 
## **Contents**

Synopsis

Copyright

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

More from V. J. Chambers
Skin and Blond

Blond Noir Mysteries, Book One

by V. J. Chambers

Gritty. Provocative. Bloody. Blond.

from USA Today bestselling author V. J. Chambers

Ever since blond detective Ivy Stern got herself kicked off the police force, she's been slumming it as a private detective, mostly chasing cheating husbands. In some ways, it's better this way. She's free to do as she pleases, and there's no one throwing around phrases like "sex addiction" or "conduct unbecoming an officer." Ivy never figured her sex life was anyone's business anyway.

When a distraught brother shows up in her office, claiming his sister has been murdered, Ivy's all over the case. The only thing Ivy's better at than sex is solving murder cases. And this one is intriguing.

There's no evidence that the victim has been killed, but she's gone, leaving everything behind from her cell phone to her credit cards. Everything except her bed sheets.

And that's not even mentioning the victim's cheating ex-boyfriend, her drug habit, and her ties to the Irish mob.
SKIN AND BLOND

© copyright 2014 by V. J. Chambers

http://vjchambers.com

Punk Rawk Books

Please do not copy or post this book in its entirety or in parts anywhere. You may, however, share the entire book with a friend by forwarding the entire file to them. (And I won't get mad.)

Skin and Blond

Blond Noir Mysteries, Book One

by V. J. Chambers

CHAPTER ONE

I was having sex with a trucker named Ralph.

We were in the sleeping berth of a truck parked behind the truck stop off the interstate. Ralph had picked me up at the bar about a half hour ago. We were both drunk, so we'd stumbled back to his home on wheels, a huge eighteen-wheeler that he'd had to help me climb up inside.

I didn't take men back to my place anymore. I'd long since learned that was a bad idea. It gave them the upper hand. Then they knew where I lived, and I didn't like that. Sometimes men got the wrong idea about what had happened between us.

I saw them as a brief respite from my chatty mind. Sex was an oasis of calm in which I could lose myself in nothing but sensation and pleasure, leave behind guilt and worry and terror and anger and everything I hated about myself. For a few moments, those men gave that to me, and I was grateful.

But gratefulness only goes so far. And most of the time, it was better if I didn't see the men after that one time. I wasn't interested in a relationship with them, you see.

Relationships were full of worry and guilt. They were difficult. Sex was easy. All I wanted from those men was sex.

Ralph had a bed in his cramped sleeper berth. There was barely enough room for the both of us on the bed, even stacked on top of each other. But that was where we were. He was above me, and I was underneath. He was puffing, and he was a little sweaty, and his perspiration smelled like old liquor and cigarettes.

None of that was pleasant, exactly, but I didn't really mind it. I liked being immersed in the present moment, because it was an escape from the rest of my life. I liked that sex brought the minute details of reality into sharp relief. I liked that I could focus on the mundane, the banal, the physical.

Focus.

I liked focus.

It was the same thing I liked about detective work, in fact. When I really got going on a case, it was all I thought about. Everything else would get blocked out, and I would focus only on solving it.

That was my job. I was a private detective. But I wasn't thinking about that right now. No, blissfully, all I was thinking about was sex.

The sex I was having with Ralph wasn't particularly good sex, though, but that wasn't a problem. I didn't care. It was still blocking everything else out. The only thing that was annoying me was the fact that Ralph was having trouble keeping his dick hard.

This was probably because he'd been drinking too much, but possibly because there was something wrong with him. I was secure enough in myself to know that it had nothing to do with me, so it wasn't bothering my confidence.

Anyway, it made sex difficult, because I couldn't really feel him. He kept going soft inside me, and then I might as well not be having sex at all. Not to mention the fact that he kept falling out. Trying to stuff a mostly soft penis back inside my vagina was not the easiest thing on earth. It was like trying to put one of those overstuffed pillows into a regular-sized pillowcase or something. Not only that, it took me out of my blissful little reverie, and made me focus on solving a problem, not on being perfectly in the moment, noticing every detail around me—every droplet of sweat, every tiny breath, every carnal scent.

Right at that second, I was trying to put Ralph back inside, and I wasn't having a lot of luck.

"Sorry," he panted.

"It's okay," I muttered. I didn't like there to be a lot of talking during sex. Moaning was fine. Meaningless words like "god" or "fuck" or "sexy bitch" were fine. But actual conversations? They tended to make everything feel awkward and strange. Sex was a vaguely ridiculous thing. There was a certain atmosphere that had to be kept up in order to make its ridiculousness unnoticeable.

"It's the condom," he said.

I glared at him, not that he could see my features real well. It was pretty dark up here. "Well, you're not taking it off."

"Right," he said, sounding chastised.

I flopped onto my back, letting go of his dick. "Maybe we should just—"

"No," he said. "I can do this. I only need..." He looked around, as if the answer was going to appear to him out of thin air.

"It's really okay," I said in a soothing voice. "You've been drinking a lot, and I know that sometimes—"

"That's not it." He sounded annoyed.

Oops. Well, far be it from me to challenge the male prowess. Guys were so sensitive about this topic, seriously. I didn't understand why. An erection was mostly involuntary, and I didn't see why they took it personally. They didn't have control over it, not really. I understood that. I didn't think any less of them because of it.

I supposed it was probably not that they thought less of themselves, but that they felt panic at the idea that they might be broken. It was easier for them to think they were a failure than to think that they were damaged. Failures could dust themselves off and try again. Damaged people were, well, ruined.

"Roll over on your stomach," said Ralph.

"That's not going to work," I said. "The ceiling's too low, and—"

"Trust me." He was already pushing at my hips, trying to move my body.

Sighing, I did as he asked. But I didn't think that there was any way that we'd fit together this way. I'd need to get up on my hands and knees in order for him to fit—

I gasped.

Suddenly, he was rock hard. His hands were rough, and I kind of liked that. He lifted my hips with one hand, and he was suddenly pushing against my flesh, stabbing me deeply inside.

I gasped again.

Now he felt crazy huge, and I wasn't exactly really wet anymore. It hurt a little.

I cringed.

He placed one hand on my back, holding me down, pushing my face into his pillow, which smelled even more like his sweat.

This excited me—the pain, the danger, the seediness.

I gasped once more, but my voice was swallowed up by the pillow.

And he fucked me hard for several perfect moments. Moments when I was unable to focus on anything except my body. Except his body. I had escaped, yet again, from everything that bothered me, and I was in my oasis of the present moment.

But it was over pretty quickly.

He was done, grunting over me, resting his weight against my body, crushing me and making it hard to breathe.

I struggled a little.

When he didn't move, I elbowed him.

"Sorry," he mumbled. But he moved and let me out from under him.

I rolled over onto my back.

"Did you come?" he asked me.

"A while ago," I lied. I wasn't sure why I bothered lying about that. Maybe just because it was easier. What had I been saying about male prowess?

Yeah, if they couldn't make me come, they probably felt damaged too. I didn't have time to deal with their neuroses.

And I didn't have sex for orgasms. Orgasms were nice bonuses, but they weren't the point.

