Lisa Gardner - Catch Me

“I don’t think so.”

He picked up his keys, ignoring me completely, as I knew he would do.

“Got a surprise for you-” he started.

I lunged around the end of the counter. Two steps, half pivot, left hand up, eye-to-eye with my opponent. Jab, jab, jab to his nose, fingers curled tight, thumb to knuckles. Tom didn’t get his hands up. He didn’t defend himself against this surprising attack from a girl. He didn’t defend himself against me.

Final blow. Overhand right to the head. I pivoted my back leg and rolled my shoulder into it. My fist, bearing the extra weight of a tight bundle of coins, connected with the side of Tom’s head.

He went down. First collapsing at the knees, then swaying, before finally toppling back and to the side. His shoulder cracked against the hard wood of the kitchen cabinets. I winced, closing my eyes before I caught myself.

If you can attack the man who three hours before would’ve been your lover, the man who would still be your lone defender in the world, then you can damn well keep your eyes open and absorb the blow.

He crumpled on the floor. I shook out both of my hands, my knuckles and wrists already aching from impact. But that’s the point of training-it prepares you for the pain, enables you to soldier through.

Not much time now.

Nightfall. January 21.

I laid out Tom on the floor. Checked his pulse to make sure it was steady, found a pillow for beneath his head. Then I swapped out my dark jacket for a lined L.L. Bean camouflaged hunting coat I’d found in his closet. I wrapped his brown scarf around my neck, catching the scent of his soap and cologne. I pulled another brown knit cap low over my head. Conducted one last check of my pockets.

Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.

I kissed his forehead. Gently. Tenderly. Regretfully.

Then, because I was only human, and my eyes were burning and my resolve shaking, I moved away.

I know Tom would’ve helped me. For that matter, I could probably partner with Detective Warren as well. But I didn’t want to. From the first moment D.D. had said my baby sister was still alive and coming for me, I’d known what I must do. The next few hours would be deeply personal.

A matter of family business.

I left a note, scrawled earlier with a brief apology that would never be enough. I took Tom’s keys, exited his apartment.

I got a fresh shock in the dimly lit parking lot. The low sound of a dog whining, which grew louder as I approached Tom’s police cruiser. There, in the front seat, staring at me through the windshield: Tulip.

He’d started to say he had a surprise for me. My dog. Tom had searched the city for Tulip and brought her to me.

Possibly, my eyes blurred as I worked the key remote for the police cruiser, opening the door, releasing the dog who was definitely my dog and feeling the solid weight of her as she hurled herself against my shaking form. I scooped her up and held her close. I was sorry for her, and sorry for Tom and sorry for my baby sister, whom I still loved, and sorrier still for my aunt, who might even now be paying for my sins.

I closed the police cruiser door. Too conspicuous.

Instead, I located Tom’s dark green Ram truck, and opened both doors. Tulip rode shotgun.

We set off into the night.

Twenty years later. Once the victim, now the cavalry.

D.D. CALLED NEIL AND PHIL into her office for an emergency meeting. In the next thirty minutes, she needed to report to her boss, the deputy superintendent of homicide, about the latest developments involving possible criminal actions taken by a fellow investigator, Detective O. First, D.D. wanted to get her ducks in a row.

She started without preamble. “Where the hell is Detective O, what did she do, and why didn’t we figure this out sooner?”

Phil went first. Given that O wasn’t answering her cell phone, returning official pages, or replying to requests for contact from police dispatch, chances were she’d gone rogue. They hadn’t issued a full BOLO yet, but word was out among Boston cops: if anyone spotted Detective O or her Crown Vic, they should contact HQ immediately.

In the meantime, Phil was blitzing his way through her official file. Given her young age and limited time on the job, it made for quick reading. O had joined Boston PD two years prior, transferring from a smaller jurisdiction in the burbs. Was known for her hard work and tireless dedication. Perhaps a bit rigid in her approach, perhaps didn’t always play well with others, but the sex crimes investigator also got results with some pretty tough cases in a pretty tough field.

Certainly, nothing in her annual eval suggested that she was a nutcase waiting to crack.

“On the other hand,” Phil reported, “she spent eight years living in Colorado, including the time frame when Charlene worked in Arvada dispatch, and Christine Grant’s body was discovered.”

D.D. sat across from her squadmates, totally poleaxed. “She did it. I’ll be damned, but O-or Abigail, or whatever the hell her name is-killed her own mother. Told me all about it, too. That she’d held a pillow over her face and suffocated her, just as her mother had suffocated her own babies.”

“Why?” Neil asked.

“When we find her, we’ll have to ask.” D.D. chewed her lower lip. “We need Charlene. We need more info on twenty years ago, and the final incident, which left Charlene nearly dead, and her mother and younger sister on the run. Only thing that makes sense. Something happened, maybe her mother snapped, actually tried to kill Charlene instead of just maim her. Then panicked, grabbed the younger kid, and hit the road.”

Neil spoke up. “I don’t get it. How did Charlene forget an entire sister? How did the police, investigating that ‘final incident,’ never figure out there was another kid?”

D.D. shrugged. “We know Christine Grant had two babies that were off the record. I’m guessing Charlene’s younger sister, Abigail, makes three. As for the police investigation, the comment that struck me most in the official report was that there was nothing in the rental house that indicated a family had even lived there. No toys, no clothes, no…stuff. Sounds to me like Mommy Grant wasn’t just psychopathic, but truly, genuinely bona fide crazy. As in not fit to take care of herself or others. I’m wondering more and more how much of that load eight-year-old Charlene shouldered. Only to then be stabbed and left for dead. I gotta say, I can’t really blame her for not wanting to dwell on those happy times.”

“So Christine Grant is whacko enough to murder two babies, but then sane enough to try to raise two others?” Neil clearly remained skeptical.

D.D. thought about it. “O asked Charlene if she was the good kid. She implied that maybe baby Rosalind and baby Carter were fussy and that’s why they had to die.” She looked at her squadmates. “Knowing what we know now, maybe that’s how the story was told to her, by their mother. Be good, and I’ll let you live. Act up, whine, defy me, and…”

“Except at some point, Abigail did turn against her own mother,” Phil said. “In fact, you just said she probably killed her.”

“Sure. Think about it. For the first eight years, Charlene served as her mother’s target of choice-to be broken and repaired at will. Want to believe that Mommy Grant gave up her Munchausen’s ways just because she lost her eldest daughter? I bet she simply picked back up with daughter number two. Meaning Abigail now got to eat shattered glass and drink liquid Drano. Meaning Abigail now got to learn just how much a mother’s love can burn.”

D.D. sighed, her voice turning somber. “Munchausen’s is most common with children who are very young. Babies, toddlers, who are unable to speak up in their own defense. Once Abigail reached a certain age, however, chances are she didn’t submit as willingly to having her fingers smashed in doorways. Chances are, she started to come up with some tricks of her own. God knows she learned from a master.”