“Sure. I’m . . . uh . . . twenty minutes away. Okay?”

  “Yeah.” I end the call, then play the video again. She put the liquor in her purse and then . . . I look at the timeline of her calls. Three and a half hours later, she calls the taxi and then the abuse hotline and then her office, then somehow ends up in Malibu, dead in the surf. Her bag was there too—I remember the detective mentioning it. I hadn’t cared because I hadn’t been aware of the missing bottle at that time. Now it could be the most important thing in my life. Was the bottle still in the purse, in the evidence locker?

  I replace the drive and tuck the cords back in, returning the cabinet to its normal operation and the key to the can, though there is no longer anything of value inside. You still need to put things back in their place; otherwise your home, your marriage, your life is just one continually crumbling edifice.

  I take my key from the hook and call up the stairs to Jacob, who is playing music at a level that is unhealthy for his ears. I wait, then head to the garage. I have thirteen minutes to make it to the coffee shop parking lot to meet Sam.

  On the way, I call the detective to ask about the purse, but he doesn’t answer. I leave a message and make sure that I sound broken and weak, a man in mourning. The stress is easy to inject into my voice. The grief . . . I’m still working on the grief. For now, all I feel for her is hatred, and this new development has poured kerosene on that fire.

  CHAPTER 57

  LILLIAN

  I’m in a strange house and standing in the middle of a skinny hall, trying to place my surroundings. At the end of the hall is a mirror, and it’s odd to look at it and not see my own reflection. The walls are a pale blue, and the other end of the hall opens to a living room with midcentury-modern, white furniture and a large dalmatian, who launches off the couch and begins barking at me. I watch him with interest, and when I crouch and hold out my hand, he trots over and sniffs it, then barks again. Interesting.

  A woman yells at him to shut up and I straighten and turn toward the sound, following the hall to an open doorway. Pausing on the threshold, I look in to see a small office, one with stacks of books and papers on every surface. Behind the L-shaped desk is a woman I don’t know. I move closer, watching her with interest. She has almost translucent white skin and black hair, which is pulled into a low braid and contained with a thin red headband, which gives her a young look, though she is probably five or six years older than me. She’s wearing round tortoiseshell glasses and a pair of jean overalls with a red tank top, her shoulders hunched forward as she types away at a keyboard, her attention on the computer screen before her.

  The dog has followed me in and is still barking at me, and the woman yells at him again. I point to the door, and surprisingly, he obeys, walking into the hall and sitting and staring at me as if waiting for his next command.

  I do a slow spin of the room, wondering why I am here. I’ve never been in a strange place before, at least not as a dead woman. The woman sighs in frustration, and I circle the desk to see what she’s working on. It is an email, something about code enforcement and a backyard deck. I perk up at the same time that she does, both of us hearing the slam of a door and a male voice calling out a name. Caroline.

  “I’m in here,” she calls.

  I step back from the computer, conscious of how it will look, then remind myself that I don’t exist, at least not to these people. Then he appears in the doorway and I forget, for a moment, that I am dead.

  David.

  He looks different. The scruff is shaved and he is in a golf shirt and jeans, his hair shorter and neater. He’s wearing glasses, ones that match hers, and they look like the sort of couple that goes to organic swap meets on the weekends and open-mic poetry readings. When I look at her, she’s smiling and he’s coming around the desk and kissing her on the lips, and a sharp knife of jealousy hits.

  So he’s not single. This is his house. That is his dog. This is his . . . I look at her hand and see the ring. This is his wife. He is also now wearing a ring, a thin silver band that glints as he caresses the back of her neck, and I think of him on top of me, grunting. A drop of sweat had come off his forehead and splattered on my cleavage. A wave of revulsion hits, and I turn away from them.

  “I thought you were going to be gone this week,” she says.

  “That project’s over.” And . . . wow. No French accent.

  “Oh.” She is surprised. “Everything work out?”

