Patricia just smiled. She’d spoil them all right, and when they finally died, she’d get everything.

She could do a lot with everything.

*

That evening Essie and her fiancé hosted a summer barbecue in the little backyard of the house she’d talked herself into buying when she made detective.

It squeezed her budget, but by God, it made her happy to have her pretty three-bedroom house with its small, cheerful yard.

And since Hank had moved in, the budget could breathe just a little easier—and everything was happier.

Right now she had a house and a yard full of cops and teachers—with some family and neighbors tossed in. And it worked pretty damn well.

Hank, adorable to her eye with his trim goatee, scholarly glasses, and WILL COOK FOR SEX bib apron, manned the grill. He’d also made the potato salad, the deviled eggs, and other sides. She’d peeled and chopped, even stirred, but Hank’s apron spoke truth—and he’d proven himself a damn good cook.

She poured herself a margarita—those she could make—and watched the man she loved joke with her former partner.

She and Barry hadn’t parted ways, not personally, when she’d traded her uniform for a gold shield. It made her feel settled to see how well the cop she liked and respected blended with her man.

Maybe it surprised her that they blended, even that she blended with Professor Coleson, the Shakespearean scholar with his classy horn-rimmed glasses.

She certainly hadn’t been looking for love, and had only gone on the blind date (her first and last) because a friend had nagged the resistance out of her.

She’d fallen into smitten over drinks, into sincere like during the main course, and into lust over dessert.

And into bed after the thin excuse of a nightcap—a word she’d never used before in her life.

When he’d cooked her breakfast in the morning, she’d made it all the way to love.

She walked to the grill, and her whole body smiled when he bent down to give her a casual kiss.

“Need any help here?”

“Soon as I flip these burgers onto the platter, you can take them and the dogs over to the table.”

“Can do. Did you get your incinerated dog yet, Barry?”

“Got two. Place looks damn good, Essie. The trouble is, Ginny’s looking around and starting to complain we don’t have flower beds as nice.”

“She needs a Terri.” Essie gestured toward an energetic blonde running herd on a pair of toddler twins. “Our next-door neighbor’s a genius with plants. She’s teaching us.”

“She’s prevented several flora murders this summer,” Hank added. “Essie’s thumb’s turning green. Mine’s still questionable. Here you go, beautiful.” He flipped burgers onto the platter, added the hot dogs.

“I’ve got it, and that ought to hold the horde awhile. You should take a break, get some food, Hank.”

“Good idea. How about we get a cold adult beverage first, Barry?”

“I’m all in.”

She wound her way toward the table—lost a few burgers and dogs on the way as people snagged them right off the moving platter.

She set it down, picked up the nearly empty bowl of potato salad. She took it and an empty plate that had held sliced tomatoes (Terri’s garden) into the kitchen for refills.

She found Reed leaning on her counter, drinking a beer, and in what appeared to be a serious discussion with her current partner’s ten-year-old son.

“No way, just no way, man,” Reed said. “I’m going with you on crossing the streams on this, but there’s no way Batman takes down Iron Man. Iron Man’s got the suit.”

Quentin—moonfaced, freckled, and bespectacled—begged to differ. “Batman’s got the suit, too.”

“He can’t suit up and fly, bro.”

Essie listened to the debate while she reloaded the bowl and plate.

“I’m going to write the story,” Quentin claimed. “And you’ll see. The Dark Knight rules.”

“You write it, and I’ll be the judge.”

Obviously delighted, Quentin ran back outside.

“You’re good with him,” Essie observed.

“Easy to be. The kid’s just great. Even if he’s wrong about Tony Stark.”

“Who’s Tony Stark?”

“I don’t think I can even talk to you right now.” With a shake of his head, Reed downed some beer. Still, he reached for the bowl to carry it, and right then the phone in Essie’s pocket signaled.

She pulled it out, frowned, then sighed. “Shit.”

“You’re not on the roll.”

