The House Husband Read online

  Now the big question: what’s this scruffy middle-aged dude doing with a fake doll strapped to his chest on the fringes of a crime scene?

  You were trying to blend, right? Keep the attention off your face as you watched us—the cops working the murders you orchestrated.

  After Alex prints out multiple headshots of Daddy from the Pancoast video, Teaghan circulates them throughout the department with a note attached: Anybody recognize this guy? An ex-con, maybe? On a wanted list somewhere?

  Her fellow homicide detectives are very eager to take a look when she walks up and whispers to them face-to-face, “I think this is the scumbag who killed Diaz and his family.”

  Surprisingly few detectives push back on Teaghan. Instead, many of them voice a variation on the same theme: I knew Franny couldn’t have done this.

  Diaz, no matter his faults, is still a brother to them. And they want nothing more than to avenge his family.

  Technically, the PD has access to facial-recognition software. But to use it, you have to ask the FBI for a favor, and depending on the political climate, the commissioner himself has to get involved. Teaghan has no patience for that nonsense. She prefers to do it old-school, no red tape. If this guy’s a known scumbag, chances are someone in the department will recognize him.

  And within twenty minutes, Teaghan has a hit.

  But not on a killer.

  Instead, someone recognizes a victim.

  “Holy crap, I think that’s Harry Posehn,” says Detective D’Elia. “You know, the lawyer whose wife went nuts, then killed him and their kids? Happened just a couple of months ago.”

  Teaghan is nearly rocked back on her heels. W. Harold Posehn, the former defense attorney? The first familicide in the series?

  “Wait, wait,” she says. “I thought Posehn was dead.”

  D’Elia turns a bit sheepish. “Well, we found his blood all over the house, and it looked like he made it all the way down to the river before falling in and drowning,” he says. “We figured the current carried him all the way down to the Navy Yard, maybe even the Delaware Bay.”

  “And this never made it to the press?” Teaghan says.

  “No. Posehn’s parents are pretty powerful in the state, and they wanted everything kept quiet. And they’ve got the mayor’s ear, so…”

  Parents, Teaghan thinks. Harry Posehn is still alive. He was a father—a parent—and he killed his wife and children. He framed his wife and escaped. But why would he murder them? Was it punishment? Did he think it was a merciful act?

  Is that what he’s doing now? Killing parents and children in families that he thinks are broken? Or is it revenge?

  CHAPTER 32

  The world is what you make it.

  That’s what my daddy, Big Harold, always told me.

  If you find yourself stuck in a life you don’t want, that’s no one’s fault but your own.

  Don’t get me wrong. I loved Ruth and the kids. Madly. Deeply. I would have done anything for them. Why did they think I worked so many hours to provide them with all of the material comforts they deserved?

  Sure, Ruth complained that I was never home, but I also knew she enjoyed the high-end appliances and Le Creuset cookware and the big town house with hardwood floors and a claw-foot tub big enough to bathe our entire family at once. What was I supposed to do? Quit the firm and tell her to live with less?

  You know, it’s kind of her fault, actually. Ruth should have told me something was wrong!

  One day you get up and take your shower and drink your coffee and go to work, and you’re there for, like, fourteen hours, and you’re exhausted, and all you want to do is go home and enjoy a small meal and a glass of wine with your wife, but instead you find your wife in your bathroom, and she’s…

  Well, it’s probably best not to dwell on the past.

  Better to think about the future.

  The future, where the possibilities are endless!

  I mean, think about it. Just a few days ago, I didn’t know her name at all. She was just a pretty face in the crowd. Tired eyes and bad posture, but oh, that glow in her cheeks. Unmistakable. I knew the moment I laid eyes on her that it would be fun to get to know her.

  Her partner was another story. He didn’t deserve to be in her presence. I wonder how she put up with his boorishness. Wonder how many times he hit on her, hoping for a quickie in the back of their car. Wonder if she ever gave in…

  No. Not my girl. She wouldn’t do something like that. Some things you can just tell.

