Love You More

31

When the first explosion rocked the sky, D.D. was halfway across the clearing, striding toward the snowy mound where Quizo barked with excited intent. Then the world went white.

Snow sprayed up and out in a giant concussive boom. D.D. just got her arms up and it still felt like being hit by a thousand stinging needles. Quizo’s deep bark turned into an immediate bay of distress. Someone screamed.

Then, another rocking explosion and several more cries, while D.D. was knocked back on her ass, head buried behind both arms to shield herself.

“Quizo, Quizo,” someone was crying. Probably Nelson.

“D.D., D.D., D.D.,” someone else was crying. Probably Bobby.

She got her eyes open in time to see Bobby charging across the clearing, legs plunging through the snow, face ashen with panic. “Are you all right? Talk to me, D.D. Talk to me, dammit.”

“What, what, what?” She blinked. Shook ice and snow from her hair. Blinked again. Her ears were ringing, filled with a sense of pressure. She cracked her jaw, trying to release it.

Bobby had reached her side, clutching her shoulders.

“Are you okay are you okay are you okay?” His lips moved. It took another second for his words to penetrate the buzz in her head.

She nodded weakly, pushing him back so she could inventory her arms, legs, and most importantly, her torso. By and large, she appeared to be in one piece. She’d been far enough away and the snow had cushioned her fall. She wasn’t hurt, just dazed and confused.

She let Bobby help her to her feet, then triaged the rest of the damage.

The snowy rise targeted by Quizo’s keen nose had disintegrated. In its place was a brown hollow of earth, covered in shredded bits of tree, leaves, and-heaven help them-pink fabric.

Quizo was off to one side, muzzle buried in the snow, whimpering and panting. Nelson stood over his dog, hands gently holding the shepherd’s ears as he whispered low, soothing sounds to his distressed pet.

The other search dogs had halted in their tracks and were howling at the sky.

Officer down, D.D. thought. The dogs were telling the world. She wanted to bay with them, until this terrible feeling of rage and helplessness eased in her chest.

Cassondra Murray, team leader, already had her cellphone out and in clipped tones was summoning a vet. Other BPD officers were swarming the scene, hands on holsters, searching for signs of immediate threat.

“Stop!” Bobby yelled suddenly.

The officers stopped. The dog handlers froze.

He was looking around them in the snow. D.D., still cracking her jaw against the ringing in her ears, did the same.

She saw pieces of hot pink fabric, a shred of blue jeans, what might have been a child’s tennis shoe. She saw red and brown and green. She saw… Pieces. That was the only word for it. Where there had once been the buried remains of a body, there were now pieces, sprayed in all directions.

The entire clearing had just become a body recovery site. Meaning every single person needed to evacuate in order to limit cross-contamination. They needed to contain, they needed to control. And they needed to immediately contact the ME’s department, let alone busloads of crime-scene techs. They had bits of human remains, they had hair and fiber, they had… they had so much work to do.

Dear God, D.D. thought vaguely, her ears still ringing, her arms still stinging. The dogs howling, howling, and howling.

She couldn’t… It couldn’t…

She looked down and realized there was a puff of pink now stuck to her boot. Part of a coat maybe, or a girl’s favorite blanket.

Sophie Leoni with big blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. Sophie Leoni with brown hair and a gap-tooth smile who loved to climb trees and hated to sleep in the dark.

Sophie Leoni.

I love my daughter, Tessa had stood here and said. I love my daughter.

What kind of mother could do such a thing?

Then, all of a sudden, D.D.’s brain fired to life and she realized the next piece of the puzzle:

“Officer Fiske,” she yelled urgently, grabbing Bobby’s arm. “We need to alert Officer Fiske. Get him on the radio, now!”

Bobby already had his radio out, hit the button to transmit. “Officer Fiske. Come in, Officer Fiske. Officer Fiske.”

But there was no reply. Of course there was no reply. Why else would Tessa Leoni demand to personally escort them to the body? Why else rig her own child with explosives?

D.D. turned to her fellow investigators.

“Officer down!” she shouted, and as a group they plunged back through the woods.

Afterward, it all seemed so obvious, D.D. couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it coming. Tessa Leoni had frozen her husband’s body for at least twenty-four hours. Why so long? Why such an elaborate plan to dispose of her daughter’s remains?

Because Tessa Leoni hadn’t been just dumping a corpse. She’d been planting her get-out-of-jail-free card.

And D.D. had played right into her hand.

She’d personally checked Tessa Leoni out of the Suffolk County Jail. She’d personally driven a suspected double-murderer to a remote location in central Mass. Then she’d personally escorted a canine team to a body rigged with explosives, allowing Tessa Leoni to disappear into the wild blue yonder.