“Not that. I’ve got an alert set up that notifies me if anybody from the mall shooting comes over the wire. And we’ve got one.”

“Who? What?”

“It’s Roberta Flisk. Found dead in her backyard early this morning. Shot three times. She was—”

“I remember.” Reed kept his own files. He’d pored over every report and news article, read every book on that night, and still did. “Her sister was listed as the first victim outside the theater. She took a couple hits herself. Major player now for gun regulation.”

“Details leaked claim a sign was left with her body. ‘Here’s your Second Amendment, Bitch!’ Fuck.”

“Who found her?”

“A couple of friends. It’s saying they jogged together every morning, sunrise.”

“Every morning?”

Cop eyes met cop eyes as Essie glanced up, nodded. “Yeah, routine. Somebody knew her routine. Either knew her or watched her. More than some sick fuck with a Second Amendment fetish.”

“Divorced, right? Did she ever remarry? Boyfriend? Ex?” Reed asked her.

“Bucking to make detective?”

“Just follows you’ve got to look there first.”

“Yeah, it does.” No longer a rookie, she thought, and Reed had the makings of a smart, solid investigator. “Not my case.”

“But you’re going to look,” he countered. “She was there. We were there. You’ve got to look.”

“Right again, but not now. Not today.” She handed him the bowl, picked up the plate. “I’ll reach out tomorrow to whoever caught it.”

“Can you keep me in the loop?”

She nodded, looking out the back screen door. “It’s never going to be really finished. It’s the kind of thing you never just close and box away. But you can’t live with it every day, either.”

“The media will cycle it again. It’s how it goes.”

“Keep your head down, do the job.”

“But you’ll keep me in the loop?” he insisted.

“Yeah, yeah, now put it aside for today. Let’s get you another beer.”

*

Over the next few days, Reed spent any time he could carve out compiling information on the Flisk investigation. Good as her word, Essie kept him in the loop, even nudged the lead investigators to clear him to visit the murder scene.

He studied the yard—established trees and plantings offered plenty of cover for lying in wait.

The victim comes out her back door, he thought, as multiple statements confirmed that routine.

He walked it off himself, moving from the back door, crossing the patio, stopping at the bloodstained grass.

Take her out deeper in the yard, he concluded. Less chance for her to run back into the house, more difficult for anyone in the neighboring houses to witness the killing, and the view from the street was cut off.

Smart.

Three hits, two center mass, then the head shot.

Now he walked off the angle designated by the medical examiner and investigative team. Plenty of cover, he noted, off to the right while the target moved toward the gate in the fence.

Had the killer said anything? It seemed to Reed that if someone decided to murder a woman over her stand on gun regulations, he’d want to let her know why.

But all he heard, as he imagined it, was silence.

Had she flashed back, he wondered, to that moment in the mall, the moment she saw Whitehall raise the AR-15?

He sometimes caught himself wondering if fate was waiting to send a bullet into him that had missed that night. One caught in the air, like a video recording on pause, that would rip into him when fate hit the play button.

Had she?

Since he’d already concluded he could do nothing to change whatever button fate opted to push, he worked to live, and to make a difference, to try to at least. He thought Roberta Flisk had done the same.

He put the picture of her in his head. Black cap with its logo of a handgun in a circle with a slash through it over short, medium blond hair, earbuds in place. A dark blue support tank and dark blue running shorts on an athletic frame—scars on her leg a constant reminder of a nightmare—her house key tucked into the inner pocket at the waistband. Pink-and-white Nikes and white socks.

In his mind, she stopped her forward motion just for an instant.

Shock, awareness, resignation? That he’d never know.

Two soft pops, he thought, as ballistics verified a .32, silenced. Both struck center mass. Victim falls, he thought, once again crossing to the stains baked onto the grass by the summer sun.

Third pop—louder as the silencer weakened—angled from above to the back of the head.

Then the flourish of the sign, the message.