“Awesome. Not at all extreme.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. Perfectly reasonable expectations and responses.”

  “Literally no room for disappointment.” He nodded supportively. “And what about Marjorie?”

  “I still don’t know what I want from her.”

  “Do you have to want something?” he asked.

  “She’s my mother. I feel like I’m supposed to want something from her.”

  “And you’ve always been a stickler for things you’re supposed to want or do.”

  “I don’t like it when you tell me the truth about myself. It is very inconvenient,” I said.

  “I do it just to fuck with you. I like to stock up on truths just for fun.”

  “Dick. I think I preferred Robin’s response.”

  “Which was?” he asked.

  “That I’m deeply broken because my mother abandoned me.”

  “Oh, yeah. Much better than pointing out a logical fallacy, which suggests you don’t owe her anything.”

  I saw the familiar sign for Braddock Farm up ahead. I knew I could turn around, go back where I came from. Or keep driving. We were only an hour from Tahoe. Nate would indulge me in a weekend at the lake. But the turn was inevitable. I’d eventually have to take it. Better now with one of my best friends and a looming death threat to act as a buffer. I turned on my blinker.

  Nate reached over and tapped his fist against my shoulder. “I got you, man.”

  “Thanks.” I took a deep breath and turned at the farm stand. I didn’t recognize the kid in the booth. But then, I wouldn’t. The kids I had a vague chance of recognizing had probably graduated and moved on. I pulled up in front of the house. Shelby’s car was parked next to Marjorie’s sedan.

  “Okay, your codeword is persimmon,” Nate said.

  “My codeword?” I asked.

  “Yeah, like if you want to get out of here, work persimmon into the conversation.”

  “How the fuck am I supposed to use persimmon in conversation?”

  “I don’t know, but if we choose a normal word, you might say it accidentally,” he said.

  “But if we choose a word I never say, I won’t be able to use it in conversation.”

  Nate sighed. “Cash, we are on a farm. Just ask if they are growing persimmons. But more importantly, I was joking.”

  I punched his arm. “You’re a dickwad.”

  “Yes, yes, I am.”

  I climbed out. Nate waited while I grabbed a six-pack from the back. It was from a brewery near the gallery. I’d always brought beer from Sac for Clive. I didn’t really know why I continued the tradition except it was habit. Plus, Clive taught me to never show up at someone’s house empty-handed. Most of his life lessons had been good. Aside from the latent sexist bullshit, of course.

  We walked around the house to the patio overlooking the valley below. Clive, Shelby, and Marjorie were chatting and looking out at the sea of evergreen trees.

  “Cash, Nate.” Clive stood out of the same instinct that had driven me to bring beer. He hesitated, then we both stepped forward. He wrapped his arms around me. He smelled the same, felt the same. It dulled my irritation, but the last year had already worn it down to a familiar shine. At the core I was still angry that Clive dismissed my perception, my version of Henry over his own scant history with the Boy Scout version. I was still angry at myself for letting Henry’s facade continue long enough to establish the legitimacy of the ruse. Clive let go of me and hugged Nate. It looked like there was something seeking in Clive’s grip to compensate for the stiffness in Nate’s.

  In the space of time it took me to watch them hug, Shelby threw her arms around my neck with such force I had to swing her to stay on my feet. She kissed my cheek loudly.

  “Hey, Shelby.”

  “Oh, Cash. I’ve missed you.” She pulled me in tighter and whispered, “It’s getting weird here. I don’t like it.”

  “Have you been kidnapped?” I whispered back. “Because you know you can leave at any time, right?”

  She squealed. “Shut up.” She let go of me to slap my shoulder. I grinned. She threw herself back in my arms.

  “Enough of that. My turn,” Nate said.

  “Nate.” Shelby squealed again. She abandoned me to tackle him. He picked her up and spun in a complete circle.

  “Hey, that’s not Nate. It’s Dr. Xiao,” I said.

  Shelby put her feet down to stop their motion. “No.” She grabbed his face. “Really? Officially?”

