Alone

"Why? Why did he come to you? What did he want to know?" Bobby leaned over her desk, jaw clenched, arm muscles bulging. He Was pissed as hell, and he knew it showed on his face.

Elizabeth continued to regard him evenly.

"I spoke to Judge Gagnon last night. With his permission, I will share with you what he said. I'm warning you now, however, I don't think it will help."

"Tell me!"

"Then have a seat." Tell me!"

"Officer Dodge, please have a seat."

Her expression remained set. After another moment, Bobby grudgingly let go of her desk. He sat back down, picking up the Coke can and twirling it between his fingers. He felt a light fluttering in his chest. Breathlessness. Panic. Damn, he was tired of feeling this way, as if the world had spun away from him, as if he'd never feel in control again.

"Judge Gagnon had gotten my name from an associate. He came seeking specific information about a psychological phenomenon. Perhaps you've heard of it. Munchausen by proxy."

"Shit," Bobby said.

"The judge told me a little bit about his daughter-in-law, Catherine. He wanted to know if someone with her background might fit the profile of a person capable of Munchausen's. Essentially, he wanted me to tell him, sight unseen, if Catherine was either faking his grandson's illnesses or deliberately making the boy sick in order to gain attention for herself."

"And what did you say?"

"I said it wasn't my area of expertise. I said as far as I knew, there wasn't a profile for Munchausen's. I said that if he honestly believed his grandson was in danger, then he should seek immediate professional assistance and contemplate legal action to separate the boy from his mother."

"Is he going to do that?"

"I don't know. He took the name of the person I gave him and he thanked me for my time."

"When was this?"

"Six months ago."

"Six months ago? The man sought expert advice for the safety of his grandson, and he didn't bother to act on it for six months'?

"Bobby," she said quietly, "I don't know what was going on in that house. More to the point, you don't know what was going on in that house."

"No," he said bitterly.

"I just showed up like judge and jury and shot a man. Shit. Just plain… shit."

Elizabeth leaned forward. Her expression was kind.

"Last night) Bobby, you made a very astute observation. You said, "Tactic teams don't have the luxury of information." Do you remember that, Bobby?"

"Yeah."

"More importantly, do you still believe that, Bobby?"

"A guy is dead. Is it really such a great excuse to say it's because I didn't know any better?"

"It's not an excuse, Bobby. It's a fact of life."

"Yeah." He crumpled the Coke can.

"What a pisser."

Elizabeth shuffled some papers on her desk. The silence dragged on.

"Shall we talk about your family?" Elizabeth asked at last.

"No."

"Well, then, shall we talk about the shooting?"

"Hell no."

"All right. Let's discuss your job. Why policing?"

He shrugged.

"I liked the uniform."

"Any other family members who were law enforcement? Friends, associates, relatives?"

"Not really."

"So you're the first? Starting a new family tradition?"

"That's me. I'm a wild child." He was still feeling belligerent.

Elizabeth sighed and drummed her fingernails on the top of her desk.

"What brought you to the badge, Bobby? Of all the jobs in the world, how did this one become yours?"

"I don't know. When I was a kid, I figured I'd either be an astronaut or a cop. The astronaut thing was a little harder to pull off, so I became a cop."

"And your father?"

"What about my father? He's okay with it."

"What did he do for a living?"

"Drove a front loader for Gillette."

"And your mom?"

"Don't know."

"Do you ever ask your father questions about your mother?"

"Not in a long time." He set down the crumpled can and gazed at her pointedly.

"Now you're asking questions about my family."

"So I am. Okay, you became a cop because the astronaut gig Seemed like a bit of a stretch. Why a tactical team?" The challenge." He said it immediately. "You wanted to become a sniper? Were you always into guns?"

"I'd never shot a rifle before."

He'd finally surprised her.

"You'd never fired a rifle? Before joining the STOP team?"

"Yeah. My father collects guns, does some custom work. But those are handguns, and frankly, my father's not big into shooting anyway, he just likes working on pistols. The machinery. The beauty of a really nice piece."

"So how did you become a sniper?"

"I was good at it."

"You were good at it?"

He sighed.

"When qualifying for the tac team, you have to take proficiency exams in a variety of weaponry. I picked up the rifle and I was good at it. Little bit more practice here and there and I scored expert. So my lieutenant asked me about being a sniper."

"You're a natural with guns?"

"I guess." That thought made him uncomfortable though. He amended it immediately.

"Being a sniper isn't just shooting. The official title is Sniper-Observer."

"Explain."

He leaned forward and spread his hands.

"Okay, so once a month I'm on a shooting range, making sure my technical skills are up to par. But in actual field duty, chances of me being called upon to shoot my weapon are like one in a thousand-hell, maybe one in a million. You train to be prepared. But day in, day out, what I do on the job is observe. Snipers are recon. We use our scopes and/or binoculars to see what no one else can see. We identify how many people are at the scene, what they're wearing, what they're doing. We're the eyes for the entire team."

"Do you train for that?"

"All the time. KIMS games, stuff like that."

"KIMS games?"

"Yeah, KIMS. As in "KIMS' I don't remember what it stands for. It's a title of a Rudyard Kipling novel or something like that. It's about observing. You go out on the field, and the trainer gives you sixty seconds to spot ten things and describe them. You grab your binoculars and go." He pointed at the Coke can.

"I see what appears to be one crumpled soda can, looks new, red and white.

probably Coke"-he tipped it on its side-"probably empty. Or, I something that appears to be a length of wire, approximately eighteen inches long with green coating. It appears cut at one end and I can see the copper core, which is dirty. That sort of thing."

She regarded him with a bemused expression.

"So you're professionally trained to notice everything. Does that drive you batty in real life? To notice all the nitty-gritty details everyplace you go?"

He grimaced and shrugged again.

"Susan would probably say I don't notice a thing. Last time she got her hair cut, it took me two days to figure it out."

"And Susan is?"

"My girlfriend." He caught himself.

"My ex-girlfriend."

"You mentioned her on Friday. I thought you said things were going well."

"I lied."

"You lied?"

"Yeah."

"And that would be because?"

"Because I'd just met you. Because I was feeling uncomfortable. Because… hell, take your pick. I'm a guy. Sometimes we lie."

The good doctor didn't seem amused by that statement.

"So what happened with Susan?"

"I don't know."

"She just walked away?"

"Not really." He sighed, took a deep breath.

"I did."

"You just walked away? Let me get this straight. You haven't talked to your girlfriend about the shooting at all?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Bullshit." She said it. He blinked.

"You're an intelligent man, Bobby Dodge. More intelligent than you like to let on. When you do things, it's for a reason. So why didn't you talk things over with Susan? Did you simply not care?"

"I don't know." He caught himself. She was right; he did know.

"I thought she'd be horrified. In Susan's world, cops are the good guys, keeping things safe. In Susan's world, cops don't blow some guy's brains out, right in front of his kid." "You didn't think she'd be able to handle it."

"I know she wouldn't be able to handle it."

"How wonderfully patronizing of you."

"Hey, you asked, I answered."

"Absolutely. And you're wrong, just so you know."

He sat upright.

"What the hell kind of doctor are you?"

"Bobby, I'm going to ask you something and I don't want you to answer right away. I want you to think about it real hard before you say anything. Is it in Susan's world that cops are the good guys, or is it in Bobby's world? Is it in Susan's world that cops don't 'blow some guy's brains out," or is it in Bobby's world? You said once that you were mad. But Bobby, aren't you also horrified?"

His gaze dropped to the carpet. He didn't say a word.

"You've commented several times now that you shot Jimmy Gagnon in front of his son. That seems to really bother you. Who is it in the scenario that you're identifying with? Are you upset for the powerful father dying in front of his child, or are you upset for the helpless child who is watching someone he loves die?"

He kept his gaze on the carpet.

"Bobby?" she prodded.

His gaze finally came up. He said, "I don't think I want to talk about this anymore."

He had his jacket on and was rewrapping his scarf before he spoke again.

"Do you think Judge Gagnon could've been right?"

Elizabeth was sitting on the edge of her receptionist's desk, watching her patient bundle up and feeling frustrated.

"I have no idea."

"Seems hard to imagine, a woman harming her kid just so she can have attention."

"Munchausen by proxy is not terribly common, but I've read estimates of up to twelve hundred new cases a year."

"What are the warning signs?"

"A child with a prolonged history of unusual illnesses, where the symptomatology doesn't add up. A child whose health is a prolonged cycle of being perfectly well one week, then drastically ill the next. A family with a history of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome."

"I spoke with Nathan Gagnon's doctor today," Bobby said abruptly.

"He doesn't have a firm diagnosis for the boy."

Elizabeth was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Do you think that was such a good idea?"

Bobby gave her a look.

"I went. Good idea or not, it no longer matters."

"What are you doing, Bobby?"

"I'm putting on my scarf."

"You know what I mean."

"The Gagnons are suing me for murder. Anyone tell you that? They're using some fancy legal maneuver to charge me with killing their son. In all honesty, Doc, I don't think the concept of good' really applies to my life anymore."

"Being charged with murder must be very difficult."

"You think?"

She refused to get sucked into his sarcasm.

"Bobby, Thursday night was a horrible tragedy. For you. For the Gagnons. For little Nathan. Do you really think there's anything you can learn now that will make you feel better about having shot a man?"

Bobby stared her straight in the eye. There was a look in his slate-gray gaze she'd never seen before. It left her slightly breathless. It chilled her to the bone.

"I'm going to get her, Doc," he said quietly.

"If she's harming that boy, if she set me up to kill her husband… Catherine Gagnon may think she knows how to deal with men. But she's never met the likes of me."

He finished up his scarf.

Elizabeth sighed heavily and shook her head. There were things Elizabeth wanted to say to him, but she already knew it wouldn't do her any good. He wasn't ready to listen. Maybe Bobby didn't understand it completely yet, but she knew exactly who he identified with the night of the shooting, and it wasn't the gun-toting father.

"You're not responsible for Nathan Gagnon," Elizabeth murmured softly, but Bobby was already out the door. Catherine drove straight to the hospital. Nathan was still asleep, the heart monitor beeping faithfully while morphine dripped slowly into his thin veins. The night nurse didn't have much to report. Nathan remained on intravenous fluids, his temp was down, his pain under control. Maybe tomorrow he could go home, she'd have to consult with a doctor.

Catherine looked down the long, shadowed halls. Machines beeped, respirators hummed, patients thrashed restlessly in their curtained-off beds. But it was still a hospital at night. Too few nurses, too many strangers. Dark corners everywhere.

"Nathan's very sick," she said again.

"Yes."

"I think he needs more nursing care. Is there a private nurse I could hire? Staff of some sort? I'm willing to pay."

The nurse gave her a look.

"You know, ma'am, in this mansion, it's just us servants tending the rooms."

"He's my child," Catherine said quietly.

"I'm worried about him."

"Honey, they're all somebody's children."

The nurse wouldn't help her. Catherine finally buzzed the doctor on call, but he refused to sign a release. Nathan needed to remain at the hospital. Particularly given his "condition."

And what condition is that, she thought wildly. The infamous condition nobody can identify? Briefly, she contemplated calling Tony Rocco. She could beg, she could plead. Maybe Tony would come down, sign Nathan's release.

And what then? She'd take Nathan home where he'd be magically safe?

Boo! the message had read. Boo!

Inside her own car, parked in her father's driveway, written in her lipstick.

She left the hospital, footsteps fast, hands shaking. At home, she went manically from room to room. The reporters clustered outside her brownstone were gone. Police, too. Where were the vultures when you needed them? Someone else had probably gotten shot tonight. Or maybe a senator had gotten caught with his cute young aide. Even the dubious celebrity of infamy could last only so long.

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."

Tony 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.

the 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." Bobby 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."

Detective 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 45oi 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 aid.

"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 vie, 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.

"Seeya."

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."

Casablanca '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.

She slid into the booth, glancing at Bobby's empty plate. What, you didn't save anything for me?"

"What'd you want?"

"Eggs, bacon, French toast. With the world's biggest OJ. And maybe a side order of pancakes."

"The case that good?"

"Oh yeah. I'm starved."

Bobby walked up to the counter to place her order. When he returned, D.D. was emptying the last of his coffee urn into a mug she'd swiped from the serving station. He returned to the counter, refilled the urn and loaded up on cream. If memory served, D.D."s cement floor had appeared smooth and unmarred, not a red drip in sight. He frowned, considered the matter again, then suddenly smiled.

"A hospital. Surgical scrubs!"

"Bull's-eye. We found a garbage bag filled with bloody scrubs and shoe booties in a dumpster outside of the west-side entrance It would appear our clever killer donned scrubs, did the deed, then balled up the discarded garments and shoe booties and tossed them tidily away. So most likely he walked into the garage looking like any old surgeon. Once he was done, he waited for a quiet moment, got out of the car, peeled off the garments, and sauntered away."

"You'd get two footprints," Bobby said.

"Him exiting the car."

"Found smeared blood outside the passenger's seat. Looks like he wiped up the spot, maybe with part of the scrubs. Didn't get it perfect, but did obliterate any tread patterns. Ingenious little shit."

"Foresight," Bobby thought out loud.

"Planning."

"Yes and no. Did take some thought, but everything he needed was on site. So, he didn't have to plan too far in advance. Assuming, of course, that the killer wasn't actually a surgeon, which, of course, given the location, isn't something we've ruled out." D.D. was halfway through her plate now and positively sighing.

"Oooh, that's good. I swear if it wouldn't give me an immediate coronary, I'd come here every day."

"So what about suspects?"

"Funny you should ask."

"You're not thinking me, are you?" He was genuinely startled.

"Should I be thinking you?"

"D.D.-"

"Relax, Bobby. It's your girlfriend we're going after. Catherine Gagnon."

Bobby frowned. The girlfriend comment had been dangled as bait, but he refused to bite.

"I don't see it," he said after a bit.

" ADA 's office started looking into the widow yesterday. Rumor is, she had a lot to gain from her husband's death. Rumor is, she might have been shopping around for some hired help-or a misplaced fool's heart."

"Copley thinks Catherine approached Tony Rocco about killing her husband?"

"Copley tried to schedule an interview with the good doctor yesterday afternoon. Rocco blew him off."

Bobby nodded, holding his coffee mug between his hands and thinking hard.

"If Tony Rocco was Catherine's ally, why would she kill him or find someone to kill him?"

D.D. shrugged. She wouldn't meet his eye.

"Rocco obviously didn't kill Jimmy."

"No," Bobby agreed quietly, "he didn't." He kept gazing at D.D." but her eyes were now locked on her plate.

"But maybe Catherine spoke to Rocco about doing it," D.D. said after a moment.

"And maybe she got word that the ADA was looking into it. That would give her motive to want Tony Rocco dead-so Rocco couldn't rat her out."

"But the killer was most likely a male."

"She has looks, she has money. Either one would get her help."

"Help to eliminate the help," Bobby pointed out dryly.

D.D. shrugged.

"It's Copley's theory. Me, I'm still going with the jealous spouse. After all, if you were just killing someone to be expedient, would you really engage in postmortem weenie whacking?"

"That does seem more personal."

"Plus there's the message to consider."

"The message?"

"Yeah. Written on the back window. That's what got Dr. Rocco found; someone leaned closer to read the script."

"And it says?"

"Boo." "Boo?"

"Yeah, written in women's lipstick."

"Women's lipstick?"

"Yep. And I'll bet you anything that on Catherine Gagnon this is a particularly killer shade of red."

– D.D. polished up her plate. Bobby grabbed the bill.

"Copley's gonna pay you a visit this afternoon," D.D. mentioned.

"Is he flirting, or do you think it's true love?" "He says that yesterday you and the missus were spotted playing together at the Gardner Museum."

Bobby unfolded the bills from his money clip and started counting out ones.

"It's not good," D.D. continued quietly, "to be seen with the dead man's wife. Makes people talk."

He needed a ten. Didn't have one. Settled on two fives.

"She's trouble," D.D. said.

Two singles should do it for the tip.

"He was going to divorce her, you know, and take full custody of the kid. Sometimes, there's a very fine line between being a destitute ex-wife and being a wealthy widow. Thursday night, Catherine Gagnon crossed that line. In this business, you have to wonder about that sort of thing."

Bobby finally glanced up.

"Do you really think she could've set it up? Engineered a fight, arranged for her husband to have a gun, then manipulated everything so that he got shot and she didn't?"

D.D. didn't say anything right away. When she finally spoke, he wished she hadn't.

"Did you know her, Bobby? Had you had any contact with her before the call? Even a casual acquaintance, a friend of a friend?"

"No."

D.D. sat back, but her face was still troubled, her eyes watching. Bobby stood up, fumbling to get his money clip back in his pocket and now biting back a curse.

"Bobby," she said after a moment, and something in her voice stopped him. She had an expression on her face he'd never seen before. A certain grim curiosity. For a moment, it appeared she'd changed her mind, but then the question came out anyway, as if she simply had to know.

"When you took the shot… was it difficult, Bobby? Seeing a real person, did it make you hesitate?"

It would be easy to be offended, to give her a dirty look, then cut and run. But D.D. was a friend. A fellow cop from way back. And maybe, if he dug deep, Bobby understood her question even better than she did. It was the one thing every cop had to wonder-So much time spent in training, but when it came down to it, in the field, when it was your life, or worse, a fellow cop's on the line.

He gave it to her straight.

"Honest to God," he said quietly, "I didn't feel a thing." D.D."s gaze fell to the floor. She wouldn't look at him again. And he didn't bother to be surprised anymore. Three days after the shooting, he was finally learning that that's the way these things went.

Bobby nodded at her one last time, and headed out the door. Bobby had walked two blocks from the diner when the sleek, black Lincoln Town Car pulled alongside him. A darkened window purred down. Bobby took one look inside and cursed.

"Don't you have a hobby?" he asked Harris Reed, who was slowing down the sedan to match Bobby's walking speed. A string of irritated honks promptly sounded from the traffic behind him.

"Get in," Harris said.

"No."

"My employers would like to talk to you."

"Tell them to file another lawsuit."

"They're very powerful people, Officer Dodge. The right conversation with them, and all your troubles could go away."

"How wonderfully patronizing of them." He picked up his step-"Still walking."

Harris changed tactics.

"Come on, Officer Dodge. You killed their son. Surely you can give them ten minutes of your time."

Bobby's footsteps slowed. Harris braked the car.

"That's not fighting fair," Bobby said with a scowl. He reluctantly opened the car door. Harris grinned like an asshole.

The gagnons were ensconced at the Hotel LeRoux, a new, high-end hotel across from the Public Garden. Apparently there were too many reporters at their multimillion-dollar Beacon Hill town-house, so they'd been forced to retire here. Mrs. Gagnon, Bobby was informed, could barely eat or sleep. Judge Gagnon had booked a luxurious penthouse suite, with round-the-clock masseuse, to help ease her nerves.

Harris was chatty about his employers. How the Gagnons were originally from Georgia, so don't be surprised by their Southern accent. Mrs. Gagnon had been a real, genuine debutante, complete with satin dress and bouffant hair, when she'd met James Gagnon back in '62. The money came from her side, actually. But the judge was an ambitious law student even back then. Her family had approved the match and her daddy was preparing to set up Jimmy at his own law firm.

