Love You More: A Novel

D.D. sighed, crossed her arms over her chest. She glanced over at Bobby, not quite meeting his eye, but looking in his general direction. “What’d you learn at the gym?” she asked.

“Brian had spent the past nine months following a vigorous exercise regimen designed to bulk up. Personal trainer swore he wasn’t doing steroids, just putting in blood, sweat, and tears. She only heard him say good things about his wife, but thought that having a state trooper for a spouse was tough on the guy. Oh, and in the past three weeks, since returning home from his last tour, Darby was definitely in a mood, but not willing to talk about it.”

“What do you mean by ‘in a mood’?”

“Personal trainer said he seemed darker, temperamental. She’d asked a couple of times, guessing trouble on the home front, but he wouldn’t comment. For what it’s worth, that makes him something of a novelty. Apparently, most clients pour out their souls while working out. Go to a gym, enter a confessional.”

D.D. perked up. “So something was on his mind, but Darby wasn’t talking about it.”

“Maybe he discovered his wife was having an affair,” Neil commented from the back. “You said when he returned, meaning, he’d just left his wife all alone for sixty days.…”

“In addition to the rec room on the ship,” Phil spoke up, “there’s a computer room for the crew. I’m working on the warrant now to get copies of all of Darby’s ingoing and outgoing e-mail. Might find something there.”

“So Tessa meets another man,” D.D. mused, “decides to off her husband. Why homicide? Why not divorce?”

She posed the question generally, a challenge to the room.

“Life insurance,” an officer spoke up.

“Expediency,” said another. “Maybe he threatened to fight a divorce.”

“Maybe Darby had something on her, threatened to make trouble if she divorced him.”

D.D. wrote down each comment, seeming particularly interested in the third bulletin. “By her own admission, Tessa Leoni is an alcoholic, who’d already killed once when she was sixteen. Figure if that’s what she’s willing to admit to, what isn’t she willing to say?”

D.D. turned back to the group. “Okay, then why kill her daughter? Brian’s a stepdad, so he doesn’t have grounds to challenge for custody. It’s one thing to end a marriage. Why kill her own kid?”

Room was slower with this one. Of all people, it was Phil who finally ventured an answer: “Because her lover doesn’t want kids. Isn’t that how these things work? Diane Downs, etc., etc. Women kill their children when their children are inconvenient for them. Tessa was looking to start a new life. Sophie could not be part of that life, so Sophie had to die.”

No one had anything to add to that.

“We need to identify the lover,” Bobby murmured.

“We need to find Sophie’s body,” D.D. sighed more heavily. “Prove once and for all just what Tessa Leoni is capable of.”

She set down her marker, looked over the whiteboard.

“All right, people. These are our assumptions: Tessa Leoni killed her husband and child, most likely sometime Friday evening or Saturday morning. She froze her husband’s body in the garage. She disposed of her daughter during a Saturday afternoon drive. Then she reported to work—most likely while unthawing her husband’s body in the kitchen—before returning home, letting her lover beat the shit out of her, and calling her fellow state troopers. It’s some story. Now get out there, and find me some facts. I want e-mails and phone messages between her and her lover. I want a neighbor who noticed her unloading ice or shoveling snow. I want to know exactly where Brian Darby’s white Denali traveled to on Saturday afternoon. I want Sophie’s body. And if this is indeed what happened, I want Tessa Leoni locked up for life. Any questions?”

“Amber Alert?” Phil asked, as he rose to his feet.

“We keep it active until we find Sophie Leoni, one way or the other.”

The taskforce understood what she meant: until they found the child, or until they recovered the child’s body. The detectives filed out of the room. Then it was just Bobby and D.D., standing together, alone.

He pushed away from the wall first and headed for the door.

“Bobby.”

There was just enough uncertainty in her voice to make him turn.

“I haven’t even told Alex,” she said. “All right? I haven’t even told Alex.”

“Why not?”

“Because …” She shrugged. “Because.”

“Are you going to keep the baby?”

Her eyes widened. She motioned frantically to the open door, so he humored her by closing it. “Now see, this is why I didn’t say anything,” she exploded. “This is precisely the kind of conversation I didn’t want to have!”