Bill gave me a ride back to our house. His headlights swept over the white adobe siding, and I realized the sprinklers were on. I reached for my phone to turn them off through the app, but stopped. I swore and Bill looked over.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I don’t have my phone. It’s just—frustrating.” Leave it to Perla to take the one thing that would render me useless. Which was probably why she had done it.

  I opened the door. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll just wait for them out front.”

  “Oh, I’ll wait with you. You never know. They might call back the house and need something. Julie can reach me here.” He patted his pocket. Must be nice to have a communication device just inches away.

  Twin beams of light illuminated the planters to our left, and we both turned to see three black-and-white patrol cars pull through the gates.

  “Popular guy,” Bill remarked, hunching forward in his seat. “Oh, and there’s an ambulance too. Look, I don’t want to pry, but you said you thought someone might be in the house. So Perla . . . ?” He raised his brows, waiting for me to fill in the blanks. “I mean . . . is the ambulance for her?”

  “I need to talk to the cops.” I swung my leg out. “Really appreciate your help, Bill. I’ll come by the house and get Sophie as soon as I’m done here.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. Hey, Grant?” He spoke just before I shut the car door and I paused, my irritation growing.

  “Yes?” I asked impatiently.

  “If you need an attorney, call Paul Reachen. Real good guy and tough. He lives in the neighborhood, over on Outlook Drive.”

  I nodded. “Thanks,” I said and meant it.

  Two more police cars pulled in, which seemed excessive. Then again, it was Brighton Estates. We paid more in property taxes than a hundred houses in the poorer sections of LA combined.

  A trim, dark-skinned officer with silver hair and a foreign accent introduced himself as Lieutenant Johnson.

  I shook his hand. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  “We were told your wife is inside and you believe her to be deceased, is that correct?”

  I gave a tight nod. “Yes, she’s in one of the second-floor bedrooms.”

  “Okay, I’m going to keep you out here while our officers search and secure the home. Is anyone else inside?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe so.”

  “Any weapons in the house?”

  “Um . . .” I tried to think. “There’s a BB gun in the garage.” And knives in the kitchen. Big ones, bigger than the one she had.

  “You have any weapons on your person?”

  “No.” I raised my arms and then lifted my shirt, showing him the waistband of my shorts and my bare stomach.

  “Okay. The front door locked, or can they go in through there?”

  “I don’t know . . . I left around the back. I can give you the code if it’s locked.”

  He turned his head and yelled something, then studied the house. “How do you turn off the sprinklers?”

  “Uh—it’s an app on my phone, but I can’t find it. My phone, I mean.”

  At the front door, one of the cops tested the front door handle, then pulled it open. Guns drawn and flashlight beams shining, a line of them entered.

  The lieutenant’s attention returned to me. “Okay. Tell me what happened.”

  “I woke up and realized my wife wasn’t in the bed. Which, um . . .” I inhaled, trying to organize my thoughts in as succinct a manner as possible. “I went to call her, but when I reached for my phone, it wasn’t on the charger. I . . .” I paused, frustrated. “This is going to be a long story. Do you want me to just skip to the part where—”

  “No.” He rested his fingers on his hips, and I tried not to stare into the large camera lens affixed to the center of his uniform.

  “Okay, so I went looking for her. And I thought, Oh, I’ll check on the girls, because my daughter was having a sleepover for her birthday. And outside—”

  “Where’s your daughter now?”

  “My daughter and her friends are at the neighbors’ house.” I twisted, pointing in the direction of their house. “The, uh, the one who you just got his information.”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “So, outside my daughter’s bedroom was a bag. This big shopping bag. It was odd; it was like, set right in the middle of the hall. And that’s something my wife does—she sets things in the middle of a doorway or a hall if she doesn’t want to forget something. So I looked in it . . .” I inhaled and felt a string of my composure break.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Wultz. Take your time.”

  I took a few deep breaths, then continued. “It was, um, a bunch of items. But all bad things. There was this clear plastic suit and a pair of gloves—and a really sharp knife, one of the ones from the kitchen.”

  The sprinklers suddenly died, and there was a soft buzz as all the heads lowered into the ground. In another part of the yard, there was the sound of them ticking into action. I glanced at the officer. I had his full attention now.

  I continued on. “I got worried about the girls and went in the room, and the girls were there, and they were okay, but I woke them up. It was really hard to wake them up. I think they must have been drugged. Oh . . .” I looked up. “I didn’t think about the girls. You’ll need to test them. We just put them to bed. I can ask—”

  “Just continue on,” Johnson interrupted, giving me the gesture to hurry it up.

  “Okay, so I woke them up and told them they needed to go out on the balcony and then walk along the roof to the tree and climb down. I wasn’t sure what was going on inside the house, but there was too much that was wrong, and I wanted to make sure they were safe until I figured it out.”

  He held up a finger as a fresh group of officers approached. Turning to address them, he issued a string of orders, then returned his focus to me.

