I locked our bathroom door and ran the tub until it was full, stepping in with a moan as I sipped the ice-cold beer. I should drink more beer. Wine was so pretentious, the elaborate sniff-and-swirl event of it all. Ice-cold beer—with a lime; I should buy some—that was more in line with my live-like-Taylor approach. I sank into the hot water, submerging up to my chin, and set the bottle on the side of the tub as I let the heat cook my tired muscles. I’d never walked or jogged so much in my life. After just a week of working there, I was stepping across wide gaps from docks to boats with ease, carrying twenty-pound bags of ice instead of tens, and could almost run from the ship store to the farthest dockage without pausing to catch my breath.

  I drifted my hands under the water, running them across the stiff peaks of my nipples and then lower, my legs opening up, eager for the contact. I closed my eyes and focused on Mike, then a sexy soap opera star, before finally, reluctantly, I gave in and let myself think of David.

  That confident smile.

  The way his eyes lingered on me.

  His fingers, drifting up along my bare thigh.

  The brush of his facial hair along my neck.

  The soft press of his lips.

  How would they feel along the curves of my breasts?

  How would he feel between my legs?

  I closed my eyes, and mentally, I surrendered.

  ONE MONTH BEFORE THE DEATH

  CHAPTER 23

  LILLIAN

  @themysteryofdeath: I am taking a hiatus from social media. Maybe I’ll come back, maybe I won’t. Ciao for now . . .

  David’s gift sat on our desk in the study, beside the landline phone. Each morning, I would check my email, read some news, and pull off the prior day’s page to unveil a new fact. The gift was a bit cumbersome, due to a speaker on the front that announced the day’s date if you pushed a button. It was an unnecessary feature that, if I had been a calendar buyer, I would have shaken my head over. But critical review aside, I didn’t mind the heft and enjoyed the interesting facts.

  Today’s was interesting, if not slightly morbid. A sea slug’s head, if severed, can grow itself a new body. Peeling a tangerine, I scrolled through my email. All junk. Closing the browser, I sat back in the ergonomic chair and popped a wedge of the tart fruit in my mouth. Stretching out my legs, I admired the cut of muscle along the top of my thigh. It was liberating, the changes I was starting to feel and see in my body. And the freedom of setting my own schedule was heaven.

  I had assumed it would be a shoulder job—something to give me some cash while I figured out what my next move would be—but I was having fun.

  Every day at the docks was different. I walked dogs—small, medium, and large—and sometimes Arch Billow’s parrot. This week, I’d bought groceries for a dinner party and driven to Sonoma to pick up a case of custom wine. On Tuesday, I’d met a semitruck in the parking lot and watched as they’d slowly backed an off-white Ferrari down the truck’s ramp and over to a freight boat. Last week, I’d called someone’s teenage daughter, pretending to be the airline, and told her that her upcoming flight was canceled. I did whatever was asked, without question, and enjoyed every minute of it.

  The extra pounds that I’d carried around since Jacob’s birth were starting to melt off as I went from a sedentary life to one of activity. On my wrist was a new watch, one that counted steps and calories, and I rejoiced over my daily averages, ones high enough that I could eat anything I wanted.

  The money was good, and the boat owners were a wealthy chocolate box of variety. The Greedy Girl owners had crawfish boils for two hundred guests and brought out their fiddles and sang Cajun songs at sunset. The tattooed gentleman of Santa’s Baby played chess with me and slipped me beef jerky with his fifty-dollar tips. A lesbian couple had visited for four days aboard a superyacht—one a famous actress, the other a tech exec—and given me a box of Cuban cigars that I had passed on to David.

  I was learning terms like afterdeck and hatch, and spent an entire day waxing the front of a Benetti. Afterward, I’d collapsed onto David’s couch sore but happy. And when he pulled at the strings of my bathing suit top and lowered his body on top of mine . . . I didn’t think of my husband and son. I’d met his kiss and felt like the entirely different woman I was growing into.

