Working as an investigative reporter was never about the money for Katrina, who felt it was her calling to do such important work. She thrived on it. That was the only way to describe it. She wasn’t religious, but she’d learned from attending Al-Anon meetings after Franny died that she had to find a “higher power” for the twelve-step program to work. That was difficult, but the meetings helped her to recover from losing him.

  When she felt herself succumbing to her own demons, she came back to the same place: Her higher power was the source of wisdom to know the difference between right and wrong, truth, deception, and falsehood. If she started down the wrong road, she could usually feel in her gut which way to turn. But these days, forks in the road kept popping up, and the choices weren’t simple black or white. There were more shades of gray than ever before.

  Scanning the cement pathways, the only woman she could see approaching was wearing Jackie O sunglasses and a floppy, flowered-print hat, reminiscent of Laugh-In or The Pink Panther. All she needed were sandals with a white flower between the big and second toes.

  As she came closer, Katrina had to laugh. It was Joanne. “Groovy outfit,” Katrina said as the editor plopped down beside her and took a few moments to catch her breath.

  “Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t find my hat. But I’m so glad you called,” Joanne said. “Don’t worry. This is all between us. I think we’re lucky to have you. You might be my last chance to win a Pulitzer!”

  “I’m glad you said that,” Katrina said. “It’s hard to know who to trust. Linda assigns me to your team, then tells me to report to her on the Fontaine story. There’s so much second-guessing, and ethical conflicts keep coming up.”

  Joanne nodded, a neutral encouragement to proceed, listening intently as Katrina explained the morning’s events.

  “Wow,” Joanne said sympathetically. “We need to report this to HR and Linda right away. Are you sure you want to stay on this story?”

  “No, I’m sure. I can handle this, and I’d prefer if we don’t report it to anyone for now. I don’t trust Linda,” Katrina said, citing the other reasons she wanted to meet. “She’s been telling me to ignore what my gut says to do, which is to interview the whole Battrelle family. Meanwhile—and this is hush-hush—Vincent tried to hire me on the side to investigate the disappearance of his son Alex, but then said I can’t write about it. So, I quit, and told him again last night, but he’s not accepting—”

  “Hold on. You quit what? You know Linda is friends with the Battrelle family, right? She went to college with Meredith, Vincent’s daughter.”

  What an incestuous place. So, does that mean Linda knows about my arrangement with Vincent? But then, why would she put me on a story about the Fontaines, knowing they were so involved with the Battrelles, then prohibit me from talking to them?

  “I quit the side gig, and no, I didn’t know that,” Katrina said, feeling sick to her stomach. Something funky was going on. “Would Linda talk to Vincent about story assignments?”

  “I have no idea. I know she often has cocktails at his house when his daughter is over, then stays the night, probably after drinking too much.”

  “That fits. He lured me over for a drink, too, filled my glass so full I almost spilled it. That’s when he said he wanted to hire me as his personal investigator.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said I’d think about it, but then last night I told him I couldn’t do it, because it posed an ethical conflict with the Fontaine story, but he wouldn’t listen. He shoved a fifty at me and told me to go to George’s to talk to some bartender about Alex.”

  “Did you take the fifty?”

  “No, and I also didn’t go to George’s,” Katrina said. “I was too tired. I can always talk to the bartender, but I get the feeling that Vincent is grasping at straws since he hasn’t seen or heard from his son in six months.”

  “Right. Good call.”

  “Oh, and when I knocked on his door last night, Ken Goode answered, so I left and came back.”

  “Who’s Ken Goode?”

  “The lead homicide detective on the Fontaine case.”

  “Well, that’s interesting. Talk about burying the lede.”

  “By the way, Goode offered me a deal. He said he would give me exclusive access to case information if I promised not to write a story until the end, but I told him that wouldn’t fly.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “He’s already been giving me some good leads, but he’s also asking me to trade information. I know that’s not kosher, so I haven’t done that either.”

  “Excellent. So far, the only thing I don’t like is that Vincent won’t accept that you can’t be his PI while you’re working this story. And what happened this morning, of course.”

  “Yeah, well, it was awkward last night. He was drunk and bleeding and he kept trying to make me drink wine with him. I just wanted to get out of there.”

  Joanne shook her head, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “What do you mean he was bleeding?”

  “His index finger was bandaged. He said Goode made him drop a glass of scotch, and it broke and cut him.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “I think I need to interview Michael Battrelle and ask him about the Fontaines’ deaths, because he was romantically involved with Victoria and now he’s been appointed to replace her as CFO. But Linda and John Palmer have forbidden me to do that, and so did Vincent. But if Goode is questioning Vincent, he’s probably talking to Michael, too, so it’s obvious that the Battrelles are part of the investigation.”

  “Right. I agree. That would seem like a legitimate next step, especially given Michael’s personal and professional involvement.”

  “It feels like they’re just trying to protect the Battrelles, which Linda and John Palmer have pretty much admitted to me, and that makes me suspect that the Battrelles are involved in these deaths somehow. Or at least know something about them.”