"Good." He kissed me.

I let him.

He pulled back. "You want to stay tonight? I have to be on the road early in the morning, but if you don't want to walk by yourself while it's dark—"

"No, I'll be okay," I said. "I can take care of myself."

"Oh, yeah, that's right. You're a police detective or whatever."

"I'm a private detective." I got kicked off the police force. But that wasn't a story I felt like getting into.

"Whatever." He yawned. "So, what? You catch serial killers or something?"

I snorted. "Hardly. Mostly I catch people cheating on their husbands. Or wives. Sometimes the department shoots me a missing person's case if they can't do anything with it. And I've even found a couple missing pets."

He laughed softly. "Pets?"

"Yup. Mostly, it amounted to calling around to the local pounds until the dog showed up. It wasn't a bad way to make some cash." I sat up, stretching. I needed to find my clothes. "Definitely just as exciting as serial killers."

"You should stay," he said.

"Thanks," I said. "But I sleep better in my own bed." I found my clothes in a pile, tangled up with the bed sheets. I began to wriggle into my underwear. "You know, I bet catching serial killers isn't all that exciting anyway. They don't really have motives other than being confused about fucking and killing people."

"Really?" His voice was sleepy, but still skeptical.

I fastened my bra in front and slid it around my body so that I could pull the cups up over my breasts. "Oh, yeah. All of 'em. Richard Ramirez. Jeffrey Dahmer. John Wayne Gacy. They're all the same, you know. It's all about wanting to dominate people that they find sexually attractive. And ego too. They think really highly of themselves."

"Maybe they're not all that way."

I yanked on my pants. "Trust me. They're all that way. I've read about them."

"You've only read about the ones that got caught, though," he said.

"Well, yeah." I tugged my shirt over my head. "I guess maybe it's possible we've only caught the serial killers who are bad at what they do. Maybe there are killers out there who do it differently, but we don't know about them, because they're too good to get arrested."

He was quiet. "That's kind of unsettling. Maybe they're out there right now."

"Maybe," I said. "But I think I'll just stick with pets and cheating and leave the serial killers to the FBI."

"Hey," he said, "maybe you really shouldn't walk home by yourself. I know you think you're tough, but you're pretty and blond and someone might—"

"Seriously?" I raised my eyebrows. "One conversation about serial killers, and you're worried about my safety? I'll be fine."

"I just feel responsible, I guess. You're here with me, and I don't want to kick you out or anything." He stroked my arm.

I yanked it back. I didn't really want him to touch me anymore. I didn't much like them to touch me afterward. I guessed that was just another sign that I was incredibly fucked up.

"At least take my phone number, huh?" he said. "In case you need help."

"Don't worry," I said. "People almost never die around here. Over in Renmawr, sure. That's where my private eye practice is. It's a real city. This is just a rinky-dink college town. It's safe."

* * *

"I'm worried my sister might be dead," said Andrew Webb, the man who'd been waiting at my office when I opened up. He'd followed me around as I unlocked the door and hung up my purse, telling me his name, and that he'd been sent here by the Renmawr Police Department, because they said I might be able to help him.

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon. I rarely opened the office before that. My job forced me to keep late hours. And I also drank a lot. I rarely got to bed before two or three in the morning. Getting to the office by one o'clock was a feat, actually. And this morning—afternoon, whatever—I felt pretty groggy.

I sized up Andrew Webb. "You're not here about the assistant job."

"No." He looked frustrated. We were standing inside my office now. It wasn't much. Two rooms—one an outer waiting area, with a desk set up for an assistant, and one in the back, which contained my desk and files, and was where I met privately with clients. "I told you that they sent me here from the police. They said that you were good at this kind of thing."

I massaged the bridge of my nose. "I had an interview with someone for the assistant job at one o'clock. I thought that person would be here." But there was no one except Andrew Webb.

He folded his arms over his chest. "Are you at all interested in my missing sister?"

I winced. This was why I needed an assistant. I was shit at talking to clients. I could handle them when we were talking about the case, that I could handle. I could be all business. But the interpersonal stuff was not especially my strong suit. And I really hated talking about the money stuff.

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

Well, his frustration was better than a dumb-blonde joke. I got those sometimes, and I was supposed to find them funny or something. So, I had blond hair. That didn't mean that I enjoyed having my intellect called into question. Of course, I had to admit that I was kind of groggy and hungover at the moment, which might be making me look sort of dumb.

I gestured to the open door to my inner office, trying to collect myself. "Why don't you go on in and have a seat? We'll talk about your sister."

He appeared to be considering it, and I hoped he wouldn't simply walk out the door. From the sounds of it, Pike had kicked this over to me, and I needed these kinds of jobs to keep from going insane. Pike was a lieutenant at the police department. He and I used to work together, and he would sometimes send people my way if he thought I could help them. Doing work on those kinds of jobs made me feel like a real detective again, not just someone who broke up marriages.

But Andrew inclined his head and went through the door.

Relieved, I started to follow him.

The door opened.

I turned.

A girl came in. She was in her early twenties, and she was attempting to look professional, but the cut of her clothes was just a little too trendy to keep her from having a bit of a teeny-bopper look. She looked around, eyes wide. "Um, I'm here for the interview?"

I cringed again. So far, this was a bad start to the day. "I have a prospective client that just showed up, and I need to talk to him. Do you mind, uh, waiting a little bit?"

"Waiting how long?" she said.

I rubbed my forehead. "Never mind. I'll call you to reschedule."

She furrowed her brow. "Well, I guess I could hang out a little while." She peered around me at Andrew in the inner office, giving him a little wave. "Sorry to keep you waiting, sir," she called.

Yes. That. Interpersonal stuff. Why wasn't I good at that?

"It won't be too long," I said, heading back to the inner office.

The girl looked around and then sat down in the waiting area.

I closed the door to the inner office and turned all my attention to Andrew. "Sorry about that."

He still looked annoyed.

I sat down behind my desk and got out a legal pad. I liked to take notes on them. "Why don't you tell me about what's going on with your sister?"

"Well, she's gone," he said.

"Right," I said, nodding. "This is a missing person case, after all. When was the last time you talked to her?"

He fidgeted. "Well, about a week ago, maybe."

"Has anyone seen her in a week?"

"I don't know. I went to her house three days ago, and she wasn't there. Her car's still there. All her clothes are still there. It doesn't look like she went anywhere. And she wouldn't, anyway. Not without telling me. We're very close."

I scribbled on my pad. "Okay. So, I assume you want to hire me to try to find your sister."

"I think she's dead." He sucked in a breath, and then his face crumpled.

"What makes you think that?"

"She... her bed was stripped. That's the only thing missing. Her bed sheets and her covers and her mattress pad. And there are things in her room that don't look right. They're knocked over, messy, not the way she kept them. I think there was a struggle. I think that someone wrapped her body up in that bed sheet and took it away."

I cocked my head to one side. This was a bit interesting. Why was he leaping to the conclusion that his sister was dead? Admittedly, it was strange to find a stripped bed in someone's house and a girl missing, but jumping to murder wasn't the first place that my brain would go.

