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be charged a hundred-and-fifteen-dollar fee. Each.”
    “We should figure out what caused it,” Charlie said. “Do you have motion sensors in the house? I’ve seen cats, balloons, even spiders trigger them. Anything that breaks the beam.”
    “No. We just have alarms on the doors and the downstairs windows.”
    “It was pretty stormy out there earlier. And this is an older home.” He walked back into the hall, grabbed the front doorknob,and shook it. Even though it was still locked, it rattled in the frame. “That’s more than likely your problem right there. With the wind blowing, there’s enough play in it that it could have separated the contact from its reed switch for a second. You need to get some weather stripping.”
    His words were starting to sound like they were coming to her at the bottom of a tunnel. Desperate to steady herself, Mia sagged forward, reaching for the back of the couch.
    Suddenly a strong arm was around her shoulders. Charlie started barking orders. “Okay, Mia, I think you need to lie down for a second.” As he maneuvered her around the couch, he took out his wallet with his free hand and handed Gabe a credit card. “Call up Pagliacci and order a couple of pizzas to be delivered. Whatever you want. And, Brooke, can you go up to your room and play by yourself for a little bit? Your mom needs a bit of peace and quiet.” He turned to the two cops. “And why don’t you guys write up your reports outside. If you need to leave her a copy, stick it through the mail slot. If you need her to sign it, come back tomorrow. Right now she needs a little bit of a break.”
    And because it was Charlie, everyone did as they were told and left the room. Mia plopped on the couch, but even sitting seemed like too much effort, so she ended up stretching out after Charlie cleared a space. She was too far gone even to be embarrassed by the mess. Putting her arm over her eyes, she said, “Thank you. All of a sudden I just felt so dizzy. I don’t even understand why you’re here. I’m just glad that you are.”
    “Gabe called me when he couldn’t get hold of you. I was on the phone with him when I heard someone yelling, and then Gabe dropped the phone. Must have been the first officer who responded. The one who seems to be trying for rookie of the year award.”
    “This has been one crazy day.” She debated telling Charlie about what had happened, but she didn’t want to relive it. What Young had tried to do to her would stay in the box she had put it in, at leastfor now. Tonight she would take one of the sleeping pills the doctor had given her after Scott died and hope she didn’t dream about what might have happened. “And right before all this happened, Frank wanted to talk to me about a case and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.” She took her arm off her eyes and propped herself up on her elbow. “You’ll be hearing about it soon because he wants us to work together on it. Kids dropped a shopping cart onto a woman who was four stories below a pedestrian walkway.”
    Charlie grimaced. “So they killed her?”
    “No. She’s not dead. At least not yet. Right now I need to decide whether to charge them as adults or juveniles. I need to figure out what kinds of kids they are. But not until tomorrow.” Mia let her head drop back down, reminding herself that she was safe now, that her kids were safe. “I would say this was the worst day of my life, but it wasn’t. It’s not even the worst day of this year.”
    Charlie cleared his throat. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I’ve been looking closer into your husband’s death. I don’t think it was an accident.”

CHAPTER 10
    M ia’s mouth opened, but no words came out. It was like the day the earthquake had rippled up from Olympia all the way to Seattle. Like she was frozen in shock.
    But she had always been afraid of this, hadn’t she? Scott had been in debt up to his eyeballs, and