Read Online Love You More: A Novel by Lisa Gardner - Free Book Online Page A

topped by an old thirty-six inch TV which was tuned to ESPN. Plain white walls, stark wood floors. Not so much a domestic retreat, as a way station, D.D. thought. A place to sleep, change clothes, then exit.
    D.D. tried the closet. Three-fourths of it yielded sharply pressed men’s shirts, arranged by color. Then came half a dozen neatly hanging blue jeans. Then a mishmash of cotton slacks and tops, two state police uniforms, one dress uniform, and one orange flower-printed sundress.
    “He took up more space in the closet,” D.D. reported to Bobby, who was examining the dresser.
    “Men have been killed for less,” he agreed.
    “Seriously. Check this out. Color-coded shirts,
pressed
blue jeans. Brian Darby was beyond anal-retentive and bordering on just plain freaky.”
    “Brian Darby was also getting seriously huge. Look at this.” Bobby held up a framed eight-by-ten portrait with his gloved hands. D.D. finished inspecting the empty gun safe she’d found in the left-hand corner of the closet, then crossed to him.
    The framed picture featured Tessa Leoni in the orange sundress with a white sweater, holding a small bouquet of tiger lilies. Brian Darby stood beside her in a brown sports jacket, a single tiger lily pinned to his collar. A little girl, presumably Sophie Leoni, stood in front of both of them, wearing a dark green velvet dress with a ring of lilies in her hair. All three were beaming at the camera, happy family celebrating a happy day.
    “Wedding photo,” D.D. murmured.
    “That would be my guess. Now look at Darby. Check out his shoulders.”
    D.D. obediently checked out the former groom and now dead husband. Good-looking guy, she decided. Had a military/cop vibegoing on with the buzz-cut blonde hair, chiseled chin, squared shoulders. But the impression was balanced by warm brown eyes, crinkling at the corners from the impact of his smile. He looked happy, relaxed. Not the kind of guy you’d immediately suspect of battering his wife—or, for that matter, ironing his blue jeans.
    D.D. handed the picture back to Bobby. “I don’t get it. So he was happy on his wedding day. That doesn’t mean anything.”
    “Nah. He was
smaller
on his wedding day. That Brian Darby is a fit one eighty. Bet he worked out, kept active. Dead Brian Darby, on the other hand …”
    D.D. remembered what Bobby had told her earlier. “Big guy, you said. Two ten, two twenty, probably a weight lifter. So not that he got married and he got fat. You’re saying, he got married and he
muscled up.
”
    Bobby nodded.
    D.D. thought about the picture again. “It’s not easy to be in a relationship where the woman is the one who carries a gun,” she murmured.
    Bobby didn’t touch that statement, and she was grateful.
    “We should find his gym,” he said now. “Check out his regimen. Inquire about known supplements.”
    “ ’Roid rage?”
    “Worth asking about.”
    They moved out of the master, into the adjoining bath. This room, at least, had a splash of personality. A brightly striped shower curtain was drawn around an old claw-foot tub. A yellow-duckie area rug dotted the tiled floor. Layers of blue and yellow towels warmed up wooden towel racks.
    This room also displayed more signs of life—a Barbie toothbrush lying on the edge of the sink, a pile of purple hair elastics in a basket on the back of the toilet, a clear plastic spit cup declaring “Daddy’s Little Princess.”
    D.D. checked the medicine cabinet. She found three prescription bottles, one made out to Brian Darby for Ambien, a sleep aid. One made out to Sophie Leoni, involving some kind of topical eye ointment. A third for Tessa Leoni, hydrocodone, a painkiller.
    She showed the bottle to Bobby. He made a note.
    “Have to follow up with the doc. See if she had an injury, maybe something from the job.”
    D.D. nodded. Rest of the medicine cabinet held a plethora of lotions, shaving creams, razors, and colognes. Only thing of note, she thought, was the fairly