Sadly, Maryanne's entire family-mother, father, younger sister-died in a fiery car crash a week before the wedding. Needless to say, Maryanne had been devastated. In an attempt to comfort his shattered fiancee, Jimmy had whisked her away from the state. They'd moved to Boston, tied the knot in a small civil ceremony, and made a fresh start.

In the good-news department, they'd gotten pregnant right away. In the bad-news department, their baby, the original James Jr." was born sickly. The infant had died in a matter of months, and James and Maryanne had returned to Georgia for one more funeral, burying their son in the family plot in Atlanta.

Two years later, young Jimmy had arrived, and James and Maryanne hadn't looked back since.

Bobby thought it was creepy they'd name the second child the same as the first. The first boy was Junior, the second, Jimmy, Harris told him. Bobby still thought it was creepy.

Entering the penthouse suite, Bobby's first thought was that the Gagnons knew how to make an impression. The space boasted Italian marble floors, expensive antiques, and a vast bank of windows draped in enough silk to exhaust a worm farm. The high-end hotel suite provided the perfect backdrop for its high-end occupants. Maryanne Gagnon appeared to be in her mid-sixties, trim but slightly stoop-shouldered, with tight-set platinum blonde hair that was now more platinum than blonde. She wore a triple strand of knuckle-sized pearls around her neck and a rock the size of a golf ball on her finger. Sitting in some dainty French provincial chair in a cream-colored silk pantsuit, she nearly blended in with the draperies behind her.

In contrast, Judge Gagnon dominated the space. He stood slightly behind his wife's right shoulder, tall, in a single-breasted black suit that probably cost more than Bobby made in a month. His hair had turned the color of slate with age, but his eyes remained bright, his jaw square, and his mouth hard. You could picture this man ruling a courthouse. You could imagine this man ruling the country.

Bobby had a flash of insight: Weak-willed Jimmy Gagnon had most likely taken after his mother, not his father.

"You don't look that big," Maryanne Gagnon spoke up first, surprising all of them. She turned her head to look up at her husband, and Bobby saw her hands trembling on her lap.

"Didn't you think he'd be somehow… bigger?" she asked the judge.

James squeezed his wife's shoulder and there was something about that quiet display of support that unnerved Bobby more than the clothes, the room, the perfectly posed sitting. He studied the marble floor, the zigzag patterns of gray and rose veins.

"Would you like something to drink?" James offered from across the room.

"Maybe a cup of coffee?"

"No."

"Anything to eat?"

"I don't plan on staying that long."

James seemed to accept that. He gestured to a nearby sofa.

"Please have a seat."

Bobby didn't really want to do that either, but he crossed to the cream-colored sofa, sitting gingerly on the edge and fisting his hands on his lap. In contrast to the Gagnons' perfectly groomed appearance, he wore old jeans, a dark blue turtleneck, and an old gray sweatshirt. He'd crawled from his bed in the middle of the night to view a crime scene, not face grieving parents. Which, of course, the Gagnons had known when they'd sent Harris to pick him up.

"Harris tells us you've met with Catherine." James again. Bobby had a feeling it was his show. Maryanne wasn't even looking at Bobby anymore. Bobby realized after another moment that the?woman was crying soundlessly. Her face, carefully angled away, was covered in a glaze of tears.

"Officer Dodge?"

"I've met Catherine," Bobby heard himself say. His gaze was still on Maryanne. He wanted to say something. I'm sorry. He didn't suffer-Hey, at least you still have your grandson… Bobby'd been a fool to come here. He saw that now. James Gagnon had run a sucker play, and Bobby had walked right into it.

"Did you know my daughter-in-law before the shooting?" James was prodding.

Bobby forced his gaze back to the older man. Seemed like everyone was asking that question these days. Firmly, he said, "No."

"You're sure?"

"I keep track of the people I meet."

James merely arched a brow.

"What did you see that night? The night Jimmy died?"

Bobby's gaze flickered to Maryanne, then back to her husband.

"If we're going to talk about this, I don't think she should be in the room."

"Maryanne?" James said softly to his wife, and she once more looked up at him. Seconds before, she'd been crying. Now Maryanne seemed to draw herself up, to find a reserve of strength. She took her husband's hand. They turned toward Bobby as a united front.

"I would like to know," Maryanne drawled softly.

"He's my son. I was there for his birth. I should know of his death."

She was brilliant, Bobby thought. In four sentences or less, she had cut out his heart.

"I was called out to a domestic barricade situation," he said as evenly as he could.

"A woman had called nine-one-one saying her husband had a gun, and the sound of gunshots had been reported by the neighbors. Upon taking up position across the street, I spied the subject-" "Jimmy," the judge corrected. "The subject," Bobby held his ground, "pacing the floor of the master bedroom in an agitated manner. After a moment, I mined that he was armed with a nine-millimeter handgun."

"Loaded?" James again.

"I could not make that determination, but previous reports of shots fired would seem to indicate the gun was loaded."

"Safety on or off?"

"I could not make that determination, but again previous reports of shots fired would seem to indicate the manual safety was off."

"But he could've put the safety on."

"Possible."

"He could have never fired the shots at all. You didn't witness him firing his weapon, did you?"

"No."

"You didn't witness him loading the gun?"

"No."

"I see," the judge said, and for the first time, Bobby saw. This was the preliminary, just a brief taste of what would happen to him when things went to trial. How the good judge was prepared to show that he, Robert G. Dodge, had committed murder on Thursday, November 11, 2004, when he shot the poor, unsuspecting victim, beloved son James Gagnon, Jr.

It would be a war of words, and the judge had all the big ones on his side.

"So what exactly did you see?" the judge was asking now.

"After a brief interval-" "How long? One minute, five minutes? Half an hour?"

"After approximately seven minutes, I saw a female subject-' "Catherine."

"-and a child come into view. The woman was holding the child, a young boy. Then the female subject and the male subject, Bobby said emphatically, "proceeded to argue."

"About what?"

"I had no audio of the scene."

"So you have no idea what they said to one another? Perhaps Catherine was threatening Jimmy."

"With what?"

The judge changed his tack.

"Or she was verbally abusing him.

Bobby shrugged.

"Did she know you were there?" the judge pushed.

"I don't know."

"There were spotlights, an ambulance arriving at the scene, police cruisers coming and going. Isn't it likely that she noticed this level of activity?"

"She was up on the fourth floor, above street level. When I first arrived, it appeared that she and the child were hunkered down behind the bed. I'm not sure what it's realistic to assume she knew and didn't know."

"But you said she placed a call to nine-one-one herself."

"That's what I was told."

"So therefore, she expected some sort of response."

"Response in the past has been two uniformed officers knocking at her front door."

"I know, Officer Dodge. That's why I find it so interesting that this time, she made certain to mention that Jimmy had a gun. A weapon made it an automatic SWAT call, didn't it?"

"But he did have a gun. I saw it myself."

"Did you? Are you sure it was a real gun? Couldn't it have been a model, or maybe one of Nathan's toys? Why, it could've been one of those fancy cigar lighters in the shape of a revolver."

"Sir, I've viewed over a hundred pistols of various makes and models in the past ten years. I know a real gun when I see it. And it was a genuine Beretta 9000s that the techs recovered from the scene."

The judge scowled, obviously not liking this answer, but was swift to regroup.

"Officer Dodge, did my son actually pull the trigger Thursday night?"

"No, sir. I shot him first."

Maryanne moaned and sank deeper into her chair. In contrast, James nearly grinned. He started pacing, his footsteps ringing against the marble floor, while his finger waggled in the air. "In truth, you don't really know much about what was going on in that room Thursday night, do you, Officer Dodge? You don't know if Jimmy had a loaded gun. You don't know if he had the safety on or off. Why, for all you know, Catherine started the argument that night. Catherine may have even threatened to harm Nathan. Why, for all you know, Jimmy went into the family safe and got out that gun only as a last resort-so he could fight for the life of his child. Couldn't that well be the case?"

"You would have to ask Catherine."

"Ask Catherine Invite my daughter-in-law to lie? How many cases are you called out to a year, Officer Dodge?"

"I don't know. Maybe twenty."

"Ever fire your weapon before?"

"No."

"And the average length of engagement for those callouts?"

"Three hours."

"I see. So on average, you're deployed twenty times a year for three hours each episode, and you've managed in all that time to never fire your weapon. On Thursday night, however, you showed up and shot my son in less than fifteen minutes. What made Thursday night so different? What made you so convinced that you had no choice but to kill my son?"

"He was going to pull the trigger."

"How did you know, Officer Dodge?"

"Because I saw it on his face! He was going to shoot his wife!"

"His face, Officer Dodge? Did you really see it on his face, or were you thinking of someone else's?"

In Bobby's heightened state of agitation, it took him a moment to get it. When he finally did, the world abruptly stopped for him. He suffered a little out-of-body experience, where he suddenly drifted back and became aware of the whole sordid scene. Himself, sitting on the edge of the silk-covered sofa, half leaning forward, his hands fisted on his knees. Maryanne, slumped deep into a cream-colored chair, lost in her grief. And Judge Gagnon, finger still punctuating the air with a prosecutorial flourish, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

Harris, Bobby thought abruptly. Where the hell was Harris? He turned and found the man lounging in a dark wooden chair in the foyer. Harris delivered a two-fingered salute: he didn't even bother to hide his smugness. Of course he'd dug up the information. That's how this game worked. The Gagnons paid, Harris dug, and the Gagnons got whatever they wanted.

For the first time, Bobby began to truly understand how helpless Catherine Gagnon must have felt.

"If there's a trial, it's going to come out," Judge Gagnon was saying now.

"This kind of thing always does."

"What do you want?"

"She's the reason Jimmy is dead," James said. There was no need to define she.

"Acknowledge it. She cajoled you into firing."

"I'll say no such thing."

"Fine then. Revisionist history. You showed up, you heard my son and his wife arguing, but it was obvious she started it. She was threatening Jimmy. Better yet, she was finally admitting what she was doing to Nathan. Jimmy simply couldn't take it anymore."

"No one in their right mind will believe I heard all that while sitting in another house fifty yards away."

"Let me worry about that. She murdered my son, Officer Dodge. As good as if she pulled the trigger herself. There is no way I'm going to stand by and let that woman harm my grandson too. Help me, and I'll let your little lawsuit slide. Resist, and I'll sue you until you're a broken old man with no career, no home, no dignity, no self. Consult any lawyer. I can do it. All it takes is money and time." James spread his hands.

"Frankly, I have plenty of both." Bobby rose off the sofa.

"We're through here."

"You have until tomorrow. Just say the word and the lawsuit is gone and Harris's little research project is 'forgotten." After five p.m." however, you'll find I'm no longer as forgiving."

Bobby headed for the door. He'd just gotten his hand on the brass knob when Maryanne's soft voice stopped him.

"He was a good boy." Bobby took a deep breath. He turned around, asking as gently as he could, "Ma'am?"

"My son. He was a little wild sometimes. But he was good, too. When he was seven, one of his friends was diagnosed with leukemia. That year for his birthday, Jimmy had a big party. Instead of asking for presents, he asked people to bring money for the American Cancer Society. He even volunteered at the suicide hotline while in college."

"I'm sorry for your loss." "Every Mother's Day, he'd bring me a single red rose. Not a hothouse rose, but a real rose, one that smelled like the gardens of my youth. Jimmy knew how much I loved that scent. He understood that, even now, I sometimes miss Atlanta." Maryanne's gaze went to him, and there was a pain in her eyes that went on without end.

"When it's Mother's Day," Maryanne murmured, "what am I going to do? Tell me, Officer, who will bring my rose?"

Bobby couldn't help her. He walked out the door just as her grief finally broke and her sobs began in earnest. James's arms were already going around his wife and Bobby could hear the man as the door shut behind him: "Shhhh. It's all right, Maryanne. Soon we'll have Nathan. Just think of Nathan. Shhhhh-" Then Catherine got up, Prudence was already gone for the day. Sundays were the nanny's day off and Prudence didn't like to waste a minute. Catherine thought it was just as well. The sun was out, an almost unbearably bright blue sky yawning above, looking the way only a New England sky could look during the crisp days of November. Catherine went from room to room, turning on lights anyway. She thought she might be going a little mad.

Had she slept last night? She couldn't be sure. Sometimes she dreamed, so that must have involved sleep. She'd seen Nathan, the day he was born. She'd been pushing for three hours. Almost there, almost there, the doctor kept telling her. She'd stopped screaming two hours ago, and now only panted heavily, like a barn animal in distress. The doctors lied, Jimmy lied. She was dying and this baby was tearing her in two. Another contraction. Push, screamed the doctor. Push, screamed Jimmy. She sank her teeth in her lower lip and bore down desperately.

Nathan came out so fast, he overshot the doctor's waiting hands and landed on the sheet-covered floor. The doctor cheered. Jimmy cheered. She merely groaned. Then they put little Nathan, on her chest. He was blue, tiny, all covered in muck.

She didn't know what she was supposed to think. She didn't know how she was supposed to feel. But then Nathan moved his tiny little lips rooting for her breast, and she found herself unexpectedly blubbering away like an idiot. She cried, huge fat tears, the only genuine tears she had shed since her childhood She cried for Nathan, for this beautiful new life that had somehow come from her own barren soul. She cried for this miracle she had never believed could happen to her. And she cried because her husband was holding her close, her baby was snuggling against her, and for a fraction of an instant, she did not feel alone.

She'd dreamed of her mother. Catherine saw her standing in the doorway of her childhood bedroom. Catherine lay in her narrow bed, her eyes desperately alert. She had to stay awake, because if she slept, the darkness would come, and in the darkness would be him. Forcing her head into his lap. The smell, the smell, the smell. Grunting as he rammed himself into her, a camel trying to pass through the eye of a needle. The pain, the pain, the pain. Or it would be worse. It would be the days and weeks later, when he didn't even have to force her anymore. When she simply did whatever he wanted, because resistance was futile, because the indignities no longer mattered, because the little girl who'd been thrown into this hellhole didn't exist anymore. Now only her body remained, a dried-up shell going through the motions and feeling only gratitude that he returned to her at all.

Someday he wouldn't. She understood that. Someday, he would tire of her, simply walk away, and she would die down here. In the dark, alone.

There were not enough lights in the house. Three, four, maybe it was five in the morning, Catherine rounded up all the candles. Flashlights were good. The light in the oven. The night-light for the water dispenser in the refrigerator door. The undercabinet lights. The inside-the-cabinet lights. The fires in the two gas fireplaces. She went from room to room, turning them on. She needed light, she had to have light.

She'd dreamed of Jimmy. Smiling Jimmy, happy Jimmy.

What's a guy gotta do to get a little spritz? Angry Jimmy, drinking Jimmy, cold Jimmy. You're sure she won't get anything? I don't want her touching one red cent.

She'd dreamed of Jimmy so much, she'd bolted out of bed at six a.m. and run to the bathroom to throw up.

Boo, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Boo. Oh please God, let Jimmy be finally dead. Now it was nearly nine. Visiting hours at the hospital. Catherine had already called four times. Nathan was awake. She could see him.

Fuck that. She didn't trust the hospital. It didn't offer enough security. She was bringing her son home.

Catherine had her coat, had her keys. One last check of the house. That's right, the candles. She passed through the rooms, blowing out the burning wicks one by one. She was just coming downstairs again when she remembered the Taser. She'd had one in the safe. She returned upstairs to the master bedroom, preparing to arm herself for a war against an enemy that had no name.

Who would write Boo! on her rearview mirror? Who would do such a thing?

She didn't like to think about it too much. There were answers out there, and most of them terrified her.

The safe was wide open, the way the police had left it. She gazed inside. The Taser was gone. Rat bastards. They'd probably inventoried it for evidence. Like the Taser was really going to protect her from Jimmy's gun.

She returned downstairs, the anger reinvigorating her and driving her toward the front door. To the hospital, to Nathan. She'd just put her hand on the knob when, from the other side, someone knocked. Catherine recoiled, hand to her chest as if struck. The knocking came again.

Very slowly, she put her eye to the peephole. Three people stood there. The police.

No, she thought wildly. Not now. Nathan was all alone. Didn't they know that at any time, a man driving a blue Chevy could turn down the street?

Knocking again. Slowly, Catherine opened the door. "Catherine Gagnon?" the man standing in front asked. His nose was squashed, as if he'd been hit in the face one too many times. It appeared incongruous with his nice gray suit.

"Who are you?"

"Rick Copley, ADA for Suffolk County. I'm here with Detective D.D. Warren, BPD"-he gestured to a beautiful blonde with cheap taste in clothes-"and Investigator Rob Casella, DA's office." He gestured to a particularly grim-faced man who was wearing a dark suit fit only for funerals.

"We have a few questions we need answered. May we come in?"

"I'm on my way to see my son," she said.

"Then we'll do our best not to take too much of your time." The ADA was already pushing into her home. After another moment, she gave way. It probably was best to do this now. Before Nathan-or Prudence-returned.

The cheap blonde was looking around the downstairs foyer as if she wasn't impressed. The investigator, on the other hand, was already taking notes.

"I think we'd be more comfortable having a seat." The ADA invited them all to enter the parlor to the left-hand side of the foyer. Catherine finally let go of her purse, shrugged out of her coat. She was watching the ADA most carefully; he was the one in charge.

She wondered what he thought of grieving widows. Then she caught his glance again. His expression was hard, calculating, a predator sizing up prey. So that's the way it was then. For as long as she could remember, Catherine had brought out only the extreme in the male of the species. Men who lusted after women lusted after her more. And men who hated women… She would do better, she decided, focusing her energies on the man dressed for the funeral.

"I'm glad you stopped by," she said firmly, shoulders back, sailing into the room.

"I contacted the medical examiner's office yesterday. I confess I was quite startled to learn that I still can't claim my husband's body."

"In these kinds of situations, it takes time."

"Do you have children, Mr. Copley?"

He simply stared at her.

She said quietly, "This is a very difficult time for my son. I would like to finish planning the funeral, so we can both get this behind us. The sooner my son gets closure, the sooner he can begin to heal."

Copley and his crew said nothing. Catherine took a seat across from them all in an antique wooden chair. She crossed one leg over the other, clasping her hands around her knee. She'd chosen her clothes with care this morning: a tea-length black skirt with a heather-gray cashmere turtleneck, belted at the waist. Pearl studs in her ears, her wedding band on her finger, her long black hair knotted at her neck. She was every inch the dignified, grieving widow, and she knew it.

If these people were really going to gang up on the dead man's wife, it would be up to them to start.

"We have some questions about Thursday night," the ADA said finally, clearing his throat and breaking the silence.

"Could you review some things for us one more time?"

She merely regarded them expectantly.

"Uhhhh, all right." Investigator Casella had his notebook out and was flipping through the pages. Catherine didn't watch him anymore; she studied the blonde. The DA's office investigated police shootings, not the BPD, so why was the blonde here?

"In regard to the videotapes from the security system… we seem to be missing the one from the master bedroom."

"There's no tape."

"There's no tape? It's our understanding from the security company that a camera is installed in your master bedroom."

She regarded Investigator Casella evenly.

"It wasn't on."