He kept talking. "My wife says I'm being melodramatic. She says I watch too much TV, and that she's sure that there's nothing wrong, that Madison's fine. But I just... know that's not true." His lower lip trembled. "Something bad has happened to her. Something terrible. I went to the police, but they said there wasn't much they could do in a situation like this. No evidence of foul play, they said. I started to get angry. I tried to tell them that I was sure that a crime had been committed. And that was when they told me about you. So, here I am. Can you find out what happened to my sister?"

"I can certainly try," I said. "I can look into everyone that's close to her. I can track her credit cards and her cell phone—"

"No, no, no," he said. "You have to believe me when I tell you that she's not out there spending money someplace. She didn't run away. She's been killed. Maybe only hurt or kidnapped, I guess, but I don't think so. They don't do things like that, really."

"Who doesn't?"

"Men who capture women, of course. They don't so much capture them unless they think they can get money, and Madison doesn't have any money. Neither do I, really, for that matter."

"Mr. Webb," I said, "you must realize that if something bad did happen to your sister, it's more likely that someone who knew her did it. Someone close to her."

His eyes widened.

"But let's not jump to any conclusions," I said. "Wouldn't you like it if you found out that you were wrong? That your sister really had just skipped town and was on an impromptu vacation somewhere?"

"She hasn't."

"Well, let's rule it out," I said. "If you're willing to hire me, the first thing I'll do is cover all those bases, make sure I can't locate her anywhere. I'll also check out the house and see if it looks to me as if there was a struggle."

"There was a struggle."

"Then I'm sure I'll see evidence of it."

He twisted his hands together in his lap. "Do you really think she could have gone out of town?"

"It's always a possibility, Mr. Webb."

"All right, I suppose let's try to find her."

CHAPTER TWO

I really wished I had an assistant as I hashed out the money with Mr. Webb. It seemed so crass to me to be giving my own rates and explaining to him how I'd like to be paid. It always seemed more official coming from a third party.

So, after he left, I went out to talk to the girl in the lobby, really hoping that she was going to pan out. I hadn't had a lot of interest in the position, frankly. I'd been advertising for over two weeks, ever since my last assistant quit. She was great at her job, but the two of us really hadn't gotten along. She liked the part-time hours, since she had two children at home, but she didn't like me much, considering I was always showing up hungover and swearing a lot. My last assistant had been a born-again Christian, but she wasn't one of the nice, hippie kinds who were all accepting and sweet and loving. She was one of the judgy kinds, who's only into Jesus because she thinks that following rules makes her better than everyone else. Anyway, she got very offended because I said goddamn. We had a lot of discussions about it, and when I made it clear that I wasn't going to stop saying it because of her, that I would say whatever I goddamned pleased whenever I goddamned wanted to, then she stormed out. I didn't really miss her, but I did miss how good she'd been with organizing everything and dealing with clients.

I sized up the girl in the lobby. Could she possibly handle this job?

The girl stood up, smiling. "Hi there. I'm Brigit Johansen, and I'm really glad to meet you." She had perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. And dimples. She was... adorable.

"Hi there." Was she too adorable? I wished I knew.

She offered me her hand.

Damn it. I probably should have offered my hand first, shouldn't I? That was the polite thing to do. I really sucked at polite shit. I took her hand and shook it. "I'm Ivy Stern."

"I know." She was still grinning. "I mean, it's your office and everything. I just think it's the neatest thing ever that you own your own business and everything. You're a real private investigator. It's like something in a movie."

I raised my eyebrows. Really, really adorable.

She had the decency to look embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm acting like an idiot."

"Why don't you come back to the inner office?" I gestured.

She nodded and then started forward.

I followed and closed the door after both of us. I took a seat at my desk and flipped to a fresh sheet in my legal pad. "Do you have any experience?"

"With being a detective?"

"No, with being an administrative assistant." That was a fancy word for secretary, and it was what people called it these days. My last assistant had told me this when she answered my ad for a secretary. I, of course, made the necessary adjustments.

"Oh, well, I worked on campus in the history department. I did odd jobs for the professors. Ran off copies, scheduled appointments, that kind of thing." She leaned forward. "Do you need another copy of my resume, because I have one right here?"

I didn't trust resumes. People had lots of time to make resumes look good. Conversation was spontaneous. I'd rely on her answers instead. So, I ignored the question. "On campus?"

She nodded eagerly. "Uh huh. At Keene College, just down the road."

My office was in Renmawr, but I lived in Keene, which was about a twenty-minute drive away. There was a college there, and it was a much more subdued area. A nicer place to live than Renmawr. The city had a bad organized crime problem, lots of drugs. It was nasty here. Good place to work as a private investigator. Bad place to live.

"Did you graduate from Keene?"

"Yep," she said. "You did too, right? I read that on your website."

It was true. I'd come to the area for school and never left. "And what did you study?"

"Art," she said, still beaming. "I do paintings. Portraits, actually. I'm good, but I guess I vastly overestimated how easy it would be to make a living doing fine art. Especially trying to pay back my student loans. So, getting a part-time job like this would be really perfect for me. And I think I'd be awesome at it. I'm organized, and I'm good on the phone, and the hours are perfect for me."

I narrowed my eyes. She'd just graduated from college. Of course she didn't want to work before one in the afternoon. She really was bubbly, wasn't she? I scribbled on my notepad. "Do you have any strict... religious beliefs?"

Her eyes widened. "Um, are you allowed to ask me that?" Then she shrugged. "I mean, I don't. I'm not really religious, but still, I don't think you can discriminate on the basis of—"

"When can you start? Can you start tomorrow?"

Her jaw dropped. "Did I get the job?"

I needed an assistant. No one else had answered the ad, and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her. I was going to give her a shot. If she didn't work out, well, then I'd be back to square one. But if she did, my problems were solved. I had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

* * *

Linda Hopkins was the department secretary for homicide. She didn't like me. "The lieutenant isn't in the office right now," she told me, tossing her curls.

I peered around her. Homicide was contained in one big room, with most of the detectives working at desks set up back to back in rows. Lieutenant Miles Pike, head of the department, however, had his own office in the back of the room. The door was closed, and the blinds were drawn over the windows, so I couldn't see inside. I had no way of knowing if Linda was telling the truth. And I wouldn't put it past her to lie about it.

"Look," I said. "He sent me a case. I'm just here to find out if he has any thoughts about it."

"I don't see why he would ever want to speak to you." She glared at me. She had the tendency to look at me as if my presence was about as appreciated as road kill.

"Well, he sometimes sends cases my way," I said. "So, obviously, he doesn't hate me as much as you think he does." I wanted to strangle Linda. I used to work here, in this very department. She was a lot more polite to me then. But that was back before the Internal Affairs investigation and my eventual dismissal for "conduct unbecoming an officer." Basically the department's way of saying that what women employed by the force did with their personal time wasn't personal after all.

"He should. After what you did to him."

