Alone (16 page)

She checked doors and windows. Turned on lights until her townhouse glowed like a landing strip. The master bedroom thwarted her, however. The police still considered it a crime scene and she wasn't allowed to touch anything. Easy for them to say. They had patched the shattered slider with sheets of plastic. It didn't even block the goddamn wind. How was that going to stop an intruder?

She'd move the bureau. Shove it in front of the slider. Of course, if it was light enough for her to move, it would definitely be light enough for a man to move. Okay then. She'd move the bureau to block the entry, turn on the outdoor spotlight to illuminate the upper patio, then close the master bedroom door and nail it shut from the outside. Perfect.

She went downstairs to find Prudence.

“I need your help,” she told the nanny briskly. “We're doing a little rearranging.”

Prudence didn't say anything. Years of training, Catherine thought. Years of very expensive British training.

They went upstairs. Prudence helped her push the heavy painted pine bureau in front of the broken sliding glass door. There were still some shards of glass on the carpet. Blood, too. Prudence saw all of it and didn't say a word.

Catherine went down to the laundry room and dug around until she found the tool kit. When she started pounding nails into the outer frame of the bedroom door, Prudence finally spoke.

“Madam?”

“I saw someone outside,” Catherine said briskly. “Lurking. Probably just a tabloid reporter, looking to make a quick buck. How much do you think the papers would pay for a detailed photo of the Back Bay murder scene? I will not let anyone profit from this tragedy.”

Prudence seemed to accept that explanation.

After another moment, Catherine added, “I want to thank you, you know. This has been a terrible time. Heaven knows what you must think. But you've been there for Nathan. I appreciate that. He needs you, you know. With everything that's going on, he really, really needs you.”

“Nathan's doing better?”

“He should be home tomorrow.” She had another thought. “Maybe if he's feeling up to it, we could all go on vacation. Somewhere warm, with sandy beaches and drinks with little umbrellas in them. We could get away from . . . from all of this.”

She finished hammering in the last nail. She tried the door, shaking it hard. It held.

That should do it. She hoped.

“Prudence, if anyone comes to the door that you don't know, don't answer it. And if you see any other . . . reporters . . . please tell me.”

“Yes, Madam,” Prudence said. “And the lights?”

“I think,” Catherine said, still breathing heavily, “that we'll leave them on for a little bit longer.”

T
ONY ROCCO HAD
had a long day. Ten p.m., he was finally leaving the hospital. Not bad ten years ago, but he was supposedly at the pinnacle of his career now. At this stage of the game, the hungry residents were supposed to deal with the endless grind of puking kids and snotty noses. He only came in for the big stuff.

His wife liked to remind him of that nightly. “Jesus Fucking Christ, Tony, when are you going to start demanding some respect? Just walk away from that damn hospital. Private practice is where the money is. You could be making three, four times what you're bringing home now.
We
could be making . . .”

He had stopped listening to his wife about five years ago. It had been halfway through a Thanksgiving dinner at his parents' house, when for the first time, honest to God, midway through his mother's rant about his father daring to go play golf with his friends, Tony had looked across the table at his lovely bride of three years and realized that he'd married his mother. It had hit him just like that. A giant thwack to the head.

His mother was a nag. His wife was a nag. And in another fifteen years he'd look just like his father, slightly hunched shoulders, chin tucked against his chest in perfect turtle posture, and selectively deaf in both ears.

He should've divorced her right then, but there were the children to consider. Yeah, his two darling, beautiful children, who already looked at him with his wife's accusing stare every time he was late for dinner.

He found himself thinking of Catherine again. The way she'd first come to him nine months ago. Her fingers brushing up his arm. Her long black hair teasing his cheek as she leaned over his shoulder to study Nathan's medical records.

She'd come to his office one day without Nathan, wearing a long black overcoat. She'd walked into his office. She'd locked the door behind herself. She'd looked him right in the eye and said, “I need you.”

Then she'd thrown open her coat to reveal nothing but smooth white skin and tantalizing bits of black lace. He'd taken her right then and there, up against the wall, his trousers around his knees, her legs around his waist.