  It was like I was a sail, coming free of its mast and whipping wildly into the wind.

  Untethered.

  Unpredictable.

  Happy.

  I popped another orange wedge into my mouth and smiled.

  CHAPTER 24

  MIKE

  Every once in a while, I followed my wife. I’d been told that this wasn’t normal, that most husbands didn’t have GPS trackers attached to their spouse’s car, that most husbands didn’t sit in a parking lot, a pair of binoculars in hand, and study their wife’s movements as she downward dogged in the local yoga studio.

  But most husbands weren’t me. They didn’t perform risk analysis for a living. They didn’t understand the minute actions and decisions that could lead to catastrophic and life-altering consequences. If someone dissected every aspect of my life, they’d find two weak links. Thanks to Lillian’s snooping, I had removed one.

  Now it was just her, and with whatever sort of hiatus Lillian had taken from her job, I was curious at how my increasingly detached wife was spending her days. So, for the first time in more than a year, I’d logged in to the GPS app and began to track her activity.

  I had Heather block off my entire day so I could follow her. It was a good thing I did, because apparently I was now married to a common wharf rat, one who scurried around boats in cutoff shorts and T-shirts and hauled bags of ice and groceries for strangers.

  The mother of my child had dropped to the lowest social class. Someone handed her a tip, and she stuffed it into the back pocket of her shorts as if she were a busboy. For lunch, she walked down to the gas station at the corner and bought a hot dog and a soda, and ate both on a bench next to a fish-cleaning station.

  It was embarrassing, what she was doing. What she thought she was getting away with. Sam was right, with his concerns about her. The woman she used to be—successful and admired—had gotten lost in the last few years. She’d been reduced to this . . . and this wasn’t the woman I agreed to spend the rest of my life with.

  I’d let her have her fun for a little while, let her work out whatever midlife crisis she was exercising, but then I’d pull the plug, if she didn’t fall back into line on her own.

  She wouldn’t understand or appreciate it, but then again, she never did.

  CHAPTER 25

  LILLIAN

  David was away for the week, back in Fresno, and the docks felt empty without him. I worked less and stayed home more, putting in my dues and catching up, guiltily, on what Jacob was doing. With my new lack of career, there was no reason I wasn’t more involved in his life, yet I’d been MIA most weekends and evenings, ever since I started working at the dock.

  “Mom.”

  I jumped at the sound of my son’s voice and turned to see him standing in the doorway, his backpack over one shoulder. “Yes?”

  “I’m going over to Shawn’s. I’ll eat dinner over there.”

  “Oh.” I tried to think of an excuse to keep him home. I looked down at the oven, which had twenty minutes left on the timer. “I made eggplant parmesan.”

  He made a face. “Yeah, I think we’re going to do pizza or something. You need me to pick up anything on the way home?”

  He was so thoughtful. Mike always said that we spoiled him, but we had done something right, because he never spoke back or raised his voice, even with all the teenage hormones supposedly turning kids his age into rage machines. “No, I don’t need anything. Thanks.”

  “Okay, love you.”

  I repeated the sentiment. He turned to leave, and his bag bumped along the wall and knocked the picture of the three of us at the Hoover Dam slightly askew. I considered it, then left it alone.

  By the time the eggplant was done, I was two glasses into a bottle of white zinfandel. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the awareness that David would be gone for a week, but when Mike came into the kitchen, I didn’t stiffen with distaste. He deposited two grocery bags onto the counter and kissed me on the cheek. I let it happen and glanced at the bags. “What’s that?”

  “Jacob said you were fixing eggplant. I stopped at Houston’s and got the cheesy bread you like and a few pieces of pie.”

  I tried not to smile but was touched by the thoughtfulness of a gesture that he used to do with regularity. “Thanks.”

  He retrieved one more item from the bag. “And . . . for you.”

  It was a bundle of books. Three new hardcover releases. One of them I’d already read, the novel tucked beside a pair of boat shoes in my trunk, but he didn’t have a way of knowing that.