I rolled my eyes. Pike had known it was going on, that was the thing. He and I had an understanding. Pike and I were good together in some ways, but in other ways, we were a disaster. Still, that didn't mean there was some kind of grudge between us. Well, I think he felt a little bit humiliated. I guess I did too. That was why it was over, at least that was what I figured.

She surveyed me, eyebrows raised.

I shoved my hands into my pockets.

"Well?" she said.

"Well, what?"

"Well, you should go. He's not here."

"Did he leave anything for me? A file? A message?"

She made a face. "What's the case?"

I told her.

She turned to her computer and typed on her keyboard. "That's missing persons. We're homicide."

"No, I know that, but a lot of times people report directly to homicide and that's how the lieutenant hears about it, which is what Mr. Webb did, and that's why I'm on the case in the first place."

"We don't have files on missing persons cases up here." Her voice had changed to the tone she might use to talk to a three-year-old. "You need to go to missing persons for that."

I really might strangle her. Really.

But then the door to Pike's office opened, and I saw Pike walking two detectives out.

"I thought the lieutenant wasn't here," I said.

Linda turned around. "Huh. He must have sneaked back in while I wasn't watching."

Right.

I stalked around her desk and started back towards his office.

"Hey," she said. "I have to call him to see if he wants to see you."

"He can see me already." I locked eyes with him.

He swept his gaze over me, head to toe. He didn't smile. Pike wasn't one for smiling. But something changed in his eyes. There was a unique softening to his expression, and he only ever did it for me.

In spite of myself, my heart started to speed up and my palms got a little sweaty. He still had that effect on me.

We gazed at each other as I made my way across the room, moving between the desks of the other detectives, my former co-workers. Miles Pike was one of those guys who's truly handsome. He wasn't cute or dreamy. He didn't have a baby face with a pug nose and a dimpled chin. Instead, he had straightforward good looks. His face was nice to look at, and he looked mature. There was something about him that put a person at ease, but he also had the capability to be unsettling as well. One flick of his cool, grey eyes had taken down many a nervous perp, leaving them squealing like a pig.

He held open the door to his office. "Stern."

"Pike." I walked inside.

He shut the door behind us.

I turned to look at him, feeling nervous. I didn't see him very often anymore. Even when I did see him, he often made me feel unbalanced, like a giddy girl at a junior high school dance with her ultimate crush. And he was right there. We were so close. If I lifted my hand, moved it over a few inches, I could touch him.

I always wanted to touch him.

And he didn't much like being touched.

He looked down at the ground.

I backed up.

He sidestepped further into the office, keeping distance between us.

I was used to his hands-off behavior, but—even after all this time—it hurt a little bit.

"I guess you're here about the Webb case." His back was to me as he leaned over his desk to sort through the file folders that haphazardly covered it.

"I just met Webb this morning."

He barked out a laugh. "It's two in the afternoon."

Right. I laughed a little too. "Well, it's morning to me."

He retrieved a file from the desk and handed it over to me. "There's not much in there. I didn't have time to investigate, but I did have a couple uniforms take pictures of the scene before I had to send it over to missing persons."

I opened the folder. Two photos, both of the bedroom, where Webb had said there was a struggle. The room did look messy, but it wasn't conclusive. Maybe she wasn't a clean person. I wrinkled my nose and flipped to the next picture, which had a good shot of the stripped bed.

"He said that the sheets were gone on the bed," I said.

"Yeah, that doesn't prove anything. Maybe she was doing laundry."

"Are there sheets in the washer?"

"She doesn't have a washer," he said. "Must use a laundromat."

I looked back at the picture. "The missing sheets are kind of weird."

"And that's the only thing missing," he said.

"Oh, you're not kidding," I said, pointing at the photo. "Her cell phone's still there." It was sitting on the bedside table.

"I knew you'd spot it." Pike's face splintered into a genuine grin. When he was grinning, he looked like Prince Charming. Classic good looks, like an old time movie star.

"Who runs off without her cell phone?" I said.

"Well, that's why I thought there might be something there for you. I'm not saying there actually is foul play, but it's interesting, anyway. I thought it might be up your alley."

I closed the folder, smiling back. "Definitely. Thanks."

We stared at each other for a little too long.

"Uh..." He broke the gaze and turned back to his desk. "You doing okay?"

"Fine," I said quickly.

We were quiet.

"You doing okay?" I asked.

He looked up, smiling again, but not his dazzling-Prince-Charming smile. Instead, his tight-lipped-professional smile. "Great."

"Great," I said.

We watched each other for several more seconds. Then he cleared his throat and moved around his desk. He sat down behind it and began going through the mess of file folders and papers.

I turned and left.

* * *

The cell phone wasn't the only thing that Madison Webb had left behind. She hadn't taken her car, her purse, or her laptop. That is, unless she had more than one of any of those things and had left behind her spare.

But her purse, which was by the door as if she'd hung it up upon entering, still contained everything a person might need. She'd left behind her wallet and her driver's license. There was cash inside. Credit cards, too.

I came over directly after talking to Pike. Andrew Webb had given me the key so that I could investigate the scene myself. Madison's place was just off the interstate at the edge of Renmawr. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor. The door hadn't even been locked, so it was easy to get inside.

I skulked around the apartment, getting a feel for the place.

I still felt that the bedroom, where Andrew claimed there were signs of a struggle, was inconclusive. The rest of Madison's apartment was fairly sloppy. She had left dirty plates out in the living room on her coffee table, which was also covered in various other junk. Without a doubt, the sink was full of dirty dishes too. She wasn't exactly obsessed with cleanliness. I thought that the room might just be messy, the way she'd left it.

Of course, there was a bookshelf that had been knocked over, spilling its contents all over the carpet. Most people didn't just knock over their bookshelves.

However, if Madison Webb had done it—say by accident—I didn't think she would have rushed to put everything back to order.

That didn't mean that I wasn't suspicious. So far, when I tried to put together a scenario that involved stripping her bed of sheets, leaving everything behind, and then going on the run, I couldn't make it stick. But when it came down to it, there was no real evidence of foul play. I could see why homicide wasn't rushing to take the case. There was no body. There wasn't even any blood. It was weird, but it didn't scream crime. At least not yet.

I headed back to the office afterward, and I went ahead and ran a credit report on Madison Webb. I had her credit cards in her purse, of course, so I didn't think it was likely that I'd actually find any numbers that I didn't already know she wasn't using.

However, I was in luck. I did find one lone credit card number that wasn't in the purse. Of course, it hadn't been used in over a year, so it was likely she just didn't use it anymore.

Still, I set up traces on her bank account and on all three of the credit card numbers, reasoning that she might have the numbers memorized or saved in online applications and be able to use them that way. Of course, I wasn't sure how she'd access all those online applications without either her laptop or her cell phone, but it was best to cover my bases.

By that time, it was coming up on early evening. I usually stayed in the office until about six or seven every day. Afterward, I'd leave the office, but keep working if I needed to, doing surveillance or investigation until nine or ten at night. That was a typical day for me.

I was about to close up and go try to find some dinner somewhere when the door to my office opened. A man with dark hair in a blazer and jeans came inside. I didn't have an assistant until tomorrow, so I had to go out and meet him.