“I am such a fucking idiot!” D.D. exclaimed two hours later. They remained at the wilderness site, Boston police and local sheriff’s department vehicles stacked up for a good three hundred yards.

Ambulance had arrived first, EMTs attempting to treat Officer Fiske, but then, when he waved them off, embarrassed, ashamed, and otherwise not ready to play well with others, they’d tended to Quizo instead. Poor dog had suffered a ruptured eardrum and singeing to the muzzle from being closest to the blast. Eardrum would heal naturally, just as it would in humans, the EMTs assured Nelson.

In the meantime, they’d be happy to drive the dog to his vet. Nelson had taken them up on that deal, obviously very shaken. The rest of the SAR team packed up his truck, including the mournful Kelli and Skyler. They would debrief with D.D. in the morning, team leader Cassondra had assured her. But for now, they needed to regroup and decompress. They were accustomed to searches that ended in tangible discoveries, not homemade explosives.

With the SAR team departing, D.D. got on the phone to Ben, the state medical examiner. Had body parts, definitely needed assistance.

So it went. Officers had withdrawn. Evidence techs had advanced.

And the search for former state police trooper Tessa Leoni, now officially a fugitive from justice, kicked into high gear.

According to Fiske, he’d forgotten to reshackle her ankles (another shamefaced admission that would no doubt lead to a pint of whiskey later tonight). Tessa had also grabbed his keys, meaning there was a good chance she’d freed her wrists.

She’d taken his cellphone, but not his sidearm, which was good news for the fugitive recovery team, and probably a narrow escape from death for Fiske (a second pint of whiskey, probably tomorrow night). Tessa was last seen in an unzippered black BPD jacket, and a thin orange jumpsuit. On foot, no supplies, no hat or gloves, and in the middle of nowhere to boot, no one expected the woman to get far.

Adrenaline would carry her over the first mile or two, but soft snowfall made for exhaustive running, while providing a trail a blind man could follow.

Fugitive recovery team geared up, headed out. An hour of daylight left. They expected it to be enough, but were armed with searchlights in case it was not. Twenty officers against one desperate escapee.

They would get the job done, the lead officer had promised D.D. No child killer would be running on his watch.

D.D.’s turn to be shamefaced, but no pint of whiskey for her later tonight. Just another crime scene to process and a taskforce to debrief and a boss to update, who was probably going to be very unhappy with her, which was okay, because currently, she was very unhappy with herself, as well.

So she did what she always did: headed back to the scene of the crime, with Bobby at her side.

The ME had his staff on-site, suited up and delicately depositing body parts into red-marked biohazard bags. Evidence techs followed in their wake, collecting other detritus, which hopefully included pieces of the incendiary device. Not too hard to rig homemade explosives in this day and age. Took about ten minutes on the Internet and a quick trip to the local hardware store. Tessa was a bright woman. Assemble a couple of pressure-sensitive devices, then place them in the snowy hollow with the body. Cover and wait.

Dogs and police arrive. Tessa retreats. Bombs go ka-boom. Her guard goes Say What? And Tessa seizes the opportunity to take down a fellow officer and hit the road.

Hello, injured search party. Goodbye, BPD.

As far as D.D. was concerned, each piece of evidence now recovered was another nail in Tessa Leoni’s coffin, and she wanted them all. She wanted them all.

Ben looked up at Bobby and D.D.’s approach. He handed over his bag to one of his assistants, then crossed to them.

“Well?” D.D. asked immediately.

The ME, mid-forties, stoutly built, with buzz-cut steel gray hair, hesitated. He crossed his arms over his burly chest. “We have recovered organic matter and bone consistent with a body,” he granted.

“Sophie Leoni?”

In answer, the ME held out his gloved hand, revealing a slender fragment of white bone, approximately two inches long and smeared with dirt and bits of leaves. “Rib bone segment,” he said. “Full length would be consistent with a six-year-old.”

D.D. swallowed, forced herself to briskly nod her head. Bone was smaller than she would’ve imagined. Impossibly delicate.

“Found a clothing tag, size 6T,” Ben continued. “Fabric remnants are mostly pink. Also consistent with a female child.”

D.D. nodded again, still eyeing the rib bone.

Ben moved it to one side of his palm, revealing a smaller, corn-sized kernel. “Tooth. Also consistent with a prepubescent girl. Except… no root.” The ME sounded puzzled. “Generally when you recover a tooth from remains, the root is still attached. Unless, it was already loose.” The ME seemed to be talking more to himself than to D.D. and Bobby. “Which I suppose would be right for a first-grader. A loose tooth, coupled with the force of the blast… Yes, I could see that.”

“So the tooth most likely came from Sophie Leoni?” D.D. pressed.

“Tooth most likely came from a prepubescent girl,” Ben corrected. “Best I can say at this time. I need to get the remains back to my lab. Dental X-ray would be most helpful, though we have yet to recover a skull or jawbone. Bit of work still to be done.”

