobby. Juliana didn’t rise. Bobby and D.D. didn’t sit. The room was already humming with tension, and it made it easy for D.D. to reach the next logical conclusion:

“You helped her out, didn’t you? You picked up Tessa Leoni this afternoon and drove her away from her daughter’s burial site. You aided and abetted a fugitive. Why? I mean seriously.” D.D. gestured around the cute home with its fresh paint and cheerful collection of baby toys. “Why the hell would you risk all this?”

“She didn’t do it,” Juliana said.

D.D. arched a brow. “Exactly when did you take the stupid pill and how long before it wears off?”

Juliana’s chin came up. “I’m not the idiot here. You are!”

“Why?”

“It’s what you do,” Juliana burst out in a bitter rush. “Police. Cops. Looking but never seeing. Asking but never hearing. Ten years ago they f*cked up everything. Why should now be any different?”

D.D. stared at the young mom, startled by the violence of the outburst. At that moment, it came to D.D. What the husband had said outside. Juliana’s inexplicable agreement to aid the woman who’d destroyed her family ten years ago. Her lingering rage with the police.

D.D. took the first step forward, then another. She squatted down until she was eye level with Juliana, seeing the tear tracks on the woman’s cheeks.

“Tell us, Juliana. Who shot your brother that night? It’s time to unload. So you talk, and I promise, we’ll listen.”

“Tessa didn’t have the gun,” Juliana Howe whispered. “She brought it for me. Because I asked her to. She didn’t have the gun. She never had the gun.”

“Who shot Tommy, Juliana?”

“I did. I shot my brother. And I’m sorry, but I’d do it all over again!”

Now that the dam had finally broken, Juliana confessed the rest of the story in a sobbing rush. The first night her brother had come home and sexually assaulted her. How he’d cried the next morning and begged her forgiveness. He’d been drunk, hadn’t known what he was doing. Of course he’d never do it again … please just don’t tell Mom and Dad.

She’d agreed to keep his secret, except after that he’d raped her again and again. Until it’d been half a dozen times, and he was no longer drunk and he no longer apologized. He told her it was her fault. If she didn’t wear those kind of clothes, if she wouldn’t flaunt herself right under his nose …

So she started to wear baggier clothes and stopped doing her hair and makeup. And maybe that helped, or maybe it was just because he went away to college, where it turned out he’d found lots of other girls to rape. Mostly, however, he left her alone. Except for the weekends.