  She is the only one I am meant to be with. Even her name sounded magical when the CSI guy pronounced it.

  Detectives Diaz and Beaumont? You got a sec?

  Beaumont.

  B-E-A-U-M-O-N-T.

  CHAPTER 33

  By late afternoon, a bone-tired Teaghan—her breasts full of milk and her C-section scar aching like crazy—finally trudges up the front steps of their apartment building.

  Her day went on longer than she expected. When Teaghan woke up this morning, she thought she was just chasing down a wild lead. By noon, that wild lead had turned into hard evidence, enough to convince Teaghan’s superiors that W. Harold Posehn was alive and well and busy murdering families all over Philadelphia.

  Oh, won’t his proud parents be surprised.

  By 2:00 p.m., SWAT teams were combing Posehn’s old neighborhood and the banks of the Schuylkill River for miles in both directions. Police choppers covered the scene from the air. After they sealed Kelly Drive—the popular riverfront drive that offered a quick way out of downtown—traffic began to snarl all over the city. A lot of people were going to be furious later today when their commute home turned into a long, grinding slog.

  And sure, the old Teaghan Beaumont would have liked to be in the thick of the hunt, wanting nothing more than to hear the satisfying double click of handcuffs around this psycho’s wrists.

  But the new Teaghan, the detective who is also a mom, just wants to hold her son and maybe get a little sleep.

  She pushes the key into the lock of their front door and calls out, “Mommy’s home.”

  Still so weird to say that.

  Because of the strange, narrow layout of the apartment, the front door leads down a long hallway to the living room proper. Teaghan likes to think of the hallway as her decompression chamber. Leave the cop stuff at the door, and slowly transform back into wife—and now mother—as she walks through the passage.

  This rarely works, mind you. Even before she had Christopher, Teaghan couldn’t help but drag the cop stuff into their living space, into their kitchen, even into their bedroom. She can’t count the times Charlie has asked her what she was thinking about, and she’d have to lie and say Nothing. Because most times, she was thinking about something incredibly grisly from a recent crime scene. Even after their more intimate moments.

  Now, as Teaghan approaches the living room, she hears the baby wailing. Oh, boy. So much for decompression.

  “I’m coming, sweetie, hang on,” she says, pulling her gun from its holster. “Mommy’s gotta put her work tools away.”

  Charlie and Teaghan argued over where to store her gun, now that there was a child in the apartment. Finally, they decided on a lockbox in the topmost kitchen cabinet—at least, until little Christopher is up and walking around. Then they’ll have to figure out some other place. “Maybe that’s when we start thinking about a house,” Charlie said.

  She deferred that conversation until later. “Let’s just get through the trauma of being new parents first,” she said.

  Teaghan reaches up to the top cabinet and opens the door. Which causes a bit of pain, stretching like this, especially with her scars still aching and her breasts ready to burst.

  The baby’s loud wails make them ache even more.

  “So how was your day, Charlie? Get a lot of words done?”

  But nothing.

  Weird that her husband doesn’t reply. Usually, he’s eagerly handing off the kid like a hot potato. Is it poss
ible he’s fallen asleep and somehow doesn’t hear the baby bawling his eyes out?

  Teaghan pulls down the lockbox, flips the combination, opens it.

  “Charlie?”

  CHAPTER 34

  It’s been quite a while since I’ve held a real baby.

  Not since my sweet baby girl Jennifer, a little more than six weeks ago. Which, admittedly, feels like a lifetime ago.

  And now it is time for a new life.

  I hold this baby, a gorgeous little boy, and don’t even care that he’s screaming his head off. Babies do that. I know, I was guilty of being impatient when the boys were younger, and I would yell at Ruth for not being able to keep them quiet. But I know better now. When you know better, you do better.

  “It’s okay, Christopher,” I murmur, trying to keep my strange-sounding voice as soothing as possible. I know babies are able to hear their parents’ voices from the womb, and no doubt he’s gotten used to the sound of his biological father. But that’s okay. Babies are adaptive. He’ll get to know mine.

