Love You More - Lisa Gardner [145]
No, Brian had never hit me. My bruised ribs were because I had fallen down icy steps, and, being late for patrol, tended the injury myself. Shane, however, had beat me on Sunday morning, in an attempt to make it look like Brian’s death was self-defense.
No, I didn’t know Trooper Lyons had been shot. What a terrible tragedy for his family. Did they have any leads at this time?
They showed me photos of a thin-faced man with blazing dark eyes and thick brown hair. Yes, I recognized the man as the one I’d discovered in my kitchen on Saturday morning, holding my husband at gunpoint. He’d told me that if I would cooperate, no one would get hurt. So I had taken off my duty belt; at which time, he’d pulled my Sig Sauer and shot my husband three times in the chest.
Purcell then explained that if I wanted to see my daughter alive again, I had to do exactly what he said.
No, I’d never seen Purcell before that morning, nor did I know of his reputation as a professional hit man, nor did I know why he had my husband at gunpoint or what had happened to Sophie. Yes, I’d known my husband had a gambling problem, but I did not realize it had grown so bad that an enforcer had been hired to deal with the problem.
After Purcell had shot Brian, I’d offered him fifty thousand dollars in return for more time before reporting his death. I’d explained I could freeze Brian’s body, then thaw it and call the cops on Sunday morning. I’d still do whatever Purcell wanted, I just needed twenty-four hours to prepare for Sophie’s return, as I’d be in jail for shooting my husband.
Purcell had accepted the deal, and I’d spent Saturday afternoon covering Brian’s body in snow, then retrieving the dog’s body from under the deck, and building a couple of incendiary devices. I tried to rig them to blow back so no one would get hurt.
Yes, I had planned my escape from jail. And no, I hadn’t felt it was safe to disclose to anyone, even to the Boston detectives, what was really going on. For one thing, I didn’t know who’d taken Sophie and I genuinely feared for her life. For another, I knew at least one fellow officer, Trooper Lyons, was involved. How could I know the taint didn’t extend to Boston cops? Or, as the case turned out, to a superior officer?
At the time, I was acting on instinct, carefully trying to do as I’d been instructed, while also realizing that if I didn’t escape and find my daughter myself, chances were she was as good as dead.
D.D. wanted to know who had given me a lift from the search and recovery site. I stared her straight in the eye and told her I’d hitchhiked. She wanted a description of the vehicle. Sadly, I didn’t remember.
But I’d ended up at my father’s garage, where I helped myself to a vehicle. He’d been passed out at the time, in no shape to agree or protest.
Once I had the Ford truck, I’d driven straight to western Mass. to confront Hamilton and rescue Sophie.
No, I didn’t know what happened to Shane that night, or how he came to be shot by Brian’s Glock .40. Though, if they’d retrieved the Glock .40 from the hit man’s house, didn’t that imply that Purcell had done the deed? Maybe someone viewed Shane as another loose end that needed to be wrapped up. Poor Shane. I hoped his wife and kids were doing okay.
D.D. scowled at me. Bobby said nothing at all. We had something in common, he and I. He knew exactly what I’d done. And I think he accepted that a woman who’d already killed three people probably wasn’t going to magically crack and confess, even if his partner used her angry voice.
I did shoot and kill Hamilton’s mistress, Bonita Marcoso. The woman had been assaulting my child. I had to use deadly force.
As for the lieutenant colonel … In killing him, Bobby Dodge had saved my life, I informed D.D. And I wanted to go on record with that. If not for the actions of state detective Bobby Dodge, Sophie and I both would probably be dead.
“Investigated and cleared,” Bobby informed me.
“As it should be. Thank you.”
He flushed a little, not liking the attention. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to be thanked