"Can I help you?" I said.

"You the private detective?" he said.

I nodded. "That's me."

"I want to pay you to follow my wife around and see if she's cheating on me," he said.

Well, that was fairly typical. I saw this all the time. But I had a specific spiel that I generally went through in cases like this, so I gestured for him to have a seat. "Let's chat this out, all right?"

He sat down.

I sat down behind my desk and turned to a new page in my legal pad. "So, before we get going on this, I just want to caution you that once you see certain things, you can't unsee them. Do you love your wife?"

"Yeah, if she's not cheating on me." He leaned back in his chair. "How much is this going to cost me, anyway?"

Well, this guy wanted to get right down to business, didn't he? Generally, I didn't like to talk rates at all, so I left it to the end, but maybe it would be easier getting it out of the way up front. I told him what I charged.

He let out a low whistling breath. "That's a lot of money."

"It's my standard rate." I shrugged. "Besides, maybe you don't want to know if your wife's cheating. Here's the thing about people. They aren't perfect, you know. They screw up a lot. But in my experience, if people want out of a relationship, they'll just leave. A lot of times, these affairs, they're just... someone trying to get something out of her system or reacting to a problem with her current partner. If you leave it alone, if you try to repair your relationship, she'll probably stop anyway. But if you have photographic evidence, sir, it's probably going to break your marriage up. Are you prepared for that?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, think about it. And think about the fact that you'll be spending a lot of money just to make your life harder."

He was quiet for a bit, looking bewildered. Then he shifted on the seat, leaning forward. "I gotta know. You get that? I'm going insane here. Either way, it would be better if I was certain."

I did get that. I nodded. "All right, then. I'd be happy to provide you with answers, sir. Let's start with why you think your wife is cheating."

"Oh, you know, the usual," he said. "Her phone's always ringing. She looks at it, but she won't pick it up. She says it's work or something. She's been spending a lot of time alone, going out late with 'friends.' And she just seems distant."

"Have you accused her? Confronted her?"

"Nah. I want to know what I'm dealing with before I do something like that."

"So, she has no idea that you're suspicious?"

"As far as I know."

"Good," I said.

"So, you'll follow her?"

"Absolutely."

"How soon can you start?"

"Well, when does she engage in the suspicious activity?"

"She's supposedly out with friends this evening. She said she was leaving for dinner at the TGI Fridays in town."

"You're in luck," I said. "I don't have anything scheduled for this evening. I can get started right away."

* * *

It turned out that the husband's name was Colin Pugliano and that his wife was Rhonda. Neither of them looked particularly Italian, despite his surname. Of course, Rhonda had married into it, so she wouldn't have. I parked across from the Puglianos' house after grabbing some take-out. I saw her leave the house. She was dressed up in a sexy outfit that would probably be appropriate for a club. High heels and a low cut shirt. I couldn't tell if that meant anything. Lots of times, women all got dressed up like that to go out together, so she might in fact be meeting friends.

I wasn't really that kind of woman. To be that kind of woman, you needed female friends, which I didn't have in an abundant supply, and you needed to actually enjoy doing your hair and makeup. I wasn't exactly what you'd call high maintenance when it came to my appearance. Don't get me wrong. I made sure that I looked presentable. But I didn't do things like getting my nails done or visiting a hair dresser to get my hair colored. I didn't go out shopping for clothes for fun. I was a simple kind of girl.

And the thing was, I'd discovered that none of it mattered. Women often claimed that they got dressed that way to impress men, but I'd found that it didn't make any difference to men whether you were wearing makeup or not. Most men barely noticed.

I didn't have trouble getting laid, anyway.

When Rhonda pulled out of the driveway, I followed her at a safe distance. I wasn't obvious about it, but I didn't go to a lot of trouble to hide the fact that I was following her, because I figured she wasn't savvy enough to notice.

She didn't seem to.

I followed her car not to a restaurant to meet friends, but to a motel at the edge of town—the kind where you can rent rooms by the hour.

I shook my head as I pulled in to the parking lot. "Really, Rhonda, I was looking forward to something a little bit more challenging than this."

I got out my camera and took a few shots of her getting out of her car and going into a room. She didn't talk to anyone, so there was still a little bit of plausible deniability on her part.

I settled in, getting my takeout and watching the door. I waited for someone else to show up and go inside. No one did. That meant that he was already inside or that she was in there alone.

I found myself pulling for option number two.

It would be interesting if one of these surveillance cases actually went a different way. I'd like it if Rhonda actually turned out to be a Russian spy.

Well, she didn't really look Russian, to be honest. Besides, Russian spies were so 1985. It wasn't the Cold War anymore. What country should she be from then?

Somewhere in the Middle East, I decided. Of course, she didn't look Middle Eastern either. And besides, I was fairly sure that the Muslim religion would prohibit women from being spies. So, that didn't really make any sense. But maybe she wasn't a woman at all, but a man in disguise. Of course, that really didn't make sense. How would a man fool someone like Colin Pugliano into thinking that he was a woman without a sex change operation?

For that matter, what would a spy want with Colin Pugliano anyway?

I sighed, digging into my kung pao beef.

There was probably nothing exciting going on here. As much as I wished my job didn't boil down to same-old, same-old drudgery, it did. And the fact that I was stuck doing it was my own fault. I maybe didn't agree that the department should have fired me for the things I did. After all, I did them on my own time. They were personal decisions, nothing to do with my job at all. But I had done them. I couldn't argue that.

Doing that stuff didn't make me a bad detective, though. Pike knew that.

Still, it had ruined my life. My weakness for sex had destroyed everything. I should stop, I guess, but what was the point now? I didn't have anything to save. I'd lost my job. I'd lost my relationship with Pike. I'd lost my self-respect. I didn't have anything left except my vices. Everything else had abandoned me, but the vices stayed steady and strong, like old friends.

All I had left were my bad habits. I wasn't about to let them go.

I finished my Chinese food, right down to the fortune cookie. I got out of the car to find a trash can to dump the stuff. Just because I was on a stake-out didn't mean that I had to make my car dirty. I prided myself on keeping it clean. I kept my eye on the motel room the whole time, though.

Nothing happened.

Bored, I tried using my camera to zero in on the window, in case I could see inside the room. No dice. The curtains were pulled shut tight.

I waited. I watched.

While I was watching, I listened to some podcasts on my phone. It was the only way I could handle passing the time. Boredom, that was the name of the game. Most of my job involved doing a whole lot of nothing, while I tried to combat acute mind numbness.

But then, just as I was starting to feel as if I couldn't handle waiting for much longer, I was rewarded when Rhonda came out of the hotel room with a man in tow. They had their arms around each other.

"Jackpot," I whispered, snapping a picture.

Then, as if they wanted to make my life even easier, they kissed. Not just a peck on the lips, either, but a full-on passionate kiss that lasted for several minutes, their hands roaming all over each other's bodies.

I snapped picture after picture.

Nice. Open and shut case, got the proof on the first try. Stretching it out might have meant a bigger payday for me, but truth be told, I was glad to have the time to focus on the Webb case, which was at least unusual.