  “Won’t you, Christopher?” I coo.

  I know his name because there’s a banner in his nursery—probably purchased by coworkers or in-laws. WELCOME CHRISTOPHER, it proudly proclaims. I wish I could have been there for the birth. Well, with enough time and photos, I suppose, it will eventually feel like I was there.

  Breaking into a police officer’s home was surprisingly easy. Old brownstone mansions like this have basement windows, just like in my former home. It didn’t take much muscle to pry open the lock and shimmy into the basement, which turned out to be the floor with the bedrooms.

  (This won’t do, by the way. I’ll have to bring my new family to a suitable home, one where the floors aren’t all mixed up.)

  The former husband and father—I don’t know his name and don’t care to learn it now—was busy typing on his laptop with his big dumb mitts when I crept into the master bedroom. He didn’t have a chance, the sorry slob.

  I don’t even think the guy bothered to shower today. Kids notice that sort of thing. If you don’t put in the effort, what makes you think they will?

  Shameful, really. Looks like I showed up just in time.

  I looked down at his body, now sprawled out awkwardly, and told him, “That’s what you get for taking your eye off the ball. Parenting is not a hobby, buddy boy. It’s a full-time commitment.”

  And then I picked up my new son for the first time.

  Oh, that moment. I wish you could have been there to take a photo.

  The whole idea was to surprise Detective Beaumont, B-E-A-U-M-O-N-T, though I should probably start referring to her as Teaghan. It would be silly to call my new wife by her last name.

  Come to think of it, Beaumont is probably her married name. I’ll have her change it. Teaghan Posehn has an interesting ring to it, don’t you think? Though, sadly, I’ll probably need a new surname, too.

  “What do you think, Christopher?” I murmur now. “What would you like your last name to be? Something that goes nicely with Chris, I think. This is all for you, my little prince.”

  Christopher wails in response, but that’s okay. He’ll appreciate all of my efforts someday.

  So I rock him and sit on the couch—nothing more than a futon, actually, which will also have to go. Can’t have little Chris climbing all over a futon, pinching his fingers in the hinges.

  “How about a big overstuffed sofa, my man? Something for all three of us to curl up on while we watch TV.”

  And then…

  CLACK.

  I hear it.

  “Mommy’s home,” a voice calls out, and it’s the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. The kind of voice a man could learn to love. Already, this whole thing feels so right.

  (Sorry, Ruth, but it’s the truth. You could be a little abrasive.)

  And I know what you’re going to say. That I’m going to repeat my mistakes and work too much and not make time for my family. But I swear, hand on the Bible, I am going to change.

  “I’m coming, sweetie, hang on,” the sweet voice says. It’s even closer now. Just beyond the doorway. “Mommy’s gotta put her work tools away.”

  Our baby cries even harder at the sound of his mother’s voice. He knows something exciting is about to happen. He can’t wait for his new life to begin! It’s going to be so amazing.

  “So how was your day, Charlie? Get a lot of words done?”

  Charlie. Feh. So that was the loser’s name. Well, sorry, Charlie, this ship is about to set sail. Thanks for the biological contribution to our little family.

  “Charlie?”

  Come on inside, Detec—Teaghan. My love. Step through that door. I know, at first this whole thing may be a bit of a shock.

  Believe me, I get it.

  Which is why I’ve brought my gun, just to make sure you don’t do anything rash. Once you hear me out, you’ll agree that I’m giving you the opportunity of a lifetime.

  Don’t worry, Christopher. Here comes Mommy.…

  CHAPTER 35

  At first, Teaghan doesn’t quite know how to process the image before her eyes.

  W. Harold Posehn—the psychotic killer the entire city is searching for right this very moment—is calmly perched on her living-room futon. Baby Christopher is in his arms, bawling his eyes out.

  “Hi, honey,” Posehn says over the noise. “Welcome home.”

