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Are you?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œLundgren?”
    â€œChief?”
    â€œLet us know if he contacts you again. Put in the trace orders now.”
    She nodded and unclipped her cell phone. “And if he does call, what do I tell him?”
    â€œSay whatever the hell you have to to keep him on the line.”
    Meeting concluded, they exited the office. Out of their superior’s earshot, Riggio leaned toward her. “Looks like you got what you wanted. You’re in the loop.”
    â€œYou have a problem with that?”
    â€œJust don’t forget who’s lead on this one, Lundgren. It’s my case.”
    â€œSomehow, I don’t think you’d let me forget, Detective Riggio.”
    The woman looked as if she had more to say; Kitt didn’t give her the chance. “If you’ll excuse me, I have traces to order.”

9
    Wednesday, March 8, 2006
6:40 p.m.
    M.C. dreaded Wednesday nights. Specifically, six-thirty to eight-thirty. “The Pasta Hours,” she called them. That was when she—and all five of her siblings—assembled for a command performance at their mother’s table. There, they would be skewered, then grilled on every aspect of their lives.
    M.C. could feel the hot coals already—she was her mother’s favorite entrée.
    There wasn’t a single thing about M.C. that her mother approved of. Nothing, nada. The big zippo. It used to bother her, but no longer. She’d realized that if she had wanted to become the woman her mother wanted her to be, she could have.
    So, M.C. sucked it up week after week, only occasionally praying for a homicide that would keep her away.
    She pulled up in front of her childhood home, a two-story farmhouse, minus the farm. She parked, frowning as she thought of Kitt Lundgren and her anonymous caller.
    Could the woman have fabricated the story in an attempt to actively participate in the investigation? Would she go that far?
    Yes—if what she’d heard about Lundgren’s obsession with the case was true.
    The suspicion left M.C. feeling uneasy and she glanced toward the front porch. Michael and Neil stood there, deep in conversation. She smiled to herself. She’d affectionately nicknamed her five siblings: the Overachiever, the Suck-up and the Three Ass-kissers.
    Michael, the Overachiever, was the oldest. A chiropractor. In her mother’s world, the only thing better than one of her children being called “Dr. Riggio” was their being called “Father Riggio.” But Michael—and the rest of the Riggio boy-brood—enjoyed women and sex way too much for that particular calling, so Mama Riggio had contented herself with “her son, the doctor.”
    Neil, the Suck-up, taught math at Boylan Central Catholic High School, their alma mater, and coached the wrestling team. Very normal. He had also provided their mother with a daughter-in-law and her first and, to date, only grandchild.
    The three youngest of the boys, Tony, Max and Frank, had pooled their resources and Mama’s family recipes and opened Mama Riggio’s Italian Restaurant. The trio had just opened their second location and had plans for a third, in the suburbs closer to Chicago. The name of their restaurant had earned them the nickname the Three Ass-kissers.
    M.C. loved her brothers. Adored them, actually. Even the one whose brainchild it had been to decorate Mama Riggio’s with old family photographs, including one of her with braces, zits and really bad hair.
    A photo they jumped at every opportunity to point out.
    â€œAnd that’s our only sister, Mary Catherine. She’s unmarried, if you’re interested.”
    Big yuk.
    She climbed out of her SUV. “Hello, boys.”
    â€œYo, M.C.,” Neil called. “Looking wicked.”
    â€œThanks,” she called back, slamming the vehicle door. “Hoping to scare Mama.”
    And she just might. She was dressed all in black, her dark