"It wasn't on?"

"Convenient," the blonde murmured.

Catherine ignored her.

"That camera is meant for when we are out. Jimmy had set it up to shut off automatically from midnight to eight a.m."

"That's interesting," Investigator Casella said.

"Because according to your earlier testimony, Jimmy came home at ten p.m." so the camera should've still been on."

"True, but it turns out the control panel can't tell time."

"Pardon?" "Check it," Catherine said.

"You'll see that the control panel is currently running two hours ahead, so what it thinks is midnight is really ten p.m." She shrugged.

"Jimmy's not very good with electronics. All that 'spring forward, fall back'; I guess he must have messed up the time."

"The security company never mentioned this."

"I don't think he ever told them."

The two men and the blonde exchanged glances.

"You said you and your husband had gotten into an argument," Investigator Casella said finally.

"What was it regarding?"

Catherine eyed him coolly. They had covered this before, Friday morning when the blood in her bedroom had still been fresh. She resented the fact that they were making her say it again.

"Jimmy could be jealous, particularly when he'd been drinking. Thursday night, he started in on me about Nathan's doctor. I wanted to take Nathan in to see Dr. Rocco, as Nathan wasn't feeling well. Jimmy thought that was just a ruse so I could see my old lover."

"You were seeing Dr. Tony Rocco?" The ADA again, striving to sound surprised by the news when they all knew he was faking it. The police had their theatrics, she had hers. Which made this whole conversation-what, a Greek tragedy, or a hopeless Shakespearean farce?

She was suddenly more tired than she had ever been in her life. She wanted to see Nathan. She needed to know that her son, at least, was safe.

She answered evenly, "Yes, Tony and I had a relationship. It ended months ago, however, and as I reassured Jimmy, it was solely in the past."

"And where was the nanny, Prudence Walker, when this discussion was taking place?" Investigator Casella picked up the questioning.

"Thursday night is Prudence's night off. Thursday nights, Sunday days."

Casella frowned at her.

"But it was pretty late when your husband returned home. You're sure Prudence still wasn't back-Maybe upstairs, sleeping in her room?"

"I believe she spent the night with a friend."

"A boyfriend?" For the first time, the blonde spoke up. She was regarding Catherine sharply.

"She often spend Thursday night with him?"

"She's often out all night," Catherine conceded.

"Convenient," the blonde murmured. Catherine ignored her.

"And your son?" Investigator Doomsday said.

"How did he end up being part of the altercation?"

"Nathan had awakened shortly after ten from a nightmare. I had just gone into his room to comfort him, when I heard Jimmy downstairs. I could tell… I could already tell that it wouldn't be good."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I could tell he'd been drinking. By the way he slammed the door. By the way he started shouting my name. Nathan, of course, immediately became more frightened."

Not that he said anything. Nathan never said anything. He'd simply stared at her with those too-solemn blue eyes, his thin young body already braced, waiting. Jimmy was home, Jimmy was drunk. Jimmy was bigger than both of them.

She had wanted so much more for her son. That's what she'd been thinking on Thursday night, when Jimmy slammed the door, when Jimmy started yelling, when Jimmy headed for the stairs. She had looked down into Nathan's eyes and been terrified by the sight of her own hopeless gaze reflecting back at her.

"When did Jimmy get the gun?" the ADA was asking.

"I don't know."

"Where did he get the gun?"

"I don't know."

"He came up the stairs with it?"

"Yes."

"He waved it at you and Nathan?"

"Yes."

"And what did you do, Mrs. Gagnon?"

"I told him to put the gun away. I told him he was scaring Nathan." "And what did he do?"

"He laughed, Mr. Copley. He said he wasn't the threat to Nathan in this house, that I was."

"What did he mean by that?"

She shrugged.

"Jimmy was drunk. Jimmy didn't know what he was saying."

"And what was Nathan doing when all of this was going on?"

"Nathan was…" Her voice snagged, she forced herself to continue.

"Nathan was in my lap. He had his head pressed against my shoulder so he wouldn't have to see his father. He had his hands over his ears. I told Jimmy I was going to put Nathan to bed in our room. I asked him to please calm down, he was frightening our child. Then I walked past him to our room. The minute I got inside, I locked the door and called nine-one-one."

"Is that when Jimmy fired the gun?"

"I don't remember."

"Neighbors reported two shots fired."

"Did they?"

Copley's eyebrows rose.

"You're saying you're not sure if your husband fired the gun?"

"I wasn't focused on Jimmy at that time. I was focused on Nathan. He was scared out of his mind."

Mommy, are we going to die? Turn on the lights, Mommy. We need lights.

"Did Jimmy ever hurt you or your son before this?"

"Jimmy threw stuff when he was angry. Sometimes… We had some troubles in our marriage."

"Troubles in your marriage?" The blonde again, sounding sarcastic.

"Uniformed patrols were coming here every other week to respond to complaints. Except things were finally reaching the point of no return, weren't they, Mrs. Gagnon-Jimmy had filed for divorce."

Catherine regarded her coolly.

"True."

"He had the money," the blonde pressed.

"He had the power. First the guy had been abusing you, now he was setting things up to screw you royally. Frankly, no one here can blame you for being a little pissed off."

"We had issues. It didn't mean we were beyond help."

"Puuuhhhllleeez. This guy beat you. This guy yelled and threw things at your kid. Why would you even want to work it out?"

"Obviously, you never met Jimmy."

"Obviously, it didn't matter once you did, because you were still willing to play hide-the-stethoscope with your son's doctor."

Catherine flinched.

"That's crude."

"You did see Dr. Rocco in the end, didn't you?"

"Nathan had an attack of acute pancreatitis on Friday. Of course I saw Dr. Rocco."

"Did the doc miss you? Want you back? Jimmy's gone now-" "I'm insulted by that insinuation. My husband's body is barely cold-" "Barely cold? You helped get him killed!"

"How? By being used as target practice?"

The blonde moved to the edge of the sofa. Her questions shot out rapid-fire.

"Who started the argument Thursday night? Who first brought up Dr. Rocco?"

"I did. Nathan wasn't feeling well."

"So you decided to mention your past lover to your jealous husband?"

"He was Nathan's doctor!"

"You kept your past lover as Nathan's doctor when you had a jealous, abusive husband?"

Catherine blinked her eyes, faltered, and tried frantically to regain footing.

"Nathan doesn't like new doctors. New doctors mean new tests. I couldn't put him through that."

"Oh, I see. So you kept seeing your old lover as a favor to your son?"

"Dr. Rocco is a good doctor!"

"Is a good doctor?"

"Is a good doctor," Catherine repeated, feeling bewildered.

"Then you must be disappointed he won't be your doctor any longer."

"It wasn't his fault. James Gagnon wields a lot of power. Tony was just doing what Tony had to do."

For the first time, the blonde broke off, frowning.

"When did you last see Dr. Rocco?" the blonde asked.

"Friday evening. When Nathan was admitted into the I.C.U. Afterwards, Dr. Rocco informed me he couldn't be Nathan's doctor anymore. The head of Pediatrics had asked him to remove himself from the case. Instead, he was referring me to a geneticist, Dr. Lorfino. We have an appointment for Monday."

"And when did you make that appointment?"

"I didn't make the appointment. Tony did."

"Personal touch," the blonde murmured with an arched brow.

"My son is very sick. He needs expert care. And in the medical field it takes an expert to get an expert. If I had called Dr. Lorfino I would've been put on a waiting list. But Tony could get us right through. Maybe he doesn't have the best ethics in his personal life but Tony is a very good doctor; he's always done right by my son."

"Sounds to me like you still love him."

"I loved my husband."

"Even when he used you as a human punching bag? Even when he had a gun? Seems to me like you're not making out too badly, Mrs. Gagnon. Now you get all the benefits of the house, the car, the bank accounts, without any of the expensive Jimmy baggage." The blonde's eyes were shrewd.

"Why, there's not even anyone around to accuse you of harming your son. You're totally free and clear."

Catherine stood up.

"Get out."

"We're going to talk to Prudence, you know. And the nanny before her, and the nanny before her. We're going to go all the way back, until we know every single thing that ever happened in this household."

"Out."

"And then we're going to talk to Nathan."

Catherine stabbed her finger at the door. The three finally rose.

"Too bad about Dr. Rocco," the blonde commented casually as they crossed the marble foyer.

"Especially for his wife and kids.

"What about Tony?"

"He's dead, of course. Murdered last night. At the hospital-The blonde stopped, staring hard at Catherine's face. For a change-Catherine didn't bother to shield her expression. She was honestly shocked. Then stupefied. Then, just plain terrified.

"How?" she murmured.

"Boo," the blonde murmured, and Catherine froze.

The investigators passed through the doorway. At the last moment, the ADA turned.

"You ever hear of GSR?" Copley asked.

"No."

"It's gunshot residue. Anytime someone fires a gun, traces of GSR end up on their hands and clothing. Guess what we tested for at the morgue, Mrs. Gagnon? Guess what we didn't find on your husband's hands or clothing?"

Catherine didn't say a word. Boo, she was thinking wildly. Boo.

The trio headed down the front steps.

"One mistake," Copley called back over his shoulder.

"That's all I need. One little mistake, Mrs. Gagnon. Then, you're mine." Monday morning, the sun was shining, the air crisp with the promise of winter. Half of the pedestrians in Boston scurried from overpriced shop to overpriced shop, their heads tucked like turtles deep in the folds of their scarves, their hands crammed into the pockets of their coats. Not Mr. Bosu. He walked through the Public Garden with its grand old trees, no coat, no hat, no gloves. He loved this kind of weather. The scent of the decaying leaves. The last gasp of a fading winter sun.

When he was a kid, this had been his favorite time of year. He'd stay outdoors playing long after dark. His parents didn't care. Being outside was good for the boy, his father would say, before burying himself once more in the daily paper.

Not a bad childhood. He really couldn't complain. He had fond memories of G.I. Joe figurines and toy cement mixers. He rode his dirt bike, played well with the other children. Even had birthday parties in his mother's gold-colored living room, decorated with the little orange and yellow flowers people thought were absolutely darling back then.

He heard it was all coming back in fashion now. Retro. That was the word. Mr. Bosu had been in prison just long enough for his childhood to once again become cool.

He wondered what would happen if he returned home. His parents probably lived in the same house on the same block; hell, maybe they even drove the same car. If it's not broke, don't fix it, the senior Mr. Bosu had always liked to say.

They never visited Mr. Bosu in prison. Not once. After the day that girl had taken the stand, pointed at Mr. Bosu, and said, "Yes, sir, that's the man who grabbed me," his parents hadn't even attended the trial.

He supposed you could say he'd broken his parents' hearts. People like them were supposed to have an ordinary son. One who would join ROTC, end up with a college degree and serve his country on weekends. Then he'd marry an ordinary girl, maybe a younger version of his mother, and she would stand in a vogue retro kitchen, whipping up retro casseroles while their two point two children played with retro toys out back.

Mr. Bosu's fantasies were different. They involved a Catholic schoolgirl in a green plaid skirt and white knee-high socks. She would have her long dark hair tied back in a red bow. She would carry her schoolbooks tight against her just-budding chest. She would say "Yes, sir" or "No, sir." She would have a tight virginal body, untouched by any man, and she would do whatever he wanted, how he wanted, when he wanted. She would be his forever.

Mr. Bosu hadn't been a dumb boy. He'd kept his fantasies to himself. When he was sixteen, he'd made his first attempt. Approached a girl in a playground, pretending to be looking for his younger sister. The girl hadn't run away immediately, so he'd offered to push her on the swing. The feel of her small bony ribs beneath his hands, however, had led to consequences. His pants had been too tight, no way to hide the results. She'd gotten one look, started to scream, and run all the way home.

Later, her parents had approached his parents about his "inappropriate" behavior. He'd blushed, stammered, lied shamelessly that he'd actually been watching a blonde cheerleader walk by. Of course he hadn't meant… He just didn't know how to control… Oh gosh, he was just so, so sorry. Boys will be boys, his father had said, shaking his head and reaching once more for his paper.

After that, he'd been more careful. Taking his parents' car, driving far away from the neighborhood. He practiced and he learned. Nicer clothes were less threatening, particularly given his hulking size. A good story was important. Not candy, everyone warned their children about strangers bearing candy. Better to be looking for a lost sister, lost cat, lost dog. Something a child could relate to.

He learned, he perfected. And one day, he struck.

It was short, messy. Not at all like he'd pictured. Afterwards, he panicked. Didn't know what to do with the body. Finally he'd weighted it down and driven all the way to the Connecticut border, where he found a river.

He'd returned home shaken, disturbed, and interestingly enough, remorseful. He'd watched the news for days, palms sweating, waiting to be discovered.

But nothing happened. Simply… nothing. And then the fantasies started again. He dreamed and he hungered and he wanted. Until one day, he'd turned down a street not far from his parents' house, and there had been the girl. She'd been wearing a brown corduroy skirt instead of green plaid, but otherwise, she'd been close enough.

It had been surprisingly simple after that. He'd approached it a whole new way, and it had been satisfying. Right up until that moment when the girl had taken the witness stand.

He'd been young still. He saw that now. He'd been young and he'd made mistakes. Of course, he'd now had twenty-five years to learn better, and people who didn't think you got an education in prison had obviously never been there.

Mr. Bosu wandered down Park Street until he found the giant Gothic cathedral he remembered from his youth. He sat outside on one of the wooden benches, next to an elderly woman who was feeding bread crumbs to the pigeons. She smiled at him. He warmly smiled back.

"Lovely morning," he said.

"It is, it is," the woman said, and gave a little giggle.

Yesterday, he'd gone on an afternoon shopping hinge, courtesy of Benefactor X. The oversized, slightly menacing man from Faneuil Hall was gone. In his place was a classy, middle-aged gentleman who obviously prided himself on being fit. Oh, the wonders of Armani and a decent haircut.

The old woman threw more crumbs at the fat pigeons waddling around their feet. Mr. Bosu tilted back his head and lifted his face to the sun. Damn, it felt good to be outside.

Presently, the church bells started to ring. Grand wooden doors were thrown open. Families poured down the front steps, first proud fathers, then harried mothers, and then finally screeching children.

Mr. Bosu opened his eyes. He admired dark-haired girls, their long lustrous locks tied back in big white bows. He smiled at the teeming throngs of little blonde princesses, all flouncy white dresses and high-polished Mary Janes. In the vast city block yawning in front of the church, parents were already deep in conversation with other parents while their children ran wild.

Here were five little girls playing tag. Here were two little girls swinging arms. Here was one little girl, already half unnoticed, chasing the scattering pigeons.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" the elderly woman said.

"Nothing so attractive on earth," he assured her.

"Makes me remember my own youth."

"Funny, mine too."

He smiled once more at the woman. She looked a little puzzled, but smiled back. He got off the bench and walked into the sea of young, racing bodies, feeling the breeze of their quick passes like a tingle up his spine.

He walked to the front steps of the church, ascended to the two large doors, then turned and surveyed his kingdom.

People had a tendency to be wary in the city. But this was a particularly upscale area. A posh little island in the middle of an ocean of concrete. Besides, people grew lax in the comforting embrace of their church. They paid more attention to their earnest networking, or the contest over who was driving the right kind of car or drinking the right kind of coffee. They liked to believe they were keeping watch over little Johnnie or little Jenny out of the corner of their eye. But they weren't. Children wandered away, particularly when their parents were talking to other adults. Sometimes, they never wandered back.

Mr. Bosu felt a surge, sudden and unexpected. A fierce, rushing appetite that leapt up from his gut and demanded now, now, now He leaned over the steps. He swept his gaze across the screeching laughing, playing throngs. He was a hawk, circling in the sky. There no, there, no. There, yes.

One single child. A little girl, maybe four years old, toddling off in pursuit of a dried leaf scattering in the wind. No parental gaze followed her progress. No doting sibling gave chase.

He could walk down the steps now. Moving smooth but casual. Place his bulk between her and the crowd. Herd her a little more right and she'd be behind a tree. Then one last look, left, right, wait for that go-feeling in his gut and scoop her up effortlessly. One blink of the eye and it would be over and done. Child Disappears in Broad Daylight, the headlines would read. Frantic Parents Desperately Search for Clues.

They would never find any. Not when it came to the incredible, powerful Mr. Bosu.

He was halfway down the stairs before he caught himself. His hands found the wrought-iron railing. With genuine effort, he forced himself to take one deep breath. Then another. Then another. Slowly, he relaxed his hands on the railing, his fingers opening up, his hands slowly returning to his sides.

He forced himself to recall last night, the rusty scent of blood, the feel of the blade in his hands, the genuine look of surprise in another, lesser human being's face. It wasn't the same, of course. But it had been more satisfying than he'd expected. Like a pity date. Not his type, not his first choice of entertainment, but action just the same.

Better yet, for the first time in his life, he'd been paid. Up front. In cash. Ten thousand dollars. When Mr. Bosu had been released from prison yesterday, a driver had been waiting for him out front. Mr. Bosu had gotten into the car. A suitcase was waiting for him in the back. Inside was a note, and plenty of cash. The note contained instructions, and with the note came a list. For each target, there was a dollar amount. Now, this was a decent system.

Of course, Mr. Bosu wasn't as stupid as his mystery employer seemed to think. In the note, Benefactor X suggested that things would be easier in the future if Mr. Bosu opened a savings account. Money could be wired directly in, etc." etc. Benefactor X volunteered ways for Mr. Bosu to get ID. Benefactor X even supplied a list of banks.

Benefactor X was an idiot. Banks were monitored. Money transfers were traced. Worse, banks weren't open on Sundays and Mr. Bosu wasn't doing anything for free. He would stick to cash, thank you very much. Nice, thick bundles of dirty green he could strap to his stomach and spend to his heart's content.

Mr. Bosu took the briefcase. His wordless driver dropped him off at Faneuil Hall, handing Mr. Bosu a cell phone containing preprogrammed numbers; that's how they would keep in touch.

Mr. Bosu nodded a lot. He let the driver think he was grateful. Of course, Mr. Bosu knew exactly who his driver was. Most of the guys in the joint knew the go-between by reputation, and of course Robinson's reputation was definitely no match for Mr. Bosu's.

Mr. Bosu didn't say anything, though. As he'd learned in prison, knowledge was power.

Mr. Bosu stuck his hands in his pockets. He started whistling as he sauntered down the church steps and walked one last time through the smorgasbord of running, happy, laughing treats. All in good time.

Now, he was off to find a puppy. O how does this kind of thing work?" Bobby was sitting in a small cramped office in Wellesley. He counted four gray steel filing cabinets, one oversized oak desk, and about half a dozen cheap bookcases overflowing with legal reference texts and piles of brightly lettered manila folders. In the two-foot strip of wall space available between the teetering stacks of bureaucracy and the water-stained ceiling, two framed diplomas crookedly announced UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST and BOSTON COLLEGE.

Bobby tried to picture the office of the lawyers that were representing James Gagnon. It probably didn't look much like this. For starters, he would bet the diplomas came from places like Harvard or Yale. That office also probably came with a receptionist, cherry-paneled conference room, and unbeatable skyline views of downtown Boston.