  “I’ve noticed that you’re reading more.” He tapped the top one. “The guy at the bookstore said this one is going to be a TV show.” He met my gaze and he was so confident, so at ease. It was annoying, but also attractive. That confidence was what had first pulled me to him. Same with David. Maybe I had a type, though David was a thousand times more chill than Mike, and at least twice as fun.

  “Thank you.” I smiled, reluctantly, at him, appreciative of the gesture and ready to call a temporary truce. “Want a glass of wine?”

  We ate in silence, but it was a comfortable one, my nerves mellowed from the wine, the glow of Mike rose-colored in nature. He had lost some weight, looked exhausted, and I would have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t brought all this on himself.

  “I heard that the Times did a round of layoffs.” He broke a piece of the bread in half. “Any of your friends lose their job?”

  It was a kind statement, but I’d never had any friends in that building and he knew it. My personality was not one that collected relationships, especially since I had always, even before everything went virtual, worked from home. “No, no one I’m close with.” I took a sip. This would be a great segue to mention my own firing. The opportunity was right there—all I had to do was take it. But that conversation would lead to others about job hunts, interviews, and options.

  I wasn’t ready to lie about all that, and I wasn’t ready—might never be ready—to tell him about the marina.

  “Any chance you’ll do Maurice Grepp?”

  I looked at Mike blankly, and tried to understand what he was asking about the Beverly Hills tycoon. “What do you mean?”

  “He was a client of my firm, in case you needed an in with the obituary. Unless he’s considered a celebrity and, you know.” He cleared his throat. “Off limits.”

  Maurice Grepp must have died. Wow. I wondered how long ago it had happened. Today? Yesterday? How far out of touch was I? A wave of nostalgia hit me, and it must have been the wine.

  “Oh.” I swirled the pink liquid in the glass. “No, I won’t be the one doing it. But thanks for the offer.”

  His eyes met mine and I sensed the storm in the air before it hit. “Lill, you probably don’t know this—well, I know you don’t know this—but in the mornings, I stop for a bagel and a coffee at this little diner around the corner from my office. It’s in this shopping center they just put in, the one with the dry cleaner that lost my wool pants . . .”

  He was rambling, and maybe this was the confession, the moment that he would share everything about his mistress. Did she work there? I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to picture the two of them growing closer over bad coffee and greasy bacon. “Mike,” I said faintly.

  “Right. Anyway. I go there because they always have the Times. And I read your obits with breakfast each morning. It’s stupid.” He shrugged. “But it makes me feel connected to you, like I’m not as big of a dunce about your job as I am.”

  Oh no. A gesture that would have touched me months ago had now incriminated me.

  “And you’re really talented. I can always pick out yours, even before I get to the byline. I cut out the favorites and keep them in a drawer in my desk.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a proud smile. “That one about the lacrosse player—that was my favorite. It made me think of Jacob.”

  The lacrosse player was one of my favorites too. He hadn’t been a superstar athlete—he’d played only a year of the sport before he had been cut—but I had made him shine as best I could. His mother had visited me after the obit had printed, her eyes filled with tears, her hug fierce and long.

  “You haven’t written anything since you found out about the affair.” He swallowed and I realized what the tension in his face was—not anger or suspicion. Guilt.

  He was wrong with the timing. My firing had come a week or two after the affair blowup, but I saw where his mindset was. A typical man, thinking that he was the cause of everything, that my psyche was so destroyed that I couldn’t pick up a pen and write. It took only a heartbeat to decide to let him keep the guilt, and to move further down a path of deception. “I’m actually on a sabbatical. I’m still writing, just not obits. I’m working on a novel.”

  He perked up at this, and I should have picked something less exciting. “Oh really? You’d be great at that, Lill. Really, really great at that.”

  A naive and stupid statement. Mike had no idea whether I’d be good at fiction writing, and the chances were high that I wouldn’t be. A novel was a complex fit of scenes, characters, and plot. A month ago, I’d thought about tackling the task. Now I just wanted to get drunk and have sex with David.

