“Check back with me in the next day or so, or as soon as you find a promising lead,” he said.

  He sounds like Linda.

  “I’ll let you know,” she said, standing up to go. “Thanks for the wine.”

  Outside, she stood behind a row of tall, spindly bushes and watched him through the picture window, pouring himself another large glass. Then he folded his face into his hands and wept, his shoulders shaking.

  Chapter 9

  Goode

  Saturday

  Fatigue started creeping in by Saturday afternoon. It had been more than forty hours since Goode had last slept, and he felt even more deflated after learning he couldn’t get the security footage.

  He’d fully intended to observe Victoria’s autopsy, but he and Artie got their wires crossed. He stopped for a latte, and by the time he walked into the morgue, the deputy chief medical examiner, Dr. Clarence Thompson, was closing her back up.

  “You were right,” Artie said. “There are injection sites in the middle of the bruises on her arm. We also found a few oxys lodged in her throat. Looks like she fell unconscious, or died, before she could swallow them. They also could have been manually inserted after she was down.”

  Either way, he said, they wouldn’t have been absorbed into her system to show up on the tox screen. “The injections are a more likely cause of death, and the pills an afterthought.”

  “The question is, what was she injected with?” Goode asked.

  “Could be heroin,” Artie said. “I saw that McDonald Center plaque in Simon’s office.”

  “Yes, I saw it too,” Goode said. “But with no used syringe near either body, or anywhere else in the house for that matter, the overdose scenario could be exactly what a killer would want us to believe.”

  “We’ll have to leave cause and manner of death as ‘pending’ until the tox screen comes back,” Thompson said.

  “What’s your gut?” Goode asked.

  “If she didn’t shoot herself up or take more than these three oxys, then someone else killed these folks and staged the scene as a murder-suicide or double suicide,” Thompson said.

  “But it looks like whoever it was went a little overboard with Dr. Fontaine,” Artie said. “Did you figure out where on the property he was shot yet? Or find any possible motives?”

  “Not yet, but there was apparently some shit going down at Vitaleron that Victoria was about to report to the board,” Goode said, citing the note on her phone. “I don’t have any details yet, but on top of that, one of the Battrelle brothers is likely the baby’s father. If someone staged this scene, it had to be someone who knew her history of suicide attempts, which could be either of them.”

  “She was three months pregnant, by the way,” Thompson said. “We took tissue samples from the fetus to get a DNA profile.”

  “Great,” Goode said. “We’ll collect samples from the Battrelle boys and see if we get a match. It’s possible that someone wanted to keep her quiet. It’s also possible that the baby’s father had an interest in terminating the pregnancy, or a jealous lover got so angry he snapped and killed her.”

  Artie shook his head. “There are easier ways to end a pregnancy, let alone a relationship, than murder,” he said. “I’m betting it’s more likely the former.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Craving fresh air to clear the stench of death, Goode drove straight to Windansea, where the evening sky merged seamlessly with the ocean. He would have loved to jump in and catch a few rides, but that was frowned upon during the early days of a death investigation, where every moment counts. Besides, the waves were puny, landing gently and rolling out like lace over the shore.

  He was starting to nod off and might have fallen asleep in the parking lot if his ringing phone hadn’t jerked him to attention.

  “What’s all this vagueness and secrecy about whether it’s suicide or murder?” Katrina asked. “Did you find a murder weapon?”

  “Well, hello to you too, Miss Katrina. Nice to hear from you,” he said, picturing those stunning, knowing hyacinth eyes.

  “Sorry. Hi, how are you?”

  “Just taking a break before getting back to it. Off the record, we’re not being vague, we’re still not sure.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure? And, when you say ‘off the record,’ do you mean ‘on background,’ so I can call up Stone and ask him to confirm what you’re telling me? Or as in I can’t use anything you’re telling me, period?”

  “Easy, now,” he said. “I’m going to have to ask Stone if he’s okay with me sharing details as long as you don’t quote me. So, it’s off the record, as in it might help you understand the case better. Both the cause and manner of death are still pending for a reason.”

  Goode wasn’t going to open his investigation to a reporter he’d only just met. Besides, his emotions were jumbled after he’d googled her that afternoon. Impressed by her award-winning series about the bribes and murder in Northampton, he’d felt a gut punch when he learned that she’d not only lost her brother to suicide, but her parents to murder as well, all within six months.

  He’d heard about the “Double-Judge Murder” case, but Katrina hadn’t gone into enough detail at Piatti to tie it all together. She’d never even told him her last name. It had been several hours, and he still didn’t know how to describe the odd mix of feelings his discovery had evoked.

  Compassion? Empathy? Synchronicity? Chemistry?

  Surely, her personal tragedy contributed to the connection he felt with her. It also made him want to trust her. But his physical attraction to her, not to mention the inherent conflict of their jobs, made it all very confusing—and forbidden, which, ironically, made him want her even more.

  He needed to keep some distance and a clear head. As cases went, this was a big one—and everyone was watching. Big cases, big problems. It never failed. But by the same token, she had sources that he didn’t, and, working for Vincent Battrelle’s paper, she had access to information that could be helpful to the investigation.