Harvey Jones, on the other hand, was essentially working out of the attic of an old hardware store. He was a one-man show who'd been practicing law for the past seven years. He had no partners. He had no secretary. Today, at least, he wasn't even wearing a suit.

One of Bobby's fellow cops had recommended the guy. And the minute Harvey had heard Bobby's name, he'd agreed to meet with him. Immediately. On a Sunday. Bobby didn't know if that meant good things or bad things yet.

"So," Harvey was trying to explain to him now, "a clerk-magistrate hearing takes place in front of a judge in the Chelsea District Court. Basically, the plaintiff will bring forth evidence that probable cause exists that you committed a felony. Our job is to refute that fact."

"How?"

"You'll testify, of course, saying why you felt the situation justified the use of deadly force. We'll bring in other officers who were present that night. The lieutenant in charge-what did you say his name was?"

"Jachrimo."

"Lieutenant Jachrimo, we'll want him to testify. Then any other officer who can independently corroborate that you had reason to believe Jimmy Gagnon was going to shoot his wife."

"There isn't independent corroboration. I was the first sniper deployed. No one else saw what I saw."

Harvey frowned, made a note.

"Aren't snipers generally sent out in pairs? With a spotter, something like that?"

"We didn't have enough manpower yet."

More frowning, more notes.

"Well, we can still go after two things. One, we'll boost your credibility. Bring in the training you've done, have your lieutenant testify as to your expert skills. Establish I that you are a well-trained, highly experienced police sniper, qualified to make tough judgment calls."

I Bobby nodded. He'd expected that much. Every training exercise performed by the STOP team was heavily documented for just this sort of thing-so someday, if necessary, their lieutenant could prove they were qualified to act as they'd acted. If it's not documented, it didn't happen, the rule of thumb went. Lieutenant Bruni made sure every last thing they did had the proper paper trail.

"Of course," Harvey was saying now, "James Gagnon has politics on his side."

"Being a judge?"

"Being a superior court judge," Harvey said, and grimaced.

"As the civil side of the court, a clerk-magistrate doesn't spend a lot of time contemplating what may or may not entail criminal charges. That's what the superior court does. So, think of it from the clerk-magistrate's perspective-here's a judge who's an expert on criminal law testifying that he believes a felony took place. That's going to carry a lot of weight for the clerk-magistrate. If the Honorable James F. Gagnon says it was murder-well then, it must be murder!"

"Wonderful," Bobby muttered.

"But we still have some tricks up our sleeves," Harvey said brightly.

"We can hope for a decent ruling from the DA's office--that they've investigated the incident and found the shooting to be justified. That would be huge. Of course," he murmured now, "that's probably why Gagnon filed the motion so fast. It'll take weeks for the DA's office to render an opinion, so Judge Gagnon will try to cram through this motion in a matter of days. Then we're back to his word against your word, with no tie-breaker from the DA."

"Can he move things that fast?"

"If he has the bucks to pay all the attorneys who'll be working overtime, sure, he can do as he pleases. Of course, I'll do what I can to delay. Then again…" Harvey looked around his crammed office and Bobby followed his gaze. One-man show versus hordes of top-billing legal eagles. Attic space versus an entire wood-paneled law firm. They both got the picture.

"So he tries to move fast, we try to move slow," Bobby said quietly.

"He tries to exert his expertise as a criminal court judge. We hope for a countering opinion from the DA. Then what?"

"Then it gets personal."

Bobby stared at the lawyer. Harvey shrugged.

"Basically, it's he said/she said. You're saying you saw a credible threat. The other side is saying you're wrong. To do that, they gotta go after you. They're gonna bring in your family. Were you a violent child, did you always love guns? They're going to dig into your lifestyle-young, single officer. Do you frequent bars, sleep around, get into brawls? Too bad you're not married with kids; it always looks better if you're married with kids. What about a dog? Do you happen to own a cute dog? A black Lab or golden retriever would be perfect."

"No cute dogs." Bobby considered things.

"I'm a landlord. My tenant has cats."

"Is your tenant young and beautiful?" Harvey asked suspiciously.

"Elderly woman on a fixed income."

Harvey brightened noticeably.

"Excellent. You gotta love a man who helps the elderly. Which, of course, brings us to ex-girlfriends."

Bobby rolled his eyes at that segue.

"There's a few," he admitted.

"Which ones hate you?"

"None of them."

"Sure about that?"

He thought of Susan. He honestly didn't know how she was feeling.

"No," he found himself saying.

"I'm not sure."

"They'll talk to your neighbors. They'll look deep into your past. They'll look for incidents of bias-that you don't like blacks or Hispanics or people who drive BMWs."

"I don't have biases," Bobby said, then stopped, frowned, and got a bad feeling.

"The DUI arrest."

"The DUI arrest?"

"Earlier that day. Guy was driving a Hummer while intoxicated. Did a bit of damage, then got bent out of shape when we actually tried to put him in jail. He had an attitude. We, uh, we exchanged some words."

"Words?"

"I called him a rich prick," Bobby said matter-of-factly. Harvey winced.

"Oh yeah, that's gonna hurt. Anything else I should know?"

Bobby looked at the lawyer a long time. He debated what to say, how much to say. In the end, he settled on, "I don't want my father to take the stand."

Harvey regarded him curiously.

"We don't have to call him as a character witness if you don't want us to."

"What if they call him?"

"He's your father. Assuming he's going to testify in your favor, they won't call him."

"But if they do?" Bobby insisted.

Harvey was catching on now.

"What don't I know?" "I don't want him on the stand. Period."

"If they know something, Bobby, if they know something you're not telling me, we may not have a choice."

"What if he's… out of state?"

"They'll subpoena him. If he doesn't answer the summons, he's in contempt of court and they can pursue legal action against him."

Bobby had been afraid of that.

"What if I don't testify?"

"Then you'll lose," Harvey said baldly.

"It'll be just their word on what happened Thursday night, and their word will be that you committed murder."

Bobby nodded again. He hung his head. He was looking into the future; he was trying to see beyond one night when he had done, honest to God, what he'd had to do. Nothing looked promising anymore. Nothing looked good.

"Can I win this?" he asked quietly.

"Do I really have a chance?"

"There's always a chance."

"I don't have his kind of money."

"No."

Bobby was honest.

"I don't have his kind of lawyer."

Harvey was honest back.

"No."

"But you think you can pull this out?"

"If we can delay things long enough for the DA's office ruling, and if the DA's office ruling finds that it was justifiable use offeree, then yes, I think we can win."

"That's a lot of ifs."

"Tell me about it."

"And then?"

Harvey hesitated.

"He can appeal, can't he?" Bobby filled in the blanks for the lawyer.

"If this is the clerk-magistrate, then James Gagnon can appeal to the district court, then the superior court, then the supreme judicial court. It goes on and on and on, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Harvey said.

"And he'll file motions, dozens of motions, most of them frivolous but all of them costing you time and money to refute. I'll do what I can. Call in some favors. I know some young lawyers who will help out for the experience and others who will do it for the exposure. But you're right: this is David and Goliath, and, well, you're not Goliath."

"All it takes is money and time," Bobby murmured.

"He's old," Harvey threw out there.

"You mean one day he'll die," Bobby filled in bluntly.

"That's my best-case scenario. Another death."

Harvey didn't bother to lie.

"Yeah. In a situation like this, that's pretty much it."

Bobby rose to his feet. He got out his checkbook. He'd had this nest egg he'd been building. Thinking of one day maybe buying more property, or maybe, if things between him and Susan had gone differently, it would've helped with a wedding. Now he wrote a check for five thousand dollars and placed it on Harvey Jones's desk.

According to the good lawyer, that might last a week. Of course, Bobby already knew something the lawyer didn't-if his father took the stand, he would lose.

"Is this enough for a retainer?"

Harvey nodded.

"If I'm going to pursue things," Bobby said, "I'll call you tomorrow by five p.m."

They shook hands.

Then Bobby went home and got his guns.

The fifty-foot indoor shooting range at the Massachusetts Rifle Association in Woburn, Massachusetts, was slow for a Sunday afternoon. Bobby rolled two spongy orange plugs between his index finger and thumb, fit them into the canals of his ears, then adjusted his safety glasses. He'd brought his Smith amp; Wesson.38 Special, and just for the hell of it, a.45 Colt Magnum.

When Bobby took his proficiency test each month with his rifle, he never took more than one shot. That was it. You took up to an hour, you set up your shot, and then you fired one single bullet. The cold-bore shot. That's because the very first shot out of any gun had the slug traveling down a cold barrel. That slug heated the barrel, which led to slightly different ballistics for every other shot fired.

As a sniper, the assumption was that he'd never fire any of those other rounds. One shot, one kill, so all that mattered, day after day, training exercise after training exercise, was that single, cold-bore shot.

Now, Bobby plunked down six boxes of ammo. The brass casings jingled inside the containers. He opened the first box and loaded up.

He began with the.38, starting at ten feet to loosen up, then moving the target back to twenty-one. Studies claimed that the average police shooting occurred within twenty-one feet, making it a favorite distance for marksmen. Bobby always wondered who did these studies, and why they never bothered to mention if the police were winning or losing in these infamous shootouts.

He started out horribly. Worst damn shooting of his life, and positively embarrassing for someone who'd earned the NRA classification of High Master. He wondered idly if some private investigator was already waiting in the wings to pluck this target for Bobby's upcoming trial. Guy could hold it up on the stand, with its wildly scattered spray of shots: "See this, your honor. And this is from a guy that State says is an expert?

Maybe he couldn't shoot paper anymore. Maybe once you'd shot a real person, nothing else would do.

That thought depressed him. His eyes stung. He was sad. He was mad. He didn't know what the hell to feel anymore.

He set down the.38. Picked up the.45. Set it down and, for a long time, simply stood there in the cavernous space, pinching the bridge of his nose and fighting for composure against an emotion he couldn't name.

Down at the far end, the MRA's gun pro, J.T. Dillon, was firing away. After a moment, Bobby stepped away from the shooting line and, receding into the shadows, watched the older man work.

This afternoon, Dillon was firing a.22-caliber target pistol that didn't even resemble a real gun. The handle was a huge wooden grip that appeared less like a handle and more like a rough-hewn slab of tree. The barrel was squared off and edged in silver. The capping scope was bright red. All in all, the piece looked like something out of a Star Wars movie.

In fact, the custom-fit, superlight Italian-made target pistol cost upwards of fifteen hundred dollars. Only the big boys used these kinds of guns, and in the world of competitive shooting, Dillon was considered a very big boy.

Dillon was an IPSC competitor-International Practical Shooting Confederation. These guys were considered the martial artists of combat shooting. They were ranked on time and accuracy as they performed various bizarre drills, say, for example, shooting from the saddle, or running through an urban landscape with a briefcase handcuffed to their dominant hand, or shooting their way out of a jungle with an ankle in a splint. The tougher and nastier the drill, the more the competitors liked it.

IPSC shooters always said that bull's-eye shooting, the kind of sniper drills Bobby performed, was like watching grass grow. Combat shooting was where the real action was.

Now Bobby watched as J.T. Dillon loaded the clip of his custom pistol, placed it in his weaker, left hand, and fired off a quick six rounds. Smooth. Controlled. Never blinking an eye.

Bobby didn't have to look at the target to know all six shots were good. Dillon didn't have to look either. He was already reloading his piece.

By now, Bobby had heard all the rumors-that Dillon was a former Marine, dishonorably discharged. That once he used to live in Arizona, where he'd supposedly killed a man. Maybe it was the jagged scar sometimes glimpsed across his sternum. Or the lean, rangy build the years did nothing to diminish. Or the fact that nearing the age of fifty, he could still cut down any man with his dark, forbidding stare.

Bobby didn't know about those rumors, but being a Massachusetts State Police officer, he knew something about J.T. Dillon very few others did: a decade ago, a former police officer and serial killer named Jim Beckett had broken out of the maximum-security Walpole prison. In his brief few months of freedom, Beckett had sliced a long, bloody swath through various law enforcement agencies, murdering a number of state policemen, including a sniper, as well as an FBI agent.

Bobby didn't know all the details, but the way he heard it, the Police weren't the ones who caught Jim Beckett in the end. Dillon did. After Beckett murdered his sister. Now Dillon looked up from his pistol. He met Bobby's gaze across the way.

"That's the sloppiest damn display of shooting I've ever seen," Dillon said.

"I'm thinking of burning the target."

"That assumes you can hit it with a match." Bobby had to grin.

"True."

Dillon peered down his scope and Bobby wandered over. He'd never spoken much to Dillon, though both men knew each other by reputation.

Dillon had pushed the target back to fifty feet. Still using his left hand, he sighted the target. He inhaled. He exhaled. He inhaled one more time and Bobby could feel the man's focus as a sudden physical presence. Dillon's finger moved six times, the flexing of his index finger no greater than the whisper of a butterfly beating its wings against the air. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The entire clip was unloaded in three seconds or less.

When Dillon pulled in the target, Bobby shook his head. This time, rather than annihilate the bull's-eye, Dillon had formed a star.

"Show-off," Bobby said.

"Gives me something to bring home to my girls."

"Your daughters?"

"Yep. Two of them. One's sixteen, one's six."

"Do they shoot?"

"Older one, Samantha, she's pretty good." Bobby read between the lines. If Dillon said his daughter was pretty good, that probably meant she could outgun Bobby. Considering what Bobby knew of teenage boys, that skill could come in handy.

"And the younger?"

"Lanie? Takes after her mother. Can't stand the sound of gunfire. But she has other skills. You should see her ride a horse."

"Nice." Dillon was gathering up his spent casings. Bobby helped him out. The brass was the most expensive part of a bullet. Serious shooters like to reclaim the casings for reuse in their own custom-made ammo.

"Married?" Bobby asked now.

"Ten years," Dillon said.

Ten years with a sixteen-year-old daughter. Bobby did the math on that, then gave up.

"What does your wife do?"

"Tess teaches kindergarten. And chases our girls. And tries to keep me out of trouble."

"Sounds like a good life," Bobby said.

"It is."

"Well, I should get back to practicing." But Bobby remained standing where he was. Dillon was watching him, his gaze expectant. Shooters had a bond others didn't have. They appreciated the art, they respected the technique. They understood that snipers didn't get drawn to the craft because they were budding Dirty Harrys or lone gunmen anxious for another shootout at the OK Corral. Bobby did what he did because the skill challenged him, not because he'd ever wanted anyone to get hurt.

"Was it hard?" Bobby asked quietly.

"Afterwards, I mean."

"After what? After I shot the man in Arizona, or after I shot Jim Beckett?"

"Either one."

"Sorry to say, son, but I've never killed a man."

"Not even Jim Beckett?"

"No." Dillon smiled ruefully, then flexed out his shoulder.

"Though it wasn't from lack of trying."

"Oh," Bobby said, though he hadn't meant to sound so disappointed.

Dillon looked at him awhile, contemplating. Finally, the man gestured around the empty space.

"Ten years ago," he announced, "I would never have thought I'd be here. Never thought I'd have a wife. Never thought I'd have two daughters. Never thought I'd be… happy."

"Because of Beckett?" Bobby asked.

"Because of a lot of things. Maybe I've never killed a man, but for a lot of my life, I came close enough." Dillon shrugged.

"I remember what it's like to sit and wait with your crosshairs sighted on a human head. I know what it's like to will yourself to pull the trigger."

"I didn't think much of it at the time." "Of course not. At the time, you were too busy. At the time, you were doing your job. It's now, in all the hours and days to come, in all the moments when life gets quiet, that you're gonna find yourself remembering again, wondering for the eleven hundredth time what you could have done differently. If you could have done something differently."

"I keep telling myself it doesn't matter. What's done is done. No use torturing myself with it now."

"Sound advice."

"So why aren't I taking it?"

"You never will. You wanna talk about regrets? I can talk about regrets, Officer Dodge. I can give you a whole laundry list of people I wished I had saved and people I wished I had killed. Give me five minutes and a bottle of tequila, and I can destroy my whole life."

"But you don't."

"You have to find something, Officer Dodge. Something that anchors you, something that keeps you looking forward, even on the bad days, when you're tempted to look back."

"Your family," Bobby guessed.

"My family," Dillon agreed evenly.

Bobby looked him in the eye.

"So who really killed Jim Beckett?"

"Tess did."

"Your wife?"

"Yeah, that woman can sure wield a shotgun."

"And she's doing okay with that? Killing him?"

"Honestly? She hasn't touched a gun since."

Catherine arrived at the hospital just in time to find her in-laws standing by the nurses' desk.

"I'm the boy's grandfather," James was saying with his best you-want-to-cooperate-with-me grin.

"Of course it's okay for me to take the boy home."

"Sir, Nathan's mother signed the admit papers. I can't do anything without consulting her."

"And it's wonderful that you're so diligent. I commend you. Unfortunately, my daughter-in-law is extremely busy with funeral preparations right now. Hence, we were sent to get Nathan. It's the least we could do during this very trying time."

James tightened his arm around Maryanne. On cue, she joined him in smiling at the nurse. Maryanne was a shade paler than James, dark shadows bruising her eyes, but still with every hair and pearl in place. They made an impeccable united front. The powerful judge his fragile, charming wife.

Already, the nurse seemed to be weakening.

James leaned forward, pressing the advantage. "Let's go see Nathan. He'll be very excited to go with us. You'll see that it's all right."

"I should at least consult his doctor," the nurse murmured, then glanced down at the admit papers and promptly frowned.

"Oh dear."

"What is it?"

"Nathan's pediatrician, Dr. Rocco. I'm afraid… Oh dear, oh dear." The nurse's voice trailed off. She was clearly distressed by what had happened to Dr. Rocco, and now becoming quickly overwhelmed.

Catherine took that as her cue. She walked up to the desk, gaze going straight to the nurse's name tag.

"Nurse Brandi, so good to see you again. How is Nathan this morning?"

"Feeling better," the nurse said brightly, then glanced nervously from Catherine to James and Maryanne, then to Catherine again.

Catherine decided to solve the dilemma for the woman. She put her hand on her father-in-law's arm. A first-class showman himself, he didn't flinch.

"Thank you so much for helping out," she told James with a warm smile, then flashed the same grateful grin over at Maryanne.

"Fortunately, I finished up at the funeral parlor sooner than I expected, so I came to get Nathan myself."

"Really, you shouldn't have," James said.

"Maryanne and I would be delighted to watch the boy for a while. You should rest."

"Yes, dear," Maryanne echoed.

"You must be exhausted. Let us watch Nathan. We have this wonderful room at the Hotel LeRoux. It will be a great treat for him after all this time in a hospital."

"Oh no. I'm sure after everything Nathan has been through, it would be much nicer for him to go straight home."

"To the house where his father died?" James asked dryly.

"To the comfort of his own bedroom."

James thinned his lips. He and Maryanne exchanged glances. Catherine turned swiftly to Nurse Brandi.

"I'd like to see Nathan now."

"Of course."

"I'm sure someone must be filling in for Dr. Rocco. Please find that doctor and have him sign the discharge papers so I can take Nathan home." Catherine held up the Louis Vuitton bag she was carrying.

"I'll work on getting my son into his clothes."

Maryanne spoke up brightly.