  I shouldn’t be thinking that, especially not here in our dining room, where Jacob lost his first tooth and I’d shared the news of my third miscarriage over fish sticks and tater tots. But I was. I was thinking about how each experience with David seemed to unlock something new in me, and maybe sex would break the links that I still felt with Mike, the emotions that I couldn’t seem to shake, even with constant reminders of his affair.

  I was on an emotional seesaw. Up from a missing you text from David. Down from the puppy-dog looks Mike was giving me, like this one right here.

  I tilted back my glass and finished it off. If this was the road to hell, I was traveling down it at a steady pace. “I should get the dishes in the sink. I’m meeting Sam for drinks.”

  “Oh. You guys have been hanging out? I haven’t seen him here lately.”

  I started to gather my plate and silverware and paused to let out a sharp laugh that sounded convincing. “Of course we’ve been hanging out.” After all, who else would I be filling my days with?

  Mike would never suspect the truth, not from his boring plod of a wife. I was the woman who’d spent one summer reorganizing our spice cabinet alphabetically and with custom labels printed on our discount label maker.

  I watched as my dear cheating husband straightened his clean knife in line next to his dirty spoon. “Tell him I said hi.”

  I nodded as if it would be done, but I’d made the “going to meet Sam for drinks” line up on the spot. In truth, I hadn’t seen Sam in weeks. Despite his daily calls and texts, I’d made excuses every time he wanted to hang out.

  “I’ll do the dishes.” Mike carried his plate into the kitchen. I followed suit, and when our paths crossed in the kitchen, he had that look in his eyes, one with romantic intent. When he went in for a kiss, I stepped to one side.

  He let out an irritated huff. “It’s been over a month, Lill.”

  “Exactly.” I continued for the door. “It’s not my fault you’ve suddenly decided to start paying attention to your wife.”

  He said nothing and I grabbed my purse and lifted my keys from the hook. My back was stiff, my words firm, but inside . . . I’d been close to kissing him. I’d wanted to sink into his touch and feel the familiar meet of our mouths. I’d wanted him to hold me and need me and still love me.

  And I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

  CHAPTER 26

  LILLIAN

  I escaped from the house and drove north, through downtown, to the PCH, and past Venice and Santa Monica. Near the Getty, I decided to follow up on my story and called Sam, who agreed to meet me in Paradise Cove. I found a frozen yogurt stand and was halfway through a cone of blueberry when Sam’s Range Rover pulled into the lot.

  He gave me a kiss and a hug, then stepped back and did a once-over. “Wow, look at you.”

  I looked down at my workout shorts and T-shirt. “Yeah, look at me.”

  “No, I’m serious. You look good. Have you lost weight?”

  “I think it’s just the tan.” But I had lost weight. Eight pounds. Between me and our bathroom mirror, I looked fantastic.

  “Well,” he said graciously, “it looks good on you.”

  “Thanks.” I pointed to the yogurt window. “Want some?”

  “Of course.”

  Over his bowl of piña colada yogurt with white chocolate chips, I confessed everything that had happened with David. Sam paid close attention, his forehead pinching together as he absorbed the information. He had always been a fierce fan of Mike’s, and I steeled myself for a lecture on promiscuity. Instead, he stuck his red plastic spoon into the concoction and tented his fingers in front of his mouth, thinking.

  “Lillian,” he finally said.

  “Yes?” I tucked my hands between my knees and waited for my punishment.

  “I think . . . ,” he said slowly. “I think that you need to be very careful and use this time to decide what you are going to do with the rest of your life.”

  He placed his hand on my shoulder, and it felt a little like I was being knighted. He stared deep into my eyes, and I fought the urge not to roll them. Sam was a man who planned and thought things through to the nth degree. He also listened to a slew of podcasts when he was in the car, which gave him hours of relationship, motivational, and business opinions each day. The end result was a GQ-attired walking encyclopedia of wisdom—most of which was complete garbage.