  “Not exactly.” He sits on the edge of the desk. He turns away from her and leans down to pet the dog, the action shielding her from the view of his features, which twist in pain, then are forced smooth. I watch, fascinated. “She, ah. She didn’t make it.”

  “What?” She sits back in her chair. “What do you mean? She caught you?”

  “No, no.” He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes with the pads of his fingers. “Overdose.”

  “Was it you?”

  Was it you? I frown at the question. Is she asking if he killed me?

  He sighs, as if disappointed in the question. “Caroline.”

  “What?” She shrugs. “I can ask. You don’t have to answer.” She doesn’t seem concerned about my death, and I decide that I don’t like her.

  David puts his glasses back on, but there is a tear he has missed, a dot of moisture that hangs on his right cheekbone. Ha! I want to shout. See! He liked me. He really liked me. “I’m going to get a shower.”

  “Are you in trouble?” She spins in the desk chair as he heads for the door, passing me so closely that I can smell his cologne, and even it is different from the one he wore with me.

  “They’re not happy, but I’m fine. Things happen. We’ll find another way to get the rest of what we need.” His true voice has a hint of a New York accent, and I’m fascinated by the differences between this man and the one I knew. The rest of what we need? What is he talking about?

  I’m trying to piece together the meaning of that sentence when he scratches the dog on the back and heads out of the room.

  “Welcome home,” she says quietly, and I bare my teeth at her and growl for absolutely no good reason.

  CHAPTER 58

  LENNY

  I pay the bill with three twenties that have seen better days. Gersh eyes the limp cash but doesn’t say anything. I made it through breakfast without ordering a drink, so other than having a raging headache, I’m doing pretty good. I will need something soon; otherwise I’ll start detoxing, and that won’t help Lillian at all. So my reward, once this pretty boy coughs up the rest of his intel, is a pool hall I walked past on the way here. Low lights, assholes in the doorway, a collection of cigarette stubs on the windowsill—it looks perfect, and I’m trying not to think about it as I follow him to his car.

  The last time I sat in a black-and-white, it was a traveling garbage can, one I shared with whatever rookie was unfortunate enough to be stuck with me for the week. They always gave me the rookies, in part because I was too big an asshole to have a partner but also because I had a way of dealing with the public that the brass liked. Just enough velvet and steel, as they said—though the truth was, I just knew how to defuse a situation. Grow up with an alcoholic father, and you learn that skill quickly. Add in a frigid mother, and you have empathy for just about every type of person you come across. The only people I didn’t do well with were the entitled, which was why they pulled me off Beverly Hills and the other rich zip codes real quick. As much as I shone in the ghettos, I tarnished in the sun. Gersh, on the other hand, seems like he’d be a yuppie’s best fucking friend.

  He takes the driver’s seat and I sit on a passenger seat that shines with fresh Armor All. I eye the air freshener coil in the cup holder. “You offer the perps hand sanitizer and a breath mint when they come in?”

  “That’s funny.” He opens a laptop that is set into a stand beside the gear box and starts typing, his fingers flying across the keyboard at a speed that irritates the shit out of me. I hate this, the constant reminders of why I would have been forced out of the job, even if I hadn’t lost Marcella. Guys like me were dinosaurs, upstaged by young idiots like this guy who, dammit to hell, seems capable of more than just flossing his teeth.

  How does Rancin handle it? Does he sign out at the end of each day and just wonder, for a moment, about quitting? He’s hit retirement age. He could join the likes of me, and drink and do crossword puzzles and sleep until ten and lament the good old days while hating his new lot in life. Come on, man. Retirement is great. Please, join me in my misery so I don’t look so fucking pathetic.

  “So I told you about the calls, right?” Gersh glances at me, but his fingers keep moving somehow, and it’s unnerving.

  “Yeah. Three calls. Taxi, women’s center, the paper.”

  “The taxi company doesn’t keep recordings; neither does the paper. But the women’s center does, so we got this.” He hits a key and a woman’s voice comes through the speaker of the computer.

  “Domestic help line, is this an emergency?”

