Part 4 (1/2)

Was that justice? You tell me. He got to see his kids again while I had to sit mine down and explain that they were never going to see their mother again.

Dr. Kline remained quiet for a few seconds after I finished. His face gave nothing away. ”What was she buying?” he finally asked.

”Excuse me?”

”What was Susan buying at the supermarket?”

”I heard you,” I said. ”I just can't believe that's the first question you're asking after everything I told you. How is that important?”

”I didn't say it was.”

”b.u.t.ter,” I blurted out. ”Susan was going to bake cookies for the boys, but she didn't have any b.u.t.ter. Pretty ironic, don't you think?”

”How so?”

”Never mind.”

”No, go ahead,” said Dr. Kline. ”Tell me.”

”She was an FBI agent; she could've died on the job many times over,” I said.

Then it was as if some switch inside me had been flipped on. Or maybe off. I couldn't control myself; the words spilled angrily out of my mouth.

”But no, it's some drunk a.s.shole who plows into her on the way back from the supermarket!”

I was suddenly out of breath, as though I'd just run a marathon. ”There. Are you satisfied?”

Dr. Kline shook his head. ”No, I'm not, John. What I am is concerned,” he said calmly. ”Do you know why?”

Of course I did. It was why the Bureau had suspended me. It was why my boss, Frank Walsh, insisted on my coming here to get my head examined.

Stephen McMillan, the drunk lawyer who killed Susan, was being released from prison in less than a week.

”You think I'm going to kill him, don't you?”

Kline shrugged, deflecting the question. ”Let's just say people who care very much for you are worried about what you might be planning. So, tell me, John...are they worried for a good reason? Are you planning revenge?”

Chapter 6

RIVERSIDE, CONNECTICUT, IS about an hour's drive from midtown Manhattan. Channeling my inner Mario Andretti, I drove it in forty minutes flat. All I wanted to do was get home and hug my boys.

”Jeez, Dad, you trying to crush me or something?” chirped Max, who was throwing a baseball against a pitchback on our front lawn when I pulled in. For a ten-year-old, the kid could really rifle it-all fatherly bias aside, of course.

I finally unwrapped my arms from around him. ”So are you all packed?” I asked.

School had been out for a week. Max and his older brother, John Jr., were heading off to sleepaway camp the next morning for a month.