“What’s wrong?” Sam puts his hand on my arm, then withdraws it. “I mean, I know what’s wrong. I know that she’s dead, but you—”

  “I’m not upset that Lillian is dead.” Saying those words aloud is a luxury that I never expected to have, and the fact that I am saying them now is not an indicator of success, but rather of how tilted this situation has become.

  “Oh.” Sam pulls off his sunglasses and folds them up, then carefully inserts them into the pocket of his jacket. “So, ah. What is the problem?”

  “She had something I need. Something for Colorado.”

  Sam turns to me, and I am almost grateful at the look I see there. The slow understanding tinged in fear. The look I must have myself, at a level five times higher than his. “How important is it?” he asks carefully.

  At this moment, there are two paths I can take: one where I tell Sam the truth, and one where I lie. Can I trust him? The probability is high but not certain, and my wife is not the only lover I lie to.

  “Not crucial,” I say briskly. “But it’s annoying, not having it. Anything you could find out about Lillian’s last day . . . let me know, first. Before you tell the cops, or anyone else.”

  “Sure.” He grins at me, and when he reaches for my hand, I don’t pull it away despite the crawl of discomfort it creates in my chest. This, us—it needs to stop. “Come to my place tonight.”

  “I can’t. Fuck, Sam. Lill just died. I have a son. For all I know the cops are watching me.”

  My chest tightens and I fumble with the center console lid, anxious for my inhaler. This has been a complete waste of time, because Sam knows nothing. The Benromach box could be in a public trash can right now, a $400 million key tucked inside it, waiting to be picked up by a janitorial service.

  I need to find it, and every second that passes could be the difference between my doing so or it being picked up and taken away. I need to establish a grid around the house and then walk it. Meet with David, see what he knows and whether he saw her that day. The police should be able to ping locations off her cell phone. I need to go to the station, right after this, and see if they’ve already done that and, if so, what they’ve found out.

  I grip the inhaler in my right hand and suck in a deep breath, holding the medicine in for a long beat. Coughing slightly, I adjust the strap of my seat belt. “Call me if you think of anything. I’ve got to go to the station now, answer some of their questions.”

  “Are they suspicious of you? I mean . . .” He colors around his ears. “Do they think there’s any chance that Lillian didn’t kill herself?”

  I pause, my hand on the gearshift. “They haven’t said that yet, but probably. You know, husbands are always suspects in the beginning.” Especially husbands with $6 million life insurance policies. “Which is another reason why you should go. Just in case they’re watching.”

  They aren’t watching, but I need to hurry, and he’s slow in opening the door, one expensive shoe testing the pavement before the other, and he gives me a final, plaintive look before he ducks out into the sunlight.

  “Call me if you think of anything,” I remind him.

  He gives me a mock salute and he’s irritated, but I don’t care. God, he’s worse than Lillian with the drama. That’s one thing I won’t miss, his competition with her. One romantic dinner with her had to be topped with a more expensive one with him. One weekend away countered by two. Sam had started to get bolder and bolder, and we were unbelievably lucky that she had never caught on.

  I reverse out of the parking spot and am pulling onto Santa Monica Boulevard before he is back in his SUV. I head straight for the station, but can’t get past the last things that Sam said.

  I know that I didn’t kill Lillian, but I also expected an investigation, so I’ve both accepted and dismissed the police’s questioning as routine. Lillian was a fragile person, one who had suffered from depression and overindulgence for most of our marriage, so the idea that she had overdosed is plausible, and one that I briefly grieved—in my own way—and then accepted. But if she was murdered, there is a chance that the killer has the liquor bottle, and the key to Colorado.

  I check my reflection at a stoplight and fix the collar of my shirt, then smooth down my hair. Lillian used to always lick her fingers and then twist my hair into place, a disgusting habit that I suddenly miss. I try to do it myself, on a wild hair that is curling across my forehead, but it doesn’t behave.