  “Uh, no. Not really. Not yet?”

  “May I have your name?”

  “Lillian Smith.”

  I scoot forward and close my eyes, concentrating on the voice.

  “How can I help you, Lillian?”

  “I need to talk to someone about my husband. He’s angry at me. I’m worried . . . I just want to talk to someone. I just don’t see a way out of this.”

  “Lillian, where are you now? Do we need to get you someplace safe?”

  “I’ll have to call you back. I have to go. Maybe this was a mistake. I think . . .” She pauses. “I think it’d be easier on everyone if I just went away.”

  “Lillian, listen to me. Let’s make an appointment for you to talk to someone. There are options—”

  The recording ends and Gersh hits a key. “That’s it. Anything strike you as odd about the call?”

  “Yeah.” I look at him and can tell that he already suspects what I’m about to say. “That’s not Lillian’s voice.”

  “How certain are you?”

  “One thousand fucking percent.”

  CHAPTER 59

  LILLIAN

  Mike is alarmed, but I don’t know why. I also don’t know why he has a hidden camera in our kitchen pantry, but he watched footage of me taking our anniversary bourbon a half dozen times, then knocked over a lamp in anger. Maybe he cares for me more deeply than I thought, but my female intuition tells me that it’s something else.

  He left the house an hour ago, after calling up to Jacob and being ignored. I waited for him to go upstairs, to try to talk to our son, but instead he headed for the garage and drove away.

  Now I move upstairs and into Jacob’s room. He’s on his back in the middle of his mattress, music pounding through his speakers. It’s that horrible music, the kind where someone screams unintelligible words into a microphone while cymbals slam together. His eyes are closed and he is mumbling something. I put my ear very close to his mouth and realize he’s singing the words of the song—there are actually words to this.

  I want to sit with him, to be with him, but I couldn’t stand this music when I was living and can’t take it when I’m dead, so I pass into the hall and start down the stairs. I’ll go into the backyard and lie in the hammock. I can’t make it move, but I can still smell the jasmine blooms and feel the sunshine and the breeze. It might be one of the last moments that I get to enjoy outside, before I fade away forever.

  I’m smiling at the thought, my movements quicker, but then I round the hard right turn in the staircase and stop because there are two strangers in my house, and they are coming up the stairs toward me.

  I stare at them, confused. My mother would describe them as swarthy—with thick muscles that are too big for their heights, their shoulders almost brushing the sides of our stairwell. One wears an Aerosmith T-shirt, the other a tank top, and they are creeping up the stairs in a silent fashion that scares the hell out of me.

  These are not home repairmen, not with the stealthy way they move. And they’re missing the stiff haircuts and constipated expressions that mark Mike’s acquaintances. They’re also too old to be friends of Jacob’s. I stumble back, higher on the steps, and spot the gun in Aerosmith’s hand.

  A gun. If I had a heart, it would freeze. All I can think of is Jacob. I claw at the framed pictures on the wall, but nothing happens. I run up the stairs and into my son’s room and scream at him, but he doesn’t move; he just lies there, his eyes still closed, one finger tapping against the front of his chest.

  I am trying to do something, anything, but this is not a movie. There is no cosmic power in the air, nothing is rattling or shaking, and my son is just lying there, his mouth quietly moving along with the words of the song when they open his door and quietly move to either side of his bed. Aerosmith leans forward and presses the gun to Jacob’s forehead, and it is at that moment that his eyes flip open and everything in my vision fades to black.

  CHAPTER 60

  MIKE

  Money should be moving by now. What’s going on?

  I’m finishing a call with the detective and pulling into the coffee shop lot when the text arrives. I need my blood pressure cuff, because I’m fairly certain that I’m moving into problematic range, and my current blend of thinners and medications doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Putting my Volvo into park, I take several deep breaths and work to calm the rapid beat of my heart.