She'd climaxed so hard, she'd sunk her teeth into his shoulder. Then they'd tumbled to the floor and next thing he knew, she was on her hands and knees and he was riding her from behind, already as hard and horny as a teenager catching his second wind.

Afterwards, when both of them were too exhausted to move, when he could barely summon his receptionist by phone to tell her to cancel all his appointments for the afternoon, he'd seen the contusion on Catherine's left side.

It was nothing, she'd told him. She stumbled against the counter in the kitchen. That day, neither of them had commented on the bruise's perfect palmlike shape.

She'd wept the day she'd finally told him about Jimmy. They'd been in a hotel room in Copley Square. She'd just spent twenty minutes on her knees doing stuff he'd only ever read about in magazines. Now he held her close, stroking her hair.

I need you,
she'd whispered against his chest.
Oh God, Tony, you don't know what it's like. I am so afraid . . .

He should leave this stupid hospital, Tony thought now, walking through the empty parking garage, his footsteps ringing off the cement. He was sick and tired of people telling him what to do—his wife, the head of Pediatrics, a prick like Judge Gagnon. What was the point of working so hard for so many years if he never got to do anything he wanted to do?

He loved Catherine Gagnon. He was tired of all this shit. Screw his wife, screw the kids. He'd drive to Catherine's house right this minute. Tell her he took it back. He was sorry he'd let her down, sorry he'd told her he couldn't help Nathan.

Hell, he was sorry he'd sat in front of some state cop this afternoon, feeling like half a man as he tried to explain how he could love Cat and yet do nothing to protect her from Jimmy. The way that trooper had looked at him . . .

That was it. He would buck the system. He would stand on his own two feet. Just this once, he would do what he wanted to do, and screw the other women in his life.

Tony got to his car. He got out his keys, his hand already shaking in excitement.

It wasn't until he unlocked the door that he finally heard the noise behind him.

T
HE FOOTSTEPS MOVED
quietly down the hall. Rubber soles treading carefully on white vinyl floors. The soft rustle of curtains. The
beep beep
of heart monitors, the hiss of numerous ventilators.

The nurse was gone, tending someone somewhere.

The hallway was dark and still.

The man tiptoed, tiptoed, tiptoed, until finally, the right room.

A shadow fell across the foot of the bed. Four-year-old Nathan stirred. He turned his head toward the sound. He opened his eyes to drugged half slits.

The man held his breath.

And Nathan whispered, “Daddy.”

Chapter
15

B
OBBY WAS DOOMED.
His head had finally just hit the pillow when his phone rang again. He didn't think of Susan this time. Instead, his thoughts went straight to Catherine. He'd been dreaming, he realized. He'd been dreaming of Jimmy Gagnon's widow, and she had been naked with her long black hair splayed across his chest.

“I just want to get some sleep,” he snarled into the receiver.

“Still feel like playing detective, Officer Dodge?”

It took him a moment to place the voice. Harris, the Gagnons' earnest detective. Bobby's gaze went to the bedside clock. Dial glowed two a.m. Christ, he had to get some sleep. “What?” he asked.

“Got any friends with the Boston PD?” Harris said. “I think there's a crime scene you're going to want to visit.”

“Who?”

Harris paused a heartbeat. “Dr. Tony Rocco. Parking garage of the hospital. Don't wear good shoes. I understand it's
messy.
”

D
ETECTIVE D.D. WARREN
had been with Boston Homicide for over eight years. A petite blonde with a lithe build and killer blue eyes, she worked the Rocco crime scene in slim-cut jeans, stiletto boots, and a caramel-colored leather jacket.
Sex and the City
meets
NYPD Blue.
Lots of the guys were staring. Given that D.D. ate, slept, and breathed her job, none of them stood a chance.

She and Bobby went way back. They'd dated eons ago, when they'd both been new recruits, her starting out for the city, him for the state. They could sympathize with each other's demanding days, without having to be in direct competition. Bobby couldn't remember anymore why they'd broken it off. Too busy, probably. It didn't really matter. They worked better as friends. He appreciated the meteoric rise of her career—she'd probably be lieutenant soon—and she was always interested in his work with STOP.

