Love You More - Lisa Gardner [0]
The Perfect Husband
The Other Daughter
The Third Victim
The Next Accident
The Survivors Club
The Killing Hour
Alone
Gone
Hide
Say Goodbye
The Neighbor
Live to Tell
Love You More
Love You More is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Gardner, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gardner, Lisa.
Love you more : a novel / Lisa Gardner.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90811-4
1. Police—Massachusetts—Boston—Fiction. 2. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3557.A7132L68 2011
813′.54—dc22 2010042093
www.bantamdell.com
Cover design: Scott Biel
Cover photo: portrait of a woman by Jason Homa/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images
v3.1_r1
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Exclusive Sneak-Peek
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Who do you love?
It’s a question anyone should be able to answer. A question that defines a life, creates a future, guides most minutes of one’s days. Simple, elegant, encompassing.
Who do you love?
He asked the question, and I felt the answer in the weight of my duty belt, the constrictive confines of my armored vest, the tight brim of my trooper’s hat, pulled low over my brow. I reached down slowly, my fingers just brushing the top of my Sig Sauer, holstered at my hip.
“Who do you love?” he cried again, louder now, more insistent.
My fingers bypassed my state-issued weapon, finding the black leather keeper that held my duty belt to my waist. The Velcro rasped loudly as I unfastened the first band, then the second, third, fourth. I worked the metal buckle, then my twenty pound duty belt, complete with my sidearm, Taser, and collapsible steel baton released from my waist and dangled in the space between us.
“Don’t do this,” I whispered, one last shot at reason.
He merely smiled. “Too little, too late.”
“Where’s Sophie? What did you do?”
“Belt. On the table. Now.”
“No.”
“GUN. On the table. NOW!”
In response, I widened my stance, squaring off in the middle of the kitchen, duty belt still suspended from my left hand. Four years of my life, patrolling the highways of Massachusetts, swearing to defend and protect. I had training and experience on my side.
I could go for my gun. Commit to the act, grab the Sig Sauer, and start shooting.
Sig Sauer was holstered at an awkward angle that would cost me precious seconds. He was watching, waiting for any sudden movement. Failure would be firmly and terribly punished.
Who do you love?
He was right. That’s what it came down to in the end. Who did you love and how much would you risk for them?
“GUN!” he boomed. “Now, dammit!”
I thought of my six-year-old daughter, the scent of her hair, the feel of her skinny arms wrapped tight around my neck, the sound of her voice as I tucked her in bed each night. “Love you, Mommy,” she always whispered.
Love you, too, baby. Love you.
His arm moved, first tentative stretch for the suspended duty belt, my holstered weapon.
One last chance …
I looked my husband in the eye. A single heartbeat of time.