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the
time.'
         Ah, crap, Jessica thought. Logic from a seven-year-old.
        After
Sophie was born, Jessica had discovered boxing as an exercise and weight-loss
regimen. For some reason she took to it, even going so far as to take a few
amateur bouts before letting her great uncle Vittorio talk her into turning
pro. Although those days were probably behind her - unless there was a Senior
Tour for female boxers closing in on thirty-five - she had begun to visit Joe
Hand's Gym in anticipation of a series of exhibition bouts planned to raise
money for the Police Athletic League.
        None
of that training helped her at this moment, however, a moment when she was
faced with explaining the difference between fighting and boxing.
        Then
Jessica saw a shadow in her side mirror.
        Vincent
was walking up the drive, carrying a pizza from Santucci's. With his caramel
eyes, long lashes and muscular physique, he still made Jessica's heart flutter,
at least on those days when she didn't want to kill him. Sometimes he dressed
in suits and ties, cleanshaven, his dark hair swept back. Other days he was scruffy.
Today was a scruffy day. Jessica was, and always had been, a pushover for
scruff. She had to admit it. Detective Vincent Balzano looked pretty damned
good for a married man.
        'Sweetie?'
Jessica asked.
        'Yeah,
mom?'
        'That
thing we were talking about? About fighting versus boxing?'
        'What
about it?'
        Jessica
reached over, patted her daughter's hand. 'Ask your father.'
     
        They
had lived in the Lexington Park section of Northeast Philadelphia for more than
five years, just a few blocks from Roosevelt Boulevard. On a good day it would
take Jessica forty-five minutes to get to the Roundhouse. On a bad day - most
days - even longer. But all that was about to change.
        She
and Vincent had just closed on a vacant trinity in South Philly, a three-story
row house belonging to old friends, which was how many houses in the
neighborhood changed hands. Rare was the property that made it to the
classifieds.
        They
would be living in the shadow of their new church, Sacred Heart of Jesus, where
Sophie would be starting school. New friends, new teachers. Jessica wondered
what the effect on her little girl was going to be.
        Jessica's
father, Peter Giovanni, one of the most decorated cops in PPD history, still
lived in the South Philadelphia house in which Jessica had grown up - at Sixth
and Catharine. He was still vibrant and active, very much involved in the
community, but he was getting on in years, and the trip for him to see his only
granddaughter would eventually become a burden. For this, and for so many other
reasons, they were moving back to South Philly.
        With
her daughter fast asleep, and her husband ensconced in the basement with his
brothers, Jessica stood at the top of the narrow stairs to the attic.
        It
seemed as if her entire life was in these boxes, these cramped and angled
rooms. Photographs, keepsakes, awards, birth and death certificates, diplomas.
        She
picked up one of the boxes, a white Strawbridge's gift box with a piece of
green yarn around it. It was the yarn with which her mother used to tie her
hair in autumn, after the summer sun had made her brunette hair turn auburn.
        Jessica
slid off the yarn, opened the box: a faux-pearl mirror compact, a small leather
change purse, a stack of Polaroids. Jessica felt the familiar pangs of pain and
grief and loss, even though it had been more than twenty-five years since her
mother had died. She slipped the yarn back around the box, put it by the
stairs, gave the room one last survey.
        She
had been a cop for a long time, had seen just about everything. There wasn't
too much that unnerved her.
        This
did.
        They
were moving back to the city.

 
        

Chapter 5
        
        'Fuckin'
city,' the man said. 'First my car gets booted,