ALEX AND HER PARENTS WERE SEATED in the very back, in a corner booth. It was slightly quieter back there, but still busy enough given a Thursday night at a major Boston restaurant. A waiter had performed the high chair trick—turning it over so that Jack’s car seat fit snuggly between the wooden legs. Alex sat on the right side of the booth, her parents side by side on the left.
Her mom, Patsy, sported a Florida tan, beautiful silver-blond hair, and an elegantly carved face that had obviously served as the model for D.D.’s own. She was wearing linen slacks and a sea foam green sleeveless sweater over a thin white shirt—a snow bird trying to adjust for the northern climate, but forgetting just how cold and bitter January in Boston could be. D.D.’s father, Roy, equally fit and trim, also appeared as if he’d been plucked from the golf course, wearing a navy blue sports jacket over a white-and-blue striped polo shirt.
Alex, as she’d predicted, spotted her first. He wore one of her favorite dark red cashmere sweaters over a black turtleneck. When he saw her, his blue eyes lit up, and the corners crinkled with the full force of his smile.
She faltered. She went to take a step and actually stumbled a little. Because it hit her, halfway across the extremely loud and crowded restaurant, that the most handsome man in the place belonged to her. Smiled for her. Sat patiently, with their baby and her parents, for her.
And it terrified her, because for every ounce of love she felt for him, she felt simultaneously, like a bank of black clouds across the sun, that she wasn’t worthy. That a man this handsome, accomplished, and smart belonged more to the likes of her parents than to the likes of her.
Which pissed her off all over again. All these years later, she did not want to feel that small. Maybe she hadn’t been the child her parents had wanted her to be. But she was the adult she needed to be, and that ought to be enough.
D.D. thrust up her chin and strode across the restaurant.
She arrived in front of the table. Opened her mouth to declare loudly, “Welcome Mom, howdy Dad, have a good flight?”
Just as her pager chimed to life.
ALEX SPOKE FIRST. “Everything okay?”
D.D. unclipped the pager, read the brief message. Closed her eyes. “I gotta go.”
“What?” Her mother, addressing her for the first time, already sounded strident.
“I’m sorry.” D.D. did her best to gather her wits. She leaned over, kissed her mother on the cheek, then her father. When she spoke, however, she looked at Alex, as his expression was easier to take. “Another shooting,” she informed him.
“Same case?”
“Exactly. Near Copley, so at least I’m close.”
“I don’t understand.” D.D.’s mother again.
“I’m in the middle of a major case, a string of murders. Another just happened. I have to go.”
“But…but…you just got here.”
“Apparently, the killer didn’t get that memo.”
“D. D. Warren—”
“Mom,” D.D. held up a hand, strove for a neutral tone of voice. “I appreciate you coming up from Florida. I know it’s cold and you don’t like it here. But…This is my job. I’m not just a detective, I’m the lead investigator. Buck stops here.”
Her father took her mother’s hand, as if to calm her. “Will you be back?”
His voice had a quiver she didn’t remember hearing before. And now, as she looked closer, she saw fresh lines around his eyes, skin sagging beneath his chin, age spots on the backs of his hands. Seventy-eight, it occurred to her. Her parents were seventy-eight years old. Not ancient, but definitely getting up there, and how many more of these trips would they be able to make? How many more years would they have with her and their baby grandson?
“Probably not for dinner,” she whispered.
“So we’ll see you in the morning.”
“I could do an early breakfast, if you’d like, or maybe catch up for lunch if that’s better for you.”
“I don’t understand,” her mother interjected, still sounding disapproving. “It’s seven o’clock at night. You just got off work, now you’re going back to work, and still the best you can do is an early breakfast?”
“Welcome to Boston homicide.”
“What about Jack? You have a baby now. What about him?”