“She won’t answer any questions, though,” Maria was saying. “Good, if you ask me. I mean, that boy can’t very well talk now. Why should his killer?”

“Keep me posted.”

“No problem.”

At the front, I collected my purse, signed out and headed for my car, parked in the vast lot hundreds of yards from the sprawling brick-and-barbed-wire compound that served as my sister’s permanent home.

In the passenger’s seat lay the rich purply-pink cardigan I’d been wearing when I arrived. Except I’d changed tops while still sitting in my car, removing my jewelry, per visitation rules, and opting for a more subdued look given the environment.

I’d set aside my new sweater, purchased just two weeks ago, and I swear, the only fuchsia-colored item that I owned.

Now I looked up at the brick corrections facility. There were windows everywhere, of course. Even a narrow slit in my sister’s segregation cell. But from this distance, myself hunched awkwardly behind the steering wheel, further obscured by my SUV’s tinted windows . . .

I could never explain everything about my sister. But then, I suspected she often thought the same about me.

Putting my Acura into gear, I drove toward downtown Boston, where I had a busy afternoon ahead of me, filled with patients seeking relief from their various afflictions, including a new patient, a Boston detective recently injured on the job.

I loved my job. I looked forward to the challenge, as I greeted each patient, then said, as befitting a woman with my condition, “Please, tell me about your pain.”

Chapter 2

IN HER HEART, D.D. knew she was a lucky person. Her head just couldn’t seem to accept that fact yet.

She woke late. After ten, which confused her. If someone had ever told her she was capable of sleeping till ten on a Monday morning, she would’ve called him a liar. Mornings were for getting up and heading out. Guzzling black coffee, catching up with her squad and possibly attending a fresh homicide.

She liked black coffee, her fellow detectives and interesting homicides.

She didn’t like yet another restless night of fitful sleep interspersed with even more disquieting dreams. Where shadows sang and sometimes grew arms and legs before giving chase.

And she fell down. Each and every time. In her nightmares, the great Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren plunged to her doom. Because her heart knew she was a lucky person. But her brain just couldn’t accept it yet.

The child monitor remained on the nightstand next to her. On, but quiet. Alex had most likely delivered Jack to day care. Then Alex could head to work at the police academy while D.D. . . .

D.D. dedicated her day to getting out of bed.