Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,13
going to start laughing. And once I do, I’ll never stop.
My poor baby, my poor, poor baby.
Conrad.
Mr. Delaney promises to meet me at the courthouse. He reminds me to say nothing. He tells me I have medical rights as well as the right to speak to my attorney at any time. You’re going to get through this, he says gently. Hang tough. Be smart.
Like last time?
When the call ends, the older detective returns. He gives me a disappointed look. I’ve ruined his interrogation, proven that I’m no fun at all.
Then Officer Bob returns, unshackles me from the table, and off we go. Suffolk County Jail.
I sit in the back of the patrol car, my eyes drifting shut with exhaustion. Conrad, face breaking into a smile as he sees me for the first time. Conrad, fingers shaking uncontrollably as he tries to slip the simple gold wedding band on my finger at the courthouse. Conrad, the look at on his face as we both stare wide-eyed at the pregnancy stick.
Conrad, collapsed in his desk chair, half his head sprayed across the wall behind him.
A thousand moments. A hundred memories. Some that felt completely right. Some that I know by now were totally wrong. And yet …
I loved you, I think, and my hands curls once more around my belly. Not just my baby—our baby. The best of both of us, at least that’s what all parents hope for.
Even my parents, once upon a time.
The patrol car stops, slows, turns, comes to a halt. Outside the windows, I can see nothing but the harsh glare of too many lights. The kind designed to rob even the purest soul of all secrets.
South Bay House of Correction.
This is it.
• • •
I GREW UP in a beautiful home in Cambridge. A historic Colonial with dark-stained wood trim, a gorgeous curved bannister, and bull’s-eye molding around a matching set of front bay windows. My mother is partial to richly colored oriental rugs, silk-covered wingback chairs, and decorative tables that hold cut-crystal decanters and silver serving trays.
Do not touch was one of the first phrases I ever learned. Followed shortly by: No running in the house. Comb your hair. Chew with your mouth closed. Sit straighter. Stand taller.
Do not embarrass your father was never actually said, but always implied.
My father wasn’t merely a Harvard professor. By the time I was born, he was already considered one of the greatest mathematical minds of his generation. Bachelor’s in psychology, master’s in computer science, doctorate in statistics. He held honorary degrees from universities all around the world and his office was wallpapered in various awards. We didn’t just have dinners at our house; we had standing Friday night poker games where my father and his fellow geniuses traded discourses on chaos theory, data mining, and string theory, all while vying to see who could count cards.
To the best of my memory, very few women ever attended these nights. There were female mathematicians, of course, as well as physicists, computer scientists, engineers, but not that many. Or maybe my mother didn’t go out of her way to include their company. Accomplished, brilliant females rubbing shoulders with her husband … ? I don’t know. For most of this, I was just a kid.
I understood my father was a great man. I assumed, judging by the quality of our home and the size of my mother’s pearl necklace, that we led a life that others envied. Certainly, I spent my days in an elite boarding school where my teachers were suitably impressed by my own intelligence, while having to break the news to my father that I was no mathematical prodigy. Gifted, definitely. I had a fighting chance at understanding a fraction of the conversations I greedily eavesdropped on every Friday night. But my father, his mind, his intellect … he was a mystery to me till the bitter end.
He loved me. He took pride in my straight-A schoolwork. And he would sit for hours in the front room, his eyes closed as I ran through Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. He said when I played the piano, he could hear the math pouring out. There is a high degree of correlation between math and music. So maybe for me math wasn’t the classroom. Math was the piano, and the notes, scales, tones I found without even trying, and played obsessively day after day.
My father told me I was brilliant.
Back in those days, sitting at the baby grand in the front parlor, I believed him.