"Why don't we get him dressed, darling, while you deal with the paperwork? Surely that will be much faster for everyone."

"Absolutely," James agreed enthusiastically.

"Wonderful idea!"

Catherine was getting a pounding headache. She smiled anyway.

"That is so kind of both of you, really. But I just miss Nathan terribly; I can't imagine not seeing him right away."

"We also can't wait to see our grandson!" Maryanne again, so gay, she sounded brittle.

"You're entirely too kind. But Nathan's health is still very fragile. After everything he's been through the past three days, I think it would be best if he just saw me for now-tone down the excitement. Tomorrow, of course, you're more than welcome to come to our home." Catherine put her hand on Nurse Brandi's arm, a little more forceful now, a little more insistent.

"Nathan?" she prodded.

"Of course."

The nurse gave James and Maryanne one last uncertain look, then briskly led Catherine down the hall. Behind her, Catherine was keenly aware that her in-laws weren't turning to leave. In fact, at the mention of a replacement doctor for Tony, James had gotten a gleam in his eye.

James and Maryanne never went down without a fight. Most likely, Catherine didn't have much time.

In the curtained-off space, Nathan was sitting up in the hospital bed. His color was better. His abdomen no longer protruded painfully. He still looked tiny to her, lost in a sea of white sheets and black wires. There was nothing quite so grotesque as a hospital gown on a child.

"Baby," she whispered.

Nathan looked up at her with his solemn blue eyes. He said clearly, "Where's Prudence?"

"Today's her day off," Catherine said steadily.

"I'm going to take you home. Would you like to go home?"

Nathan looked around the room, at the IV, at the heart monitor.

"Am I better?" he whispered, looking suddenly and unbearably uncertain. "Yes."

He nodded more decisively.

"Then I would like to go home."

"Let's get you dressed."

Nurse Brandi removed the IV needle, then pushed aside the heart monitor.

"The discharge papers?" Catherine prompted, her gaze already flicking nervously behind her.

"Of course."

Brandi disappeared down the hallway. Catherine plastered a fresh smile on her face and turned back to her son.

"I Brought you your favorite outfit. Jeans, boots, the cowboy shirt."

She briskly opened the bag, laying out the clothes on the edge of the bed. Nathan seemed subdued, but finally, he shrugged off his hospital gown.

"Was it a dream?" he asked.

Catherine knew instantly what he meant.

"No," she said.

"Daddy had a gun."

"Yes."

"Is he dead?"

"Yes."

Nathan nodded and started to pull on his clothes. He had just finished buttoning his flannel cowboy shirt when James and Maryanne appeared with a man in surgical scrubs in tow.

"Nathan!" James boomed heartily.

"It's my favorite cowboy! Ready to saddle up? Your grandmother and I would love to have you come join us at the Hotel LeRoux. Room service, Nathan. All the hot fudge sundaes you can eat."

Nathan regarded his grandfather as if he'd sprouted two heads. James rarely paid Nathan quite this much attention. And in fact, ice cream made Nathan unbelievably ill.

Unperturbed, James turned to Catherine. The flush of triumph was unmistakable on his face.

"Catherine, meet Dr. Gerritsen, head of Pediatrics. I think you two should have a talk. In the meantime, Maryanne and I will stay here with Nathan."

Maryanne had already stepped forward, reaching out a hand toward Nathan. The yearning expression on her face was hard to bear. Did she look at her grandson and see her last link to Jimmy?

Or did she merely see another kind of a weapon, a living, breathing tool that could be used to hurt Catherine?

Dr. Gerritsen was trying to gesture Catherine out into the hallway. She refused to budge. All James and Maryanne needed was thirty seconds, and Nathan would be gone. Possession, after all, was nine-tenths of the law.

Dr. Gerritsen finally gave up, stepping into the now crowded space and focusing his attention on Nathan. The pediatrician held a chart in his right hand.

"How are you feeling, young man?" Dr. Gerritsen asked.

"Okay." In fact, Nathan was regarding all four adults nervously.

"According to your chart, everything looks good."

"Where's Dr. Tony?" Nathan asked.

"Dr. Rocco couldn't be here today, Nathan, so I'm helping out.

Is that okay?"

The boy merely stared at Dr. Gerritsen. He didn't like doctors, particularly new doctors, and his gaze said he was already suspicious.

"Would you like to go home?" Dr. Gerritsen asked. A somber nod.

"Seems like a good idea to me, too. I'll tell you what, sport. Why don't you hang out here for just one more minute, while I talk with your grandparents and mother. Nurse Brandi, want to show Nathan how a stethoscope works?"

Nathan already knew how a stethoscope worked. His gaze flew immediately to Catherine, and she could see his growing panic. She did her best to give him a bolstering smile, though the same panic was already rising in her chest.

Nurse Brandi stepped into the space. Dr. Gerritsen, James, Maryanne, and Catherine disappeared back behind the curtain.

Dr. Gerritsen didn't waste any time.

"Judge Gagnon tells me that there is a custody issue with Nathan," the doctor said, looking Catherine straight in the eye.

"Judge Gagnon and his wife have filed for custody of Nathan," Catherine replied evenly. She was desperately eyeing the head of Pediatrics, trying to get a quick read on the man. Older. Wedding ring on his left hand. Happily married? Or bored, egotistical-ripe for the attentions of a young, beautiful widow? "He has concerns for the boy's safety," Dr. Gerritsen said. His tone was level. Serious. Very serious.

Catherine abandoned all notions of flirtation. She went instead for the concerned daughter-in-law, respectful and caring. She turned her head slightly and said in a low voice, as if she didn't want to upset her in-laws, "Judge Gagnon and his wife have recently lost their son. They are wonderful grandparents, but… they're not quite themselves right now, Dr. Gerritsen. Surely you understand how difficult this must be for them."

"We're sharp as tacks and you know it," James interjected harshly.

"Don't play us for doddering fools."

Dr. Gerritsen's gaze flickered to James and Maryanne, then back to Catherine. His expression was plainly perturbed.

"I don't like being put in the middle of these things."

"I never would have dreamed of getting you involved," Catherine assured him.

"According to Dr. Rocco's records, Nathan falls ill a lot." Dr. Gerritsen added pointedly, "And rather easily."

"Dr. Rocco always took excellent care of Nathan." Dr. Gerritsen gave her a dubious look. He obviously knew of her relationship with Tony and wasn't fooled.

"I don't think you should take the boy home," the head of Pediatrics announced.

Catherine's heart fell. She could feel the panic bubble up in her throat, even as James began to smile.

"Unfortunately," Dr. Gerritsen continued crisply, "I don't have any say in the matter."

"What?" James this time, clearly stunned.

"As of this moment, she's still Nathan's legal guardian." Dr. Gerritsen shrugged.

"I'm sorry, Judge Gagnon, but my hands are tied."

Maryanne started shaking her head, a woman suddenly coming awake only to find herself in the middle of a very bad dream.

"Exigent circumstances," James countered quickly.

"You felt there was an immediate and compelling threat to the boy, justifying sending him home with his grandparents."

"But I don't know that there's an immediate and compelling threat."

"The boy's health history. You yourself said it was suspicious!"

"He needs us," Maryanne said plaintively.

"We're all he has left."

Dr. Gerritsen flashed Maryanne a sympathetic look, before returning his attention to James.

"Suspicious, yes. Definitive, no." James was clearly furious now.

"She is a threat to that child!"

"If I was a threat to Nathan," Catherine interjected levelly, "why would I keep bringing him to the hospital for medical care?"

"Because it's what you do!" James barked.

"Using your own child to gain attention for yourself, so you can play the role of the tragic mother. I tried to warn Jimmy, I tried to tell him what you're doing. Harming your own son. It's disgusting!"

"But I don't need to play the role of the tragic mother anymore to get attention, do I, James?" Catherine looked her father-in-law in the eye.

"Now I'm the grieving widow."

James growled, an unexpected snarl of frustration and fury in the back of his throat. Catherine feared for a moment that the man might leap forward, that he might actually wrap his hands around her throat. That would be a change of pace. Jimmy had always been so sloppy with his rage. His father, on the other hand, was cold.

"James, darling?" Maryanne was whispering.

"Is she getting Nathan? You said it wouldn't happen. How can that happen?"

James put his arms around his shaking wife. He pressed her against him, comforting her with one hand, even as he continued to give Catherine a dark, angry stare.

"This isn't over," he said clearly.

"It is today."

Dr. Gerritsen had had enough of the family drama. The doctor was already gesturing Catherine back inside the curtained-off space.

"I'm sorry, Judge Gagnon, but there is nothing I can legally do to stop Mrs. Gagnon from signing out her son. If circumstances change, I'll be happy to help you. But until then…"

Dr. Gerritsen shrugged; Catherine ducked around his arm. She didn't bother to flash James a triumphant smile over her shoulder. She didn't dare look at Maryanne's grieving face.

She simply bundled Nathan up in his coat and got the hell out of there. Nathan was silent for the ride home. He sat in the back of the car, in his car seat, his right hand clutching the shoulder strap. Catherine thought there was something she should say. And then, for a while, she was simply as sad as Nathan that Prudence wasn't working today.

Pulling into a narrow parking space, she went around to get Nathan out of the back. The sun was shining, the afternoon surprisingly warm. She looked down the street and saw several of her neighbors out, walking kids, walking dogs. She wondered if it was strange that she didn't wave to her own neighbors. She wondered if it was stranger that none of them would've bothered to wave back. Nathan piled out of the car, awkward in his heavy wool coat and new cowboy boots. The coat, a gift from his grandparents, was three sizes too big for him. The cowboy boots, purchased from the baby section of Ralph Lauren, at least fit.

Nathan wouldn't look up. Not down the street. Not at their townhouse. He put his hand in Catherine's obediently enough, but as they got closer and closer to the front steps, his feet began to drag. He shuffled along halfheartedly, kicking at stray leaves.

Catherine glanced up at their front door. She thought of the lobby behind it, then the stairs leading up to their unit. She thought of the master bedroom, with its torn-up carpet, splattered walls, and hastily rearranged furniture. Suddenly, she didn't want to go up those stairs either. She wished, for both of their sakes, that they could simply run away.

"Nathan," she said quietly, "why don't we go to the park?" Nathan looked up at her. He nodded so vigorously, it made her smile even as her heart ached. They set off down the street.

The Public Garden was crowded. Young lovers, dog walkers, urban families with stir-crazy kids. Catherine and Nathan walked along the water, where the swan boats paddled in the summer. She bought popcorn from a vendor and they amused themselves feeding the milling ducks. Finally they found a park bench at the edge of a clearing, where children the same age as Nathan, but twice his size, ran and tumbled and laughed in the now waning sunlight.

Nathan didn't even try to join them. At the age of four, these were the lessons he'd already learned.

"Nathan?" Catherine said quietly.

"Now that you're home… some people are going to need to talk to you."

He looked up at her, his face so pale, she felt compelled to run her finger down his cheek. His skin was cool and dry, the face of a boy who spent too much time indoors.

"Do you remember Thursday night?" she asked softly.

"The bad night?"

He didn't say a word.

"Daddy had a gun, didn't he, Nathan?"

Slowly, Nathan nodded.

"We were fighting."

Nathan nodded again.

"Do you remember what we were fighting about?" Catherine was holding her breath. This was the wild card, of course. How much did a frightened four-year-old remember? How much did he understand?

Reluctantly, Nathan shook his head.

Catherine released her pent-up breath. She said lightly, "All the people need to know, honey, is that Daddy had a gun. And that we were terribly scared. They understand the rest."

"Daddy's dead," Nathan said.

"Yes."

"Daddy doesn't come home."

"No, he won't come home again."

"Will you?"

Catherine stroked his cheek again.

"I will try to always come home to you, Nathan."

"And Prudence?"

"She will come home, too." Nathan nodded gravely.

"Daddy had a gun," he repeated.

"I was scared."

"Thank you, Nathan."

Nathan went back to watching the other kids. After a moment, he crawled onto her lap. After another moment, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rested her cheek against the top of his ruffling hair. When bobby returned home, not one but three people waited outside his front door. And his day, he thought, just kept getting better and better.

"Shouldn't you be in church?" He asked ADA Rick Copley as he unlocked the door. Then he held up a hand.

"Wait, I know: you already sold your soul to the devil."

Copley scowled at Bobby's attempt at humor, then followed Bobby inside his first-floor unit. Behind Copley came D.D. Warren, careful not to look Bobby in the eye, and behind her came an investigator from the DA's office whom Bobby vaguely remembered from the initial shooting interrogation on Friday morning. He couldn't recall the man's name.

Investigator Casella was the magic answer, provided by Copley thirty seconds later as the ADA made introductions in the middle of Bobby's family room. The space was small, the furniture well broken in and currently cluttered with an assortment of empty take-out food boxes and piles of napkins. All three looked around, no one sure where to sit.

Bobby opted not to help them out. As far as he was concerned, these were not people he wanted getting too comfortable in his home.

He went into the kitchen, grabbed himself a Coke, and came back into the family room without bothering to ask if anyone else wanted something to drink. He pulled out a wooden kitchen chair and had a seat. After a moment, D.D. shot him a dry glance, then set about moving pizza boxes until the trio could plunk down on his ancient sofa. They promptly sank down four inches. Bobby used the Coke to cover his smile.

"So," Copley said, trying to sound very authoritative for a man who now had his chin propped up on his knees.

"We need to follow up on some questions from Thursday night."

"By all means." Bobby waited for Copley to start from the very beginning, making Bobby retell his story yet again and seeing what kind of details they could ferret out to trip Bobby up. Copley's first question, then, surprised him.

"Did you know that Catherine and Jimmy Gagnon were big supporters of the Boston Symphony?"

Bobby tensed. His mind was already racing ahead, and what he saw, he didn't like.

"No," he said carefully.

"They attended a lot of the concerts."

"Is that right?"

"Fund-raisers, cocktail parties. The Gagnons were real active in those circles."

"Good for them."

"Good for your girlfriend," Copley corrected.

Bobby didn't say anything.

"Susan Abrahms. That's her name, correct? Plays the cello with the orchestra."

"We've dated."

"We had a nice conversation with Susan this afternoon." Bobby decided to take a long sip of his Coke now. He wished it were a beer.

"You went to a lot of functions with her," Copley said.

"We dated two years."

"Seems strange to think that in all that time, at all those functions, you never met Catherine or Jimmy Gagnon."

Bobby shrugged.

"If I did, it never made an impression." "Really?" Copley said.

"Because Susan remembered both of them just fine. Said they met on a number of occasions. Sounds like the Gagnons were regular groupies when it came to fine music."

Bobby couldn't resist anymore. He glanced in D.D."s direction. She not only refused to meet his gaze, but she was practically staring a hole through the carpet.

"Detective Warren," Copley spoke up crisply, "why don't you tell Officer Dodge what else we learned from Susan Abrahms?"

D.D. took a deep breath. Bobby figured at this.point, he already knew what was coming next. And now he remembered something else-why he and D.D. had broken up in the end. Because for both of them, the job always came first.

"Miss Abrahms recalls you meeting the Gagnons at a function eight or nine months ago. Catherine, in particular, asked you a lot of questions about your work with the "SWAT' team."

"Everyone asks me about my work," Bobby said evenly.

"People don't meet a lot of police snipers. Particularly in those kinds of social circles."

"According to Miss Abrahms, you made a comment later that you didn't like the way Jimmy was looking at her."

"Miss Abrahms," Bobby said with emphasis, "is a very beautiful and talented woman. I didn't care for how a lot of guys looked at her."

"Jealous?" Investigator Casella spoke up. Bobby didn't take the bait. Instead, he finished up his Coke, set it on the table, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs.

"Did Miss Abrahms mention how long this alleged encounter lasted?"

"Several minutes," D.D. said.

"I see. So, let's think about this. In my day job, I probably meet fifteen new people a shift, so with twenty shifts a month, that's what? Three hundred new people a month? Which in the course of nine months, means twenty-seven hundred different names and faces crossing my path? Is it really so strange then, that I don't remember meeting two people I spoke with for a matter of minutes at some high-society function where frankly everyone in the room is unfamiliar to me?"

"Hard to keep all the rich pricks straight?" Investigator Casella deadpanned.

Bobby sighed. He was starting to get annoyed now. Not a good thing.

"Never had a bad day at the office?" he asked Casella irritably.

"Never said anything you later came to regret?"

"Susan Abrahms had some concerns about your relationship," D.D. said quietly.

Bobby forced his gaze from Casella.

"Yeah?"

"She said you'd seemed distant lately. Preoccupied."

"This job will do that to you."

"She wondered if you were having an affair."

"Then I wish she would've said something to me."

"Catherine Gagnon is a beautiful woman."

"Catherine Gagnon has nothing on Susan," Bobby said, and he meant it. At least he thought he did.

"Is that why you were bothered by Jimmy paying attention to her?" Copley spoke up.

"Jimmy had money, looks. Let's face it-he was much more her type."

"Come on, Copley. Did I kill Jimmy Gagnon because I was jealous of his attention toward my girlfriend, or did I kill Jimmy Gagnon because I was fucking his wife? Three days of questioning later, you can do better than this."

"Maybe it's both," Copley said crisply.

"Or maybe I honestly don't remember ever meeting either of the Gagnons. Maybe I went to those functions simply to support my girlfriend. And maybe I have better things to do with my time than remember every random stranger I've ever met."

"The Gagnons make an impression," Casella said.

Bobby was already waving him off.

"Find me one person who ever saw me and Catherine Gagnon alone. Find one person who ever saw me and Jimmy exchanging words. You can't. Because it never happened. Because I really don't remember either one of them, and when I killed Jimmy Gagnon Thursday night, it was purely because he had a gun pointed at his wife. Take a life to save a life. Didn't any of you ever read the sniper's manual?"

He broke off in disgust. He got up, not caring anymore how agitated he appeared, and started to pace.

"Understand you've been drinking," Copley persisted.

"One night."

"I thought one night was all it took for an alcoholic." "I never said I was an alcoholic."

"Come on, ten years without a drink…"

"My body is my temple. I take care of it; it treats me right." He looked at the ADA's definitely softer middle.

"You should try it sometime."

"We're gonna nail her," Copley said.

"Who?"

"Catherine Gagnon. We know that somehow, some way, she was behind it."

"She arranged for me to kill her husband? Murder by police sniper? Come on…" a Copley had a calculating gleam in his eye.

"You know, the Gagnons used to have a housekeeper."

"Really?"

"Marie Gonzalez. Older woman, very experienced. Worked for the Gagnons for the past three years. Know why she was fired?"

"Since I didn't know they had a housekeeper, I obviously don't know why she was fired."

"She fed Nathan a snack. Part of her tuna sandwich. The boy-who is twenty pounds underweight, by the way-was hungry. So Marie gave him some of her sandwich. Nathan wolfed down the entire half. And Catherine fired Marie the very next day. No one other than the nanny is supposed to feed anything to Nathan. Not even if he's starving."

Bobby didn't say anything, but the wheels were once again turning in his mind.

"We're going through the other nannies now," Copley said, almost casually.

"So far, it's a string of strange and sordid stories. How Catherine would disappear for long periods of time. How no sooner did she reappear than Nathan would be sick again. Then there were the soiled diapers she demanded be kept in the refrigerator-"

"Soiled?"