  My call with the detective didn’t help. I needed to know whether the liquor was still in Lill’s purse, in evidence. Asking the question had only seemed to raise Detective Gersh’s dislike and suspicion of me, but there had been no way around it. Unfortunately, his answer was to the negative. There had been no liquor bottle or box recovered at the beach scene or in her purse. Before I ended the call, he asked for me to stop by the station. We have an appointment in an hour.

  My clients are not patient or understanding people. The idea that I may have misplaced Colorado’s encryption key is not something that will be received rationally or kindly. They will panic, immediately. I’ve never seen them panic—nor given them reason to—but eight years of perfect transactions mean nothing and would be forgotten in an instant if I were to lose the location of one of their minor cash accounts, much less Colorado.

  Sam’s midnight-blue Range Rover is parked by the curb, and he opens the driver’s door and unfolds from it like a praying mantis, clothed in a Versace suit and mirrored sunglasses. He is a different person every time we meet, and today he has gone for the successful-fashionista look. The effect is dampened by the quick scurry of his steps around a bum sleeping under a palm tree. He waves at me through the window.

  Always so anxious, so eager. It was that, more than anything, that caused what ended up happening. I’m not a gay man, but I’m a man of opportunity, and Sam gave me plenty of that.

  “Hi.” Sam opens the car door and a flood of California heat comes in.

  I don’t say anything, and wait for him to shut the door. Twisting the air knob to high, I watch as he shifts in his seat to face me. There is a moment of silence. The last time we saw each other, I told him no, and he said yes, and even though I had promised Lillian that it was over, we did it one last time.

  I meant what I told Lillian. This, between me and him, it is just sex. There is no feeling, at least not on my part. The thought of being intimate—of holding or kissing him—makes my stomach curl. While Sam satisfies my sexual needs, I have been emotionally loyal to Lillian since the day that I married her.

  He reaches for me, and I tuck deeper into my seat. “Don’t. I need to ask you some questions.”

  His features harden, and he withdraws, like a child who has been told that he can’t have another cookie. He should know how this works, especially given that my wife is being cut open, on an autopsy table, just a few miles away.

  My wife. His best friend.

  It’s been a fucked-up situation for a long time, but one that I was handling, one that had an exit strategy in place, if my wife hadn’t grown nosy and jumped onto the train early. “Tell me about when you saw Lill.”

  “It was yesterday morning. I came by the house, talked to her for a bit.”

  He isn’t emotional, which I appreciate. Between Jacob’s tight face and all the phone calls from Lillian’s family, I can’t take any more memories or crying. “What time was it?”

  “Around ten thirty. Maybe eleven.”

  Okay, so before she went into the pantry. “Did she say what she had planned for the day?”

  “Said she was going to the attorney with you. Didn’t mention anything else in terms of her day. She was off her meds, though. I asked if she was going to take them and she got a little pissy at that.” He rubs his forehead, thinking. “She asked me about the video, if I knew anyone who could get it taken down. I told her that I’d reported it.”

  Pinching my eyes closed, I try to put myself in Lillian’s headspace. Her meds, which are to combat bipolarism and depression, were a crutch that she often abandoned. The withdrawal effect followed a fairly consistent pattern of mood swings and erratic behavior, followed by increased alcohol dependency, paranoia, and occasional blackouts.

  The chances were high that Lillian had taken the alcohol somewhere to drink. And then what? Thrown the liquor bottle away? Given it to someone? If only she had taken her car. I could have easily followed the recorded path from the tracker. Instead she walked out of the house—and maybe that is a blessing, because at least I have a radius to begin with. Though between that and the taxi request and the Malibu beach where she was found . . . I lower my forehead to the steering wheel and consider, for one long moment, killing myself.

  I am a man who prides himself on anticipating problems and contingency plans, and yet I was egotistical enough to put every single egg in a nostalgic basket that my wife had access to. My wife, who I had recently scorned and who was a loose cannon on a good day. I deserve to have my balls sliced off and fed to me with a spoon. That unfortunate punishment is top of mind, a threat recited with cheerful frequency every time I come close to potentially fucking up with Ned.