CHAPTER THREE
The smell of garlic and roasted carrots filled Catherine Valentine’s kitchen — a comforting, old-bookish scent that always made Kate think of childhood winters, of returning from school to see her mother leaning over a saucepan, glasses fogged, hair tied up with one of those scarves Kate had once sworn she’d never wear.
Now she owned three.
“Sit,” Catherine said, gesturing toward the small wooden table by the window. “You chop like you’re interrogating the vegetables.”
“I chop fine.”
“You chop like an FBI agent.”
“That is fine.”
Catherine gave her a look — the one that meant don’t be clever, darling, I invented that trick.
Kate sat.
She was still unsettled, restless from the day; restless from the encounter with Cox, from the looming sense of something coming round the bend in the road.
But tonight was theirs. Monday dinners. Their new ritual. The weeknight version of their sacred Sundays. Which were still a thing, but a little less frequent of late.
Her mother plated the roasted vegetables, then the grilled chicken. “Your face looks tight,” she observed, setting everything down. “Not telling me something?”
“It’s work.”
Catherine slid into the seat opposite hers, eyes warm, searching. “Work that follows you into my kitchen doesn’t count as work. It counts as worry.”
Kate stabbed a carrot. “I’m fine.”
“Lying to your mother is a waste of breath.”
Kate sighed. “It’s just… Cox.”
“Ah.” Catherine leaned back, folding her arms. “That explains the tight face.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.” Kate reached for her water. “Not tonight.”
“Then we won’t.” Catherine took a slow bite of chicken. “But I will say this: you shouldn’t let him take more space in your mind than he’s already taken. He’s not entitled to it.”
Kate stared at her plate. “I know.”
Silence settled briefly — not uncomfortable, but weighted.
Catherine broke it gently. “You never came to breakfast with a look like that when you were sixteen and failing math.”
"Mom"
“And you never had that look at twenty-three, even when you were burying your father.”
Kate stiffened.
For a moment, she said nothing. She felt the instinct to retreat, to lock down, to put her FBI mask over everything human. But she didn't. Not tonight.
She looked up, voice steady but low. “I would take care of you, you know.”
Catherine blinked. “What?”
Momentarily, Kate couldn’t answer, giving her mother the chance to jump in again. ‘Is this something to do with today? With Cox?’
‘No,’ Kate said automatically. ‘Yes. A little. I just want you to know that… When you’re older, if you get sick. If— I don’t know. If you needed me.” She swallowed. “In spite of everything, I’d be there. I need you to know that.”
Emotion flickered across her mother’s face — surprise, confusion, something tender she tried and failed to hide.
“After everything?” Catherine asked softly.
Kate nodded once. “Yes. After everything.”
Catherine set her fork down. “Our ‘everything’ wasn’t a disaster, you know. Just… complicated.”
“I know. We’ve had our fallings-out.”
“Every family does. And they’re a long way behind us.”
“After Dad’s death.”
Catherine looked down. Her fingers tightened around her napkin.
“Especially then.”
The words hung like smoke.
Kate forced herself to continue. “We weren’t in sync. You needed me, and I— I was drowning. Then I needed you, but you were trying to survive. It was just… wrong timing all the way around.”
Catherine’s eyes shimmered briefly — not with tears, but with a kind of old, unhealed ache. “I thought I failed you.”
“I thought I disappointed you.”
"And yet here we are." Catherine reached out and covered Kate's hand with her own. "Darling, grief doesn't synchronize. It thrashes. It drags. It makes fools of everyone it touches.”
Kate exhaled, relief and pain entwined. “I always felt guilty. Like if I’d been stronger—”
“No,” Catherine said firmly. “No more of that. We carry enough guilt for three families as it is.”
Kate’s throat tightened. “I feel guilty about Dad too. About not stopping him, I guess.”
Catherine tilted her head. “Stopping him how?”
“His workaholic thing. The hours. The obsession. He lived in the lab. I sometimes wonder if—” She swallowed. “If that contributed.”
Her mother went still, then spoke with careful clarity. “Kate. Listen to me. Your father’s work habits had nothing to do with the man who shot him. Nothing. That guilt? Throw it out.”
Kate nodded slowly, though she wasn’t certain she could do what her mother asked.
“Besides,” Catherine added, lifting her glass, “your father wouldn’t have changed any more than a hurricane would. He was who he was.”
Kate managed a faint smile. “And you married him.”
“Well,” Catherine said dryly, “hurricanes are kinda dramatic. ”
They laughed — a real laugh, unguarded, the kind that came from the marrow rather than the throat.
“Anyway, I knew what I was in for, right from the start. Following him across the country while he built his career. New York, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago… There were whole years when I didn’t bother to unpack.”
"Yeah, but that’s just because you hate unpacking. How long since you moved here? And how many boxes are still in the spare room?”
“That’s because I have a selfish daughter who refuses to help her aged mother,” Catherine replied, with a broad smile.
Kate felt warmth spread through her — not wine, not food, but something like reprieve.
Something like connection.
Something she hadn’t realized she’d been starving for.
Then her phone buzzed.
Not the gentle buzz of a calendar notification.
The violent, insistent vibration of an emergency.
Her hand froze.
“Go on,” Catherine said quietly. “You should check it.”
Kate lifted the phone.
MARCUS.
Her stomach dropped.
She answered. “What is it?”
His voice was clipped. “We’ve got one.”
Her blood ran cold.
“Where?”
“Boston. Upscale apartment building. Executive found dead in her living room. Staged. Estimated to have happened between 8 and 9 pm.”
A beat.
“Who discovered it?”
“Apartment door left ajar. Neighbor popped her head in to see if anything was the matter, discovered the body. She’s been taken to the hospital with chest pains.
The victim’s name is Jennifer Hayes,” Marcus continued.
“Local PD says she was left in a kind of kneeling position in front of two photographs, possibly her parents, judging by appearance.”
Cox was telling the truth.
“Also left a couple of sketches – meaning unclear.” He cleared his throat. “Think it could be another commandment killing?”
Catherine watched her, silent but alert.
Kate steadied her voice. “Too early to tell but—”
“Mighty coincidence. Given who you met today.”
The kitchen suddenly felt colder.
“Mighty coincidence.”
They chatted on for a couple more minutes, fixing travel arrangements, liaison protocols with Boston PD. Eventually, Kate hung up and faced her mother.
“Well,” Catherine said softly, “that sounds like your tight face has a reason.”
Kate swallowed. “It’s him, Mom. Not him but…”
Catherine rose, walked around the table, and pulled her daughter into a fierce embrace — not the soft, tentative hugs they’d exchanged for years, but something deeper, older, protective.
“Go,” she murmured. “Do what you were meant to do.”
Kate clung back harder than she intended. “I don’t want to leave yet.”
“I know,” Catherine said, smoothing her hair. “But you’ll come back. We’ll continue this. You hear me? This—” she tapped Kate’s chest, “—is not unfinished.”
Kate nodded, throat burning.
“Be safe,” her mother said.
“I’ll try.”
“No,” Catherine corrected gently, lifting her chin so their eyes met. “You’ll succeed.”
Kate breathed once, deeply, memorising the kitchen — the steam rising from plates, the faint scent of rosemary, her mother’s steady presence grounding her.
Then she grabbed her coat, phone, badge.
At the door, she looked back.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For tonight.”
Catherine smiled — tired, tender, proud. “Go catch your hurricane, Kitty.”
Kate left.
Outside, the night rose around her — sharp, dark, humming with the danger she knew in her heart of hearts that she’d been expecting, not just since today, but for months.
This time, she thought, it wasn’t approaching her.
It was already here.