my binoculars and stand, stretching out my cramped legs.
But before I climb down, I take out a folded piece of paper from the pocket of my jeans. I carefully open it.
It’s that drawing Alex made in first grade that I just discovered tonight, of him and me floating together in outer space, the destination of his dreams.
As my eyes begin to water, all these months of pain and stress and work and agony finally coming to an end, I hold the paper to my chest.
And I look up at the night sky, a blanket of blackness dotted with a trillion points of light.
Alex, I think, you are floating in the stars. You made it after all. May you find peace and comfort and love.
Someday, I will be there beside you. Just like you dreamed.
But not yet.
1 minute
It’s my very favorite time of the day. The world outside my window is calm. Peaceful. Quiet.
It’s not quite night but not yet dawn. And I’m not quite asleep but not yet awake.
I snuggle a little more into Mason’s strapping arms. He mumbles happily and hugs my body tighter.
I nuzzle his shoulder, just above the scar from the bullet wound he got well over a year ago now, during that fateful raid on the farm.
The one that resulted in the arrest of Abe McKinley and three surviving associates, who were sentenced to a combined 136 years in federal prison, at the US Penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas.
But all of that’s in the past now. Ancient history. Our family farm has been paid off. The guilty have been punished. And life has carried on.
For the first time in a long while, I feel relaxed. Rested. At ease. I breathe in my husband’s sweet musk. I run my finger up and down his collarbone.
I could stay like this forever, I think.
And then, I hear something. A noise coming from inside the house.
I could wake Mason to handle it. But should I?
I glance at the clock on his side of the bed—his holstered sidearm and FBI badge beside it. It’s just after 5:00 a.m.
No, I decide. I’ll let him sleep.
I slip out of bed and tiptoe down the hall. The sound is getting louder.
I finally reach a door that’s slightly ajar: the door to Alex’s old bedroom. The door I once couldn’t even fathom opening.
But this morning, I drowsily push it open and enter without a second thought.
I’m used to it by now, but the space is so different from how it once was. Fresh paint, different carpet, new furniture. It’s almost unrecognizable as my son’s former bedroom.
Because now it’s my new daughter’s nursery.
Little Abby is wailing in her crib. “There, there,” I coo, picking her up and bouncing her gently in my arms. “What’s wrong?”
I fed her a few hours ago, so I know she can’t be hungry. I check her diaper; she doesn’t need to be changed. The room is a comfortable seventy-two degrees, so she can’t be hot or cold. What could it be?
As Abby continues crying, I get an idea.
I open the closet, revealing stacks and stacks of comic books. Alex’s beloved old comic books. Those, of course, I couldn’t throw away in a million years.
I pick one at random and open to the first colorful page. As if by magic, Abby stops crying, captivated by the words and pictures, groping for them with her tiny hands.
“You know,” I whisper, “your brother used to like these, too.”
And then I begin to read.
“The Amazing Spider-Man. This one’s called…‘Brand New Day.’”
The 13-Minute Murder
James Patterson
with Shan Serafin
Chapter 1
Strolling through the halls of Harvard University, plotting the murder of one of its more notable students, mulling over my options—poison, piano wire, maybe a knife—I had to stop and ask myself the obvious question: How would Anna Karenina do it?
I mean, what exactly is the most acceptable form of murder in today’s multicultural salad of etiquette? Victim under the wheels of a train? Too noticeable. Poison in a sandwich? Too risky. Sniper fire? No. Tomorrow would be windy.
“Limits,” I muttered.
If you’re going to kill the son of a mob boss in the middle of an Ivy League campus, you want to be decorous.
“Crosswind is too high,” I added. “Second shot might nick him, but first one ends up in a bystander.”
“Yeah,” Milt said. “It can’t be a distant hit.” He described the only option we had left in two simple words. “It’s gotta be arm’s reach.”