"Filled with shit, to be exact. For six months, each and every one of them went straight into the fridge. Then there were the diets-lists of things he wasn't allowed to eat, lists of things he could only eat. This, combined with strange minerals and herbs and supplements and drugs. I tell you, Officer Dodge, I've been in the business fifteen years, and I've never seen anything like this. No doubt about it, Catherine Gagnon is abusing her son."

"Do you have proof?"

"Not yet, but we'll get it. The security camera was her first mistake."

They were baiting him again. He still couldn't stop himself from asking, "The security camera?"

"For the master bedroom," D.D. supplied.

"It was turned off Thursday night. Except according to the security company, that's not possible."

"I don't get it," Bobby said honestly, finally standing in one place and rubbing the back of his neck.

"The security camera in the master bedroom was set to turn off at midnight; instead, it magically shut down at ten p.m. Catherine gave us some song and dance about the control panel messing up the time. But we talked to the security company. Tuesday, when Jimmy filed for divorce, he contacted the company directly. He told them he had a situation at home-he wanted to be able to monitor the rooms without someone manually overriding the cameras. So the security company reset the whole system, then gave him a new code. As of Tuesday, the control panel was in proper working order, and more importantly, the only person who could alter the system was Jimmy Gagnon."

"So he shut off the camera in the master bedroom?"

"No," Copley said.

"He didn't. She did."

"But you just said she couldn't-" "She couldn't. Which I bet you anything she didn't know, until ten o'clock Thursday night, when her plan went into play. I bet she stood in front of that control panel for ten minutes, trying to figure out why she couldn't override the system, and slowly getting desperate. She has to be in the bedroom. You of all people should know why."

Bobby opened his mouth to protest, but then abruptly, he got it. He got the whole sordid theory. He shut up and simply waited for Copley to finish his spiel.

"You had to be able to see them, Officer Dodge. You had to be able to see Jimmy, who has no history with firearms, suddenly threaten his wife and child with a gun. The big questions, of course, are what got him going, and what-or who-put that gun in his hand. Now that's the kind of stuff Catherine can't afford for us to see. That's the kind of stuff she doesn't want caught on their home security system. So it comes to her. She advances the control panel's clock two hours, and boom, her work is done. The camera thinks it's midnight, and automatically shuts off. She's clever, I'll give her that. Almost too clever for her own good."

Copley switched gears.

"Did you mean to help her, Officer Dodge? Were you just flirting a little at a cocktail party, bragging about your life with the STOP team, trying to make yourself sound good? Or did it go deeper than that? Few little rendezvous later, maybe this whole thing was actually your idea."

"For the last time, I don't remember ever talking to her!" Bobby shook his head, frustrated, fed up. He couldn't even bring any kind of concert event into focus in his mind. Frankly, the functions bored him. He attended on autopilot, pasting on a smile, shaking hands, and counting down the minutes until the evening was done and he could go home, take off the penguin suit and get Susan into bed.

But then, all of a sudden, he did remember something.

"What's the most common kind of call for a team like yours? Bank robberies, hostage situations, escaped felons?"

"Nah. Around here it's mostly domestics. Drunk guy gets all pissed off and starts threatening his own family."

"And that's a SWAT call?"

"If the guy is armed, you bet it is. It's called a domestic barricade, where the family members are considered hostages. We take those calls very seriously, especially if there are reports of shots fired."

It had been a Mardi Gras party, with all the symphony patrons floating around in elaborately feathered masks. Jimmy and Catherine Gagnon had stopped by to congratulate Susan on her performance. Catherine had had her black hair piled on top of her head and was wearing a formfitting gold dress and exotic peacock mask. At first glance, Bobby had been aware of a certain visceral-level response to the stunning costume. Then he'd been too busy watching Jimmy devour Susan with his eyes to pay Catherine much attention.

He'd ended up breaking off the conversation abruptly, leading Susan away with some flimsy excuse or another. Later, they'd shaken their heads at Jimmy's obvious display, feeling that vague sense of moral superiority one couple gets when they meet another couple who is obviously more glamorous, more successful, and more fucked up.

Bobby hung his head. Ah shit, he did not want to remember this now.

"We're going to get her," Copley repeated.

"And you know Catherine's not the kind of woman to take the fall. First sign of real danger, and she's going to cry me a river. You don't want to get caught in that deluge, Officer Dodge."

"Got a deadline?" Bobby shot back, stung.

"Let me guess. It's tomorrow by five."

Copley scowled at him.

"Now that you mention it-" "Yeah, well, there we go. Tomorrow it is. I'll give you a call." Bobby gestured them up, off his dilapidated sofa and out his front door. D.D. was regarding him strangely. He wouldn't look her in the eye.

"One last thing," Copley said, halting in the door frame.

"Where were you last night, between ten p.m. and one a.m.?"

"I was killing Tony Rocco, of course."

"What-" "I was sleeping, you piece of shit. But thanks for insulting me in my own home. Get out."

Copley was still in the doorway.

"This is serious business-"

"This is my life," Bobby said and slammed the door. Robinson made the mistake of answering the phone. Not a good thing these days. Now Robinson had to deal with the caller, and the caller was not happy.

"His instructions were to make it look like an accident or, at the very least, random bad luck-say a carjacking. Carving someone up with a butcher knife does not appear accidental!"

"I told you I couldn't control him."

"The police are crawling all over this. That's going to make things a goddamn mess."

"I don't think he's worried."

"Why? Because he's the world famous "Mr. Bosu? What the hell does that mean?"

"It's apiece of exercise equipment."

"What?"

"Both Sides Up ball," Robinson supplied.

"BOSU ball. It's flat on one side, domed on the other. You balance on it to do squats, or place the domed side down for push-ups. Makes for a good workout inside a confined area."

"You're telling me I've hired a man who thinks he's a piece of exercise equipment?"

Robinson said seriously, "I'm telling you you've hired a man who doesn't mind pain."

The caller was silent for a moment. So was Robinson.

"Is he prepared for the next assignment?" the caller asked finally.

"Working on it now. Of course, there's been a minor wrinkle." Robinson spoke carefully.

"Minor wrinkle?"

"Mr. Bosu has some new terms: Instead often thousand dollars for the new job, he expects thirty."

The caller actually laughed.

"He does, does he? The man just fucked up his very first assignment."

"I don't think he sees it that way."

"Did he at least open a bank account?"

"Mmm, no."

"No?"

"Mmm, he prefers cash."

"Oh, for the love of God. You tell Senior Psycho a few things for me. One, I don't have that kind of cash lying around. Two, he'll get ten thousand dollars and not a penny more. Frankly, he should be happy I'm willing to pay that much, given that we both know I'm only asking him to do something he already wants to do."

"I don't think he's into negotiation."

"Life is negotiation."

Robinson took a deep breath. No way around it now.

"Mr. Bosu sent a note. It says if you want results, it will cost you thirty grand. It says if you don't want results, it will still cost you thirty grand. It says Mr. Bosu knows where you live."

"What? You haven't told him anything, have you? I thought you picked him up in a rental car, gave him a stolen cell phone. There should be no way for him to trace-" "I think he's bluffing. But I can't be positive. I have my contacts. Maybe he has his."

The caller was quiet, breathing hard. Angry? Or fearful? It was hard to be sure. "I would pay him the money," Robinson said very seriously "Or, I would get the hell out of town."

The caller took a noisy breath.

"Tell him there will be no new terms. Tell him I got him out of jail, I can sure as hell put him back."

Robinson was silent for a moment.

"What?" the caller prodded.

"Well, to put him back in jail… you kinda gotta catch him first."

Another pause.

"Shit," the caller said.

"Shit," Robinson agreed.

Mr. bosu had a puppy. He'd had to buy it from a pet store, not his first choice but about all that was available to him on a Sunday afternoon. The shop, with its crowded shelves, cheap linoleum floors, and vaguely antiseptic smell, had given him the heebie-jeebies. Given that just forty-eight hours ago he'd been a victim of incarceration, looking at a bunch of puppies and kitties plopped down in tiny wire cages hadn't done much for him either.

He'd planned on hanging out for a while. Pet stores on a Sunday afternoon, filled with fluffy kitties, soft puppies, and oodles of milling kids, what wasn't to love? But the dispirited air of the place made him cut and run.

Mr. Bosu bought a beagle-terrier mix. The tiny, ecstatic puppy was all white with giant brown patches over each eye, dangling brown ears, and thumping brown tail. He was the cutest little bugger Mr. Bosu had ever seen.

For his new charge, he acquired a leash, a small carrier that resembled a duffle bag, and about five dozen chew toys. Okay, so maybe he'd gone overboard. But the puppy-Patches, maybe?-had gnawed on his chin and nuzzled his neck so enthusiastically, Mr. Bosu pretty much bought anything and everything the puppy so much as sniffed.

Now he had the puppy on the leash and they were both trotting merrily down Boylston Street. The puppy-Carmel? Snow?-appeared absolutely thrilled to be out in the fresh, fall air. Come to think about it, Mr. Bosu was happy, too.

Mr. Bosu and the puppy-Trickster, maybe? Come on, how could you have a puppy without a name?-reached the street corner. Mr. Bosu got out the map tucked into his pocket. A woman paused beside him. She was blonde, beautiful, and dressed entirely in the fall collection of Ralph Lauren. She gave him a stunning smile.

"What a beautiful puppy!"

"Thank you." Mr. Bosu looked around the woman. No kids in tow. He was disappointed.

"What's its name?"

"I just bought him fifteen minutes ago. We're still getting to know one another."

"Oh, he's adorable." The woman was squatting down now, oblivious to the people trying to walk all around them. She scratched the dangling brown ears. The puppy closed his eyes in true puppy bliss.

"Your first dog?" the woman asked.

"I had another when I was a kid."

"Do you live in the city?"

"At the moment."

"It won't be easy to have a puppy in an apartment."

"Fortunately, my job allows me to make my own hours, so it won't be so bad."

"You're really lucky," the woman gushed. She was eyeing his Armani sweater and obviously liking what she saw. He flexed just for the hell of it, and her smile grew.

"What do you do?"

"Kill people," the man said cheerfully.

She laughed, a full, throaty sound. He bet she practiced that at night, just for guys like him.

"No, really," she said.

"Yes, really," he insisted, but then softened the words with a smile.

"I would tell you more," he said, "but then I'd have to kill you, too."

He watched her work it out. Was she amused, frightened, or confused? She glanced at his Armani sweater again, then the puppy-Trickster, he was starting to like Trickster-and decided to go with amused.

"Sounds exciting. Very hush-hush."

"Oh, it is. And you?"

"Recently divorced. He had money, now I'm spending it." "Congratulations! No kids to worry about?"

"Fortunately not. Or maybe unfortunately. There's a lot for money in child support."

"Indeed unfortunate," he agreed. Her eyes were warm, practically glowing as they caressed his chest.

"Maybe we could have dinner sometime," he said. Those were the magic words. The woman whipped out a card with her name and number like a seasoned pro. He slid it into his pocket and promised that he would call her.

Trickster was now peeing on a newspaper stand. Not quite so attractive, so Mr. Bosu tugged on the puppy and they headed on their way. He eyed the map again. Six blocks later, they were there. It was a lovely street, tiny, tucked deep within a maze of roads in downtown Boston. Clearly residential here. The lower level offered a corner grocer, florist, a tiny deli. Upstairs were the apartments. He counted from left to right until he found the number he was looking for. Then he eyed his notes once more. Okay, all was well.

He found a bench by the corner grocer. He tapped the empty place beside him and Trickster jumped up, curling up beside his leg. The puppy made a long, soft sigh, obviously winding down from another hard session of busy puppy work.

The man smiled. He still remembered his first dog, Popeye. A cute little terrier his father had brought home reluctantly from some guy at work. Neither of his parents had been into dogs, but a boy needed a dog, so they brought home a dog. Mr. Bosu was given its complete care and his mother learned to sigh and blink hard when Popeye chewed up her favorite shoes, then went to work on the plastic-covered sofa.

Popeye had been a good dog. They'd run together through the neighborhood, playing endless games of fetch and diving through big piles of leaves.

Mr. Bosu knew what people expected of a guy like him, but he'd never hurt his dog. Never even thought about it. In the silent, little house where he grew up, Popeye had been his best friend.

It lasted five years, until the day Popeye rushed into the street after a squirrel and got flattened by Mrs. Mackey's Buick sedan. Mr. Bosu remembered Mrs. Mackey's horrified scream. Then watching his little dog twitching in the throes of death. There had never even been a question of bringing Popeye to the vet. It had been that bad.

Mr. Bosu had wrapped Popeye in his favorite T-shirt. Then he'd dug a hole in the backyard, burying his dog himself. He hadn't cried. His father had been very proud of him.

Mr. Bosu went to bed early that night, but never slept. He lay wide-eyed in his twin-sized bed, wishing his dog would return to him. Then he had an idea.

He left the house shortly after one a.m. It didn't take him long. People parked their cars in the street, and in a neighborhood like his, no one ever locked the doors. He popped the hood. He used a screwdriver. Punched a few holes. In the end, it was simple and neat.

They said Mrs. Mackey never saw it coming. One minute she was braking for the intersection, the next she was sailing right through the stop sign. The oncoming traffic nailed her at thirty miles an hour. Gave her a concussion and broke several of her ribs, not to mention her hip.

Didn't kill her though. Damn Buick.

Still, it wasn't a bad effort from a twelve-year-old. Of course, he'd gotten much better since then.

Now Mr. Bosu eyed the apartment window up on the second floor. Still no sign of movement. That was okay. He could wait.

He leaned back against the bench. He closed his eyes against the warm sun. He let out a long, low sigh, very similar to Trickster's. Then he scratched his puppy's ears.

Trickster thumped his tail appreciatively. Just a man and his dog, Mr. Bosu thought.

Yeah, just a man, his dog, and his hit list. Bobby went for a run. Daylight was failing. The sunny fall afternoon had come to an end, and the evening loomed dark and cold. Heading out the door, he found himself automatically grabbing his neon yellow running jacket, and that filled him with a sense of relief that was hard to explain. Even after everything he'd been through, his subconscious wasn't trying to kill him just yet. He wondered if he should call Dr. Lane and give her the good news.

He hit the streets, pounding down one long city block and up another. The streets were quiet, people tucked in their homes, preparing for another work week. Lone cars zoomed by here and there, illuminating him briefly before sweeping past.

He planned on running to the old Bath House, an easy five-mile loop from his home. But the Bath House came and went, his feet still churning pavement. He arrived at Castle Island, then swept around the shore's edge, running into the dark.

He wanted to blame James Gagnon for his current mood. Or Catherine Gagnon or even bloodthirsty ADA Rick Copley, so eager to sink his chops into a good, juicy homicide he already had saliva dripping from his teeth.

But in all honesty, he knew what his mood was all about. Tonight, he was thinking about his mother.

It had been so long ago now, he didn't know if the face he recalled was actually hers or some composite carefully crafted by his mind. He had a vague impression: brown eyes, dark hair curling around a pale face, the scent of White Shoulders perfume. He thought he remembered her squatting before him, saying urgently: I love you, Bobby. Or maybe that was merely a product of mental fiction. Maybe she'd actually said, Don't stick your hand in the light socket, son or Don't play with guns.

He didn't honestly know. He'd been six when she'd left. Old enough to hurt, young enough to not understand. Tour mother's gone and she's not coming back. His father had announced it one morning over breakfast. Bobby and George had been chomping away on the sugarcoated Applejacks their mother always refused to buy, and as a kid, that had been Bobby's first thought-Wow, Applejacks every day. His father didn't seem upset, George was nodding solemnly, so Bobby went along.

Later, he'd lie in bed at night, a crushing weight building upon his chest that would still be there when he woke up in the morning. Then there'd been the night he'd heard George yelling at their father. Then there had been the subsequent trip to the emergency room.

After that, no one in their house had spoken of his mother again.

For a long time, Bobby had hated his father. Like George, he'd blamed him for everything. His father who said too little and drank too much. His father who could be very quick with his fists.

When George had turned eighteen, he'd hightailed it out of the state, and he wasn't ever coming back. Maybe that was their mother in him. Bobby would never ask.

But for Bobby it was different. Time did change things. His father changed. Bobby changed. And so did Bobby's impressions of his mother. Now he thought less and less about all the good reasons she had to leave, and wondered more and more why she'd never tried to make any contact. Didn't she miss her two sons at all? Didn't she feel at least a little bit of ache, a little bit of emptiness, where all that love for her children used to be? Bobby's side hurt. He felt a stitch, growing rapidly as his breath heaved in painful gasps. He picked up his step, running anyway, because anything had to be better than standing alone with these kinds of thoughts. If he kept moving, maybe he could outrun his memories. If he kept running, maybe he'd exhaust his mind.

Twelve miles later. Winded. Sweat-soaked. Chilled.

He finally headed for home. Footsteps tired now, but mind still churning.

He wished he could turn back the clock. He wished he could pull his finger off the trigger the second before he sighted Jimmy Gagnon's head. He wished, in fact, he'd never even heard of the Gagnons, because now, for the first time, he wasn't sure anymore what he'd seen, or why he'd done what he'd done, and that was the most frightening thing of all.

Three days later, Bobby wasn't afraid that Catherine Gagnon was a murderer. He was afraid that he was.

Bobby ran home.

He called Susan.

she wanted to meet at a coffee shop. They settled on a Starbucks downtown. Neutral territory for them both.

He spent too much time picking out his clothes. He ended up with jeans and a long-sleeved chambray shirt he remembered too late Susan had given him for Christmas. Finding his wallet, he ran into a photo of them hiking together, and that sent him into another emotional tailspin.

He exchanged the chambray shirt for a dark green jersey and headed for the Pru.

Business, he told himself. It was all about business.

Susan was already there. She'd selected a small table tucked away behind a towering display of silver-and-green logo mugs. Her hair was pulled back in a clip at the nape of her neck. Long blonde strands had already escaped, curling around her face. The moment she saw him, she started tucking the loose tendrils behind her ears, the way she always did when she was nervous. He felt an immediate pang in his chest and did his best to ignore it.

"Evening," he said.

"Evening."

They suffered an awkward moment. Should he bend down and kiss her on the cheek? Should she stand up and give him a friendly hug? Hell, maybe they could shake hands.

Bobby expelled another pent-up breath, then jerked his head toward the counter.

"Gonna get a coffee. Need anything?"

She gestured to the giant, foam-topped mug in front of her.

"I'm fine."

Bobby hated Starbucks. He stared at the menu with its dozen different espresso drinks, trying to figure out how you could make so much money off a coffee shop that offered hardly any plain old coffee. He finally settled on a French roast the perky cashier assured him was dark but smooth.

Bobby took the oversized mug back with him to the table, no-tired that his hands were shaking slightly, and frowned harder.

"So, how have you been?" he asked at last, setting down the mug, taking a seat.

"Busy. The concert and all."

"How's it going?"

She shrugged.

"The normal amount of panic."

"Good." He took a sip of his coffee, felt it sear a bitter trail all the way to his gut, and missed Bogey's with a passion.