  “I told my daughter, Sophie—I told her I’d come out and meet her under the tree house once I figured out what was going on. And once they were off the balcony and headed down, I went looking for Perla.” This would be a bit tricky, since I couldn’t tell them the truth, that I’d hidden in the closet and waited for Perla, then finished staging the picnic blanket scene after she was dead. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that I had a script in mind, fake tasks at the ready.

  “Perla’s your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “Not right away. It’s a big house, and I checked the basement and the garage—I wanted to see if her car was there, which it was. I also tried to get into the lockbox to get the phones—we take our daughter’s phone away at night, and I thought I could use her phone to call Perla or the police, since mine was missing. But the code didn’t work on the box.” I spoke confidently, and they never needed to know that my actions had occurred after Perla’s death, not before. “Then I heard something upstairs, so I went back up, and that’s when I found Perla.”

  I closed my eyes and took a moment, knowing I had to deliver this part of the story perfectly. “She was . . . I don’t know how to describe her. Manic? She had unfolded this white blanket on the floor and was pulling items out of the bag and laying them out on the surface and then . . .” I swallowed. “You’ll see it. It’s really fucking creepy. And I came in and asked her what she was doing, and she said she was finishing what had been started.”

  “‘Finishing what had been started’?” he repeated.

  “Yeah. I told her that the girls were gone, that she couldn’t hurt them, and that’s when she grabbed the knife.” I shook my head and my vision blurred, and the tears were real because this had been a fucked situation from the word go. “She said, ‘I can still finish the job,’ and then she pulled the blade across her neck.” I took a deep breath. “I lunged forward, but there was so much blood, it just wouldn’t stop. I tried to hold my hand over it, to stop it, but within a minute or so, she was gone.”

  He nodded as if it all made sense. If it was this easy to commit murder, no wonder Perla had gotten away with it twenty-three years ago. “Okay, so then what happened?”

  “Well, I didn’t have a phone, so I washed my hands and changed into a clean shirt and pair of shorts. Then I went and got the girls, and we walked to the neighbors, where I called 9-1-1.”

  “So, you cleaned up after the crime?”

  “I mean, I cleaned myself up. I didn’t want to scare the girls by coming out all bloody. All of the clothes I was wearing are inside, in the laundry room. It’s a bit of a mess. You’ll see.”

  More headlights passed over the house, and he swore, then jerked his head to the nearest uniform. “Thomas, go down to the gate and sit it, make sure no lookie-loos or neighbors come in. You get anyone odd, you radio me.”

  He pointed at something behind me. “You know that car?”

  I turned and held up my hand, shielding my face from the oncoming headlights. When it turned, parking beside a cop car, I could see the older Toyota Camry in the darkness. “Yeah, that’s our nanny.”

  Paige cracked open the door and winced against the glare of the flashlight that one of the officers was playing over her face. “Grant?” she called out.

  “Yeah, I’m here.” I kept my distance as Lieutenant Johnson approached her, wondering what the hell Paige was doing here at this time of night.

  “Miss, can I help you?” Johnson now had his flashlight out, the beam centered on Paige’s chest.

  “Oh, he told me to come here,” she called out.

  He? My stomach dropped.

  “Who did?”

  She looked as confused as I felt and pointed at me. “Grant did.”

  CHAPTER 83

  Everyone’s eyes swung over to me. If there was a sign of the disaster ahead, this was it.

  “Wait.” I started toward her. “You’re saying I told you to come here? When?”

  Lieutenant Johnson stepped into my line of sight, blocking me from going any farther. “I’m sorry, I have to do my best to keep everything clean until the detectives get here. Miss?” He pointed to the closest officer. “Please go with this gentleman and tell him your story.”

  He turned to me. “Mr. Wultz, let’s get you somewhere you can relax. You mentioned the girls who were sleeping over. I’ll need to get all of their names so we can contact their parents.”

  I glanced over, watching as the officer helped Paige out of her car. She was in leggings and a T-shirt, and our eyes met over the top of the car. She looked scared, and I wanted to reassure her, but I also had no idea what she was about to tell the officers about me.

  I followed Johnson up the front path of the house. Someone had flipped on the porch light, and he pointed to the seating area on the right side of the expansive porch. We never sat out here, preferring the back views to the front, and I took a spot on the sectional couch and sank down an unexpected amount.

  The other cop was leading Paige around to the back of her car, but they were too far away for me to hear anything. “I didn’t tell her to come here,” I muttered to Johnson. “I don’t ever even talk to her. I’ve said like, three things to her, ever.”

  Tell her how nice she looks, Grant.

  I need to text Paige. Let me use your phone.

  “It’ll all get sorted,” he said. “Right now we just want to make sure that the scene is contained and we get down the details while they are still fresh in your mind.”

  I shouldn’t be telling him anything more. I’d probably already said too much, given some detail I would be tried and condemned on. “I need to call a lawyer,” I said, rubbing my face. “And I need to find my phone, if you could ask the officers to look for it. Maybe it’s on her. I didn’t think about checking her pockets, if she even had any.”

  “No problem.” He stood between me and the front door, his posture relaxed. “You guys had any problems in your marriage? Any fights? Talk of divorce?”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “What about in the past?”

