Love You More: A Novel

He remained standing there, staring at her. She had one hand splayed across her lower abdomen. How had he never noticed that before, he the former sniper? The way she cradled her belly, almost protectively. He felt stupid, and realized now he’d never needed to ask the question. He knew the answer just by looking at the way she was standing: She was keeping the baby. That’s what had her so terrified.

Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was going to be a mom.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said.

“Oh God!”

“D.D., you have been great at everything you’ve ever wanted to do. Why should this be any different?”

“Oh God,” she said again, eyes wilder.

“Can I get you anything? Water? A pickle? How about ginger chews? Annabelle lived on ginger chews. Said they settled her stomach.”

“Ginger chews?” She paused. Appeared a little less frantic, a little more curious. “Really?”

Bobby smiled at her, crossed the room, and because it felt like the right thing to do, he gave her a hug. “Congratulations,” he whispered in her ear. “Seriously, D.D. Welcome to the ride of your life.”

“You think?” She looked a little misty-eyed, then surprised them both by hugging him back. “Thanks, Bobby.”

He patted her shoulder. She leaned her head into his chest. Then they both straightened, turned to the whiteboard, and got back to work.





21


I stood, my hands shackled at my waist, as the district attorney read off the charges. According to the DA, I had deliberately and willfully shot my own husband. Furthermore, they had reason to believe I may have also killed my own daughter. At this time, they were entering charges of Murder 1, and requesting I be held without bail, given the severity of the charges.

My lawyer, Cargill, blustered his protest. I was an upstanding state police trooper, with a long and distinguished career (four years?). The DA had insufficient evidence against me, and to believe such a reputable officer and dedicated mother would turn on her entire family was preposterous.

The DA pointed out ballistics had already matched the bullets in my husband’s chest to my state-issued Sig Sauer.

Cargill argued my black eye, fractured face, and concussed brain. Obviously, I’d been driven to it.

The DA pointed out that might have made sense, if my husband’s body hadn’t been frozen after death.

This clearly perplexed the judge, who shot me a startled glance.

Welcome to my world, I wanted to tell him. But I said nothing, showed nothing, because even the smallest gesture, happy, angry, or sad, would lead to the same place: hysteria.

Sophie, Sophie, Sophie.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth.

I was going to burst into song. Then I would simply scream because that’s what a mother wanted to do when she pulled back the covers of her child’s empty bed. She wanted to scream, except I’d never had a chance.

There had been a noise downstairs. Sophie, I’d thought again. And I’d sprinted out of her bedroom, running downstairs, racing straight into the kitchen, and there had been my husband, and there had been a man holding a gun against my husband’s temple.

“Who do you love?” he’d said, and that quickly, my choices had been laid out for me. I could do what I was told and save my daughter. Or I could fight back, and lose my entire family.

Brian, staring at me, using his gaze to tell me what I needed to do. Because even if he was a miserable fuckup, he was still my husband and, more importantly, he was Sophie’s father. The only man she’d ever called Daddy.

He loved her. For all his faults, he loved us both.

Funny, the things you don’t fully appreciate until it’s too late.

I’d placed my duty belt on the kitchen table.

And the man had stepped forward, ripped my Sig Sauer from the holster, and shot Brian three times in the chest.

Boom, boom, boom.

My husband died. My daughter had disappeared. And me, the trained police officer, stood there, completely shell-shocked, scream still locked in my lungs.

A gavel came down.

The sharp jolt jerked me back to attention. My gaze went instinctively to the clock: 2:43 p.m. Did the time still matter? I hoped it did.

“Bail is set at one million dollars,” the judge declared crisply.

The DA smiled. Cargill grimaced.

“Hold steady,” Shane muttered behind me. “Everything’ll be okay. Hold steady.”

I didn’t dignify his empty platitudes with a response. The troopers’ union had money set aside for bail, of course, just as it assisted with the hiring of a lawyer for any officer needing legal assistance. Unfortunately, the union’s nest egg was hardly a million bucks. That kind of funding would take time, not to mention a special vote. Which probably meant I was out of luck.

Like the union was going to get further involved with a female officer accused of murdering her husband and child. Like my sixteen hundred male colleagues were going to vote affirmative on that one.