Love You More - Lisa Gardner [118]
D.D. was flabbergasted, honestly flabbergasted. Who knew Tessa’s suburbanite playmate had it in her?
“One hair in your car, and you’re screwed,” D.D. said.
Juliana made a show of slapping her cheeks. “OhmyGod, so sorry. Did I mention that I vacuumed? Oh, and just the other day, I read the best trick for washing your car. It involves ammonia.…”
D.D. stared at the housewife. “I’m going to arrest you for that alone,” she said finally.
“Then do it.”
“Tessa shot her husband. She dragged his body down into the garage, and she buried it in snow,” D.D. snapped angrily. “Tessa killed her daughter, drove her body out to the woods, and rigged it with enough explosives to take out the recovery team. This is the woman you’re trying to protect.”
“This is the woman you thought killed my brother,” Juliana corrected. “You were wrong about that. Not so hard to believe you’re wrong about the rest of it, too.”
“We are not wrong—” D.D. started, but then she stopped. She frowned. Something occurred to her, the niggling doubt from earlier in the woods. Oh, crap.
“I’ve gotta make a phone call,” she said abruptly. “You. Sit. Take even one step from that sofa and I’ll arrest your sorry ass.”
Then she nodded at Bobby and led him to the front porch, where she whipped out her cellphone.
“What—” he started, but she held up a silencing hand.
“Medical examiner’s office?” she spoke into the receiver. “Get Ben. I know he’s working. What the hell do you think I’m calling about? Tell him it’s Sergeant Warren, because I bet you a hundred bucks he’s standing over a microscope right now, thinking Oh shit.”
34
My father’s garage had never been very impressive, and ten years hadn’t improved it any. A squat, cinder-block building, the exterior paint was the color of nicotine and peeling off in giant flakes. Heating had always been unreliable; in the winter, my father would work under cars in full snow gear. Plumbing wasn’t any better. Once upon a time, there’d been a working toilet. Mostly, my father and his male friends peed on the fence line—men, marking turf.
Two advantages of my father’s shop, however: first, a bullpen of used cars awaiting repair and resell; second, an acetylene torch, perfect for cutting through metal and, coincidentally, melting cellphones.
The heavy front door was locked. Ditto with the garage bay. Back door, however, was open. I followed the glow of the bare bulb to the rear of the garage, where my father sat on a stool, smoking a cigarette and watching my approach.
A half-empty bottle of Jack sat on the workbench behind him. It’d taken me years to realize the full extent of my father’s drinking. That we didn’t go to bed by nine p.m. just because my father got up so early in the morning, but because he was too drunk to continue on with his day.
When I gave birth to Sophie, I’d hoped it would help me understand my parents and their endless grief. But it didn’t. Even mourning the loss of an infant, how could they fail to feel the love of their remaining child? How could they simply stop seeing me?
My father inhaled one last time, then stubbed out his cigarette. He didn’t use an ashtray; his scarred workbench got the job done.
“Knew you’d come,” he said, speaking with the rasp of a lifetime smoker. “News just announced your escape. Figured you’d head here.”
So Sergeant Warren had copped to her mistake. Good for her.
I ignored my father, heading for the acetylene torch.
My father was still dressed in his oil-stained coveralls. Even from this distance I could tell his shoulders remained broad, his chest thickly muscled. Spending all day with your arms working above your head will do that to a man.
If he wanted to stop me, he had brute strength on his side.
The realization made my hands tremble as I arrived at the twin tanks of the acetylene torch. I took the safety goggles down from their nearby hook and set about