"And you?" Susan asked. She still hadn't touched her drink, just kept turning it between her palms.

"Bobby?"

He forced his gaze up.

"I'm hanging in there."

"I thought you would call on Friday."

"I know."

"I read the paper, and I was so… sad. I was sad about what happened and how that must feel for you. All evening on Friday I'd thought you'd call. Then Saturday morning, I thought to check your drawer. Imagine my surprise, Bobby, when I discovered it empty."

His gaze went to the tower of coffee mugs; her eyes bored into his face. "You've never been the most approachable man, Bobby. I used to tell myself that was part of your appeal. The strong, silent type. A regular macho man. Well, I'm not finding it very appealing anymore, Bobby. Two years later, I deserve better than this shit."

The unexpected curse startled Bobby into looking at her again.

Slowly, she nodded.

"Yes, I swear, sometimes I even break things when I get mad. In fact, in the past two days, I've broken quite a few things. It gave me something to do before the investigators came."

Bobby raised his coffee mug. Christ, his hand was shaking.

"Is that why you finally called, Bobby? Not out of concern for me, but because of curiosity over what the investigators said?"

"Both."

"Fuck you!" Her control disintegrated. She was nearly crying now, pushing at her eyes with the heels of her hands, trying desperately not to make a scene in public, but failing.

"I was wrong to walk out on you on Friday," he offered awkwardly.

"No kidding!"

"It wasn't something I planned. I woke up, I looked around… I panicked."

"Did you think I couldn't take it? Is that what this is about?"

"I thought…" He frowned, not sure how to put it in words.

"I thought you deserved better than this."

"What a crock of shit!" Whatever he'd just said, it was the wrong thing, because now she was shaking with rage. She let go of her coffee mug and stabbed a finger at him instead.

"Don't you put this on me! Don't you get all high and noble, Neanderthal male just trying to protect his little woman. That's bullshit! You ran away, Bobby. You never even gave me a chance. The going got rough and you split, plain and simple."

Bobby's own temper started to rise.

"Well, excuse me. Next time I've just shot a man, I'll be sure to put your feelings first."

"I cared about you!"

"I cared about you, too."

"Then why are we sitting here yelling at each other?"

"Because it's all we have left!" He regretted the words the moment he said them. She sat back, clearly stunned, deeply hurt. But then she started to nod, and that hurt him, so they were even.

"You've been waiting for it to end since the minute it started," she said, her voice soft, her hands back to rotating her coffee mug.

"We've never had much in common."

"We had enough to last two years."

He shrugged, feeling even more awkward, and hollow now, in a way he couldn't explain. He wished this scene were over. He wasn't so good with the leaving. He was better when the people were already gone.

"Ask me what you're going to ask me, Bobby," Susan said wearily.

"Quiz your x-girlfriend on what she told the police."

He had the good grace to flush.

"I honestly didn't remember meeting them," he said curtly.

"The Gagnons?" She shrugged.

"Personally, I think they make quite an impression."

"Was it only that one time that we met?"

"I've met them several times at a variety of functions, but the big shindigs… I think you only met them that once."

Bobby felt it was important to say this: "I didn't pay much attention to her."

Susan rolled her eyes.

"Come on, Bobby! She's a gorgeous woman. And with that gold dress and the exotic mask… Hell, even I thought about sleeping with her."

"I didn't pay much attention," Bobby repeated.

"I was too busy watching him watch you. That's what I remember. Some man ogling my girlfriend, right in front of me and his wife."

Susan didn't look convinced, but she finally nodded, cradling her mug.

"Does that bother you?"

"What?"

"You knew Jimmy Gagnon. You thought bad things about him. Then later, you killed him. Come on, Bobby, that's gotta gnaw at your gut."

"But I didn't remember meeting him until after you mentioned it to the police."

She was silent for a moment.

"If it helps any, from what I read in the paper, it sounds like you saved that little boy's life."

"Maybe," he said bleakly, and then, simply because he needed to say the words out loud, "I think the family is going to get me."

"The family?" "Gagnon's parents filed a lawsuit against me. They're going after me for felony murder. As in, if I'm found guilty, I go to jail."

"Oh Bobby…"

He frowned, surprised by how tight his throat had grown, then picked up his coffee and took another bitter sip.

"I think they're going to win."

She closed her eyes.

"Oh Bobby…"

"It's funny. The whole time I've had this job, I've always been so certain. Of what I do, of what I see. Even Thursday night. I never had a doubt. I sat there, lined up my shot and pulled the trigger. Then I told myself I didn't have any other choice.

"What a load of horse shit," he expelled now.

"As if in fifteen minutes or less I could really know or understand what was going on inside a family."

"Don't do this, Bobby."

"Do what?"

"Give up. Blame yourself. Crap out. It's what you do. You're one of the smartest guys on the force, but you never became a detective. Why is that?"

"I like being on STOP-" "You gave up. You and me, a great two years together. But here we are, doing an awkward farewell in the middle of a coffee shop. I don't think we don't have enough in common. I don't think this has to end. But I also know it's over. Because you gave up."

"That's not fair-" "You're a good guy, Bobby, one of the best I've ever known. But there's something dark in you. Something angry. For every step forward, you take two steps back. It's as if half of you genuinely wants to be happy, but the other half won't let go. You want to be angry, Bobby. You need it, somehow."

He pushed his chair back.

"I should be going."

Her gaze was dead-on.

"Yes, run away."

"Hey, I do not want to go to prison!" He was suddenly impatient.

"You don't understand. The truth doesn't matter to a guy like Judge Gagnon. He can take any fact and twist it to be what he needs it to be. If I want to get out of jail, I gotta trade in another life. And I won't do that."

"Catherine Gagnon," Susan guessed softly.

He thinned his lips, not denying it, and Susan slowly but surely shook her head.

"I don't know, Bobby. Sounds to me like you remember Catherine better than you think. Sounds to me like she made quite an impression."

"Not at the cocktail party," he countered harshly, "not when you were with me."

Susan had always been smart.

"Oh God, Bobby, what exactly was it that you saw on Thursday night?" Catherine didn't know what started to spook her. She and Nathan were downstairs in the family room. It was nearly ten o'clock, well past Nathan's bedtime. He didn't seem to want to head upstairs, however, and she didn't have the heart to make him. He lay on the floor amid a mound of pillows, only his head visible above the pile. She'd put in his favorite movie, Finding Nemo. So far, he'd watched it twice.

Catherine spent too much time glancing at the clock, wondering when Prudence would be home.

Finally, just to keep busy, she started messing around in the kitchen. Nathan wasn't allowed chocolate. Instead, she heated up a mug of vanilla-flavored soy milk. He accepted the mug wordlessly, his eyes glued to the TV.

"How does your stomach feel?"

He shrugged.

"Are you hungry?"

Another shrug.

"Maybe you'd like some yogurt."

He shook his head, pointedly staring at the TV.

Catherine retreated once more to the kitchen. Now that she was paying attention, they desperately needed groceries. Soy milk was low, soy yogurt, too. Nathan ate a special gluten-free bread, nearly gone. His organic peanut butter, almost wiped out as well. She started working on a list, then remembered that they had an appointment with the new doctor tomorrow afternoon and paused.

She headed back out of the kitchen, past the bar, and stepped down into the sunken family room.

"Nathan, we need to talk."

Reluctantly, Nathan turned his TV-glazed stare onto her.

"Dr. Tony can't be your doctor anymore."

She hesitated, fully planning on telling the truth, then looked at his drawn face and lost her courage.

"Dr. Tony thinks you need a special doctor. A super-duper doctor. One with superpowers."

Only four years old, Nathan gave her the look of a born skeptic. God, why wasn't Prudence home yet? Sure, she had the whole day off, but did she have to stay out all night too? Didn't she know how much Catherine might need her? Catherine tried again.

"Tomorrow, we're going to see a new doctor. Dr. lorfino. His specialty is little boys just like you."

"New doctor?"

"New doctor."

Nathan looked at her. Then he very deliberately held up his mug of soy milk and poured it out onto the carpet.

Catherine took a deep breath. She wasn't mad at Nathan-not yet-but she felt a growing, displaced rage toward Prudence, who had abandoned her, thereby forcing her to handle this scene.

"That wasn't very nice, Nathan. Only bad boys dump their milk on the rug. You don't want to be a bad boy."

Nathan's lower lip was starting to tremble now. He jutted it out, nodding furiously.

"I'm bad! And bad boys don't go to doctors!"

He had tears in his eyes. Big, unshed tears, that hurt a mother even worse than angry sobs.

"Dr. lorfino's going to help you," Catherine insisted.

"Dr. lorfino is going to get you well. Make you a big kid, so you can play with all the others."

"Doctors don't help! Doctors have needles. Needles don't help!"

"Someday they will."

Nathan looked her right in the eye.

"Fuck doctors!" he said clearly.

"Nathan!"

And then, "I know what you're trying to do," he said in a sly, nasty voice she'd never heard before.

"You're trying to kill me."

Catherine's heart stopped in her chest. She headed back into the kitchen, hoping Nathan wouldn't see how badly her hands were trembling. You're in control now, she kept telling herself. This was the true consequence of Jimmy being dead. No more excuses, no more escapes. Buck stopped with her now. She was in charge.

She got a roll of paper towels and returned to the family room. Nathan looked a great deal less certain. His chin was tucked against his bony chest, his shoulders were up around his ears.

He was waiting for her to hit him. It's what Jimmy would've done.

She held out the roll of paper towels. After another moment, Nathan took it.

"Please wipe up the milk, Nathan."

He remained hunched.

"You know what? You do half, I'll do half. We'll do it together." She took the roll back, briskly ripping off sheets. After another moment, he did the same. She got on her hands and knees. This intrigued him enough to emerge from his cocoon of pillows. She started blotting.

"See, it comes right up."

Slowly but surely, he followed suit.

When they were done, she took the pile of soggy paper into the kitchen and threw it away. In the family room, Nathan ejected the movie. He sat in the middle of the soy-stained rug, still looking small and forlorn.

It was bedtime. Both of them stared at the dark shadows looming at the top of the stairs.

"Mommy," he whispered, "if I go to so many doctors, why don't I ever get better?"

"I don't know. But someday we're going to figure it out, and then you'll get to run around just like all the other kids. Come on, Nathan, it's time for bed."

He reached up his arms. She gave in to his silent request. For a split second, he hugged her hard. For a split second, she hugged him back.

And then, at that moment, she knew what was wrong.

The draft of air. Very cold, very crisp, very outside air drifted down the stairwell. It ruffled Nathan's fine brown hair. And it carried with it the unmistakable odor of death.

For a change, Bobby wasn't asleep. He'd given up on it. Fuck sleep, fuck healthy foods, fuck moderate exercise. He'd taken everything Dr. Lane had told him to do and tossed it out the window. Now he was pacing his family room on exhausted, rubbery legs, gnawing cold pizza, guzzling a liter of Coke, and working himself into a state.

He had messages on his answering machine. A lot from reporters. A few from his team. Bruni invited him to dinner again. Two guys from the EAU asked if he wanted to meet. Everyone calling to check up on the psycho shooter cop. He should be grateful, appreciative. Once on the team, always on the team, that's what they said.

He was resentful. He didn't want their calls, he didn't want their attention. Frankly, he didn't want to be the psycho shooter cop, the unfortunate sniper who'd discharged his weapon in the line of duty and now was screwed for the rest of his life. Fuck the team, fuck camaraderie. None of the rest of them had their butts on the line.

Yeah, he was feeling good and sorry for himself now.

He thought about calling his brother in Florida. Hey, Georgie boy, it's been what, ten, fifteen years? Just thought I'd give you a ring. Oh yeah, I blew some guy away the other day and that reminded me of something. What exactly happened with Mom?

Or maybe he'd call Dr. Lane instead. Good news, I haven't had a drink today. Bad news, I fucked up everything else. Say, if you have a chance to save yourself by ratting out someone else, should you do it? Or is that the kind of thing that'll just drive you insane? He couldn't stand himself in this kind of mood, so edgy he felt as if he were going to burst out of his own skin, so ragged he could barely think. Honest to God, he needed to shoot something.

Instead, his phone rang. He picked it up and he wasn't even surprised anymore.

"This is Catherine," a husky female voice whispered straight out of his dreams and into his ear.

"Come over right away. I think someone's broken into my house. Please, Officer Dodge, I need you."

Then the phone went click and the sound of dial tone filled Bobby's ear.

"Intruder, my ass," Bobby muttered, but then he shrugged. The call solved one problem for him. Now he had an excuse to get his gun.

driving by the Gagnon residence, Bobby expected to feel a creepy sense of deja vu. He didn't. Thursday night it had been all lights, cameras, action. Now, nearly midnight on a school night, the dignified brick neighborhood was quiet, discreet, a proper lady gone to bed with curlers in her hair.

He looked around for a patrol car and was slightly surprised none were about. He would've bet money Copley was having the BPD keep close tabs on Mrs. Gagnon.

Bobby parked twelve blocks away, at the movie theater by Huntington Ave. He made a note of the late shows and when they started. The cool, detached part of his mind found it interesting that he was already building an alibi.

Making the dozen-block hike to Back Bay, the saner part of his mind tried to reason with him. What was he doing? What did he honestly think was going to happen? He didn't buy Catherine's intruder story for a minute. Instead, he was thinking of what Harris had told him. She's going to call you again. She's going to tell you that you're the only hope she has left. She's going to beg you to help her. It's what she does, Officer Dodge; she destroys men's lives.

Would she try to seduce him? Did he care if she did? His career was already in the toilet. He'd had his first drink in ten years and just this evening he'd officially ended things with the woman who was probably the best damn thing that had ever happened to him.

He was footloose and fancy-free. He was feeling reckless, and yeah, more than a little self-destructive. A sordid rendezvous sounded just about right. He could already recall the warm, cinnamony scent of her perfume. The way her fingernails had felt, raking lightly across his chest.

It didn't take too much for his mind to fill in the rest. Her long, pale legs wrapped around his waist. Her strong, lithe body writhing beneath his own. He bet she moved like a pro, moaned like a pro. He bet she was the type of woman who'd do just about anything.

So Harris had been right all along-Jimmy'd been dead only four days, and Bobby already couldn't wait to fuck his wife.

He walked into the neighborhood, head down against the cold, hands thrust deep into the front pockets of his down jacket. A dozen bad seduction scenes ran through his mind, each more sordid than the last.

Then he looked up, saw the fourth-story window, and felt the air freeze in his chest.

Holy shit!

Bobby started to run.

Catherine was downstairs in the lobby. She was curled up at the base of the townhouse's elevator, Nathan pressed tight against her chest, his face buried against her neck. Bobby barely had time to register the irony of it-that this is how Catherine and Nathan had looked on Thursday night, that every time he met this supposed child abuser, she was cradling her son-then he was vaulting for the stairs to her second-story unit, gun in hand.

"You hear gunshots, get out. Head straight for your neighbors', bang on the door, and tell them to call the cops."

He didn't wait to see if she nodded, but bounded up the stairs.

Bursting low and fast through the open front door, he came to an immediate crouching halt beside a fake ficus tree, breathing hard, realizing he was moving too fast, too heedlessly, and now trying to regroup. Face-to-face confrontation was really no different than sniping. The winner was usually the guy who could control his adrenaline the best.

Bobby took another deep breath and steadied his nerves. He'd never been inside the Gagnons' townhouse. Four stories, he'd been told on Thursday night. The Gagnons occupied the top four stories of a five-level townhouse, with the top story being converted to cathedral ceilings.

So he needed to head up.

He gazed around the marble-tiled foyer, identifying what appeared to be a formal parlor to his left and a vast, open expanse of family room and kitchen directly ahead. His back pressed against the wall, two hands holding his nine-millimeter dead center against his chest, he approached the parlor first.

He led with his gun, ducking in low and sweeping the dark, shadowy space. Finally satisfied that it was empty, he departed, closing the door, then moving the fake tree in front of it: he didn't want someone doubling back behind him.

He hit the family room and kitchen next, though he was relatively sure that area would be secure. Too many lights, too much vast, open space. If someone was still in the townhouse, they wouldn't hide here.

For protocol's sake, he cleared the pantry, the walk-in closet, and the laundry room. That left him with the stairs.

He could smell it now. Wafting down the dark, shadowed space. No lights here. Just steps leading to a thicker gloom, and thanks to the unmistakable odor, a bitter, unhappy end.

His heart was pounding again. His palms sweating. He turned his focus inward. Part of the moment, but outside the moment. A predator on a trail. A calm, well-oiled machine doing what it was trained to do.

He drifted up the stairs silently, patient footstep after patient footstep. He came to a small, dark landing. Closed doorway to his left. Open doorway straight ahead. He went through the open doorway first, the smell noticeably fading as he entered the room. He didn't snap on the overhead light-the sudden rush of illumination would leave him exposed-but instead used the dim light seeping through two windows to make out his surroundings. It was a small living suite: bathroom, bedroom, playroom. Nathan's space, judging by the murals of cowboys and bucking broncos decorating the wall. He checked the closet, checked the shower, even thought of the toy chests.

Finally satisfied that no intruder lurked in the shadows, he picked up a discarded shirt of Nathan's and hung it on the doorknob as he shut the door behind him.

Closed-door time. A little riskier, but he was finding the zone now, each movement smoother and more controlled than the last. Go low, turn sideways to present less of a target, open the door and slide inside in one fluid motion.

Another suite of rooms, equally dark. Strictly utilitarian now. Queen-sized bed, old eighties love seat, hand-me-down bedroom furniture. The nanny's quarters, he'd bet. Functional, but not fancy. He was almost sorry he didn't find anything here. Because that left only one place. The vaulted fourth floor. The infamous master bedroom.

Very carefully, Bobby headed up the stairs.

The smell was unmistakable now. Sharp, acrid. Bobby's gun had slipped lower. He wasn't holding it as tightly. Somehow, he didn't think he was going to need it anymore. What had happened in the master bedroom was all about presentation. That's what he'd seen from the street.

The door was wide open. No overhead lights. But candles. Dozens and dozens of flickering little candles, all framing the scene.

The body hung from the rafters in front of where the glass sliders used to be. The plastic had been removed, letting in the breeze. The candles flickered. The body swayed creakily.

Bobby walked around. And the pale, stricken face of Prudence Walker slowly twisted into view. "I need to call it in."

Bobby and Catherine were speaking in hushed tones in the parlor. Bobby had shut up the master bedroom. Then, after a second pass through the residence, he'd escorted Catherine and Nathan back inside; the BPD detectives were going to want to question them at the scene.

Now, Nathan sat in the living room, staring slack-jawed at the TV as his eyelids slowly began to droop. The kid would be asleep in a matter of minutes. Better for him. Better for all of them.

"I don't understand. Prudence hanged herself?"

"So it would appear."

Catherine was still bewildered.

"Why would she do that?"

He hesitated.

"There was a note," he said at last.

"She claimed she was despondent over Jimmy's death."

"Oh, please! Pru didn't give a rat's ass about Jimmy. And he certainly didn't pay attention to her. Let's just say they weren't each other's type."

"Are you saying…?"

"Pru was a lesbian," Catherine supplied impatiently.