  “Well, okay. Did you read Jerry’s story?” she asked. “It’s full of holes. He’s not a cops reporter, but it’s like no one even read his story before it was posted online. He didn’t even have the victims’ ages. How old were they?”

  “Simon was sixty-five and Victoria was thirty-five.”

  “Where was Mrs. Fontaine when this happened?”

  “Out of the country somewhere. Victoria’s brother too. The Fontaines are divorced, or almost.”

  “Do they have any other relatives in town I can call?”

  “Simon’s brother, William, ID’d the bodies this morning. He’s a lawyer. Because every family needs a doctor and a lawyer.”

  “Is there a boyfriend for Victoria in the picture? Maybe love gone wrong?”

  Speaking of which, he knew he should keep this to himself to protect the investigation, but he wanted to throw Katrina a bone, and this secret tidbit was so juicy he wanted to share it with her.

  “Yes, but we aren’t sure about that yet either. Listen, I hope you don’t think it’s weird, but I googled you this afternoon. I can see you’re the real deal and I’m going to let you in on something we haven’t released yet: Victoria was pregnant.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I found a positive home pregnancy test in her bathroom.”

  “So, there was a boyfriend.”

  “At least one, actually. But yes, that’s generally how that pregnancy thing works.”

  “She was unmarried, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you know about Alex Battrelle?”

  Where did that come from?

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his curiosity piqued since Alex hadn’t returned his call.

  “He’s apparently been MIA for six months.”

  Whaat? She clearly doesn’t know about the love triangle or his night of lovemaking with Victoria.

  “Really? Where’d you hear that?”

  “I have sources too. I had a meeting where that came up. He was in rehab with my brother sometime before he died. Victoria, too, by the way. I only just found out.”

  “That’s a strange coincidence. A meeting with whom?”

  “Can’t say. It’s off the record.”

  “Very funny. So, seriously, while I was googling you, I read the Advocate story linking your brother’s death to your parents’ murders. That was a huge case when it broke, but it was very hush-hush. I was working undercover narcotics in OB back then, so I wasn’t in the loop, but I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. Like I said the other night, I understand.”

  Katrina didn’t respond directly. Instead, she deflected, as he might in her shoes.

  “Thanks,” she said, pausing. “So, your mother jumped off the bridge when you were in the car? That must have been harrowing.”

  “Yeah, I should have known something was up when she got out, left the engine running, and dropped her high heels onto the driver’s seat. She went behind the car so I couldn’t see much in the rearview mirror, but she was there one minute and then she was just . . . gone. My dad couldn’t stay in town, it was too painful. So, he took off for Montana and left me and my little sister, Maureen, in La Jolla with our aunt. We spent a few summers with him until he died of a heart attack, but my mom’s death just broke him. I’m lucky to have Maureen, though I hardly ever see her. She’s headstrong and wildly independent.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “It was a rough year for me, and I was thirty. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you as a six-year-old. But this week has been weird too. It’s freaking me out a little that all these people with connections to my family are turning up dead or missing. Should I be worried?”

  “Not that I know of. But I can see why you might be. Let’s save the rest for when we can share a bottle of wine.”

  “10-4. Copy that.”

  After they hung up, Goode’s mind wandered for a moment before he started up his van. Why did she ask about Alex out of the blue like that? And why would she say he’d been MIA—for six months?

  Maybe he skipped town after finding Victoria’s body on Friday. She answered his text that morning . . . or did he kill her and send himself texts from her phone? People usually don’t disappear unless they’re running from something.

  A murder scenario didn’t jibe with their “love you” texts that morning. It would help to know who Katrina’s source was. He was confident he’d find some answers on the Fontaines’ computers, specifically that memo, and the security video. He was growing impatient waiting for them.

  It was just as well, though, because his brain was so fried he almost dozed off driving back to his cottage, which was just across the boulevard. But he made it home somehow, peeled off his clothes, and flopped into bed, too tired to bring his luggage from Maui inside. He was asleep within thirty seconds of his head hitting the pillow.

  Chapter 10

  Katrina

  Saturday

  Katrina didn’t want to tell Goode on the phone that she was close by, in case he thought she was following him. She’d needed to clear her head after meeting with Vincent and headed down to Windansea, which she and her old boyfriend frequented that one summer, although he preferred Black’s.

  Her heart started racing when she saw Goode’s VW van in the parking lot by the shack, so she raced past him, turned left on Gravilla, and did a U-turn so she was parked overlooking Pumphouse, two blocks south of Windansea.

  In La Jolla, one contiguous stretch of sand could have several different beach names, each corresponding to a landmark or street. Such as Big Rock, Little Rock, Westbourne, or Pumphouse, the latter of which was named for the little sewage building Tom Wolfe wrote about in his book, The Pump House Gang.

  Katrina called Goode because she wanted to get her mind off the memories that had erupted talking with Vincent. But she also wanted to hear his voice again. His warm tones calmed her, and, she had to admit, also aroused her.

