Free Alone by Lisa Gardner

find her and Jimmy in bed. What did you expect when your husband brought home a “nanny” who by her own admission had never changed a diaper?
    Catherine took over the hiring after that. She stuck to older women, true professionals who knew the ropes and could maintain a certain distance from their young charge. They were too mature to appeal to Jimmy, too respectful to comment on how much time Catherine spent away from her son, and too self-righteous to ever know of the nights Catherine stood in Nathan's room, watching her frail son sleep and feeling her heart beat wildly in her chest.
    Nathan had made it all the way to four years old now, and still sometimes in her mind's eye, Catherine would see a beat-up blue Chevy turning down their street: Hey, boy, I'm looking for a lost dog.
    Of course, Nathan didn't need a stranger to haunt his dreams. The danger for Nathan had come from right between these four walls.
    Two a.m. She should go to sleep. She already knew she wouldn't. The press remained parked outside, impatient vultures still digging for dirt. From time to time, squad cars passed as well. Checking the scene, monitoring the press, staring up at the fourth floor.
    She had given her first statement to the police within hours of Jimmy's death. She'd been proud of herself, cool, calm, and collected. My husband has a temper. He drinks, he gets angry; this time, he found a gun. What had we fought about? Does it matter? Does anything justify a man aiming a gun at his wife? Yes, I was afraid. In all honesty, Detective, I thought I was dead.
    They had wanted to talk to Nathan as well. She'd put them off. My son is too tired, too traumatized, too sick. It had bought her some time. For now.
    The investigators had spent most of last night and this morning in the master bedroom. Now the room was cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. Parts of the carpet had been removed. Shattered glass gathered. Bedding whisked away. Plastic sheeting covered the hole where the sliding glass door used to be. The cold wind sliced effortlessly through the plastic, however, and carried a host of smells to the rest of the house.
    Blood. Urine. Gunpowder. Death.
    Her neighbors probably thought she was crazy to stay. The press and police, too. Maybe she was traumatizing Nathan. Or maybe she was insane. Truth of the matter was, where else did they have to go? Her father didn't know how to handle these kinds of situations; arriving at her in-laws would be akin to stepping into the lion's den.
    Or maybe there was something more sinister at work. Maybe she just wasn't ready to leave. This house, this room, it was all of Jimmy she had left. And though no one would believe her, least of all her in-laws, in her own way, she had loved Jimmy. She had hoped, she had prayed with what little faith she had, that it would not come to this.
    Now she ducked under the crime-scene tape. Now she entered the master bedroom, a chill, ghostly chamber of black and white. Gauzy curtains stirred, while the plastic over the shattered slider heaved and sighed. The smells were richer here. A pungent rusty odor that made her nose recoil even as it triggered memory.
    She crossed to the bed, running her hand over the bare mattress and staring at the darker splatters of blood. She lay down in the middle of the vast empty space.
    Jimmy seeing her for the first time and flashing that crooked grin in the middle of the crowded department store. “Hey, perfume lady. What's a guy gotta do to get a little spritz?”
    Jimmy making love to her, then, afterwards, realizing that she hadn't felt a thing and trying to be kind about it. “Hey, honey, you know what? We'll just have to practice more.”
    Jimmy fumbling the ring as he got down on one knee to propose. Jimmy staggering wildly as he carried her over the threshold. Jimmy promising her nine, ten children. Jimmy deliriously happy when she became pregnant with their first. Jimmy showering her with diamonds and pearls. Jimmy taking her