  Gersh did ask, in the moment just before we ended our call, whether Jacob could come with me. He has yet to be questioned, and while I don’t like the idea of it, there doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid it. I assured Gersh that I would bring him in tomorrow, which gives me some time to address the more pressing issues with Colorado. Legally, Jacob can’t be questioned without me there, though I’m not worried about what my son will or won’t say. An innocent man has no secrets—and while I’m laughably far from innocent, in the area of my wife’s suicide or potential murder, I’m a saint.

  I stop at the light at Crescent and try to tick through the next item on my to-do list—the funeral. Sam mentioned picking out an outfit for her to wear, and while he thinks that he knows Lillian’s style best, I already know what I want her to wear. It’s a powder-blue dress, with straps that tie on the tops of her shoulders and with a knee-length skirt that flares out when she turns. I bought it for her two years ago, when we were in San Francisco for the weekend, and she had spilled spaghetti sauce on her blouse an hour before an Andrea Bocelli concert that we had third-row tickets for. She’d gotten the tickets through work, and was supposed to write a review of the show. The dress was expensive and unnecessary—we could have spot cleaned the spaghetti stain—but it had been a long time since I’d bought a gift for her, and the look on her face was almost heartbreaking. She was so excited and preened over the white bag and tissue-paper-wrapped dress as if they were something huge, and not a last-minute purchase from the women’s shop in the hotel lobby.

  I glance in the rearview mirror and catch myself smiling at the memory. I quickly school my mouth back into a flat line that is more appropriate for a man in mourning, and put on my turn signal for the police station. The last thing I need is for Gersh to see video footage of a Cheshire cat grin as I pull into the parking lot, even if it is from a loving memory of my wife.

  I take a spot along the street and call Jacob before I go inside. His cell is off, and my irritation builds. I leave him a terse voice mail and then put my cell on vibrate and step out of the car, making sure that every element of Grieving Husband is properly in place before I shuffle toward the front door of the building.

  CHAPTER 61

  MIKE

  “I don’t understand.” I look at Detective Gersh’s computer screen, which displays a map of Los Angeles, covered by colored dots. “What is this?”

  “It’s everywhere Lillian’s phone has pinged in the last forty-eight hours.” The detective taps a few dots. “Each dot is a satellite-tower connection. These aren’t her exact locations, but general areas. Underneath each is the day and time of the ping.”

  I look over the dots and try to understand what I’m seeing. Half of the dots are green, some are yellow, and some are red. A legend at the bottom tells me that green is for alive, yellow is for possible time of death, and red is postdeath. “Some of these movements are after she died.”

  “Yep.” He nods like I have won a prize. “We’re thinking that it was in a taxi or some other vehicle. Whoever has it, they took it all around the city, and it stopped connecting with towers this morning. We’re assuming the battery has died.”

  “So you don’t know where she went on the day she died?” I fumble with the top button of my shirt and undo it, needing some air. Don’t they normally offer you a drink? Water?

  “Well, this gives us a starting point, and we’re working on putting together more precise movements now.” He smiles at me as if he will figure out my evil plan—just give him a little more time.

  “Okay. So she was in our house that morning, made the phone calls that afternoon, and died sometime that evening?” I tried to remember if the coroner had given a time of death. “And you guys have no idea where she went during that block of time, or where she died? Was it definitely on the beach?” I wipe my palms on the thighs of my pants, annoyed that he is feeding me information in crumb-size bites.

  He stops smiling, and maybe I was a bit harsh with my tone. “As I said, we’re putting together more precise movements.”

  “But you can’t share them with me? Don’t I have the right to know where my wife was?” I press. “I don’t understand. Is this some big secret?”

  “We’ll share information when we can. For now, we need to clear your own movements on that day.”

  “Fine, sure. Of course.” My right foot begins to nervously tap, and I dig the heel of it into the tile.

  “You had asked me about the contents of her purse.” Gersh pulls a fresh piece of paper out. “I have the listed inventory of the bag, if you want to review it and see if anything seems to be missing.”