  “Really officially.” Nate smiled.

  “Congratulations, Dr. Xiao.” She kissed his cheek. “Look at you. So fancy. Did you get taller? I think you got taller.”

  “I sure feel taller.”

  “Dr. Xiao?” Clive asked.

  “Yep.” Nate nodded.

  “Congratulations. Very impressive.” Clive grinned.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re a doctor?” Marjorie asked.

  “Sorry. Marjorie, this is my buddy Nate Xiao. Nate, Marjorie Braddock, my mother,” I said.

  Nate leaned over the table to shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “You too. So did you just finish med school? I’m not sure how all that works,” Marjorie said.

  Nate sat in one of the empty chairs. “Actually, I just finished my doctorate.”

  “Oh, so you’re going to be a college professor?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “At some point, hopefully. Right now, I’m interviewing with research institutions. I kind of missed all the deadlines for teaching positions.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Nate gave me a look and I nodded. He waited until I sat to turn back to Marjorie. “Cash and I had to wrap up our business. It was time intensive when I would have been traveling for interviews.”

  “Wrap up how?” Marjorie asked.

  “We sold it,” I said.

  “You did?” Clive sounded surprised.

  “Yep. But I couldn’t very well send her off solo to meet with our buyer,” Nate said.

  “He’s not the friendliest of fellows,” I said.

  Clive put up his hands. “Back up. Give me the whole story.”

  “Remember Jerome St. Maris?” I asked.

  Clive looked displeased at my question. “The guy who punched you that time?”

  “That one, yeah. He’s a little excitable.”

  Nate laughed. “That’s ol’ Jerome. Excitable.”

  “We sold him access to our supply line in exchange for a large portion of his profit. Our only caveat was that he had to sell our product exclusively. That stabilized his customer base.”

  “He was selling inconsistent crap, which made him hemorrhage customers,” Nate said.

  “Within a few months, he was able to hold the customers he stole from us in the first place. So we sold him our client list and direct access to our pharmacist and supplier, our brand, essentially,” I said.

  “How does one sell an illegal prescription drug brand?” Shelby asked.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Like it’s intangible. You don’t exactly have a logo. What is your branding?”

  Nate looked at me. I shrugged. He shrugged back. “It’s basically our reputation,” he said.

  “Yeah. Like we vouched for him. And directed customers to him,” I said.

  “And in exchange, he paid us a ton of money. I paid off a bunch of my student loans. Cash bought a building. And all we had to do was barter away our morality.” Nate blindly put up his hand and I high-fived him.

  Clive awkwardly cleared his throat and glanced at Marjorie. “So that’s how you opened an art gallery?” he asked.

  “Yep. Do you remember my friend Kyra from college?” I asked. Clive frowned and shook his head. “Kyra Daneshmendan. She’s a painter. Persian. Hecka queer.”

  Clive nodded slowly. “She has that haircut.” He waved his hand past the side of his head. “Shaved on one side.”

  “Yeah. That’s her. She has some experience curating, but she’s been ensconced in painting the last few years. And I clearly needed something to do. A gallery seemed like a natural fit for us.”

  “I’m sorry, what business did the two of you run?” Marjorie asked.

  Everyone looked at each other awkwardly, but I knew I was the one who had to answer. “Drugs. We were drug dealers,” I said.

  “Oh,” Marjorie said.

  Clive looked like he was vacillating between angry and ashamed. Shelby was intently studying the view. Nate was fine. He shared my value system.

  “So why did you decide to sell the business?” Marjorie asked.

  “A number of reasons. Mostly because we no longer could justify it to ourselves,” I said.

  “And Cash’s ex was a cop,” Nate said.

  I kicked him. “I didn’t stop for a girl. It was a moral issue.”

  “A hot cop,” Nate whispered.

  “Wow. I’m so glad I brought you along for this,” I said to him.

  “So you dated a cop and that inspired you to become a law-abiding citizen?” Marjorie asked.

  I turned to Clive. “I brought beer. Maybe we should break into it.”

