Lisa Gardner - Love You More

Good news for Shane’s widow, I thought, and good news for me .

I heard later that Shane was buried with full honors. The police determined that he must have agreed to meet with Purcell in the back alley. Purcell had overpowered him, then killed him, maybe to eliminate Shane, just as he’d eliminated Brian .

Purcell’s murder remains open, I’ve been told, the weapon having yet to be recovered .

As I explained to Detective D. D. Warren, I don’t know nothing about anything, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise .

S ophie and I live together now in a two-bedroom apartment just down the street from Mrs. Ennis. We’ve never returned to the old house; I sold it in about three hours, because even if it was once a crime scene, it still has one of the largest yards in Boston .

Sophie does not ask for Brian, nor speak of him. Nor does she talk about the kidnapping. I believe she feels she’s protecting me. What can I tell you-she’s a chip off the old block. She sees a specialist once a week. He advises me to be patient and so I am. I view my job now as building a safe place to land for when my daughter inevitably lets go .

She will fall, and I will catch her. Gladly .

I made Brian’s funeral arrangements alone. He’s buried with a simple granite marker bearing his name and relevant dates. And maybe it was weakness on my part, but given that he died for Sophie, that he knew, standing there in our kitchen, the decision I would have to make, I added one last word. The highest praise you can give a man. I had etched, under his name: Daddy .

Maybe someday Sophie will visit him. And maybe, seeing that word, she can remember his love and she can forgive his mistakes. Parents aren’t perfect, you know. We’re all just doing the best we can .

I had to resign from the state police. While D.D. and Bobby have yet to connect me to Shane Lyons’s or John Stephen Purcell’s deaths, there’s still the small matter of me breaking out of jail and assaulting a fellow officer. My lawyer is arguing that I was operating under extreme emotional duress, given my superior officer’s kidnapping of my child, and should not be held responsible for my actions. Cargill remains optimistic that the DA, wanting to avoid too much bad publicity for the state police, will agree to a plea where I serve a probationary sentence, or at worse, house arrest .

Either way, I understand my days as a police officer are over. Frankly, a woman who’s done the things I’ve done shouldn’t be an armed protector of the public. And I don’t know-maybe there is something wrong with me, an essential boundary missing, so that where other mothers would’ve cried for their child, I armed myself to the teeth and hunted down the people who took her instead .

Sometimes, I’m scared by the image that greets me in the mirror. My face is too hard, and even I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve smiled. Men don’t ask me out. Strangers don’t strike up conversations with me on the subway .

Bobby Dodge is right-killing someone is not something to be thankful for. It’s a necessary evil that costs you a piece of yourself and a connection to humanity you never get back .

But you don’t need to feel sorry for me .

I recently started with a global security firm, making more money while working better hours. My boss read my story in the paper and called me with the job offer. He believes I have one of the finest strategic minds he’s ever encountered, with an uncanny ability to foresee obstacles and anticipate next steps. There’s a demand for those kinds of skills, especially in this day and age; I’ve already been promoted twice .

Now I drop off Sophie at school each morning. I go to work. Mrs. Ennis picks Sophie up at three. I join them at six. We eat dinner together, then I take Sophie home .

She and I tend the apartment, do homework. Then, at nine, we go to bed. We share a room. Neither of us sleeps much, and even three months later, we’re still not ready for the dark .

Mostly, we snuggle together, Gertrude nestled between us .

Sophie likes to rest with her head on my shoulder, her fingers splayed in the palm of my hand .

“Love you, Mommy,” she tells me each and every night .

And I say, my cheek pressed against the top of her dark hair: “Love you more, baby. I love you more.”

LISA GARDNER is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen novels. Her Detective D. D. Warren novels include Love You More , Live to Tell , The Neighbor , Hide , and Alone . Her FBI Profiler novels include Say Goodbye , Gone , The Killing Hour , The Next Accident , and The Third Victim . She lives with her family in New England, where she is at work on her next novel.