Cold Ridge

"Relax, Antonia. "He smiled at her. "I'll be very good."

"You're not going in there tonight, are you?"

He shook his head. "I'll give her some time. Besides, I hate barf."

"Yeah, right, with all you've seen in your career?" She started to say something, then just heaved a long sigh. "I'm trusting you."

It was progress, Ty thought. A Winter hadn't trusted him in months.

Antonia climbed into a taxi that had been idling farther down the street, and Ty watched it negotiate the crooked street, the oversize cars parked in too-small spaces, the potholes, the kids on skateboards.

He'd never had a thing for Antonia. It was always Carine.

Always and forever.

Four

Val Carrera learned about Louis Sanborn's murder when she flipped through the Washington Post over her morning coffee, and it pissed her off. A man was dead, and her husband hadn't bothered to tell her he was involved. He was in Boston. It wasn't like he was on a secret military mission. He could have called her.

But here she was, once again, on a need-to-know basis, with Ma

Bastard.

The details in the article were sketchy. It said photographer Carine Winter found the body when she got back from her lunch break. It said the Rancourts had hired Ma

"What a crock," Val muttered over her paper. "Damn phonies."

She hadn't liked the Rancourts since Ma

"They should be Popsicles," Val grumbled.

Instead it was Hank Callahan and the PJs to the rescue, although Val was of the opinion that someone else could have done the job. But that wasn't the way it was with Ma

Now the Rancourts were returning the favor, helping Ma

But Ma

She sank back in her chair at her small, round table in what passed for an eating area. The kitchen wasn't much bigger than a closet, and the bedroom was just big enough for a double bed and a bureau. She hadn't slept that close to Ma

The living room was kind of cute-it had a large paned window shaded by a gorgeous oak tree, its leaves a rich burgundy color now that it was November. A one-bedroom apartment on a noisy street in Arlington was the best she and Ma

Their son was doing well, and she was off antidepressants.

Remember your priorities, she told herself.

She folded up the paper and called Ma

There. That was nice. She hadn't yelled anything about being his wife and having a goddamned right to know. For all she knew, he could be in jail.

She doubted he'd call back. He'd given her six months to get her shit together. He'd stick it out with her until then. If she stayed on her current track, he was gone. That was five months ago, and she was doing better. Ma

But Ma

She didn't want her son having to struggle for the rest of his life with a chronic illness. She wanted her son to have a chance to be a PJ like his dad if that was what he chose.

She wanted the Ma

And she wanted herself back, the tough Val, the Val who didn't take shit from anyone.

But Ma

None of it was anyone's fault. It just was.

And Eric was doing fine, with a long, good life ahead of him. He would say to her-"Mom, Dad could never be a ballet dancer or a calculus teacher. That's okay, right? Then it's okay that I can't be a PJ."

Val debated calling him at his prep school in Cold Ridge, but decided Ma

She'd been such a trooper through those early days of diagnosis and treatment. Supermom. She'd done it all. Ma

But even when Eric was on his feet, she didn't back off and return to her job at the bookstore near the base where Ma

Not that he'd done anything to help the situation. He was oblivious, content to let her handle all the details, the doctors, Eric's volatile emotions-do it all, until it started affecting him.

Last fall in Cold Ridge hadn't helped matters. Ma