  “No.”

  “Any infidelity?”

  I thought of Marci Vennigan and that one kiss, the night of the Christmas party. “No.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Detective Heinwright is on his way. He’ll have you run through what happened again; then we’ll get you out of here and to your daughter. You mentioned she might have been drugged, so we will need to have her and all of the girls checked.” He pulled a notepad out of his front pocket. “Let me go ahead and get their names.”

  I looked at the house, where flashlights were visible through the windows, dancing over our walls, then back at the car, where Paige was talking animatedly, her hands waving through the air, and wondered what other surprises Perla had in store for me.

  CHAPTER 84

  Two officers entered the front doors slowly, the strong beams of their flashlights sweeping over the dark interior. At first glance, the house looked perfect. The large expanse was all cream furniture and gold accents, the scent of fresh flowers light in the air.

  The officers crept in, their shoes creaking on the polished floors. Sweeping the room, the female uniform pointed to an open marble staircase. “Apparently, the victim is upstairs.”

  “God, this house is a big bitch,” the man said. “This is going to take a while to clear.”

  “I’ll tell J to let in the others.”

  “This all looks in order; let’s go upstairs.”

  On the second floor, the group stopped at the landing and swept their flashlights to the left and the right, a rusty scent strong in the air.

  “Look.” She pointed at a bloody heel print and they turned left, following the scent and the print’s origin, moving slowly and opening doors as they passed.

  An office, all wood paneling and dark colors. Empty.

  Another office, this one in delicate blues and creams. Empty.

  A bedroom with two queen beds and pale-green floral wallpaper. The beds were made, everything in order.

  Another bedroom with a single large bed and a sitting area, everything in place, no personal items in sight.

  A laundry room with a long marble counter and two sets of stainless steel machines, everything sparkling and white, save for a small pile of clothes on the floor in front of the washer. Bloody clothes.

  “J, we’re going to need CSIs up here, ASAP,” the male officer said into the radio on his shoulder. “Lots of blood and evidence. Haven’t gotten to the vic yet.”

  Taking care not to disturb the footprints, they came to a stop at the double doors at the end of the hall. The doors were closed, their exterior decorated with limp pink streamers. An arched paper banner was mounted above the doors, each piece of paper a different letter.

  H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y

  One of the doorknobs was smeared with blood, and here, the smell of it was strongest. The duo halted, looking at each other.

  “You want to take dibs on going in there first?”

  “Yeah, don’t mind if I do.” He reached forward and turned the unbloodied knob with a gloved hand, then pushed the door open. They both stayed back, guns drawn, and waited as the slow open of the door revealed the scene. He cautiously stepped in. “Well, shit.”

  Beside the king-size canopy bed, a white cotton blanket was spread over the wood floor, the fabric wrinkled around a woman’s prone body, lying face down in a pool of blood. She wore a clear plastic jumpsuit over a black outfit and plastic booties on her feet, which were each stuck in different directions.

  Walking carefully around the edge of the display, the male officer played a flashlight over the scene. The beam revealed a bloody knife still in the woman’s grip. Her eyes were open and still, her mouth agape.

  A second beam joined the first as the female officer crouched beside the man and swung her light from the body to the other faces in the scene.

  A blonde girl, sitting upright, her hair perfect, tiny glasses perched on her nose as she held a stack of books against her chest.

  Another girl, this one with red hair and freckles, ski goggles on her head, her body encased in a fluffy down ski suit.

  The dolls were at perfect forty-five-degree angles to the dead woman, one beside a plastic tin of cupcakes, the other smiling toward the officers, her eyes glassy, head slightly cocked to one side.

  “This was called in as a suicide?” the female officer asked, sweeping her flashlight back to the woman’s body.

  “Yep.”

  “Detectives are going to have a field day with this one.” She stood, then glanced over her shoulder at the others. “Welcome to the party.”

  CHAPTER 85

  GRANT

  The next hour passed in a blur. The detective showed up, along with the president of the Brighton Estate’s homeowner association and their head of security. I had to go through my story again, then stood by as an officer placed calls to Mandolin’s and Bridget’s parents, who handled the news in markedly different fashions. Mandolin’s parents said their nanny would be over shortly to collect her, while Bridget’s mother stated that she needed to call their attorney and that she was going to record the phone call.

  I hadn’t yet brought up the Folcrum murders and wasn’t sure how and when to. I needed to keep my mouth shut, and I needed to call an attorney. The latter was made more difficult by the fact that I still didn’t have my phone and was lost without its list of contacts.

  The detective arrived, a short man with bright-red hair who introduced himself as Hal Heinwright but said I could call him Hal.

  I didn’t want to call him Hal. I was going on my third day without more than an hour of sleep, and I was exhausted and neurotic enough that confessing everything was starting to sound like a good idea. I needed to get to Sophie and get us both somewhere quiet and private.

  I walked over to Hal, who was resting his forearms on the hood of his unmarked car, a coffee cup between his hands. He straightened at my approach and stopped whatever he was saying to the CSI beside him. “Hi, Grant. What’s up?”