With my luck, that was probably going to turn out stupid, too, though. Madison Webb had probably run off with some guy, leaving everything behind for a romantic weekend. Hell, the guy was probably rich, and that was why she didn't need anything. Maybe he was going to buy her a new phone and a new laptop. Or maybe they were going someplace remote, and there wouldn't have been any service anyway.

Why she took the sheets off her bed though...

Rhonda and the man released each other. They kissed again, this time briefly. I snapped photos again.

And then they parted. Rhonda went back to her car, and I packed everything up.

I was done for the evening.

Miller time.

* * *

Truthfully, I drank a lot of Miller High Life. It's the champagne of beers, and it's cheap. Plus, I could drink a lot of it and not get very drunk. That was generally my goal. I didn't drink to get drunk. I drank to stay at the bar. The drunker I got, the more likely it was I would have to go home, and I didn't want that. However, I didn't want to be one of those people who comes to the bar and drinks Coca-Cola and tries to hang out with the drunk people.

When I was sober, drunk people annoyed me.

Being a little drunk was part of it, I had to admit. It was the first step. The alcohol dumbed down my senses, made my brain just a little fuzzy. I liked that. I thought too much, and most of my thoughts weren't nice ones. I was happy enough to let the beer go to work on my brain, its foamy coldness numbing me just a little bit, loosening me.

I didn't go out to drink in Renmawr.

I wasn't an idiot.

For one thing, I worked in Renmawr, and I didn't want to run into anyone that I might have worked with, either as a private eye or from my days on the police force. I didn't want to chum around with clients, and I didn't want anyone that I'd busted to show up and be pissed off with me.

The other reason was that I wasn't a fan of drinking and driving, and Renmawr was a thirty-minute drive from my home. I went back to Keene to drink instead, where my apartment was a five-minute walk from the bar. It was much safer.

But the biggest reason was that I liked it in Keene, which was why I'd chosen to live there. I had gone to college in Keene and cut my teeth on drinking in that town. I still had friends from those days, and it was a completely different atmosphere than in Renmawr. Keene was a college town, and it attracted people who liked to have actual conversations about actually interesting things. As opposed to Renmawr, where bars seemed to be for shouting at people over pounding music. Overall, Renmawr felt like a city—huge, sprawling, and dangerous—while Keene felt like a small town. I felt safe in Keene. It was home.

Upon entering the bar, which was called The Remington, I felt like I'd come home. I was greeted by the sight of familiar faces, many of whom smiled and waved or called out hellos. I sidled up to the bartender, who was already getting my Miller High Life out of the cooler. He set it in front of me. "Cash or tab, Ivy?"

For years, I'd always used cash at the bar. It seemed to make the most sense to me. I'd go out with a certain amount of money, and when it was gone, that was that. There was no need to worry about remembering to get my bank card when I left the bar, and there was no attempting to calculate a tip when I was three sheets to the wind.

But cash was inconvenient. I didn't carry it for anything else. If I wanted to have cash for the bar, it meant that I had to go by the ATM before coming to the bar, or else use the one in the corner, which added a hellish surcharge. Using my bank card seemed to make more sense, and so I was trying to nudge myself into the twenty-first century.

Old habits died hard, though. I happened to have some cash on me. I slid it across the bar.

The bartender chuckled at me. His name was Alan. He worked on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and every other Thursday. I knew this because I was basically in here every night. I had the schedule down.

I took a drink of my beer, and the first fizzy, cold bit of it washed down my throat, making everything just a little bit better. I relaxed a notch. Life might be shit. But I was home now, and I was drinking. I'd manage.

"When you going to stop drinking that piss, huh?" said a voice behind me.

I turned, grinning. I knew that voice. It belonged to Dr. Crane Drakeley, professor of English literature at Keene College and a beer snob. He loved to rag on me about the beer I drank. As usual, he had something on tap sitting next to him on the bar. Something dark, with a thick head of white foam at the top. It probably tasted like bitter toasted nuts or something. I really didn't understand the appeal of "good beer," to be honest. That was probably because I didn't really like the taste of beer all that much. I tended towards lighter beers with very little actual taste, like High Life or Rolling Rock. Still, I couldn't spend too much time in Keene without being exposed to lots of micro-brewed aficionados, one of which was Crane.

"How's it going, Crane?" I said.

He waggled his eyebrows. "Better now that you're here."

Crane was twice-divorced. He had a bad habit of taking up with women and falling madly in love with them, diving in with both feet, only to have the whole relationship blow up about three months later. Sometimes, however, he got carried away and married these women. Then the relationships—really over at the three-month point—would drag on for long, miserable periods of time, sometimes years.

I'd known Crane since I was a senior at Keene College myself. He'd arrived as a first-year professor, and I used to bum cigarettes from him before class. Since then, I'd quit smoking. He'd switched to one of those electronic numbers. He was always trying out outlandish flavors. Right then, he put the contraption to his mouth and blew out a puff of something that smelled vaguely of maple syrup. He'd been through at least ten different kinds of e-cigarettes, and each new one he got looked less and less like an actual cigarette. This thing he had now looked like something out of the Terminator franchise.

When Crane first arrived in town, he and I only saw each other in passing. It wasn't until after I graduated that we actually fucked for the first time. Crane had issues. He was probably as screwed up as I was, in his own way, but he wasn't the kind of professor who'd have sex with students. He had standards. I was gainfully employed with the Renmawr Police Department, putting in my time to work my way up the ladder and make detective, the first time we went to bed together.

Most guys are used up after getting busy with them once or twice. Men tend to get needy and attached if you have sex with them too often. There's some kind of ridiculous stereotype out there that men don't want to settle down as much as women do, and I think it's bullshit. I think men are more likely than women to want a steady relationship. Only difference being that men do seem to get less interested in sex with the same woman over time.

Of course, I might be biased. I have a fairly insatiable appetite for sex. I'd be happy to get it from one man, though. I could totally do the monogamy thing, really. Thing is, I've never met a man who could keep up with me. And despite that, none of them seem to want to share, more's the pity.

Well, there was Pike, of course. Pike and I had a sort of arrangement. But there's no point in thinking about that, because there's no more Pike and me.

Anyway, Crane was a keeper. Not because he was relationship material or anything. He wasn't. I couldn't stand dating him, and he wouldn't be interested in dating me. I wasn't his type. He needed someone a little flighty, a little fragile, a little naive. Someone who could believe that it was possible to be swept away by love. A girl like that, well, she could make him believe it too. That was the thing about Crane. Whenever he was head over heels, he always believed this was it. This girl was the one. She was the one who'd make him change his ways, who'd set him on the straight and narrow, who'd make an honest man out of him.

That was bullshit. He knew it deep down. He'd eventually fall off the high of infatuation, come crashing down to earth, and then he'd get depressed. And then he'd be knocking on my door, bottle of whiskey in hand, crestfallen and sad.

