I call her name from the kitchen, my voice carrying easily through the small house. It is one of the benefits and negatives of the size. We could have bought one ten times bigger, but that would have raised questions should a federal employee come sniffing, plus there is Lillian’s intellect, which does pick inconvenient times to raise its head. Though my wife is flaky, she can be very, very smart. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with her. The other was her mothering potential, and I judged that well. She is a fantastic mother, save this hiccup with Jacob.

  This fling is certainly a black mark on her, but not entirely unexpected. I should have seen this coming, should have done an effects analysis and then blocked the possibility—but in addition to intellect and her parenting skills, Lillian has also been staunchly loyal. That unwavering loyalty lulled me into stupid placidity, and I’d been distracted with the aftermath of ending my other relationship. What was supposed to be easy and clean had ended up being very messy and highly emotional, a situation I had not quite solved, in large part because of Lillian.

  There is no response and I take the stairs two at a time, checking my watch as I climb. She should be dressed and ready. I had to call in a favor to get this last-minute appointment, and tardiness will be unacceptable.

  The bedroom is empty, as is the guest room. I look in on Jacob’s bedroom—empty—and stand at the bathroom window, looking down on the backyard. No sign of Lillian’s increasingly slim figure. I frown.

  Taking the stairs back down, I check my watch again, my frustration rising as another minute clicks by. I open the garage and stare at my car, which is still sitting in its spot, its keys on the hook. After she blocked me in last night, I took her car, but there’s no reason why if she went somewhere, she wouldn’t have taken mine.

  I try her cell and it goes straight to voice mail.

  Where is she?

  CHAPTER 40

  MIKE

  I park her car in the garage and swap the keys on the hooks, then take mine and leave the house at twenty minutes before two, without Lillian. I text her the address without much hope. Is she with him? She’s with someone, unless she went for a run—and Lillian hasn’t been a runner since her bout with anorexia almost twelve years ago. A walk also seems unlikely, unless it is to the liquor store or the gas station, and I drive by both on my way to the attorney’s office but don’t see her.

  Her purse, upon further recollection, wasn’t in the kitchen or living room, so she probably has it with her. This is why we should have a family app, the sort that tracks locations and speed of travel. Unfortunately, it was hard to require that of my family without me also opting in, and there is no way that I will ever be voluntarily tracked.

  I pull into the attorney’s office and park on the far side of the lot, not so close to the street as to be potentially hit by traffic but not so close to the building as to risk a door ding. The Volvo is alone on both sides and parked nose out, in case the need for a quick exit arises—not that there has ever been a need for a quick exit, but you have to prepare for any circumstances, on every day, at all times.

  Lillian would have parked crooked in the closest spot to the front door and forgotten to lock the doors. My wife is not a preparer, and maybe that’s why I fell in love with her. The beast and the beauty. Organization and chaos. Dark and light.

  I check in with a receptionist three minutes before the appointment time and try not to let the last-minute arrival bother me. It is overshadowed by the fact that Lillian is not here, and I try her cell again, but get only voice mail.

  The attorney has a flat chest and acne scars pitting her cheeks and jowls, the sort of woman who has become mean just to survive the cruel reception of life. She watches the video twice, then returns the phone to me. “Where is your wife, Mr. Smith?”

  “I’m not sure. She was going to meet me here, but is probably running late.” I smile to overcome Lill’s rudeness. “But we can proceed without her. I have our list of questions.”

  It’s really only my list of questions. Lillian doesn’t want to hear about the steps necessary to make this go away. She prefers to theoretically clamp her hands over her ears and spout loud gibberish to drown out the reality of her situations. This isn’t the first time she has screwed up. She doesn’t realize the extents I’ve gone to, to pull her out of harm and financial strife. She thinks that life just turns and unfolds in easy ways, ways where problems magically disappear and people give up on arguments, and frowns eventually turn upside down.

  “Before you start on your list, let me ask a few quick questions.” The attorney swivels her chair left, then right, and laces her fingers over her concave stomach. “The woman on the video is your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “The man is who?”

  “David Laurent. He has a company that screen-prints T-shirts. He lives in Nevada but visits LA on a regular basis, according to Lillian.” No need to mention the other things I’ve dug up on David Charles Laurent, whose paper trail was clear and easy to follow. A Fresno business headquarters and personal address, no tax liens or bankruptcies. Unmarried. No kids. No social media, which I didn’t like. While I would have hated my wife screwing a selfie-posting asshole, social media was a trail that I could follow and analyze.

  “He knows about the video?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This has been an ongoing affair, or is this a one-night-stand sort of thing?” She snaps out the questions in quick succession, unconcerned with tact, and I appreciate that.

  “Ongoing affair. One month in.”

  “And the Jacob Smith that’s mentioned in the video and in the video’s description, that’s your son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Biological child to both of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any chance he’s not your son?”

  “No.”

  She purses her orange-red painted lips and nods, and I can tell that she isn’t convinced of the fact. I don’t care. I had a DNA test done as soon as he was born—not because I was worried about Lillian cheating but because surprises cause problems, and you should know all potential problems before they arise.

