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contents of the
needle into the IV. In mere seconds, Cleo closed her eyes and exhaled her last
breath.
    *****
    Sitting on the park bench half way between their apartment
and Tim’s fire house, Beth fondled the dog collar that she held in her hands.
The leather was worn and soft…pliable from years of wear. Gut wrenching. Heart
breaking. The tears wouldn’t stop.
    Tim held her close…his arm protectively around her as he sat
beside her and silently comforted her as best he could. He shared her pain and
her loss, after all, Cleo had been his dog for the past six years, too.
    They’d sat for almost an hour watching other dogs play with
their owners as they ran after balls and sticks and collected treats for
behaving. Tim was just about to suggest they head home when his cell phone
rang.
    “Hey, Mark,” he said into the phone. “Can I call you back?”
But then his expression changed from concern to something more.
    Beth turned her head and read his expression. “What is it?”
she whispered.
    “Oh, no,” Tim choked. “No.”

9.
The Obituary
    After many phone calls and texts, it was decided that Mark
would begin the necessary arrangements. Family members would be arriving from
out of town starting tomorrow, but Matt didn’t want to wait to begin the
unpleasantness of planning a funeral. Mark agreed that it was better to get it
over and done with so that the grieving process could begin. Never having dealt
with a death as close as this, he sat on the sofa without even an inkling of
where to begin.
    “The first thing I did when mom died was to talk to the
hospital,” Katy offered, sitting down next to him and taking her husband’s hand
in her own. “Maybe we should go down there and see what they have to say.
They’ll have a whole department just for this sort of thing. They deal with it
every day.”
    Mark nodded. “Yeah. That’s the place to start.”
    Matt, on the other hand, flew into CEO mode, it being much
easier than trying to deal with the emotional onslaught, immediately on the
phone with the police, as he would be the go-to person in the on-going murder
investigation. In fact, the two detectives handling the case were on their way
to his apartment to get some background on “the deceased” as they put it. At
first, Matt was put off by their callous nature, but Janie reminded him that
they saw death all day long. It would be impossible to remain focused enough to
do their job if they became emotionally involved with every one of their cases.
Matt nodded and called Eddie, the doorman, to have him send up the detectives
as soon as they arrived.
    Andrew and Rory, along with Paul, had arrived at their
family home within minutes of the phone call. Liko had stayed with Maureen after
the police had left until her sons had arrived. They tried to talk to her but
she had gone into “mom” mode and was trying to make snacks for everyone. It was
going to be difficult to get her to sit down for more than two seconds. She was
obviously in shock…and denial.
    David and Tim went to the hospital. They needed to be with
their father who was lying on a gurney in the hallway. The hospital was chaos,
with some kind of bizarre chemical accident sending dozens of people into the
E.R.
    “Isn’t there anywhere else you can put him?” Tim demanded of
one of the nurses as she rushed past them.
    “I’m sorry,” she replied, genuinely apologetic. “But there
isn’t at this time. Please try and be patient.”
    “Tim, go home to Beth,” David pleaded. “I’m fine here with
Dad. And Mark and Katy just called to say they were on their way here. Beth
needs you more than he does right now,” he said nodding at his father lying
still beside them. “There’s nothing you can do here, anyway.”
    So Tim took his father’s hand and kissed him on the
forehead. There was no response. He hugged his brother and left.
    *****
    Matt sat at his desk, pen in hand. Some thoughts had come to
his mind and he wanted to get them on