  He shot out of his chair. “I’ll get the bottle opener.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound blasé. I was really asking,” Marjorie said.

  “It’s fine. It’s just a bit more complicated,” I said. Nate let out a short, loud laugh. “Do you want to tell the story, dickwad?”

  “No, ma’am.” He put his hands up.

  I rolled my eyes at him. I was sure it made an impression. “I started dating a woman last summer. Then I found out she was an undercover detective building a case against us.”

  Clive came back outside. He set a Pellegrino in front of Marjorie and opened beers for the rest of us.

  “I’m not certain that qualifies as an ex. That’s horrible,” Marjorie said.

  “Terrible.” Nate nodded. “Unforgivable, really.”

  “I hate you,” I said. He just laughed. “She arrested us and we brokered a deal to act as confidential informants in exchange for, you know, not going to jail.”

  “Come on. Get to the sexy part,” Nate said.

  “Oh, yeah. I love sexy parts,” Shelby said.

  “There’s a sexy part?” Marjorie asked.

  “Well, we were working real close on cases and—”

  “I’m sorry.” Clive set his beer down hard. “Did you get back together with Laurel?”

  “Yep.” I nodded once to emphasize the definitiveness.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked.

  “Lots, probably.”

  “She put you in jail.”

  “I broke the law.”

  “She lied to you.”

  “And she apologized,” I said.

  “How can you just forgive someone for lying about the fundamentals of who they are?” The last time we had talked about this, Clive had been lost. He’d been confused, searching for clarification but unwilling to listen to my explanation. He was clearly still uninterested in listening to me, but now he was angry.

  “She didn’t lie about that.”

  “She didn’t even tell you her real name,” he shouted.

  “Names aren’t who we are.” I knew I should stop trying to piss him off, but he was making it so easy. It felt compulsory.

  Nate cut in before we could dig deeper. “Listen, Kallen lied about a lot of shit, but she never lied about loving Cash. She gave up her career because she couldn’t reconcile the two. As far as grand gestures go, that’s a big one.” He squeezed my thigh under the table.

  Clive angrily drank his beer and said nothing.

  “She quit being a cop?” Shelby asked.

  “Yeah. The same day she got us released from our CI obligations,” Nate said.

  “Wasn’t that like her entire identity?” she asked.

  “She thought it was. But she realized it wasn’t,” I said.

  “So you’re together now?” Marjorie asked.

  I shook my head. “She left me.”

  “After all that?” Shelby sounded bummed.

  “After all that.”

  “Oh, Cash.” Shelby came around the table to hug me.

  “Thanks.”

  “So who is the man who threatened you and Clive? Is he related to this drug business?” Marjorie asked.

  “You mean Henry Brewer?” I asked. She nodded. “He worked with us. He blames me and Laurel for ruining his life, which is why he came back to terrorize us.”

  “What do you mean? I thought the threat was gone? That’s what the sheriff said,” Marjorie said.

  “The threat to Clive is gone. Henry is still very much stalking Laurel and Cash.” Nate very carefully avoided looking at me or Clive as he spoke. “He’s misogynistic and fixated. Granted, he’s always been a horrible person and this is simply a symptom of his entitlement, but him behaving exactly as you would expect doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.”

  I loved Nathan Xiao.

  “That’s certainly extreme. We’ve all known men like that, but most of them stop before attempted murder,” Marjorie said.

  “That’s why I love Clive. He’s secure enough in himself that he doesn’t need to control vulnerable people to feel masculine.” Shelby leaned over to squeeze Clive’s shoulder.

  “Yes, he’s always been like that.” Marjorie smiled.

  Clive’s shoulders relaxed infinitesimally. I was well aware that focusing on areas of success rather than critiquing was the way to change minds, but I just didn’t have it in me to praise Clive for behaving like an adult. It was my failing and I was comfortable with it. He was a grown man with a twenty-two-year-old woman for a best friend. She could take on the burden of teaching him. I was done.

