Perfect Daughter

"Stop hovering, mom." Maggie Rivers barely glanced at the woman who'd joined her beside the ornate stained-glass window. She'd been independent for years. Since she was a teenager, her parents had supported her from a distance while trusting her to make her own choices. But today, Carrinne Wilmington-Rivers was displaying a talent for hovering. "I'm fine," Maggie insisted. Her entire body was a throbbing migraine waiting to happen. "Please go sit with Dad." Her father was somewhere in the crowd of Class-A-dressed officers who'd filled the enormous Manhattan cathedral. But her mother had abandoned their perfectly good seats to offer the kind of public support that could only mean disaster. The kind oflean on me, when you're not strongdisplay Maggie refused to let NYPD Detective Matt Lebretti see. Matt and the other pallbearers would be carrying the flag-draped coffin into the church any minute. Then he'd join her near the front. She had a funeral service to get through for a man she barely knew. A man whose death was entirely too personal for both her and Matt. No way was she indulging in a heart-to-heart with her mother. It was already impossible not to picture everyone being there for Matt's funeral, instead of his partner's. He and Bill had been standing only a few feet from each other when Bill went down. "I know how hard this must be for you." Her mother squeezed Maggie's shoulder. "If you need anything." "Ineedto focus on Matt right now." Through the cathedral's open doors, she could see him waiting on the steps for the hearse to arrive. Her heart caught at the rigid set of his classic Italian features. He was determined to be okay, too, no matter how responsible he felt for Bill Donovan's death. "It's not like this is the first funeral I've ever been to." She shrugged off her mother's touch and the echoes of everything she'd fought to leave behind. "Matt's clearly worried about you." Her mom blinked at Maggie's wordless glare toshut up, please."Letting people support you while you deal with something like this isn't the end of the world, honey." Something like this. A sea of blue. That's what her dad had said a NYPD funeral would look like. His description hadn't begun to prepare Maggie for the reality. When she'd started at NYU five years ago, he'd transferred from being the sheriff of small-town Oakwood, Georgia, to a captain's position in one of New York's outlying boroughs. His countyfunded job mostly involved enforcing civil laws and warrants, unlike the city officers who dealt with the bulk of the day-to-day violence and street crime. Still, he and his deputies had attended every department funeral since. They all turned out" NYPD, New Jersey police, sheriffs, port authority cops. They showed up in force to honor the ultimate sacrifice an officer could make. Maggie glanced to where Bill's grieving widow and mother were holding each other in the front pew. Women who'd loved a hero, never believing this could happen. Not really. Not to them. No one ever did. "I'll be fine," she assured her mother. Carrinne walked away in silence. Her expression assured Maggie that she wasn't fooling anyone. Okay, maybefinewasn't the right word for standing alone in a church teeming with grieving people. But at least she'd earned herself a few moments of silence, free of her family wondering what had been going on since her trip down to Georgia last summer. Her return to the tiny town of Oakwood for her great-grandfather Oliver's funeral had unearthed memories she'd thought were buried forever. Now, her past had a stranglehold on the life she'd worked so hard for, feeding her fear of losing Matt and her compulsion to run from everything. Matt smiled solemnly from his post at the door. It hurt like hell, but she made herself smile back. "You guys ready?" Tommy Callihan asked. Word had just come oveDeStefano, Anna is the author of 'Perfect Daughter ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373713998 and ISBN 0373713991.