I cared about him, and he cared about me. Some people in town thought of him as my on-again-off-again boyfriend, but I always set them straight. Crane was my long-standing fuck buddy, and that was all there was to it. We cooled off if one or the other got into a serious relationship, but those relationships always broke up, and we ended up having sex again.

I didn't have sex with him all the time, but he was there if I needed him. He was comfortable.

"Sure I can't buy you an actual beer?" he said.

"I like my High Life." I grinned at him.

He grinned back. "So, you got any exciting cases?"

"Mostly just cheating husbands and wives." I took a slug of my beer. "But I did get a missing girl this morning."

"Girl? Little girl?"

"Nah, she's in her twenties. Recent Keene grad, as is everyone around these parts."

"Oh, what's her name?" he said. "Maybe I had her in class?"

"Madison Webb," I said. "I don't think she was an English major." Crane had made tenure a few years back, and now he didn't have to teach the general freshman sections of English. He had all upper level courses, which he said was a slice of heaven.

He drank some of his beer, giving himself a foam mustache. "Doesn't ring a bell. Don't think I knew her." He grinned. "Actually, that's great. It's hard to be inspired when I actually know the person. Makes it all too real, you know."

I touched my own lip to signal to him that he should wipe his face.

He went on, oblivious. Crane was one of those guys that people might describe as dreamy. He had it all—the strong jaw, the adorable nose, the soulful eyes, the hair that fell carelessly over his forehead. His only noticeable flaw was a scar on his lip. He'd gotten it as a little boy, falling face first off his bike. Of course, the scar only added rugged flavor to his good looks. Right at that moment, with foam on his face, he didn't look ridiculous, but instead adorable. "Tell me everything. I've been hunting around for a good idea for a book for ages. You've got to give me this one."

"Well, she's missing," I said. "She's missing, and she didn't take anything with her except her bed sheets." I touched my lip again. "You should wipe your lip."

"Oh." He grabbed a napkin and scrubbed away the foam. "Why did she take her sheets?"

"I don't know that she did. She might have just taken them to the laundromat. Point is, they aren't there, but everything else is."

He nodded slowly, eyes wide. He was thinking. "Maybe she was recruited into a secret society where they all have to wear sheets for the initiation. Maybe she's being groomed to do something illegal for them. They pick young college graduates, prey on their idealism, and get them locked up for their crimes. No one knows about the society because they think all these incidents are unrelated."

"Is that what your book is going to be about?" I took a long swig of my beer. Crane was an aspiring novelist. He was aspiring because he couldn't actually finish anything. Crane seemed to fall in love with book ideas the same way he fell in love with women—briefly. After a few months, he would give up on his drafts, disgusted because he was sure that they weren't any good.

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe not. It was just my first idea."

"If she didn't run off on her own," I said, "she could possibly have been carried off in the sheets. Either that, or the person that killed her made a mess on them and wanted to get rid of evidence."

Crane gave me a wicked smile. "Evidence? Like blood?"

"Or maybe he raped her and then smothered her with a pillow and left his DNA all over the place? I don't know."

"You think she was murdered, then?"

"I don't think anything," I said. "But I have to admit, trying to solve a murder case again would be pretty nice." I finished my beer in one long draught, thinking wistfully of the days when I worked homicide for real.

"Do you think she was murdered?"

"Well, the brother thinks she was. He's the guy who hired me. The police are just treating it like a missing persons case, but the brother thinks she was hurt. He's convinced she's dead."

Crane signaled the bartender to get me another beer. "Well, that's it, then. The brother did it."

I furrowed my brow. "Why do you say that?"

He shrugged. "Call it a hunch."

"It's possible, I guess. Anything's possible."

The bartender set the beer down in front of me, and I reached for my wallet, but Crane stopped me.

"Put it on my tab," said Crane to the bartender.

The bartender nodded.

I smiled at him. "Thanks."

Crane smiled back, mischievous. "Well, what can I say? I'm hoping if I buy you a drink, I'll get lucky."

I laughed.

"Seriously," he said. "You got big plans tonight?"

"No plans," I said.

"So... my place or yours?"

CHAPTER THREE

"So," I said, leaning over Brigit's desk to manipulate the mouse, "you just click here, and then it'll open up the report, and you can see if we've gotten any hits. I'm going to need you to check this every morning."

She gave me a funny look. "Um... I didn't think that it was legal for a private investigator to pull a credit report without someone's permission."

"This isn't a credit report," I said. "This is just tracking the cards to see if any of them get used to buy something."

"But you got the numbers somewhere, right?" Brigit peered at Madison Webb's cards, which were all spread out on her desk, where I'd left them the day before. "There are only three cards, and you're tracking five numbers."

"Well, one's her bank account," I said. "And don't you worry about where the other one came from, okay? The less that you know about that, the better. Let's say I've got a friend and leave it at that, huh?" Geez. Even the born-again hadn't questioned this stuff. How did Brigit know about legal stuff anyway? She must have been doing her research. Despite the fact that I was annoyed with her for challenging me, my respect for her increased.

"A friend?"

"Brigit, drop it." I glared at her. "Can you just tell me if we got any hits on the credit cards?"

She shrugged. "If you promise that you're taking full responsibility—"

"I am." I rolled my eyes. I didn't really have a lot to lose these days. I'd already been kicked off the police force and had every shred of respectability ripped from me. So, if I cut some corners here and there, I didn't much care about the possible consequences. I didn't figure things could really get much worse.

"Well, then... no, there's no hits."

"See?" I said. "No harm done." I seized my coffee cup off the table. I always drank a double-shot espresso soy latte every morning. The soy was easier on my stomach. Didn't used to be a problem back when I was younger, but I was beginning to realize that night after night of drinking alcohol was catching up with me. I couldn't compromise on the coffee, even though that was probably eating a hole through my esophagus, so I compromised on the milk. I needed the coffee to wake up in the morning.

Even though I'd adjusted my schedule so that I didn't have to come in until one in the afternoon, I woke up every day hung over. It was normal for me, and it was totally manageable. I handled the hangover with caffeine, water, protein, and whole grains. The caffeine was for the headache. It dilated blood vessels and fixed me right up. It also woke me up, because I was generally exhausted in the morning, no matter how much sleep I got. Drunk sleep isn't good sleep. When you have too much alcohol, you can't get into deep REM sleep or something. The water was for dehydration, which was always an issue. And the protein and whole grains gave my body a good jump start. I generally ate an egg-white omelet with a side of peanut-butter, whole-wheat toast. It soaked up any alcohol left in my system, and it balanced out the sugar rush from the night before. Beer is pretty carb heavy. So, it was fine. I was used to it. One day, a few months ago, I hadn't been in the mood to go out and drink, and I woke up the next morning without a hangover. That had just felt... weird.

Back when I was in college, or even when I was Brigit's age, I could drink three or four beers in an evening and not even get hungover.

Admittedly, these days, it was more likely that I drank six to eight beers in an evening, which was double the amount, but... Anyway, being in my thirties was not all it was cracked up to be, let's just say that.

I took a big drink of coffee, sucking it down like it was my lifeline.

"So," said Brigit, "what does it mean that there's no hits on the credit cards?"