  There’s a gun in his hand, held as casually as a baby bottle or a pacifier. But the barrel is very much pointed at her.

  Is this a nightmare? Has she stepped into an alternate universe?

  No.

  Because if this psycho could easily read Diaz’s name, then he could read hers, too. She’s merely next on his list.

  Teaghan wants to scream, Hand over my son! But that’s the mom inside her. The detective inside her takes over, because she’s the only one who can possibly save them all.

  “Mr. Posehn,” Teaghan says. “I’ll admit, I’m a little surprised to see you here.”

  “Please, call me Will. The whole initial and middle name thing was for my father, Harold. I never liked it. But sometimes you end up doing things to make your parents happy.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Teaghan says, forcing an easygoing smile onto a face that wants to scream. “Hey, my baby’s really upset. You mind passing him over to me so I can, you know, give him the breast?”

  “Not yet,” Posehn says. “I want to make a few things clear first.”

  It’s impossibly hard for Teaghan to swallow her anger, but she says, “Okay.”

  She glances at the gun. Is this what he used to threaten Franny into shooting her family? Because that’s the only way it made sense. Franny loved her husband and her family; there’s no way she’d turn a gun on her own flesh and blood. She’d sooner gnaw her own hands off at the wrist.

  I’ll get him for you, Franny, she thinks. Destroy him for what he did to your family.

  “I know Christopher here is crying his little lungs out,” Posehn is saying, “but I’m actually great with kids. I mean, I could be great with kids.”

  “He’s really hungry,” Teaghan says. “Please let me feed him.”

  “Not yet!” Posehn snaps. “Let me finish.” He sighs, then shakes his head, as if trying to collect his thoughts. “I know you’re a busy career woman. I took one look at you at the crime scene on Christian Street and thought to myself, now, there’s a woman who’s dedicated to her profession. As a former workaholic lawyer, I can appreciate that.”

  “What about Ruth?” Teaghan asks. “Didn’t she appreciate how hard you worked?”

  Posehn recoils, as if her very name is a slap in the face. “She kept secrets from me,” he says quietly. “She should have told me…”

  “Told you what?”

  “We were building a life together. And then one day she decided to throw it all away. She had no right to do that.”

  “So you punished her. Just like you punished the Cookes and the Pancoasts and my partner’s fami
ly.”

  Posehn doesn’t react for a moment, as if his brain is a computer that’s slipped into sleep mode. Then he blinks and snaps back. “The Cookes? Oh, if you’d met those insufferable people, you would have begged me to punish them yourself. You should have heard them complaining before dinner. Eh, I don’t like that. Or wah, why does Jay get to use the BMW tonight, or boo-hoo, I’m only going to be able to spend six weeks down the shore instead of the whole summer. You should have heard them.”

  “That didn’t mean they had to die.”

  “Oh, yes, they did. They weren’t a family. They were breeding monsters. And those monsters would have gone on to breed more monsters, and the entire world would be overrun.”

  “So you killed them.”

  Teaghan—still the detective, still trained to exact a confession out of a scumbag, even though they weren’t in an interrogation room. Oh, how she wished they were in one of those rooms rather than right here, in the heart of her home.

  “I didn’t kill them,” Posehn says. “Mommy Eleanor did. I merely hid in the pantry until it was time to add just the right spice to the soup. It was an autumn vegetable bisque with crispy prosciutto, by the way, very earthy, which made it easy to sneak a little arsenic into the mix. Isn’t that how old ladies kill people? I thought so.”

  “And then you stuck around to finish her off with some painkillers. Did you have to force-feed them to her? Or was she already in shock after watching her entire family die?”

  Posehn sighs in exasperation. “Point is, I’m done with all of that. I just want to be a house husband. All I want is to take care of this baby, and take care of you, in a way you both deserve. A way your former husband couldn’t provide.”

  Former husband? Oh, no…Charlie…

  Teaghan feels her muscles turn into steel cords. If this psycho has hurt her husband, she’s going to utterly destroy him.