Love You More: A Novel

“Well?” D.D. asked immediately.

The ME, mid-forties, stoutly built, with buzz-cut steel gray hair, hesitated. He crossed his arms over his burly chest. “We have recovered organic matter and bone consistent with a body,” he granted.

“Sophie Leoni?”

In answer, the ME held out his gloved hand, revealing a slender fragment of white bone, approximately two inches long and smeared with dirt and bits of leaves. “Rib bone segment,” he said. “Full length would be consistent with a six-year-old.”

D.D. swallowed, forced herself to briskly nod her head. Bone was smaller than she would’ve imagined. Impossibly delicate.

“Found a clothing tag, size 6T,” Ben continued. “Fabric remnants are mostly pink. Also consistent with a female child.”

D.D. nodded again, still eyeing the rib bone.

Ben moved it to one side of his palm, revealing a smaller, corn-sized kernel. “Tooth. Also consistent with a prepubescent girl. Except … no root.” The ME sounded puzzled. “Generally when you recover a tooth from remains, the root is still attached. Unless, it was already loose.” The ME seemed to be talking more to himself than to D.D. and Bobby. “Which I suppose would be right for a first-grader. A loose tooth, coupled with the force of the blast … Yes, I could see that.”

“So the tooth most likely came from Sophie Leoni?” D.D. pressed.

“Tooth most likely came from a prepubescent girl,” Ben corrected. “Best I can say at this time. I need to get the remains back to my lab. Dental X-ray would be most helpful, though we have yet to recover a skull or jawbone. Bit of work still to be done.”

In other words, D.D. thought, Tessa Leoni had rigged an explosive powerful enough to blow a tooth right out of her daughter’s skull.

A flake of snow drifted down, followed by another, then another.

They all peered up at the sky, where the looming gray snow clouds had finally arrived.

“Tarp,” Ben said immediately, hurrying toward his assistant. “Protect the remains, now, now, now.”

Ben rushed away. D.D. retreated from the clearing, ducking behind a particularly dense bush, where she leaned over and promptly dry-heaved.

What had Tessa said? The love D.D. currently felt for her unborn child was nothing compared to the love she’d feel a year from now, or a year after that or a year after that. Six years of that love. Six years …

How could a woman … How could a mother …

How did you tuck in your child one moment, then search out the perfect place to bury her the next? How did you hug your six-year-old good night, then rig her body with explosives?

I love my daughter, Tessa said. I love my daughter.

What a fucking bitch.

D.D. dry-heaved again. Bobby was beside her. She felt him draw her hair back from her cheeks. He handed her a bottle of water. She used it to rinse her mouth, then turned her flushed face to the sky, trying to feel the snow upon her cheeks.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s get you to the car. Time for a little rest, D.D. It’s going to be okay. Really. It will be.”

He took her hand, pulling her through the woods. She trod dispiritedly behind him, thinking that he was a liar. That once you saw the body of a little girl blow up in front of your eyes, the world was never okay again.

They should head for HQ, get out before the rural road became impassable. She needed to prepare for the inevitable press conference. Good news, we probably found the body of Sophie Leoni. Bad news, we lost her mother, a distinguished state police officer who most likely murdered her entire family.

They reached the car. Bobby opened the passenger-side door. She slid in, feeling jumbled and restless and almost desperate to escape her own skin. She didn’t want to be a detective anymore. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren hadn’t gotten her man. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren hadn’t rescued the child. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was about to become a mother herself, and look at Tessa Leoni, trooper extraordinaire who’d killed, buried, and then blown up her own kid, and what did that say about female police officers becoming parental units, and what the hell was D.D. thinking?

She shouldn’t be pregnant. She wasn’t strong enough. Her tough veneer was cracking and beneath it was simply a vast well of sadness. All the dead bodies she’d studied through the years. Other children who’d never made it home. The unrepentant faces of parents, uncles, grandparents, even next door neighbors who’d done the deed.

The world was a terrible place. She solved each murder only to move on to the next. Put away a child abuser, watch a wife beater get released the next day. And on and on it went. D.D., sentenced to spend the rest of her career roaming backwoods for small lifeless bodies who’d never been loved or wanted in the first place.

She’d just wanted to bring Sophie home. Rescue this one child. Make this one drop of difference in the universe, and now … Now …