In other words, D.D. thought, Tessa Leoni had rigged an explosive powerful enough to blow a tooth right out of her daughter’s skull.

A flake of snow drifted down, followed by another, then another.

They all peered up at the sky, where the looming gray snow clouds had finally arrived.

“Tarp,” Ben said immediately, hurrying toward his assistant. “Protect the remains, now, now, now.”

Ben rushed away. D.D. retreated from the clearing, ducking behind a particularly dense bush, where she leaned over and promptly dry-heaved.

What had Tessa said? The love D.D. currently felt for her unborn child was nothing compared to the love she’d feel a year from now, or a year after that or a year after that. Six years of that love. Six years…

How could a woman… How could a mother…

How did you tuck in your child one moment, then search out the perfect place to bury her the next? How did you hug your six-year-old good night, then rig her body with explosives?

I love my daughter, Tessa said. I love my daughter.

What a fucking bitch.

D.D. dry-heaved again. Bobby was beside her. She felt him draw her hair back from her cheeks. He handed her a bottle of water. She used it to rinse her mouth, then turned her flushed face to the sky, trying to feel the snow upon her cheeks.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s get you to the car. Time for a little rest, D.D. It’s going to be okay. Really. It will be.”

He took her hand, pulling her through the woods. She trod dispiritedly behind him, thinking that he was a liar. That once you saw the body of a little girl blow up in front of your eyes, the world was never okay again.

They should head for HQ, get out before the rural road became impassable. She needed to prepare for the inevitable press conference. Good news, we probably found the body of Sophie Leoni. Bad news, we lost her mother, a distinguished state police officer who most likely murdered her entire family.

They reached the car. Bobby opened the passenger-side door. She slid in, feeling jumbled and restless and almost desperate to escape her own skin. She didn’t want to be a detective anymore. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren hadn’t gotten her man. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren hadn’t rescued the child. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was about to become a mother herself, and look at Tessa Leoni, trooper extraordinaire who’d killed, buried, and then blown up her own kid, and what did that say about female police officers becoming parental units, and what the hell was D.D. thinking?

She shouldn’t be pregnant. She wasn’t strong enough. Her tough veneer was cracking and beneath it was simply a vast well of sadness. All the dead bodies she’d studied through the years. Other children who’d never made it home. The unrepentant faces of parents, uncles, grandparents, even next door neighbors who’d done the deed.

The world was a terrible place. She solved each murder only to move on to the next. Put away a child abuser, watch a wife beater get released the next day. And on and on it went. D.D., sentenced to spend the rest of her career roaming backwoods for small lifeless bodies who’d never been loved or wanted in the first place.

She’d just wanted to bring Sophie home. Rescue this one child. Make this one drop of difference in the universe, and now… Now…

“Shhh.” Bobby was stroking her hair.

Was she crying? Maybe, but it wasn’t enough. She pressed her tearstained cheek into the curve of his shoulder. Felt the shuddering heat of him. Her lips found his neck, tasting salt. Then it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lean back and find his lips with her own. He didn’t pull back. Instead, she felt his hands grip her shoulders. So she kissed him again, the man who’d once been her lover and one of the few people she regarded as a pillar of strength.

Time suspended, a heartbeat or two when she didn’t have to think, she only had to feel.

Then, Bobby’s hands tightened again. He lifted her up and gently set her back, until she sat squarely in the passenger seat and he sat in the driver’s seat and at least two feet loomed between them.

“No,” he said.

D.D. couldn’t speak. The enormity of what she’d just done started to penetrate. She glanced around the small car, desperate for escape.

“It was a moment,” Bobby continued. His voice sounded rough. He paused, cleared his throat, said again: “A moment. But I have Annabelle and you have Alex. You and I both know better than to mess with success.”

D.D. nodded.

“D.D.-”

Immediately, she shook her head. She didn’t want to hear anything more. She’d fucked this up enough. A moment. Like he said. A moment. Life was filled with moments.

Except she’d always had a weakness for Bobby Dodge. She’d let him go, then never gotten over him. And if she spoke now, she was going to cry and that was stupid. Bobby deserved better. Alex deserved better. They all did.

Then, she found herself thinking of Tessa Leoni and she couldn’t help but feel the connection again. Two women, so capable in their professional lives, and such total fuckups in their personal ones.

The radio on the dash crackled to life. D.D. snatched it up, hoping for good news.

It was the search team, Officer Landley reporting in. They’d followed Tessa’s trail for two and half miles, as she’d run down the snow-packed rural road to the larger intersecting street. Then her footsteps had ended and fresh tire tracks had begun.

Best guess: Tessa Leoni was no longer alone and on foot.

She had an accomplice and a vehicle.

She had disappeared.