  I flatten my list out on the table. “May I begin my questions?”

  CHAPTER 41

  MIKE

  On the way back to the house, Sam calls. Irritated, I send him to voice mail. Lillian will surely be at home, fixing dinner with a blank look and a thin excuse for why she missed the attorney meeting. No matter—I found out what I needed to know. Our liability is nil, as are our chances of catching the asshole who did this. I wrote a hefty check for a retainer, and Amy will file a motion today demanding that the video be taken down and that any information on the uploader be given to law enforcement.

  I don’t have high hopes for them getting info on the uploader. Possibly an IP address, but that could be easily manipulated or shielded. In the attorney’s office, I had huffed and puffed about the ridiculousness of personal protections, but in truth, I’m grateful for them. As inconvenient as they are in this particular situation, they are enormously helpful in my day-to-day life.

  Right now, I need to compartmentalize my thoughts on the tasks ahead of me because there are many of them. I’ve presented to Lillian a hefty list of potential side effects, but I have a secondary list that I’m keeping from her. On that list, I’ve outlined how this could possibly affect my business.

  I call Jacob, and he picks up on the second ring, his anger not extending to me. “Hey.”

  “Have you talked to your mother?”

  “Like, this morning.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know.” The sound of an automatic weapon sounds in the background. “Maybe like ten thirty?”

  “Okay. Are you at home?”

  “No, I’m at Dijon’s. We’re playing Call of Duty.”

  “Why don’t you eat dinner with him? I’ll see you when you get home.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I hang up. So they spoke this morning. That’s one step in the right direction. Lillian can update me on the temperature of the conversation. I try her cell again and growl in frustration when it goes to voice mail. Okay. That’s fine. A short hiccup of time. Nothing to get upset over. This is Lillian, after all. Unreliability is her norm.

  A voice mail from Sam arrives, and I play it.

  “It’s me. I haven’t been able to reach Lill. I spoke to her earlier today and she seemed a little . . . undone. I think she’s off her meds. Let me know if you’ve talked to her, and if she’s all right.”

  I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. Sam knows better than to call me about something like this. Lillian, we had agreed, would be my responsibility, though Sam never seems to stay in his lane where she is concerned.

  And that’s the problem with people. They don’t stay where you put them, not unless they are dead.

  I eye the dash clock and take the exit for my office. I have time to do a little bit of business before dinner.

  CHAPTER 42

  LILLIAN

  I wake up on the cemetery bench, and it’s dark outside. Shit. How did I fall asleep out here? I was drinking the anniversary bourbon and then . . . I pinch my eyes closed and try to remember anything past that point. I creak up to a sitting position and look for my purse, my anxiety spiking when I realize that it isn’t on the bench, or on the ground, or anywhere in the vicinity. Which is expected, because it’s Los Angeles, and I’m lucky I’m wearing all my clothes and still alive.

  I groan at the thought of what was in my purse: the bourbon—who cares; my pills—meh, take ’em; my wallet—crap. My keys . . . I brighten at the fact that Mike has my keys since he took my car today. Perfect. My cell phone is another wince-worthy loss, but my photos were backed up to the cloud, and Mike has insurance on it. We are nothing if not well insured.

  I glance around, suddenly concerned that my purse thief is nearby, wanting more. There are black pockets of shadow around the trees, the gravestones casting black fingers under the moonlight; there’s a chill in the air; and—for the first time in ages—the empty graveyard creeps me out.

  I stand and brush off my pants, then quickly start the walk home.

  I’m passing the Martins’ two-story home when I realize that I missed the attorney’s appointment. Cursing, I check my watch, but the numbers swim in my vision. Hopefully it’s only six or seven. Mike must have gone to the attorney without me, and he’ll be pissed. I’ll get that look, the exasperated one where he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with me, then the cold shoulder where he tabulates a list of my transgressions for later analysis.

  He used to not be so . . . stiff. When we met, he was almost meek. The quiet nerd who was staring at me in the bookstore. He brought me flowers on our first date. Blushed after our first kiss. Carefully applied a Band-Aid with military precision when I tripped getting out of his car and skinned my knee.

  The transition was steep, after graduation, and has plateaued and spiked, as major events passed by. Jacob’s birth. The purchase of this home. His promotion at work. The start of my depression. The drinking. The medications.

  Maybe he had to become this way, so parental, so overbearing, just to keep us in order. There is that, about him. Despite the increasing emotional vacancy, he is a rock that our marriage—our family—leans on, one that often pins us into place when we grow shaky.

  I get to the house and he’s in the office, on the phone. I wait in the doorway for him to stop talking, and when there is a pause, I speak. “I’m sorry about the attorney. I lost track of time.”

  He stares through me, his jaw set, eyes flat. I hesitate. “Have you eaten?”

  “Yes,” he snaps. “Of course.”

  I can’t tell if he’s talking to me or to the person on the phone, and decide it doesn’t matter. I head to the kitchen but feel a wave of lightheadedness and decide to sit, for just a moment, on the floor.

  When I wake up, all the lights are off and Mike is gone.