  “Which is why you have to be careful, even more so now that you’ve received this threat,” Joanne said, putting her arm around Katrina and squeezing. “I’ve got some ideas, but I want to noodle them a bit. Can you advance your reporting without calling Michael? I’m going to lobby for you to interview him, but I need to lay the groundwork first. We need leverage.”

  “I can try calling Simon’s brother, William, again.”

  “Yes, do that. Anything else?”

  Katrina mentioned Goode’s tip about the politics behind the Vitaleron board members speaking at the news conference.

  “Yeah, I wondered about that,” Joanne said. “It’s not a good look to announce a private corporate management shift at a police department presser when the Fontaines’ bodies are hardly cold. Do you have any ideas where Alex Battrelle might be?”

  “No, but I went to his house over the weekend and saw a box of cereal and half a yellow banana sitting out on the kitchen counter.”

  “So, someone’s lying—or he’s hiding. I’m going to suggest that you take over complete coverage of this case. We don’t want the police or City Hall reporters to protect sources or hold on to leads they want to pursue on their own,” Joanne said. “I will respect your wishes for confidentiality for now, but if anything else happens, we need to tell Linda and HR. Deal?”

  “Deal. One other thing, I’m also wondering why Norman Klein got a byline on my story when he didn’t contribute anything I didn’t have already. Also, Jerry keeps nosing around, standing over my shoulder when I’m at my desk. Creeps me out.”

  “Jerry is a brownnoser. He’s probably spying for John Palmer, who is trying to keep Vincent Battrelle happy by trying to minimize or sabotage you so they can pull you off the story. But I think Linda sees you as a ticket to the corner office. If she produces good stories and kisses Palmer’s ass enough, she can placate him while she orchestrates his downfall, then replace him. I’ll talk to Linda about you before we go into the afternoon news meeting. That way she can say it was her idea. Talk soon.”

  With that, Joanne flounced away, holding her hat in place as it flapped in the breeze.

  On the walk back to her car, Katrina called William Fontaine at his office.

  “I just read your story and was about to call you,” he said. “Let’s meet. I already spoke with Detective Goode, but he wouldn’t say much, so I didn’t say much.”

  William suggested lunch at Mister A’s, an old-school San Diego restaurant a block from where she was parked. All she had to do was put more money in the meter.

  “I’ll be the strikingly handsome man with the prematurely white hair and piercing green eyes,” he said.

  “Sounds like an online dating profile,” she said.

  “How did you know?” he said, chuckling.

  Chapter 28

  Goode

  Tuesday

  After the Biggs meeting, Stone drove back to the station while Goode returned to Starbucks for another latte, ignoring the inner voice that told him he was about to enter the jitter zone.

  Claiming a table outside, Goode tried to reach London at the RCFL, Artie at the ME’s office, and the crime lab supervisor, but none of them answered. Byron had gotten another warrant to return to the house to search the grounds again for the bullet and casing and to spray BlueStar to look for hidden blood in any areas they identified as a result.

  Goode was mulling next steps when he saw Katrina walking barefoot down the street, carrying her red sandals. She looked so peaceful and innocent. Not a scary, manipulative reporter, but a thoughtful, intelligent woman he wanted to whisk away for that bottle of wine. He wanted to talk more about being orphans and losing a loved one to suicide.

  Katrina slipped her shoes back on, got into her car to make a call, put money in the meter, then started walking up the block. As he watched her enter the tall building that housed Mister A’s, he downed the rest of his latte and went after her. He knew he was potentially crossing a line, but if she was meeting a source for lunch, he wanted to know who it was—before it hit the paper this time.

  Riding the elevator to the twelfth floor, he stepped out and nodded at the ponytailed hostess, who smiled widely, eager to seat him.

  “One for lunch, sir?” she said.

  “I’m checking to see if a friend is here,” he said.

  “Very good.”

  He peered discreetly around the doorway into the restaurant, looking for Katrina’s bright-blue dress and red shoes. Thankfully, she was sitting with her back to him, talking to an older man with white hair who resembled Simon.

  That’s William Fontaine. I recognize him from the photos in Simon’s office. Since he and I have already talked, there should be no surprises.

  Turning around, he grinned at the hostess, who offered him a menu. “They’re not here today after all,” he fibbed.

  What’s a little white lie in the name of justice?

  Chapter 29

  Katrina

  Tuesday

  William Fontaine was handsome, despite his melancholy expression, but he wasn’t “prematurely” white at his age. Katrina waved as she approached his table—a two-top next to the picture windows that lined the room, overlooking the harbor and airport.

  One of the few rooftop restaurants in town, Mister A’s offered an even more magnificent view at night, when the skyscrapers were lit up with neon red and green, and guests could watch the airplanes descending diagonally at eye level toward the landing strips below. Katrina always wondered how the pilots could come so close to the tops of buildings and yet never shear them off.

  This restaurant was another Chopin family favorite, although Katrina hadn’t been there in years—since the waitresses wore cheesy toga outfits and the service was painfully slow. It had since been sold and remodeled by a new owner, who had also modernized the menu.

  William pulled out her chair, then ordered the signature chicken Caesar salad for both of them. Normally Katrina would have found this presumptuous, but she didn’t mind. She loved their Caesar, the anchovy-rich dressing in particular.

