He hung up. Leah stared at the phone, taking a few deep breaths. She had no reason to doubt Ian—he was her rock, her touchstone, easing her past the myriad of stupid, imaginary fears and insecurities that had haunted her since she was a child. She couldn’t help it; her upbringing had hardwired her to always leap to the worst possible conclusion.
“Control freak,” she chided herself as she returned to the ER. Her pessimistic nature made her a better ER doctor, never taking anything for granted, but she knew it also made her at times not the best wife or mother. Instead of imagining every dire catastrophe Ian might have been alluding to, she forced herself to concentrate on the smile he’d greet her with when she got home.
The rest of the night went quickly until, finally, she’d finished with her last patient and her charting, and had given her sign-out to the next attending. It was twenty past midnight by the time she was walking through the ER on her way to her car, when the clerk called her name, gesturing with a phone handset from his seat at the nurses’ station. He nodded to a bouquet of red roses wrapped in cellophane and green florist tissue paper lying on the counter. “These came for you.”
“From Ian?” Ian never sent her flowers for Valentine’s.
“Sorry, didn’t see. They were just left here, not sure when.”
Leah ruffled through the roses until she found the card. The envelope had her name typed on the front. The card inside was also typed, reading:
I left a surprise for you at home.
No signature, but if Ian phoned the order into the hospital gift shop, there wouldn’t be. She inhaled the fragrant bouquet’s perfume. He must have heard her frustration when they’d talked earlier, ordered the flowers to make her smile.
She headed out to the parking garage, suddenly exhausted, wanting only Ian’s arms wrapped around her. She spotted her Subaru Forester parked in her reserved spot, but instead of being backed in like she’d left it, it was now parked head in. It was also gleaming clean, no trace of winter road salt.
Leah grinned. Ian had definitely been here. And gotten her exactly what she wanted. She climbed inside the SUV and set the roses on the passenger seat, where there was a receipt from the mechanic waiting for her. Oil changed, tires rotated, all the past-due maintenance performed, state inspection taken care of along with a wash. She leaned back and inhaled the almost-new car smell. Best Valentine’s present ever.
Ian always knew how to make her smile. Her good mood lasted her entire drive from Good Sam to their townhouse in a converted Victorian on Jefferson Street. She pulled into their narrow driveway paved with ancient cobblestones that refused any attempt to be covered with modern materials. The sidewalk leading from the old carriage house that was now their garage was freshly shoveled and salted.
Leah found herself humming as she carried the roses past the tiny garden mounded with remnants of the snow that had fallen over the past few days. Moonlight danced with clouds, giving the dormant plants a bluish glow as shadows tangled with the snow’s gleam.
She climbed the steps to the back stoop, tapped her shoes to shed any road salt, and reached to put her key in the kitchen door. It was unlocked. More than unlocked—it was slightly ajar, as if someone had pushed it shut but not hard enough for the latch to catch. Maybe when Ian had taken out the trash?
An unexpected shiver raced over her, a stray dagger of winter piercing her fleece jacket. She opened the door. The lights in the kitchen were off—also unusual. Ian always left a light for her. She flicked them on.
That’s when she saw the blood.
Two
Leah scanned the tiny outdated kitchen. “Ian?”
There was a single streak of blood on the countertop. One kitchen chair lay on the ground below their vintage steel and red vinyl-topped table. Flecks of blood glared red against the white of a stack of napkins fluttering in the wind from the still-open door. Beside the stove, the knife block was toppled on its side, knives gleaming under the glare of the fluorescent light, half-naked where they’d slid free from their safe haven. None were missing.
Had Ian cut himself? But why put the knife back? Why not grab the first aid kit she kept in the drawer beside the sink? The thoughts rushed through Leah’s mind, pushing out