The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [158]
Years passed. Catherine grew up, straightening her shoulders, growing out her hair, and discovering that she possessed the kind of strange, potent beauty that stopped men in their tracks. She was all pale white skin, straight black hair, and oversized navy eyes. Men wanted her desperately. So she used them indiscriminately. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t their fault. She simply never felt a thing.
Her mother died. 1994. Cancer. Catherine stood at the funeral and tried to cry. Her body had no moisture and her sobs sounded papery and insincere.
She went home to her barren apartment and tried not to think of it again, though sometimes, out of the blue, she would picture her mother standing in the doorway of her room. “Come to bed, Louise. She’ll call if she needs you.”
“Hey, honey. Can you help me find a lost dog?”
November 1998. The Thanksgiving Miracle curled up naked in her white ceramic tub, her thin, bony body trembling from the cold, as she clutched a single razor in her fist. Something bad was going to happen. A darkness beyond darkness. A buried box from which there would be no coming back.
“Come to bed, Louise. She’ll call if she needs you.”
“Hey, honey. Can you help me find a lost dog?”
The blade, so slender and light in her hands. The feel of its edge, kissing her skin. The abstract sensation of warm red blood, lining her skin.
The phone rang. Catherine roused herself from her lethargy long enough to answer it. And that single call saved her life. The Thanksgiving Miracle rose again.
She thought about it now. As the TV blared in the background: An armed suspect has barricaded himself in his home after taking numerous shots at his neighbors. Boston SWAT officials consider the situation highly volatile and extremely dangerous.
As her son sobbed in her arms. “Mommy, mommy, mommy.”
And as her husband bellowed from below: “I know what you’re doing, Cat! How stupid do you think I am? Well, it’s not going to work. There’s no way in hell you’re going to get away with it. Not this time!”
Jimmy stormed up the stairs, heading for their bedroom.
The phone had saved Catherine Gagnon before. Now she prayed it would save her once again. “Hello, hello, nine-one-one? Can you hear me? It’s my husband. I think he’s got a gun.”
CHAPTER TWO
BOBBY HAD BEEN a member of the Massachusetts State Police Special Tactics and Operations Team (STOP) for the past six years. Called out at least three times a month—and generally every damn holiday—he thought very little could surprise him anymore, but tonight he was wrong.
Roaring through the streets of Boston, he squealed his tires taking a hard right up Park Street, heading for the golden-domed State House, then threw his cruiser left onto Beacon, flying past the Commons and the Public Gardens. At the last minute, he almost blew it—tried to head up Arlington straight for Marlborough, then realized as a guy who generally drove around Boston and not through it, that Marlborough was one way the wrong way. Like any good Masshole driver, he slammed on his brakes, cranked the wheel hard, and laid on his horn as he cut across three lanes of traffic to remain on Beacon. Now his life was tougher, trying to pick up the right cross street to head up to Marlborough. In the end, he got it right the first time—he simply followed the white glow of floodlights and the flashing red lights of the Advanced Life Support Ambulance.
Arriving at the corner of Marlborough and Gloucester, Bobby processed many details at once. Blue sawhorses and Boston PD cruisers had already isolated one tiny block in the heart of Back Bay. Yellow crime scene tape was strewn across several brownstone houses and uniformed officers were taking up position on the corners. The ALS ambulance was now on scene, and so were several vans from the local media.
Things were definitely starting to rock and roll.
Bobby double-parked his Crown Vic just outside a blue sawhorse, jumped out the door, and jogged around to his trunk. Inside he had everything a well-trained police sniper might need for a party. Rifle,