  “I’ll have a Diet Coke with lime and lots of ice, please,” she told the waiter.

  William got right down to business. “What do they mean, suspicious deaths? This was a double homicide, clear as day. My brother had no reason to shoot himself in the head. He wasn’t depressed. And Victoria had been clean for years, and yet they’re suggesting she OD’d?”

  “Wait,” Katrina broke in. “Shoot himself in the head? Where did you hear that, and that Victoria might have OD’d? The police said—”

  “When I identified the bodies at the morgue on Saturday, one of the workers showed me where Simon was shot in the temple and the injection bruises on Victoria’s arm. He said they also found pill vials next to her bed and a gun next to Simon’s body. But I know he didn’t own a gun. Would never even have one in the house.”

  “Wow. That’s all news to me,” Katrina said. “Maybe you can give me the name of your source at the morgue.”

  Someone with loose lips, my favorite kind.

  When William didn’t acknowledge her suggestion, she moved on. He was probably still determining whether he could trust her. “Was Simon having any financial problems?” she asked.

  “God, no,” he said. “He had surgeries booked out for months and investors clamoring for a piece of Vitaleron. He also wasn’t lonely for female company. Widows and their daughters were champing at the bit as soon as he and Nancy separated. He stayed in shape playing golf, and he was seeing a woman named Lucinda, who gave him the space he needed.”

  “Space?”

  “He could be distant, always focused on work. That’s why he and I were never close. His bedside manner wasn’t great, but he was a scalpel artist.”

  “Speaking of virility, was he the type to test his sex drug on himself?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself. Normally I wouldn’t disclose this, but it doesn’t matter now,” William said, lowering his voice as he leaned toward her. “He took Viagra for an occasional boost. Told me, wink, wink, that it was for market testing.”

  “Tell me about your relationship with Victoria. What was she like?”

  William explained that he and his wife had stepped in to help Victoria after she had OD’d because Simon lacked a nurturing gene, and she still called to chat or ask his advice now and then.

  “I often brought her here at night for a soda, because she loved watching the planes fly in,” he said. “She didn’t have many girlfriends, and she was closer to me than either of her parents. Her mother was as self-absorbed as Simon, so neither was a good role model.”

  After the waiter brought their salads, Katrina let William keep talking so she could eat while taking notes.

  “What about Victoria’s brother, Cal? What’s he like?”

  “Ten years younger and more of an accident, really. Nancy hoped that having a baby would save their faltering marriage, but it didn’t. When Simon wasn’t in surgery, he was in the lab. So, she drank even more after Cal was born, Simon had an affair, and she filed for divorce.”

  Cal was neglected, too, William said. As a teenager, he filled his world with surfing, skateboarding, drinking, and drugs—though he never took it to the point of abuse like Victoria.

  “It took years for Simon to have a decent relationship with Victoria, and that was after Cal gave up and took off for Europe and parts unknown. About a year ago, he called me from Costa Rica. I’ve tried but haven’t been able to reach him with the bad news.”

  “What’s the story with Victoria and Alex Battrelle?”

  “Victoria could never stay committed to any man, which suited Alex fine. The two of them always fell back on each other, though never for long. It was an unhealthy, codependent situation.”

  “Sounds like they both had major intimacy problems,” Katrina said, considering herself an expert on the subject.

  “Yes,” William said. “That’s why we were all surprised when she started up with Michael the monogamist, because she normally didn’t want exclusivity. I think she hoped Alex would come back even though she pushed him away—hard—a year ago.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “She had an abortion. She didn’t tell me until after the fact—or him, either, for that matter—that it was his baby. He got bent out of shape, which made no sense, since neither one of them had ever wanted a commitment, and he suddenly wanted to marry her. But she said if he didn’t get clean, she couldn’t be his friend, let alone his wife or mother of his children. She refused to see or talk to him until he’d been sober for six months.”

  “Wow,” Katrina said, holding her fork in midair.

  That could explain why he’s been MIA for that long.

  “Do you think he was the baby’s father this time too?”

  “I don’t know. He could’ve caught her at a weak moment, then gone back into isolation, or even relapsed again. Relapse is part of recovery.”

  “Yes, I’m aware. My brother was an alcoholic. Did Alex have anger issues?”

  “He threw a glass prism against the wall after Simon forced him off the board. I could see him getting angry if she threatened to have another abortion, or said, even though it might be his baby, she planned to raise it with Michael because he was more stable. But I’ve always thought Michael would be the one to explode after all the years of his father dumping on him. Maybe it was the contrary: She told Michael she was going to raise the baby with Alex, and he snapped. If I can’t have you, then no one can.”

  “He told me he didn’t even know she was pregnant until the news conference,” she said.

  “I guess that’s possible,” William said. “For all we know, the father was the guy from the Vitaleron retreat in Hawaii three months ago.”

  “What guy?”

  “All she told me was that someone sent her compromising photos of her in a sexual situation that she couldn’t remember, because someone put a roofie in her pineapple juice. Speaking of codependent relationships, Alex and Michael had one too, just with different origins.”