Carla Neggers - The Mist

Boston, Massachusetts

6:25 p.m., EDT

August 25

The late afternoon sun beat down on the sidewalk in front of the triple-decker where Bob had lived for the past three years. There was no shade and no breeze. Sweat trickled down his temples and stuck his shirt to the small of his back. The firefighters had put out the fire and torn up and hosed down what they needed to, creating a big mess but saving the building, at least structurally. Abigail’s and Scoop’s back porches were cinders. Her apartment would have to be gutted to the studs. Hard to say yet about the other two places. They’d have to get the insurance people out here.

At least no one found any other bombs.

Ever since the ambulance had left with Scoop, bloodied, in rough shape, Bob had made it clear he was in charge of the investigation. He’d gotten through the major briefing with city, state and federal law enforcement personnel held on the street outside the crime scene tape. He had detectives canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses, processing the scene, putting together rudimentary timelines.

The working theory had dirtbag, or dirtbags, slipping into the backyard of the triple-decker and placing an explosive device under the small gas grill on Abigail’s first-floor porch. Since she and Owen rarely used the grill and, given their busy lives, spent little time sitting out on the porch, the bomb could have been there for a few days, a few hours. It had been detonated by a remote-controlled switching device.

The bomb in Owen’s car had to have been placed there after he’d arrived on Beacon Hill. Otherwise he’d have blown up when he turned the key leaving Abigail’s apartment that morning.

According to Fiona, Bob’s warning had given Scoop a split second to grab her and dive behind the compost bin.

Saved by dirt and kitchen scraps.

Only Scoop.

They’d all done the drills. What happens if police officers are targeted by a series of bombs?

This, Bob thought. This is what happens.

He was satisfied that people were doing what they were supposed to, except the idiot who’d thought it would be okay to tell his ex-wife, the mother of their three daughters, where to find him.

Tight-lipped and drawn, Theresa O’Reilly glared at him under the hot sun. “Never again.” She pointed a blunt-nailed finger at him in that way she had. “Do you understand me? Never again.”

Bob let her anger bounce off him. Getting into it with her never worked. “Fiona doesn’t want to go home with you and the girls.”

“I don’t care what she wants. She’s not going back to her apartment.”

“Whoa. I’m with you, Ter.”

Without consulting either parent, their eldest daughter had decided to sublet an apartment for the summer with three of her musician friends. The bomb squad had been through their place in Brighton but hadn’t found anything. They’d also checked the South Boston waterfront apartment where his sister, Eileen, Keira’s mother, was house-sitting after giving up her crazy life in the woods. She’d left Bob a message on his cell phone saying she was praying for everyone’s safety. That was good. He’d surprised himself by saying a prayer himself.

For Abigail, he thought. For her safe return.

Theresa’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.” She was shaking, her teeth chattering. “It’s awful. This whole thing.”

Bob felt terrible. “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry, too.”

She was chief of operations at a high-tech firm in suburban Lexington. They’d met when he was a patrol officer and she was an office temp with big dreams. They’d stuck together until Jayne, their youngest, was four. That was seven years ago. He’d tried marriage again two years later, for about three seconds. Theresa hadn’t remarried, but she had a boyfriend. Another executive. She’d sworn off cops after Bob.

He couldn’t stand his ex-wife’s fear. “Dyeing your hair these days, Ter?”

“Go to hell. And don’t call me ‘Ter.’ It’s Theresa.”

“Okay. It’s Theresa.”

She sighed, dropping her arms to her sides. Her hair was a honey-blond-total dye job, he was sure-and she had lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth, but she looked good. The years hadn’t been so kind to him. He needed to take off a few pounds, and there were brown spots on his arms and face that hadn’t been there before. He was a redhead. His doctor was always on him about sunscreen.

Yeah. How about burning his face off in a fire? What would sunscreen do for that?

“Bob?”

“I’m tuned in, Ter. Just waiting for your next shot.”

She shook her head at him. “Bastard.” She touched his arm, briefly. “Are you all right?”

“Never better.”

He glanced at the black FBI SUV where BPD detectives were reinterviewing Fiona. She’d had a break and sat in the air-conditioning for a while, had something to eat and drink. Now she was slumped against the SUV and back at it.

Enough already.

“Wait here,” Bob told his ex-wife. “I’ll spring Fi as soon as I can. It’ll be a few minutes.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He knew she was true to her word. For all the ways they irritated each other, she was a devoted mother. His legs felt wobbly as he headed for the SUV. Adrenaline dump. Nothing a couple of shots of Jameson’s wouldn’t cure. They’d help the guilt, too. Theresa had wanted him to go to night school and become a lawyer like John March. All those years ago, begging him. She’d never liked police work. She’d never gotten used to the anxiety or believed the statistics. “You carry a gun to work, Bob,” she’d told him. “What more do I need to know?”

No answer to a question like that. What more did Theresa need to know?

He saw Tom Yarborough make his way over to her. Yarborough had been a rock since the explosion, professional, focused, but not unemotional. He and Abigail had worked together for eight months and were always butting heads. Bob had straightened out a few disagreements between them, but they both were top-notch homicide detectives who respected each other. Abigail was just easier to get along with.

Theresa was dabbing a tissue at her eyes now. Bob couldn’t take tears and turned his attention to his daughter.

Fiona had gone through her ordeal first with him, in the initial hysteria as the paramedics were working on Scoop, and then in more detail, with more control, with Yarborough and Lucas Jones. Lucas was Abigail’s former partner. He’d been promoted to lieutenant last fall and moved over to narcotics. Since Norman Estabrook was in cahoots with drug traffickers, Lucas said he should be in on the investigation. He was still with Fiona as she slumped against the side of the SUV. He’d left a picnic with his young family in Roxbury to head to the scene. He was built like a sparkplug and relished being a professional more than a tough guy. But he could be both.

“How you holding up, kid?” Bob asked his daughter.

She gnawed on her lower lip. “Okay.”

“She’s wrung out,” Lucas said, “but she’s doing great.”

If Bob had to pick someone to interview his daughter, it’d be Lucas. The guy was a peach as well as one of BPD’s finest detectives. But Bob didn’t want Fiona talking to cops. He wanted her back with her friends, playing Irish drinking songs.

Down the street, Simon Cahill arrived and showed his FBI credentials to a uniformed BPD officer. He had two FBI suits with him who’d obviously been assigned to keep him alive, but he split off from them and walked over to the SUV. He looked cool, unfazed by the action around him, but that, Bob had learned, was Simon. Even so, he wasn’t the affable man who’d danced and sung to Irish tunes with Keira in the triple-decker’s backyard two months ago. A yard that was now charred, wet, bloody and filled with crime scene investigators.