"Why do you think I hired her? Anyone else, no matter how old, always ended up in Jimmy's bed, if only just for sport."

Bobby sighed. Ran a hand through his hair. Sighed again.

"Shit."

"There's more in the note, isn't there?"

"It says she couldn't go on living, knowing who really killed Jimmy." He looked Catherine in the eye.

"Her note very clearly targets you."

Catherine expelled her opinion of that in one simple word: "James!"

"You think your father-in-law killed your nanny?"

"Not personally, of course, don't be stupid. But he hired someone, or hired someone to hire someone. That's the way he always works."

"You're accusing a judge of murder?"

"Of course I am! You don't understand. This is perfect for him. The police come, they read the note, and they arrest me. Then James turns up just in time to take custody of Nathan."

Bobby tried to sound reasonable.

"Mrs. Gagnon-" "Catherine! I am not my mother-in-law."

"Look, the judge has already started legal action against you. I think we both can agree that given his money and connections, it's only a matter of time before he wins. Why would he even bother to take a chance with murder?"

"So he can have Nathan tonight."

"Mrs. Gagnon-" "Catherine! You don't know what he's like. James wants total, utter control. Of the money, of Nathan, of me. Who do you think told Jimmy I was abusing Nathan? Who did you think probably first suggested divorce? The judge has never liked me. Maryanne has never liked me. And now they're going to take Nathan, and they're going to get all the money, and I'll have nothing. I'll be all alone."

Catherine's gaze took on an unhealthy light. He had only a second's warning, then she was across the room, striding toward him. Her touch was light, yet the minute her thumb came to rest in the open V of his shirt, his body went hard and the air froze in his lungs.

She reached down and very deliberately raked her nails across his thigh. "I can do things," she murmured.

"Things you've only watched in cheap pornographic movies. Tell me the truth, Officer Dodge: Aren't you tired of the same old, same old? Haven't you always wondered what it would be like to meet a woman with whom you no longer had to pretend?

"Want to rip open my sweater and pinch my nipples? Do it. Want to bite my neck, pull my hair? I don't mind. You don't even have to call me later or make fake proclamations of love. You can take me right here and now, we'll do it doggy style on the floor, or I can bend over on the couch, or maybe you don't want to fuck at all. Maybe you're more oral. That's fine by me. Or maybe"-her throaty voice changed, grew more calculating-"you'd prefer a fantasy."

Her hand tightened suddenly on his crotch, squeezing his balls. He flinched like an uninitiated schoolboy, then, in the next instant, surged against her touch. She laughed huskily, her left hand stroking him hard while her right hand feathered back his hair.

"Would you like the sweet Catholic girl? I'll wear the plaid skirt and knee-high socks. You can have the ruler. Or do you like wild and wicked? Black leather, stiletto boots, cowhide whips. Ever done a sixty-nine? Ever gone round the world? Tell me, Officer Dodge, what do you secretly dream about?"

He said, "Stop."

She merely laughed and worked him harder.

"Oooh, it must be something very special. Bestiality maybe? I can put on a horse tail, utter a few good neighs while you mount. Or is it worse than that? Homoerotic? Or maybe… Some men like it when I reenact for them. Would you like that, Officer Dodge? I can act out for you every single thing he ever made me do. I'll be the little girl and you can be the pedophile."

He didn't get it at first. He was too lost in the moment, the darkness in her finding an unexpected match in the darkness in him. He did want to rip off her clothes. He wanted to throw her down. He wanted to possess her in a way that was violent and raw. He felt as if he'd been pretending his entire life, and only now, in this moment, did he finally feel an emotion that was real.

But then, the full meaning of her words penetrated. A shudder moved through him, cold as ice. He grabbed her right hand, grabbed her left, and twisted them behind her back.

"Don't," he said harshly.

"Ooh, you do like it rough."

"Catherine, what happened to you… it wasn't your fault."

Her eyes widened. In the shadowed room he could see her pupils grow large. She jerked savagely out of his grip. Then she slapped him.

"Don't talk about things you know nothing about!"

Bobby didn't say anything. He was breathing hard. So was she. She spun away from him, walking haughtily across the space. Her gray sweater fell off her shoulder, exposing the black lace of her lingerie. She tugged at the fabric impatiently, still not meeting his eye.

There was something he should say right now, but he couldn't get the words out. He was too rattled, seeing not the woman in front of him, but the little girl who'd been trapped down in the dark.

The desire was long gone now. He felt drained, almost detached. Harris had been right. The little girl who had been cast down into that pit was not the same girl who had finally crawled her way to the top.

"Fine," Catherine announced crisply from across the room.

"You don't want to play nice, I won't play nice. Call the police. By all means, tell them to come here. Let them see you in my home. I'll confess that we're lovers. Have been for months. The whole shooting, in fact, was your idea. Jimmy didn't even have a gun. I had it. I fired the warning shots for the neighbors to hear. Then you showed up, claimed he had a gun, and blew him away. It'll be your word against mine, Officer Dodge. How do you feel about doing twenty-five to life?"

"By tomorrow at five p.m.," Bobby said steadily, "if I don't tell the world that you were threatening your husband on Thursday night, Judge Gagnon has promised to put me in jail."

Catherine chewed on her bottom lip furiously.

"I'll tell them Prudence was sleeping with you, that's why she hanged herself!" She stabbed her finger at him.

"You! You're the one she alludes to in the note. You're the one she knows killed Jimmy, and it broke her heart because you're the love of her life.". "That story would work better if Prudence had hanged herself."

"What?" He finally took pity on her.

"There's no bruising around her throat. No burn marks from the rope, no broken fingernails from frantic clawing at the knot. Hanging's messy business. Prudence is too clean."

"I don't…"

"Someone killed her. Most likely snapped her neck. Then brought her to your bedroom and set the stage."

Catherine paled. She swayed slightly on her feet.

"Boo," she murmured.

"Boo."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"The point is, Catherine, I saw that right away. The BPD detectives will, too."

"What if they think I killed her?"

"Prudence had thirty pounds on you. There's no way you single-handedly strung her from the rafters."

"What about the note?"

"If the hanging's not a suicide, then the note's not a suicide note. By definition, all of its contents are in doubt."

"Oh," she said in a small voice.

"Prudence was murdered, Catherine. It's time to call the cops."

He headed out of the parlor toward the family room, where he'd seen a phone. Catherine stopped him halfway through the doorway.

"Bobby…"

He turned. For the first time since he'd met her, she appeared genuinely uncertain, genuinely fragile.

He regarded her levelly, as curious as anyone what she would do next. She was cold and calculating, no doubt about it. If he hadn't told her the truth about the nanny's death, she would've sold him out. Maybe, in time, she still would. But he couldn't bring himself to hate her. He kept seeing that little girl again, which was maybe her biggest trick. She could play the victim, even while staging her next plan of attack.

"You understand…" She gave up on the apology, waving her hand instead.

"I can't lose Nathan. I can't."

"Why'd you fire the housekeeper for feeding him?"

She didn't seem surprised he'd heard the story.

"Tony Rocco had ordered a strict diet-no wheat, no dairy. Dairy by-products are in everything from cereal to tuna fish. It was simpler to order people not to give him snacks. Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way."

"And the poopy diapers in the fridge?"

"Fecal matter collections to rule out cystic fibrosis. Jimmy kept throwing them out, however, so we had to do it many times."

"People say the boy is sicker when you're around."

She said tiredly, "Nathan is sick all the time, Bobby. Maybe people just notice it more when they have someone around to blame."

"So he really is sick?"

"Yes."

"But Jimmy didn't believe you."

"No. Jimmy's parents told him I was the root of all evil, and as time passed, Jimmy loved me less and believed them more."

Bobby still had to think about it.

"All right," he said quietly, and went to find a phone. D.D. wasn't happy to see him again. He'd called her direct and she was on-scene in twenty minutes, wearing a leather jacket, stiletto boots, and a scowl. The crime-scene techs followed close on her heels.

"You're a fuckin' idiot," she growled as she stormed through the door.

"One suicidal fuckin' idiot."

"Careful. Kid." Bobby jerked his head toward the front parlor, where Catherine now had Nathan fast asleep in his nest of pillows. Bobby didn't know how the kid could sleep through all the chaos, but then, he didn't know anything about kids.

D.D. grimaced. She disappeared upstairs to view the scene for herself. He waited patiently in the foyer, leaning against the wall. More uniforms were coming in now. One fresh-faced kid set himself up discreetly in the entranceway, where he could watch Bobby standing in the foyer and Catherine sitting silently in the parlor. Periodically, Bobby would look over at the rookie and yawn mightily. It was fun to watch the rookie struggle not to yawn back.

Fifteen minutes later, D.D. returned, jerking her head toward a quiet corner. He obediently followed her over for the sidebar. They both understood they had to talk sooner versus later-it was only a matter of time before Copley stalked onto the scene, drawn by the fresh scent of blood.

"What the hell are you doing, Bobby?" D.D. demanded without preamble.

"She called, said there was an intruder in her house and asked me to come over. What was I supposed to do?"

"Call BPD."

"You think they would've taken her seriously? Thanks to Copley, most of the department seems to have her pegged as a murderer."

"Not your concern, Bobby. Your career is your concern, and just to enlighten you, these little stunts don't help you out."

"Funny how many people suddenly care about my career," he murmured.

"Bobby-" "I didn't think there was an intruder," he said.

D.D. finally quieted. Now that he was getting serious, her temper calmed.

"What'd you think?"

He shrugged.

"That it was a ploy. That she wanted to talk to me alone. That she was probably going to lobby me for one thing or another."

"About the shooting?"

"Yeah."

D.D. grunted.

"Better reason for you not to have come."

"Of course. Officer should have no contact with the victim's family poStincident. Think I haven't read the manual? I've read the manual."

"So why did you come?"

"Because I shot this woman's husband, and what the manual doesn't tell you is that leaves you feeling all torn up inside, and yeah, desperate for answers, or maybe even just for someone to say, Officer, you did the right thing. Officer, I forgive you. Officer, you can go on with your life now, it's gonna be okay." D.D. expelled a breath.

"Ah Jesus, Bobby-" Bobby cut her off. He didn't want to hear it anymore.

"I received a call from Mrs. Gagnon shortly after ten-thirty," he said crisply.

"Upon arriving in Back Bay, I parked my car and walked the rest of the way here. Halfway down the block, I saw the silhouette of a body hanging in the fourth-story window. You can say I moved a little quicker.

"Upon entering the lobby of the townhouse, I encountered Mrs. Gagnon and her son curled up on the floor in front of the elevator, obviously fearful. After instructing Mrs. Gagnon and her son to stay put, I took the stairs up to the front entrance of her residence. I entered armed with a fully loaded nine-millimeter, which I am licensed to carry. I conducted a full sweep of the residence, level by level, finishing in the master bedroom, where I walked through the open door to find the body of Prudence Walker swinging from the rafters.

"After reading the note resting upon the mattress, I exited the room, careful not to disturb anything and closing the door behind me with the cuff of my shirt. I then came downstairs and notified Mrs. Gagnon that it was time to call the police."

D.D. mimicked his stilted professional tone back to him.

"And how did Mrs. Gagnon react to the news?"

"She appeared startled that Prudence would hang herself."

"What did she say?"

"That since Prudence was a lesbian, it was highly unlikely that she was Jimmy Gagnon's lover."

"Really?" That caught D.D."s attention. She made a note.

"Do you have confirmation?"

"Well, we could ask Prudence," Bobby said dryly, "but she's dead."

D.D. rolled her eyes.

"What else did you and Mrs. Gagnon discuss?"

"She was concerned about what the police would think of the note. In particular, she and her in-laws are engaged in a custody battle over her son and she feared the police might use the note as an excuse to remove Nathan from her custody."

"Reasonable fear."

"I told her the police were smart enough to realize that the suicide was staged."

"You fucking did not!"

"I fucking did."

"Jesus H. Christ, Bobby, why the hell didn't you hand her evidence to destroy as well?"

"If I hadn't told her that, she wouldn't be here right now, D.D. She'd have grabbed the kid and fled."

"And you would've stopped her."

"How? By pointing my gun at her and her four-year-old son? Somehow, I don't think she would've taken me seriously."

"You had no right to give away details of a scene. You deliberately hampered the progress of this investigation-" "I called you in. Without me, you had nothing."

"With you, we have nothing."

"No, you have a name."

"What name?"

"James Gagnon."

D.D. stopped, blinked her eyes several times, then peered at him in genuine confusion.

"Judge Gagnon? You think he killed Prudence Walker?"

"Catherine thinks he did. Or hired someone to."

"Why?"

"To implicate her in the death of her husband. Ask around, D.D. It's no secret that Judge Gagnon is real distraught over the death of his son. And it's no secret he blames Catherine."

"For God's sake, Bobby, he's a superior court judge-" "Who just yesterday invited me up to his hotel suite, where he offered to drop all criminal charges against me in return for my promise to testify that on the night of the shooting, I heard Catherine deliberately provoke Jimmy into pointing the gun."

"You don't have audio."

"I mentioned that. The judge said not to worry about it. He'd take care of it."

"He'd take care of it?"

Bobby shrugged.

"All he needs is one other guy who was at the scene to say he heard what I heard. The judge has long arms and deep pockets. I'm guessing I'm not the only one receiving his outreach." "Shit," D.D. said heavily.

"I have a deadline-five o'clock tomorrow," Bobby said quietly.

"I can lie about Catherine and watch my legal troubles go away. Or I can tell the truth, in which case, the judge will seek to bury me."

D.D. squeezed her eyes shut.

"Politics and murder. Great, great, great." She opened her eyes.

"Okay, so what are you going to do?"

He was honestly offended.

"You shouldn't have to ask."

"I didn't mean it that way."

"The hell you didn't."

"Bobby-" "We were friends once. I still remember it, D.D. Do you?"

She didn't answer right away. Which was answer enough. Bobby pushed away from the wall.

"Investigate how you need to investigate, D.D. But if you want my two cents, Tony Rocco and Prudence Walker are both dead for the same reason."

"Because they knew Catherine Gagnon."

"Because they were allies of Catherine Gagnon. I spoke to Dr. Rocco the day he died-he fervently believed Catherine wasn't harming Nathan. Catherine trusted him as Nathan's doctor, just as she trusted Prudence to help with Nathan. Now she has no one."

"She has a father," D.D. pointed out.

"Really? I'd send a few patrol cars in his direction. Maybe he's next."

"To be attacked by a knife-wielding butcher or to mysteriously hang himself? Come on, Bobby, the MO's don't even match!"

"He's isolating her."

"He's a well-respected judge who doesn't need to resort to murder. By your own admission, he's got money, influence, and an intimate knowledge of the legal system. Face it, Bobby: if Judge Gagnon wants custody of his grandson, he's going to end up with custody of his grandson. He sure as hell doesn't need to resort to murder."

"Five o'clock deadline," Bobby said.

"The judge wants me testifying tomorrow and he obviously prefers possession of his grandkid tonight. The judge is in a hurry." He grimaced.

"I wonder what's up."

D.D. interviewed Catherine next, sequestered in the front parlor. Bobby wasn't allowed in the room. He roamed the foyer, trying to catch Catherine's muffled replies through the closed parlor door, and wondering why Copley still hadn't shown his ugly mug.

Catherine and Nathan had been out most of the day. Bobby caught that much of Catherine's report. The security system had been set when she'd left; it was still set when she returned. No, she hadn't seen Prudence all day; she assumed the girl had left before she'd gotten up that morning. No, she didn't know much about the girl's local associates or friends. Prudence had a cell phone; that's what Catherine used to reach her. No, she had not tried to contact Prudence all day; she hadn't had a reason.

Catherine didn't know where the candles had come from. She didn't know where the rope had come from. A ladder had also been discovered. Maybe from their storage unit in the basement? She didn't know much about these things; the basement was Jimmy's domain.

Last time she'd been in the master bedroom had been the night before. She'd been concerned about security, so she and Prudence had moved the dresser in front of the broken slider. She hadn't known that anyone had moved it away, and she doubted Prudence would've done so-the dresser had been too heavy for either of them to move it alone.

At this point D.D. asked dryly if the bedroom security camera was on-or did it still not know how to tell time?

Catherine responded stiffly that she hadn't touched the security system at all, but she knew for a fact there would be no video footage from the master bedroom-the police had seized all the tapes.

Having achieved conversational stalemate, D.D. switched to more neutral ground.

Prudence had worked for her for six months, Catherine supplied. She'd been referred by an agency in England. Yes, Catherine had based part of her decision to hire her on the fact that Prudence was gay. Just because she'd come to terms with Jimmy's incessant infidelity didn't mean she was going to encourage him.

She had thought Prudence was an excellent nanny. Quiet, hard-working, discreet. No, the girl had not seemed particularly upset what happened to Jimmy. Did that seem odd to her? Well, the British were known for their reserve.

Prudence had been more concerned about Nathan's health, as she should be.

Had Prudence visited Nathan in the hospital? No, Nathan had been in the I.C.U, where only family members were allowed.

But Nathan had been in the hospital for the past two days. So what had Prudence been doing? Her employer was dead, her charge was in the I.C.U. What was Prudence doing?

For the first time, Catherine hesitated. She didn't know.

Had she seen Prudence? Not really. Catherine had been out a lot-she'd been with Nathan at the hospital.

Had she talked to Prudence? Not much.

So in fact, Prudence could have been quite upset about Jimmy'! death. Prudence could have understandably been terrified about staying alone in a house where a man had been shot. Maybe she'd even harbored a secret crush on Jimmy. He'd been charismatic, charming, handsome. Or maybe, she'd overheard a few things. A girl that quiet, that discreet… Maybe she knew more than she was saying about Thursday night, and that had left the girl extremely upset.

So upset, Catherine countered quietly, that she'd snapped her own neck?

Bobby could pretty much hear D.D."s mental curse through the door. D.D. would be writing up a report this evening; his name would not be mentioned favorably. And with her would go the other few allies he had within the BPD.

Isolation, he thought. Of himself, of Catherine. He wanted to think it was due to choices of his own making. Or was Judge Gagnon really that good?

The interview wound down. Little more D.D. could ask. Little more Catherine would tell.

The door finally opened. D.D. stalked out, looking even angrier than when she'd stalked in. Bobby didn't bother to try to apologize.

He slid up beside her, just as she was walking out the door.

"Get the fuck out of my way, Bobby-" she started.

"I know how the murders are connected," he said. She wasn't going to ask, so he supplied on his own: "Overpowering a grown man and snapping a young girl's neck. Whoever did this is very big and very strong."

D.D. whirled on him with surprising vehemence.

"She's leading you around by the tail between your legs. She's turned you from a good cop into a fucking idiot. Well, you'd better be enjoying the sex, Bobby, because this is the end of your damn career." At two a.m. the whole world was sleeping snug as bugs in their beds. Mr. Bosu thought he'd like to join them. Unfortunately, Trickster had other ideas. The puppy was currently whining in the bathroom, scratching at the door. A part of Mr. Bosu thought, Fuck it. It was only his second night in a real bed on real sheets, for chrissakes. He could spread out his arms and legs. He could bury his face against the mattress and not smell the stink of piss. Like hell he was getting up for some sniveling little dog.