Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(48)

“Stomach bleeding?”

“It hurts.”

“When you drink alcohol?”

“Hurts more.”

Radar looked at me. “So you take another pill.”

“If I could just…my purse.”

Radar shook his head at me. “You live in that house. You got a husband, a pretty daughter. Seriously, what the hell are you escaping from? Maybe you need to spend more time in the slums. Or, hell, military barracks. That’ll teach you a thing or two.”

He got up. Left the room. Probably had to check the X-rays, or maybe I disgusted him that much. I didn’t bother to correct him, to tell him I had once lived on the other side of the tracks, and, yes, I understood the advantages of my new and improved station in life.

Maybe I was a romantic, however. I’d never wanted the big house, the Back Bay address. I’d just wanted my husband.

Except that wasn’t entirely the truth, either. From the moment I’d taken that first pill…

Once upon a time, I’d lost my father. And then, still too soon, I’d lost my mother. And I had borne it, I’d been strong. Until That Day, realizing I was going to lose my husband, hearing him whisper the truth about his affair with another woman, realizing that this family, too, was doomed to self-destruct…

It turned out, a giant well of emptiness had always existed inside me. A void so deep and black and ugly, I wasn’t just empty, I was hollowed out by the losses in my life. Until there were days I didn’t dare go outside because I worried the wind would blow me away.

The pills became my anchor. And sometimes, knowing something isn’t right still doesn’t change anything. You are who you are. You need what you need. You do what you do.

I wondered if Justin told himself the same when he was having sex with that girl. I wondered if afterward, he felt as guilty as I did, while still knowing he was going to do it again. And again. And again.

I had thought love would make us better people. I was mistaken.

Now I curled up in a ball, trying to ease the cramps in my stomach, while closing my eyes against the ache in my head.

Door opened. I didn’t open my eyes, just waited for Radar to make his pronouncement. Would the patient live or die?

Instead, a hoarse voice whispered in my ear, “I’m gonna kill you, pretty white bitch. But first, I’m totally gonna f*ck your daughter. You can hide down here as long as you want. I got time. I got patience. I got a whole prison, with three hundred and forty-two places where I can jump out and yell boo!”

I didn’t move. Just lay there, as if I were sleeping. Mick departed. Radar reentered. Informed me I had a concussion. Told me I needed to rest, drink more fluids and bone up on omega-3s, building blocks of the brain. He handed me two fish oil capsules, then said he would return me to my family, who would monitor me overnight.

I said nothing, just accepted the gel capsules, then the support of his arm, as we made our way slowly down the corridor. I could tell from the smell when we neared the kitchen.

What had Radar said? The first rule of thumb…tend to your health.

“Could I eat a little dinner?”

Radar eyed me dubiously.

“Maybe plain pasta. Something simple.”

He shrugged, as if to say it would be my problem later.

I accepted that. A lot of things, it seemed, would be my problem later. But now I had to pull it together. Find some way to get myself to stop drowning and start swimming, to think of my husband and daughter and put their safety first.

Justin had sworn to protect Ashlyn and me. But I already doubted he could take on a professionally trained psycho like Mick all alone. We needed to come together, him, me and Ashlyn. Hate a little less. Love a little more.

Once upon a time, inside one of the most luxurious town houses in Boston, our family had fallen apart. Now, inside these harsh cinder-block prison walls, we needed to find ourselves again.

Because Mick didn’t strike me as the kind of killer who made idle threats. And trapped inside this prison, it’s not like we could get away. He was the predator. We were the prey. And there was no place left for any of us to run.





Chapter 19


PARTICIPATING IN A MULTI-JURISDICTIONAL INVESTIGATION was a lot like dancing. Unfortunately, Wyatt didn’t care for dancing. Never had. Never would.

Currently, he had Kevin in the car, riding shotgun. When playing with the feds, it never hurt to have a smart guy around, and Kevin was as geeky as the North Country knew how to get.

They had instructions to rendezvous with Special Agents Adams and Hawkes at the Denbe Construction headquarters in downtown Boston. Though it was a Saturday, the FBI had already received permission to start interviews of various company officers and employees. Given that in a missing person’s case, time was of the essence, no one was arguing.

Nicole mentioned a private investigator might be present as well, some corporate security expert retained by Denbe Construction to conduct an independent assessment of the situation.

Which is where things got complicated. Not competitive, necessarily, though sometimes that happened as well. But complicated. To say everyone wanted the Denbes recovered safe and sound oversimplified the matter. Denbe Construction wanted them found in the most efficient (i.e., least costly) manner possible. The FBI wanted them found in a way that would highlight not only the bureau as a whole, but advance Nicole’s and her partner’s careers individually. And Wyatt… Well, hell, he wasn’t immune to a little glory. He was already blowing his budget on the search operations. He wouldn’t mind coming out of this looking like a good guy. A sheriff’s department had to fight for funding just like everyone else. A high-level success went a long way to keeping them operational another year.