Now, however, D.D. was peering inside a dark green BMW 450i while chewing her lower lip. Across from her, a crime-scene technician armed with a camera was busily shooting away. The snap and whir of the advancing film echoed across the vast expanse of the cement parking garage and seemed to punctuate Bobby's approaching footsteps.

Garage was a little crowded, given that it was three a.m. Coroner's van, crime-scene van, numerous patrol cars, several detectives' vehicles, and a much nicer sedan Bobby recognized as belonging to the ADA. Lot of cars for a homicide. Lot of attention, period.

Bobby's breath exhaled in frosty pants. He sank his hands deep into the pockets of his down jacket and did his best to blend in. Several heads turned his way. Some faces he recognized, some he didn't. All knew him, though, and despite his best efforts, a buzz was building by the time he arrived at the BMW.

“Hey, Bobby,” D.D. said without ever looking up.

“Nice boots.”

She wasn't fooled. “Kind of late to be out on the town,” she said.

“Couldn't sleep.”

“'Cause your phone was ringing off the hook?” She finally looked at him, blue eyes narrowed speculatively. “You got good ears, Bobby, given that we're doing everything we can to keep this one quiet.”

He understood her question, but decided not to answer it. “If I happen to spend the next hour leaning against that concrete support column over there, studying my nails, how much of a problem would that be?”

“I'd say this is strictly a no-manicure zone.” D.D. jerked her head left, and Bobby spotted ADA Rick Copley in deep conversation with the ME. Last time Bobby had seen Copley, Copley's men had been engaging in a friendly game of pin-the-shooting-on-the-beleaguered-state-trooper. So yeah, Copley would consider Bobby's presence a big problem.

“Highlights?” he asked D.D. under his breath.

She gave him another look. “When we profile the vic, how many times are we gonna find your name?”

“Once. This afternoon. Met him for the first time today to ask him about Nathan Gagnon.”

She processed that, put two and two together very quickly and said, “Ah, shit. He's the kid's doctor?”

“Yeah.”

“What else?”

“Had an affair with the boy's mom. Was already being questioned for a possible custody battle to be waged between the parents. Your turn.”

She flicked her gaze across the way. Copley was still talking to the ME, but now looking in their direction, a frown marring his pug-nosed face.

“One DOA doctor in the front seat,” D.D. murmured quickly, gesturing inside the car. “Looks like he just got his door open and someone nailed him from behind.”

“Shooting?”

“Knife.”

“Strong,” Bobby said, trying to glance inside the car himself, and being blocked by D.D.'s shoulder.

“That's not even the half of it,” D.D. said.

Copley had started their way.

“You gotta run,” D.D. told Bobby.

“Yep.”

“But remember, we'll always have Paris.”

Bobby got the message. “See ya.”

Bobby found the stairwell exit just as Copley closed the distance and the first crime-scene tech said, “Holy shit, is that blood?” and the second technician answered, “Actually, I think it's women's lipstick.”

C
ASABLANCA
'
S WAS A
swanky Mediterranean restaurant in Cambridge. It featured a full martini bar and an eclectic menu targeted toward Harvard's more upscale clientele—namely the well-to-do parents of its Ivy League student population. Bogey's on the other hand was a tiny little diner tucked away just down from the statehouse. It offered twenty-four-hour service, peeling vinyl stools, and an extra-large griddle that hadn't been cleaned in years. Now, this was a place for cops.

Bobby walked all the way there, using the freezing early morning temp to clear the last of the sleep from his head and icicle half his eyelashes. It was shortly after five when he arrived, the sun not even up yet but the diner already hopping. He waited twenty minutes in the egg-and-bacon-scented heat, then finally got to steal a booth in the back. His stomach was growling; he ordered up three fried eggs, half a dozen pieces of bacon, and a butter-soaked English muffin. He wasn't sure if this qualified as a decent meal or not, but it did involve protein. He chased the food down with an extra-large OJ, then started in on the coffee.

He was entering that no-man's-land between food coma and caffeine buzz when D.D. finally walked into the diner. She sported a tight-fitting white T-shirt that announced in scripted red sequins, Felonious. It worked well with the boots.