  Even though he was two blocks away, she could feel his presence as she pictured him with that mirthful smile and the royal-blue shirt from Piatti. But then he brought up the very topic from which she’d been trying to distract herself, and she snapped back to reality.

  She felt uncomfortable revealing too much too soon. It was like ripping open an infected wound. But these days they lived in the World of Google, where anyone could find her personal history with a couple of clicks. She’d only brought this on herself, confessing to him about Franny within moments of meeting him. In a way, it was a relief that he’d learned the rest on his own.

  “Like I said the other night, I understand,” he said.

  That’s really why she’d called him. But she had to face facts. At this point, he was just another unavailable man, though that drew her to him even more. She was addicted to complications. It was her chronic Shakespearian flaw.

  Katrina’s therapist said it was her nagging fear of developing Huntington’s disease that led to these maladaptive coping behaviors, like her habit of sleeping with unavailable men.

  Why get involved if I could come down with Huntington’s any minute? No man wants to deal with that, so if I get too attached, I’ll just get hurt. And if he gets too attached, he’ll be the one who gets hurt. And forget about children. They would have to live with this nagging fear as well. What was Daddy thinking?

  The obsessive behaviors started as a teenager with dieting and binge eating, progressing to boys, caffeine, wine, sex, love, and to some measure, alcohol. She’d managed to keep most of the demons at bay until the sex got out of hand. Counseling helped her become more cognizant that having “intimate” relations with unavailable men wasn’t intimate at all, nor was it healthy, prompting her recent—and ongoing—hands-off phase, at least until she found someone who loved her back. No small feat.

  She’d been doing better since learning to channel much of that energy into work and exercise, but she wanted to get back to her music. She and Franny got their talent from their mom, Aphrodite, who had performed in several off-Broadway musicals before returning home for law school at the University of San Diego (USD). When Katrina and Franny were young, Aphrodite enrolled them in vocal and guitar lessons and encouraged them to perform together, which they did until Katrina left for college.

  Once she got to Northampton, however, work became Katrina’s primary go-to distraction. That coping mechanism failed when the mafia began stalking her and murdered her source, which sent her back into therapy. She continued the sessions until she left for the West Coast.

  Now that she was home again, she was worried that her parents’ killer would pick up where he had left off. She’d tried her mainstay method of walling off her emotions by diving deeper into work, but that had only led her to Goode, who was off-limits because he was a source, so she was essentially back at zero. She had no distraction. Only complication. On top of free-floating anxiety and fear. It was maddening, really.

  Although Katrina was devastated by her parents’ murder when it happened, she almost felt that her suspicions about Franny’s death had been vindicated—that they were killed shortly after his “suicide” so they would look like the primary targets. To her, the three deaths weren’t a tragic coincidence, more like a conspiracy. The Advocate had simply connected the wrong dots. They had to be interrelated, she just couldn’t prove how. Yet.

  At the time, the police were stuck on their own theory that an angry assailant, likely a past defendant in one of her parents’ courtrooms, had solicited a murder contract against one of them from prison, and the spouse had gotten caught in the cross fire. That was a workable premise, but they’d never identified a single suspect, at least not to her knowledge. Still, Katrina left town on their advice because either way, someone, or a group of someones, seemed to have it in for her family.

  When Vincent confessed his history with her mother today, she felt a niggling undercurrent she couldn’t identify. She could only describe it as déjà vu. Did he feel guilty, somehow, so he tried to throw her some extra cash, or was it more complex than that? There were so many threads, it was hard to make sense of them in her mind:

  Vincent Battrelle dated my mother, but she married my father instead. Franny was in rehab with Alex Battrelle and Victoria Fontaine. Vincent was an investor in Franny’s hotel project, and then invested in Simon Fontaine’s company, Vitaleron. Now, Franny, my parents, Victoria, and Simon are all dead, and Alex is missing, possibly dead. Vincent even said that, or was that to throw me off? Could he, or even Alex, have been involved in the Fontaines’ deaths? Is that why he tried to get me off the Fontaine story with this side job? Whether or not these murders are related somehow, the killer must know I’m back in town because my name has already been in the paper, and any day now I’ll have a byline on this story. So, if the motive truly was payback or revenge, I’ll need to remain hypervigilant at all times.

  Katrina wished she could talk all of this through with Goode, but there were rules about avoiding conflicts with sources. Boundaries. He was supposed to be sharing information with her, not the inverse.

  As she replayed their exchange about Alex, she recalled hearing a slight hesitation, or even surprise, in Goode’s voice when she mentioned Alex’s name.

  Is Alex even missing? Was Vincent telling me only part of the truth, or was he outright lying?

  With all these questions hanging, she knew she couldn’t just go back to her hotel or her brain would never let her fall asleep. She needed some answers. After typing Alex’s address into Google Maps, she drove past Goode’s van again, turned right on Nautilus, and headed up Mount Soledad to West Muirlands Drive.

  Alex’s street was lined with homes worth $5 million or more, yet there were few streetlights. Most of the houses were set back from the street behind walls, gates, and tall, thick hedges, and it was too dark to see the address numbers. Katrina had to cruise the block a few times, watching the little blue dot on her phone until she reached her destination.