Page 28 of State of Grace (First Family 2)

“Not yet,” his dad replied. “We’re going to call her.”

“You should have Aunt Amy go there and tell her,” Justin said. “She shouldn’t be alone when she hears this.”

“That’s a good idea,” Bob said.

“Who’s Amy?” Sam asked.

“My wife’s best friend from college. She lives an hour from where Molly goes to school. The kids have always been close to her.”

“I think it’s a good idea to have her there when you tell Molly,” Sam said. “Why don’t you make that call now? Please put it on speaker.”

Sam had to listen as Bob told his wife’s best friend that Pam had been murdered. Her friend’s heartbroken screams of disbelief echoed through the conference room.

When the woman had finally calmed to the point of soft sobs, Bob said, “Is Tom home, Amy?”

“He’s right here.”

“Can the two of you go to be with Molly when we tell her the news?”

“Yes, of course. We’ll go now.”

“Call me when you’re close.”

“I will. You’re sure it’s her, right?”

“Yes, we’re sure.”

“God, who could’ve done such a thing to Pam? She was the best person I ever knew.”

Sam wished she had a dollar for every time she heard a murder victim described that way. There were, of course, exceptions, such as recent homicide victim Ginny McLeod, who’d alienated nearly everyone in her life by stealing from them before she was murdered by her husband. “We’ll do our best to get you some answers,” Sam said.

The people who loved Pam were in the earliest stages of realizing that the answers they craved wouldn’t bring back the person they’d loved.

While they waited for Amy and her husband to get to Molly Tappen, Sam asked the most pressing question she had for them. “Was she having problems with anyone in her life? Personal, work, neighbors, friends?”

All three were shaking their heads before she finished asking the question.

“Everyone loves her,” Justin said. “My friends like to hang out at our house because she makes us cookies and listens to their problems.”

His use of the present tense to describe his mother gutted her, as it always did. It would be a while before he spoke of her in the past tense.

“She avoided drama like the plague,” Bob said. “She’d dropped friends who’d brought drama to her life.”

Sounds like a girl after my own heart, Sam thought. “Would any of them have been angry enough about being dropped to do something like this to her?”

Bob shook his head. “That happened years ago. We haven’t seen any of them in ages.”

“We’re going to need a list of her closest friends, work colleagues and others she interacted with on a daily or weekly basis, with their contact information and addresses if you have them. Can you work on that while we wait for Amy to get to Molly’s?” Sam pushed a yellow pad and pen across the table to Bob. “Also, who else has keys to the van?”

“Just Pam and I did. The boys have another vehicle they share.”

“Okay, work on that list, and I’ll be back.”

Sam stepped out of the conference room into the chaos of a Crime Scene investigation unfolding in her office. Looking to avoid that, she went to the cubicle belonging to Detective Dominguez and called Nick on the BlackBerry.

“Hey, babe. How’s it going?”

“Another rough one. A beloved wife and mother found bound and gagged in her own minivan. She’d apparently been there for days by the time she was found.”