Free Color Blind by Jonathan Santlofer

polymer frame and ergonomic design, reliable trigger pull and pointability, all of which increased the odds of hitting your target.

    The pistol felt cool in her hand. She checked the trigger and drop safety before clipping in a magazine. Thirteen rounds. Unlucky number, thought Kate.

    She was almost there now. Almost back in the role of cop. Almost not a wife. Almost. But not quite.

    Widow.

    How could that word possibly apply to her? Other women were widows. Not she.

    Kate stopped a moment, taking in the all-white bedroom as though she were looking for something to remind her of who she really was.

    Richard’s pajama bottoms lay strewn across the bed. She’d been wearing them for days, refusing to give them up, repeatedly telling Lucille never ever to wash them, though she’d impulsively had most of Richard’s clothes picked up by Goodwill, had asked Lucille to remove the photos of him, store them away, out of sight. God, the look she’d received for that request. Lucille didn’t get it. At first, all she had wanted was oblivion, no images to remind her of him, no memories to haunt her. She just could not look at them, at anything that reminded her that the man she had lived with and loved for more than a decade was gone.

    But now she resurrected one, plucked it out of the drawer, a favorite photo that she’d had on her night table for years. Her fingers lightly skimmed the delicate silver frame, then Richard’s smiling face, his hand just above his forehead shielding his eyes from the sun. She rummaged further in the night table, came up with a plastic bag containing his wedding band, heavy gold Rolex watch, and the sterling silver money clip with his initials, RR, engraved, that she’d bought him for his fortieth birthday—his favorite gift from her. She barely remembered tossing the bag into the drawer when she’d come back from the morgue.

    Kate ran her fingers over the etched initials. Such an odd memento, a money clip, but one that brought Richard so clearly back to life, “Mr. New York,” what she always called him—with just a hint of sarcasm; the way he’d ceremoniously slide it out of his pocket, peel off bills for this and that—restaurants, cabs, coat-check girls—spending cash lavishly, a sport for the poor boy from Brooklyn.

    Kate placed the smiling photo of Richard on her dresser, laid the money clip beside it. Yes, Richard would want his money clip with him, she was sure of that.

    “I’ll get him,” Kate whispered as she slipped Richard’s wedding band onto the fine gold chain she always wore around her neck. The ring skidded along the chain, coming to rest in the hollow between her collarbones.

    Kate looked back at the photo and money clip, felt the coolness of the gold ring against her flesh. It wasn’t much, but enough to resurrect his presence, something to keep her heart—or what was left of it—connected while the rest of her detached. A necessity if she was going to work this case—and survive.

    She knew what she must do. Find out who did this. And then she would feel…Kate rolled the thought around in her mind. How would she feel?

    No, there wasn’t time for that, for her feelings . One foot along the path of emotion and she’d be a goner, no help to anyone—not to the cops, not to Richard, certainly not herself.

    Just go through the motions.

    In the bathroom, Kate stared at herself in the mirror. Makeup. Right. A must. She would not go out and have people pity her. Concealer under her eyes. Mascara. Lip gloss. That was enough, and all she could manage. Then she pulled her thick dark hair straight back off her face, twisted it up, and fastened it with a few pins—a style she rarely wore because Richard had not liked it, and he was right. It did not suit her long nose or the angles of her face, though right now she didn’t care.

    When she focused on the finished product she hardly recognized herself. Few traces of society woman Kate Rothstein remained, which was