Abigail Browning squirted charcoal lighter fluid on the mound of papers sheâd torn up and piled into her backyard grill.
She had more pages to go. Another two spiral notebooks.
She set her lighter fluid on the little wooden shelf next to the grill and picked up the top notebook from the plastic chair behind her. When she opened the cover, she tried not to look at her scrawled handwriting, as pained as the words sheâd written, or at the stains of long-spent tears that had smeared the ink as sheâd forced herself to recount the tragic story of her honeymoon.
Each journalâthere were fourteen, two for each year of lossâbegan with the same litany of facts, as if the retelling itself might produce some new tidbit, some new insight sheâd missed.
Itâs the fourth day of my Maine honeymoon, and Iâm napping on the couch in the front room of the cottage my husband inherited from his grandfather.
Two loud noises awaken me. Tools clattering to the floor in the back room. A hammer. Perhaps a crowbar. Iâm startled, but also amused, because Iâd spent the morning helping Chris repair a leak.
As I get up to investigate the noises, I think it must be an unwritten ruleânewlyweds arenât supposed to fix leaks on their honeymoon.
Abigail tore off that first page by itself and ripped it into quarters, setting them neatly atop her pile, the lighter fluid seeping into the cheap paper and old blue ink as if it were fresh tears.
Last nightâs anonymous call had changed everything. She needed a cover story to explain her actionsâwhat she planned to do next.
She also needed clarity and objectivity.
Seven years of journals. Seven years, she thought, of trying to restore her emotional life.
I smell roses and ocean as I get up from the couch.
A window must be open.
Even now, at thirty-two, no longer a young bride, no longer a law student with a handsome FBI special agent husband, no longer inexperienced in matters of violent death, Abigail could feel herself walking into the back room, convinced the wind had knocked over tools she and Chris had left haphazardly that morning, when they gave up their leak-fixing to make love upstairs in their sun-filled bedroom.
She noticed the slight tremble in her hands and swore under her breath, tensing her fingers as she tore more pages and set them atop her pile. There was no wind, and the grassâwhat there was of it in her postage stamp of a backyardâwas damp from an overnight rain. Adequate conditions for burning, although she was in a tank top and shorts. If her bare skin got hit with sparks, itâd serve her right.
As I step into the back room, I see not a cracked window but the door to the porch standing wide open, and for the first time I feel a jolt of real fear.
I didnât leave the door open.
âChris?â
I call my husbandâs name just as I hear the floorboards creak behind me.
Just as the blow comes to the back of my head.
Her chest tightening, Abigail dropped the partially torn spiral notebook back onto the chair and quickly struck a wooden match, tossing it onto the pile of ripped pages.
Flames shot two feet into the hot, still air.
âWhoa, there. Thatâs some fire youâve got going.â
She looked up at Bob OâReilly trotting down the last of the steps from his top-floor apartment in the triple-decker they and Scoop Wisdomâall three of them detectives with the Boston Police Departmentâhad bought together a year ago, pooling their resources to afford the cityâs sky-high real estate prices. Bob, a twice-divorced father of three, lived alone. Scoop, who worked in internal affairs and had a well-earned reputation with the women of Boston, occupied the middle floor. Abigail, a homicide detective and widow, had the first floor. She got along with Bob and Scoop partly because they understood she had no intention of sleeping with either of them.
âOutdoor burningâs illegal,â Bob said.
âIâm getting ready to throw some hot dogs on the grill.â
âYou donât eat hot dogs.â
âSalmon, then.â
At six-two, the veteran detective had nine inches on Abigail in height, and, although he was pushing fifty, he could run ten miles and still move the next day. Heâd taught her how to use free weights properly, and heâd taught her crime scene investigation. Sheâd taught him what it was like to lose someone to violence.
Sheâd taught him that seven years was the blink of an eye.
A page, filled with bloodred ink, went up in flames.
As I regain consciousness, I feel the ice pack on the lump on the back of my head and almost vomit from the raging pain of my concussion.
âDonât move,â my husband tells me quietly. âAn ambulance is on the way.â