  We stayed for another hour before I asked Clive if they grew persimmons. In that hour we talked about nothing. I thought I might find some familiarity in Marjorie, but there was nothing. She reminded me of my aunt, her older sister. Her hands were reminiscent of my grandmother’s. The cadence of her speech was Clive’s. But she was a stranger.

  Chapter Eight

  At the knock on the door I cycled through all of the unfortunate possibilities. My family, the cops. But then I realized Lane probably forgot her key again. With our recent attention to security, she couldn’t break in like she had in the past.

  Of course, it was none of those people. Laurel was on the porch turned away from the door. The arrogant cut of her shoulder blades was familiar and obnoxiously sexy. She was talking to my uniformed watcher for the day as he checked her ID. The cop handed the ID back.

  “Thank you, Ms. Kallen. I hope I didn’t alarm you.”

  “Not at all, Officer. I appreciate the vigilance.” Laurel turned and half-smiled at me. “I’m sure you’re loving this security.”

  “Big fan. What do you want?” My tone was decidedly lacking in warmth.

  “Everything okay, Ms. Braddock?” the uniform asked.

  “Yes, thanks. Ms. Kallen will be on her way shortly,” I said. He nodded and went back to his car.

  “I was hoping we could talk.” Laurel put up her hands in placation. “Not about us or anything involving relationships or emotional states or morals. I swear.”

  “Then what?”

  “Can we talk inside? Please.”

  I hated myself. “Fine.” I stepped aside.

  “Thank you.” She came in and I closed the door.

  “You want a cup of coffee?” I asked.

  “That would be great.”

  I nodded toward the living room and went into the kitchen to grab another coffee. When I came back out, Laurel was in her usual spot on the couch looking uncomfortable with how well she fit. I handed her the mug.

  “So talk.” I sat across from her.

  “I want to catch Brewer.”

  “Great idea. I’ll alert the media and the FBI.”

  She leaned forward. “Your sarcasm is getting lazy.”

  “I’m existentially tired. What do you want from me?”

  “I think we can access Brewer in different ways than the cops and the feds can,” she said. I waved my hand for her to continue. “When we initially tried to find him last summer, most people were reluctant to believe that he could possibly have done the things we claimed, but when presented with evidence, they were more willing to talk.” Nickels emerged from Lane’s bedroom and made a beeline for Laurel. “Hello, my darling.” Nickels jumped on her lap, already purring in anticipation. “I’ve missed you.” Laurel scratched Nickels’s head and stared deeply into her eyes.

  “Laurel? The Brewer investigation?”

  “Sorry. His colleagues were pretty pissed off that he made a mockery of their department once they found out he’d been helping himself to evidence.” Nickels flopped and stretched across Laurel’s lap. She rubbed the cat’s tummy. “They wanted to kick his ass.”

  “I remember. Sheriff Tolson was personally offended.”

  “Yeah, he took it hard. His family is close with Brewer’s family.”

  “I take it the family didn’t jump at the chance to help you arrest their golden boy?” I asked. And then I wondered why I was asking questions. She was already reeling me in and I hadn’t even noticed the hook.

  “They basically stayed quiet. They weren’t going to obstruct us, but they weren’t going to help us in any way. His grandmother, however, actively fought us. She refused to show up for scheduled interviews. She wouldn’t answer the door when we went to her house. She released hellhounds that nearly took Reyes out.”

  “Hellhounds you say?”

  “Hellhounds, Rottweilers, whatever,” she said.

  Nickels got tired of the effort it took to keep her eyes open. Her purring ramped up. Traitor.

  “So we’ll just go to her house and ask her to pretty please tell us where her murderous grandson is and, based on her previous behavior, we can assume that we she will immediately draw us a map and give us a phone number?”

  Laurel rolled her eyes. “Or you can go tell her you want that bitch Kallen to pay for what she did to you and precious Henry. See if she bites.”

  If nothing else, it might piss him off enough to make a move. Henry was a mama’s boy. And if his collection of knitwear was any indication, he was probably a grandma’s boy too. “Seems thin, but I’ll give it a shot.”