  “Any luck finding the liquor?” I sound too eager. I frown and pinch my forehead together. There. Concerned Husband in place.

  “No. I double-checked it to be sure.” He slides the list of purse contents toward me. “What’s the importance of the liquor?”

  “It was a unique bottle that is missing. I don’t care about the cost, but it seemed worth noting.” I scan the list a few times. All useless shit.

  He flips over a page and stares down at some writing. I’m dying to look at it. “Okay . . . ,” he says slowly. “As you can see, there was a bottle of pills in her purse. Do you know what your wife was prescribed, Mr. Smith?”

  Five years ago, I would have rattled off brand names and dosages with perfect accuracy. I made sure she ate a good breakfast every day and had her medications by eight thirty, and I was in bed with her each night, a cup of water and evening pill caddy in hand. She acted like she didn’t like it, but Lillian always craved the attention, even if it was for the wrong things. At what point had I stopped monitoring her medication? It hadn’t been an overnight thing. It had been one missed day, then two, then a bigger account that had taken me away for a week, and then Lillian had moved down a rung, then another, on my list.

  I swallow. “I don’t know,” I say weakly. “Seroquel, I think. And maybe olanzapine?”

  Gersh writes down the two medications, then flips over a different notebook page. “Looks like she stopped both of those last year and switched to Symbyax. Does that sound right?”

  Another test, failed. “She changed medicines a lot.” I shift in the hard metal seat. “So maybe.”

  “Let’s get back to what you were doing that day.”

  I try not to look at my watch, but I need to hurry this along so I can drive around the neighborhood and spot, within walking distance of our house, where Lillian might have gone. I need to stop by the convenience store at the corner, and the liquor store on the other side, and ask that nosy neighbor, the one who is always bitching about our garbage cans. I could also ask the dog walker, the one with four leashes tied to each hand and a fanny pack full of shit. Someone had to have seen Lill, and I realize that I never checked the Uber app to see if she had decided to take a car somewhere, despite her ordered taxi.

  “Mike?”

  I move my hand under the table to keep myself from checking the time on my watch. “I woke up at six fifteen. Ate breakfast. I watched the news, worked out, took a shower, and left for the office at seven forty-five. I arrived at the office at around eight fifteen, and stayed there until twelve thirty, then drove home to pick up Lill. We were supposed to go to the attorney’s office, but she wasn’t at the house.”

  “Were you alarmed?”

  “No. I was annoyed. I thought that she forgot or was intentionally avoiding the appointment. She’s a little—she was a little stubborn about things. She’d ‘forget’ to do things that she didn’t want to do. I tried to call her, then finally went on to the appointment by myself. What time did she die?”

  Now it is the detective’s turn to shift in his seat, and I can tell that he is warring over whether to give me the information. “Between three and seven that evening.”

  Inside, I groan. Only Lillian would pick such an inconvenient time to die.

  “What did you do after the attorney appointment?” He has a pencil out, and he’s writing all this down. After this, he’ll confirm what I’ve said. A drop of sweat runs down the middle of my back. To tell the truth or not? My mind seesaws back and forth over the two options. I had decided to do some business, and fuck Lillian for going and dying during that window of time.

  I cleared my throat. “I went to the office. I was there until around six, then I came home.” It was my first lie, but one that would take time to disprove.

  “And you were home all night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone who can verify that?”

  “Ah . . .” I pause, thinking. “My son spent the night at a friend’s house, but he stopped by the house around ten-thirty to get something.”

  The detective is looking at me with distaste, and I can anticipate the next question before it comes. “Didn’t you wonder where your wife was?”

  “I’d just discovered that she was having an affair. I assumed that she was with him, if she wasn’t at home. And for all I knew, she was in the guest room. That’s where she’d spent the night before.” I need to wrap this up. Explaining myself to this prick is going to take all day. “Look, I hate to rush this, but I didn’t do anything to Lillian. You’re talking about an emotionally unstable woman who had a history of self-harm and substance abuse. She—”

  “We don’t know that,” Gersh interrupts.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “What history does she have of self-harm?”

