I could hear a TV down the hall broadcasting my daughter’s name. Next would come an image of her school photo, snapped just this October. Sophie wore her favorite yellow ruffled top. She was turned slightly sideways, looking back at the camera with her big blue eyes, an excited smile on her face because she loved pictures and she especially wanted this photo, her first since she’d lost her top front tooth, and the tooth fairy had brought her a whole dollar which she couldn’t wait to spend.

My eyes burned. There is pain, then there was pain. All the words I could not speak. All the images I couldn’t get out of my head.

The nurse returned. She stuck my arms in the Johnny gown, then had me roll to the side so she could tie it in the back.

Two technicians arrived. They whisked me away to the CT scan, my gaze locked on the blur of ceiling tiles whizzing by overhead.

“Pregnant?” one asked.

“What?”

“Are you pregnant?”

“No.”

“Claustrophobic?”

“No.”

“Then this will be a breeze.”

I was wheeled into another sterile room, this one dominated by a large, donut-shaped machine. The technicians didn’t let me stand, but hoisted me from the gurney directly onto the table.

I was instructed to lie absolutely still while the donut-shaped X-ray moved around my head, taking cross sections of my skull. A computer would then combine the two-dimensional X-ray images to form a three-dimensional model.

In thirty minutes, the doctor would have a graphic image of my brain and my bones, including any swelling, bruising, or bleeding.

The technicians made it sound very easy.

Lying alone on the table, I wondered how deep the scanner could peer. I wondered if it could see all the things I saw every time I closed my eyes. Blood, appearing on the wall behind my husband, then streaking down to the kitchen floor. My husband’s eyes, widening in surprise as he looked down, seemed to actually notice the red stains blooming across his muscled chest.

Brian sliding down, down, down. Me, now standing over him, and watching the light dim in his eyes.

“I love you,” I had whispered to my husband, right before the light fled. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you.…”

There is pain, then there was pain.

The machine started to move. I closed my eyes and I allowed myself one last memory of my husband. His final words, as he died on our kitchen floor.

“Sorry,” Brian had gasped, three bullets in his torso. “Tessa … love you … more.”

Chapter 7

7

With Brian Darby’s body removed, and Tessa Leoni whisked off to the hospital, the immediate practicalities of the homicide investigation began to wind down while the search for six-year-old Sophie Leoni ramped up.

With that in mind, D.D. summoned the taskforce officers to the white command van and began cracking the whip.