  CHAPTER 43

  FRENCHY

  The sun rises above the horizon slowly, yawning over the black ocean, half-hidden by clouds, its rays tinting the dunes in pale peach. This stretch of sand is a hidden enclave of private homes, too far from public parking for any foot traffic, too flat a stretch of sand for waves. It’s why Frenchy chose it. She wanted to lie on a beach without a tourist trampling by, without the shouts and profanity of surfers on the wind.

  Surfers are trash. Literally, trash. They drip it everywhere they go, small vials of wax, ziplock baggies, cans of energy drinks, the pull cord of a surfboard. They drag lines through the sand, and set up boom boxes and disrupt the quiet to light bonfires and smoke weed and bang their sand bunnies.

  At first, Frenchy thinks the woman is one of them. Someone who partied along the shore last night, wandered too far down, and passed out in the dunes. She sees the curve of the woman on her side, her long hair sandy, her body tucked up against the seagrass.

  Frenchy pauses, her tennis shoes already caked with sand, and considers waking her and asking her to leave. Surely the woman won’t argue, especially when Frenchy points out that she’s on private property. Technically, that isn’t true, but none of the stray surfers and tourists ever argue with her when she says that.

  Calling the police is another option, but they often dismiss her. It is, after all, public property, and people can sleep on the beach, despite how it ruins Frenchy’s day. Sometimes she gets lucky, and an officer is sent out. There’s that one beach patrol uniform who always stares at her breasts and does anything she asks, but she hasn’t seen him in ages.

  She continues on, past the sleeping woman. Maybe she’ll leave on her own. After all, it’s almost seven. It’ll be hot soon. The woman will need to move to the shade, or will grow hungry, or will have to pee, and one of those things will force her into action. Besides, Frenchy has committed to her trainer that she will walk four miles today, and that will never happen unless she focuses on the task and dedicates herself, and look, here she is getting distracted and wasting time.

  She heads north with a purpose, her arms pumping, and makes it almost thirty yards before the next item, a green tote bag, catches her eye. It looks expensive, and her steps slow to give it a closer look.

  She’s right, it is a quality bag, though it looks like it’s been out all night. She crouches, tsking at the wet and sandy condition of it. She actually has this same one, but in blue. It’s almost empty, and she glances around, seeing a few items—a ChapStick, a tissue packet, a tube of sunscreen—almost buried in the sand. Gathering what she can find, she puts them back in the bag and stands. If this is the woman’s, it should be returned to her. It’s the perfect excuse to wake her up, and then Frenchy can continue with her exercise, and the beach will return to its quiet and empty solitude.

  Decision made, she marches up the sand, her steps as quick as possible, given the heavy traction. “Hellooo!” she calls out. “Excuse me!” Nothing worse than scaring someone. And plus, you never know with these people. She could be a drug addict, or mentally unstable. Frenchy could bend over her and the woman could spring to her feet with a knife and haul her up the empty beach to Frenchy’s home. She could force her inside, rob her blind, and kill her.

  It happens. Two miles up the road, it happened just last year.

  “Hey!” Frenchy stands a safe distance away and waves her arms, the bag swinging from her left hand. “Miss! I have your purse!” It’s got to be her bag, right? What are the chances that two women both were on this beach last night?

  She risks a step closer, then another. The woman doesn’t move. “Can you hear me?” Frenchy’s shouting now, and there’s no way the woman can’t hear her. She digs her white tennis shoes into the sand and climbs farther up the dune, at an angle where she can see the woman’s face.

  Oh. Frenchy stumbles in the loose sand and falls onto her knee, the one that she had surgery on three years ago. She forces herself upright and stares, her dark lips falling open as she studies the woman’s slack expression, her eyes open, sandmites already milling around the glassy irises.

  The woman hasn’t heard Frenchy and won’t care about her purse because the woman, just a hundred yards from the back of Frenchy’s home, is dead.

  CHAPTER 44

  MIKE

  When I wake up, the house is still empty and the guest room bed is undisturbed, Lillian’s phone going straight to voice mail. I take a shower and then begin the old actions. First, I check her call history, which is light. One to Sam. Several to me. Any hope of syncing her affair timeline with phone calls fizzes out, as I realize that there have been no consistent strange numbers in the few weeks I’ve been monitoring her.

  Again, my wife is smart, but the level of preemptive subterfuge in using an internet-based app to place calls—that I wouldn’t have expected. Maybe they only texted. I open that window and browse through that history, but again, no red flags.

  The potential options are plentiful. They could have communicated through social media. That Twitter account of Lillian’s—though recently dormant—is an open portal of communication that I have never been fond of. Thankfully, she has never become one of those Facebook or Instagram moms, though again . . . maybe she has. My lack of attention to her is becoming alarmingly apparent.

  I return to her call log, and the last few numbers she dialed yesterday are unfamiliar to me. I open a fresh internet browser and search them.

  The first unfamiliar call is to a taxi company, which is interesting. My wife has a car app on her phone, one that alerts me to any usage. There would have been little need for a taxi, if she’d been too drunk to drive.