The chief exhaled a curse. “We got a lot alcoholics in the departments. People with serious problems, Vic. You know this.”

“That’s on them. Not you.”

“I’m not so sure of that right now.”

“Look, you’re fine. We’re fine. Everything is cool. And if you bring in therapy dogs to the next stationhouse meeting, I will laugh at you. Then probably play with them. I love dogs. Dogs are awesome. Can we have dogs?”

Tom smiled a little. “Anne just got one.”

“Really? I always did like your sister.” He put his palm up again. “No, not like that. Jesus, and people think I’m a perv.”

“You are a perv.”

Vic started to grin as he thought about what he had lined up later in the week. “Yeah, I am.”

“You got any beer?”

As the Pats kicked off, Vic nodded toward his kitchen. “Help yourself. And bring one back for the host.”

The chief groaned as he got up, and Vic knew exactly how the guy felt. “Oh, and you’re buying lunch, Chief.”

Tom looked over his shoulder. “How’d you know I’m staying?”

Vic stared up at his boss for a moment. The guy really did look worn out, and Vic had to wonder if maybe Sheila, the ex-wife, hadn’t hit him up about something. But there was no asking about that. Wives and girlfriends were not even on the list of acceptable guy talk.

Exes? No fucking way.

Vic shrugged. “I can just tell you’re here for a while—and it’s cool. As long as you stop talking and keep bringing me cold Buds, you’re welcome on my couch. And I want pizza from Antonio’s, pepperoni with the thin crust. I’d like a large. Oh, and they’ll bring more beer if you tip them well, too.”

He expected a hard comeback. Instead, the guy just nodded and kitchen. “Good deal.”

Wow. Looked like Mahoney could add “Dragon Slayer” to her election taglines.

What a woman she was, Vic thought to himself.

Chapter 36

The morning was classic New England in the autumn, the sky a bright, endless blue, a clear sea flipped on its head, the sun so intense, it turned the world to chrome. As Anne traveled away from houses and neighborhoods, shopping centers and office buildings, she felt a calm come to her. Forty minutes later, she was almost there.

“You ready for the country, Soot?” she asked him.

He had his head out the window, looking around at the trees and the farmland. He was wagging to himself, his tail going back and forth.

The lane she was looking for came just around a tight corner, and Anne had to double back after turning around in the middle of a straightaway. Rolling fields intersected by low stone walls and vibrant trees made it impossible not to fall in love with the area—and then she came up to the farm.

Not what she had expected.

The buttercup-yellow Victorian was set back on its land at the top of a little rise. The closer she got to it, the more she saw the age in flaking paint and a sagging front porch, but that didn’t matter. With some work and some time, it was going to be a haven away from the stress of Danny’s job.

It was the perfect place to bring a family.

That pierced her heart, a javelin of a realization. She didn’t have time to think about it, though, because as she rolled to a stop, Danny opened the front door and stepped out of his house.

“Hey,” he called over.

“Hey,” she said as she got out. “Nice place.”

“Glad you made it.”

Letting Soot out, she wondered if she should hook his lead, but then he just stuck by her, trotting along as she went across to the three steps up to the porch.

Danny was in work clothes, old jeans hanging low on his hips, scruff on his jawline, a muscle shirt giving his tattoos airtime. Scratches that were partially healed marked his forearms, evidence of the work he’d been doing, and he glowed with health.

“This is . . .” She glanced around. “Amazing.”

His smile was that of a boy who’d been told he got the answer right in school. The teenager with the hard-to-get concert tickets. The grown man who had something special and shared it with someone who mattered.

“How much acreage do you have?” she asked.

Danny’s knees cracked as he got down on his haunches to greet Soot—who welcomed him like a close friend, well missed.

“Fifty.” Danny put his face right into the dog’s. “I missed you, boy. How’s tricks. You ready to mark my property?”

“But where’s the mess?” Anne tried to keep the suspicion out of her voice. “I mean, everything looks great out here.”

As she motioned to the mowed meadow around the house, Danny rose and thumped over his shoulder. “Wait for it. But first, lemme show you the house.” He went over and held the door open for her. “I’ve got running water and electricity, but other than that, this is a work in progress.”

He wasn’t kidding. Every window was hung with shredded drapes, and what little of the panes showed was so layered with dust you couldn’t see out of them. The floorboards were scuffed, and the wallpaper was so old and faded, it was hard to tell what its original colors had been. The kitchen was a discordant seventies-era harvest gold and pea green, the appliances all throwbacks out of a Sears catalogue from the Jimmy Carter years. But God, the potential. The woodwork throughout was incredible, the molding heavy on the ceiling, around the fireplaces and up the staircase—a wonder of artistic flourish. There were also no stains on the ceilings, which suggested the roof was sound, and so was the flashing around the chimneys, and the doors were all plumb. Upstairs there were three little bedrooms, and just one bathroom for all to share—but holy crap, that claw-foot tub.

It was deep enough to qualify as a lap pool, and she could just imagine what the water would feel like.

“So who’d you buy this from?” she said as they went back to the first floor.

Soot was leading the charge, his nails clipping down the bare, creaking steps in hops.

“It hasn’t been lived in in forever. It was in a trust and the woman who had the life estate lived for decades in a nursing home. I look at it as a long-term project. I shouldn’t have bought it, but sometimes you just do things.”

“You must have bought it after . . . the fire.”

“When I got out of the rehab hospital. I needed something to do.”

“I get that.”

“So you wanna meet the problem?”

He took her out the kitchen’s back door, and that was when she got a load of what he was talking about. The bank or whoever had been looking after the property had only paid attention to the front. Everything behind the house was a tangled mess—or had been. He’d obviously been hard at work, piles of brambles, vines, and saplings grouped here and there around an old barn, what appeared to be an icehouse, and then a storage building.

As Soot wandered over to a bush and did his business, she shook her head. “We are going to need more than just a day.”

When she realized what she’d said, she shook her head. “You’re going to need that, I mean.”

* * *

It wasn’t until Danny saw Anne step up onto the porch that he realized he’d bought the house for her.

In some crazy, delusional part of his mind, he’d seen it advertised in the back of the New Brunswick Post one Sunday and decided to do it. He’d had to stretch to make the money work, but it was amazing what he’d saved living in that shit hole with the boys.

“Where are the saws?” Anne asked.

“In the barn, come on.”

The sunshine was warm on his face and the air was cool on his bare arms. Having Anne at his side paled even the splendor of the morning.

Sliding back the barn door, he spooked a couple of doves from the rafters. “Here’s what I got.” He showed her the array laid out on two rough boards between a pair of sawhorses. “Choose your weapon.”

He was not surprised she went right for one of the chain saws, picking the heavy weight up with her right hand and steadying it was her prosthesis. As she warmed up with it, he could tell she was testing out how she would handle things, making sure she could retain control before she cranked the power on.