I thought of Brian, dying on the kitchen floor. I thought of Sophie, snatched from our home.

Then I allowed myself one last moment to mourn my husband. Because once upon a time, we’d been happy.

Once upon a time, we’d been a family.

Chapter 15

15

D.D. made it back to her North End condo at two-thirty in the morning. She collapsed on her bed, fully clothed, and set her alarm for four hours’ sleep. She woke up six hours later, glanced at the clock, and immediately panicked.

Eight-thirty in the morning? She never overslept. Never!

She bolted out of bed, gazed wild-eyed around her room, then grabbed her cellphone and dialed. Bobby answered after the second ring, and she expelled in a breathless rush: “I’m coming I’m coming I’m coming. I just need forty minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Must have screwed up the alarm. Just gotta shower, change, breakfast. I’m on my way.”

“Okay.”

“Fuck! The traffic!”

“D.D.,” Bobby said, more firmly. “It’s okay.”

“It’s eight-thirty!” she shouted back, and to her horror realized she was about to cry. She plopped back on the edge of her bed. Good God, she was a mess. What was happening to her?

“I’m still home,” Bobby said now. “Annabelle’s sleeping, I’m feeding the baby. Tell you what. I’ll call the lead detective from the Thomas Howe shooting. With any luck, we can meet in Framingham in two hours. Sound like a plan?”

D.D., sounding meek: “Okay.”

“Call you back in thirty. Enjoy the shower.”

D.D. should say something. In the old days, she would’ve definitely said something. Instead, she clicked off her cell and sat there, feeling like a balloon that had abruptly deflated.

After another minute, she trudged to the sleek master bath, where she stripped off yesterday’s clothes and stood in a sea of white ceramic tiles, staring at her naked body in the mirror.

She touched her stomach with her fingers, brushed her palms across the smooth expanse of her skin, tried to feel some sign of what was happening to her. Five weeks late, she didn’t detect any baby bump or gentle mound. If anything, her stomach appeared flatter, her body thinner. Then again, going from all you can eat buffets to broth and crackers could do that to a girl.

She switched her inspection to her face, where her rumpled blonde curls framed gaunt cheeks and bruised eyes. She hadn’t taken a pregnancy test yet. Given her missed cycle, then the intense fatigue interspersed with relentless nausea, her condition seemed obvious. Just her luck to end a three-year sex drought by getting knocked up.

Maybe she wasn’t pregnant, she thought now. Maybe she was dying instead.

“Wishful thinking,” she muttered darkly.

But the words brought her up short. She didn’t mean that. She couldn’t mean that.