  I sigh. “Are you serious? Don’t you have her medical records? Or her police records? Last year, Lillian was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. And her behavior is self-destructive. She—”

  “We have her medical records,” Gersh interrupts. “And in her hospitalization last May, her stomach contents included a heavy amount of ketamine.”

  “So?”

  “Her doctors marked it as suspicious.”

  “Lillian’s used ketamine as an antidepressant in the past. She micro-doses.” This is why I should have married a normal girl. Becca Parks was ripe for the taking, junior year. She would have popped out two babies for me and never gotten so much as a parking ticket. Instead, I married a beautiful, creative train wreck, one who needed me with a desperation that Becca Parks couldn’t touch.

  There is a part of me that already misses her.

  “Did you hear me, Mr. Smith?” He is staring at me with barely disguised contempt.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Until we can verify your alibi, we have to consider you a person of interest. The sooner we can speak to Jacob, the better. You can bring him here, or we can interview him at home. Up to you.”

  “His mother just died. I don’t want to freak him out.”

  “Of course. He’s not a suspect. We just need to verify some information with him.”

  I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. This is crazy. I’ve spent ten years shielding my family from this sort of scenario.

  “So we can come over now and talk to him?” Gersh looks at his watch, and I take that as my cue to do the same.

  “I’ll have to see where he is. He wasn’t home when I went by there earlier.”

  “Okay, but today. We’ll come by if I don’t hear from you.”

  “Sure.” I don’t like the way he said that, with an edge to the words. He can talk to Jacob whenever he wants. I’m not afraid of anything that Jacob will say. I force myself to ignore the tone. Right now, I need to be the Perfect Grieving Husband, and that means helping the police is supposed to be my number-one goal.

  “Let me give you Jacob’s cell. You can just coordinate directly with him. I’m assuming I have to be present during the interview, since he’s a minor?” I take the pen and piece of paper that he offers and write down Jacob’s cell, crossing one item off my list. Look at me, Mr. Helpful. Definitely not guilty, not in any way.

  “California law allows us to interview him on his own. And like I said, he’s not under suspicion. We’re just trying to find out what happened to Lillian.”

  Oh yes. Sweet, perfect Lillian. Let’s all stop everything to find out why she killed herself, or got herself killed. This is Los Angeles, for God’s sake. People get killed for going the wrong way down a street, much less for being a crazy white lady walking around by herself with a bottle in hand. “Are you looking at this as a suicide or as a murder?” It’s a question that I should have asked earlier, but my hands have been full, and right now, I’m just trying to not get my head cut off—literally, cut off—by the Mexican cartel.

  “That’s still up in the air. There are suspicious circumstances around how she was found.”

  “But she wasn’t raped, or anything like that?” I press. “And she didn’t have anything odd in her system?”

  “There was no sign of sexual assault or violence,” he says, confirming half of my question and standing. I don’t press further because if I’m free to leave, I just need to keep myself from sprinting out the door.

  He extends his hand and I shake it. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Great. Let me know any way that I can help.”

  His grip tightens, and I squeeze right back and remind myself to smile. Helpful. Helpful Perfect Husband.

  CHAPTER 62

  LILLIAN

  My son has been kidnapped. I’m repeating that phrase over and over to remind myself that I should be freaking out. Instead, I’m strangely calm, and maybe it’s because Jacob hasn’t been taken to a dark cell or a woodshed, or anyplace I’ve ever seen in the movies. Instead, he’s seated at a dining room table and being served steak empanadas dripping in queso. Every seat at the round table is full, with an extra folding chair to make up for his presence. He’s silent, but everyone else is talking, rapid Spanish bouncing back and forth across the table as food is passed in red bowls and yellow platters.