"Well, it means no one's using them."

"Obviously," said Brigit, gesturing at the cards. "She didn't take them with her."

"Right," I said. "I wasn't expecting anything, honestly. But it would have been nice. If we got a hit on a card, we could have gone after her and had her home by dinner."

"You really think she's out there?" said Brigit. "You don't think that she's..." She bit her lip. "You know, dead?"

"I don't know what to think at this point," I said. "We don't have enough evidence."

"Well, her brother thought he was dead."

"You were listening in yesterday?"

"It was quiet out here," she said. "The walls are not that thick. I couldn't help but hear."

As if on cue, above our heads, there came a series of barks and yips.

I groaned. "Tell me about it. The walls in this place are like paper."

Brigit looked up. "Is that a dog?"

I slammed the coffee down on the desk. "I'll be right back." I headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" said Brigit.

I ignored her. I threw myself out of the office, slamming the door after myself.

* * *

The building that housed my office had apartments upstairs. Not a lot of apartments. About four. A row of them. They had back porches that hung off the back of the building, overlooking the parking lot. They weren't the nicest apartments in all of Renmawr. Well, to be honest, there weren't a lot of nice apartments in Renmawr. Not in the city limits, anyway. If you were in town, you were pretty much in the bad part of town. The respectable people had all retreated to the outskirts, where they lived in planned communities and townhouses, each with their own annexed shopping center complete with a grocery store and a Redbox.

So, I really should have counted myself lucky not to be living under drug dealers or people mixed up with the Irish mob, because there was a strong presence of that in town.

And you know what?

I did count myself lucky. I was grateful.

It was just...

The fucking dog.

God damn it.

I stormed up the steps to the next level and stalked down the hallway to Kitty Richards's apartment. I banged on her door, even though I knew it was futile. She wasn't home.

Kitty Richards was at work, and she had a dog that lived with her in this apartment. When she was at work, she sometimes put the dog inside a tiny bathroom at the back of her apartment. That bathroom happened to be right above my office.

I knew this because I'd been inside her apartment.

When she didn't answer the door, I knelt down and pulled aside the mat.

"Moved it," I muttered. She used to keep the key there, but she obviously didn't anymore. Afraid I'd use it again, I guess.

I began sorting through the things in front of her door. She had a couple of plants in pots, which I lifted, looking for the key.

Nothing.

"Damn it," I whispered.

From inside the apartment, I could still hear the dog barking. Once he got going, he didn't stop. He would bark all day long, seeming to never get tired of it.

Actually, that wasn't entirely true. Sometimes he switched from barking to whining, which wasn't much better.

And it wasn't that I didn't like dogs. I didn't own a dog or anything, but I liked animals. Part of the reason that it drove me nuts was that the dog was obviously unhappy in that little bathroom. The thing was barely the size of a closet, and he could hardly turn around in it. It was cruel keeping him in there, and I could only imagine that she did it because she didn't want him to mess up her apartment.

But see, that was the thing. I didn't understand why people got pets if they valued their stuff higher than they valued the little life they had just made themselves custodians of. Animals were not just accessories. They didn't exist only to amuse their owners. They had their own wants and needs, some of which might be inconvenient. But that inconvenience came with the territory. People—people like Kitty Richards—needed to be nicer to their pets, darn it.

I reached up above the door and felt along the top of the door frame. My fingers ran over the smooth surface, slowly, slowly...

Jackpot!

There was the key. I fitted it to the lock, and I let myself in.

Kitty's apartment looked the same way it always looked. It was super cluttered, like Better Homes and Gardens had exploded. The apartment wasn't messy or anything. For being crammed full of knick knacks and candles and flowered couches and doilies, it was fairly well organized. It was obvious that it took Kitty a lot of time and effort to get it just the way she liked it. The place smelled of lavender and cinnamon—but not real lavender and cinnamon. Instead, the cloying scent came from scented candles and potpourri.

I ripped through the living room and went down the hallway to the bathroom, where I knew the little dog was trapped.

The barking got louder.

"Don't worry," I called. "I'm coming."

The barking quieted. Ha. He recognized my voice, did he?

I didn't know the dog's name. I hadn't really checked. I figured it was stupid to know the dog's name, anyway. It wasn't as if animals had names. Names were an absurdly human thing, and it was all part of the way we tried to turn animals into things for our human amusement instead of just letting them be animals.

Of course, there was nothing we could do about all of that now, not really. If we let all the pets go free, they'd die. They couldn't take care of themselves. They needed us humans now. We'd created them and now they were our responsibility. But damn it, locking them in tiny bathrooms was not the way.

I yanked open the door.

The dog burst out and leaped on me.

I backed away. "Hey, that's not cool."

It started licking my hand.

I tugged my hand away. Eeew. Dog drool.

One time, after freeing Fido here, I'd brought him down to my office to hang out, and we'd had a grand old time. My old assistant had petted him until he went into a petting coma. He spent most of the afternoon sleeping and waking up for scratches behind his ears.

But Kitty had freaked out when she found out that he was missing and started going door-to-door in a panic. When she found out that I had the dog...

Well, she and I exchanged words, and I was not polite, not exactly. I told her precisely what I thought about her keeping the dog trapped, and she told me that if I stole her dog again, she would press charges, and I said that the dog wasn't stolen, and—

Anyway, the point was, I wasn't going to take the dog again.

Instead, I took him out on the back porch. I left the screen door there open so he could come and go in and out of the apartment as he pleased.

He tried to lick me some more.

I petted the top of his head and tried to keep free of his mouth. I really wasn't fond of dog saliva.

* * *

"Well, Mr. Webb," I said, "she didn't take her cell phone, and she didn't take her credit cards, so there's not a lot for me to track her with at this point."

"That's because she's been hurt or killed, just like I said." He gripped the back of the chair in my office. I'd asked him to sit down, but he wouldn't.

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe something's happened to her. We can't know one way or the other, you realize. But if you want me to keep digging into this, I'll need to know some details about her life."

"Details?" he said. "What do you mean?"

"Please have a seat, Mr. Webb."

He looked down at the chair, and then back up at me. "I don't think there was anything peculiar about her life. Is there really any reason to go digging into it? Someone's taken her, probably hurt her. Shouldn't you be looking for that person?"

"As I said, Mr. Webb, it's probably someone that she knows. Why don't you sit down, and we can chat a little bit about anyone suspicious in her life."

He sat down. "Well, I don't know. I didn't spend that much time with her. We were close, but she had her own life, you know? I have my wife and my children, and I certainly couldn't neglect them for Madison." He cleared his throat. "Not that Madison wasn't a lovely girl and worth giving my undivided attention to. She was. She was the best sister in the entire world, and I just can't sleep thinking that someone's gotten away with hurting her."

"Why are you so convinced that she's gone, Mr. Webb?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. My wife keeps saying the same thing to me. She says that we don't know what happened to Madison, that she might be just fine. But I... I have a feeling. Like I said, Madison and I were close. I just know that there's something wrong. I just know it."

I surveyed him. I couldn't help but think of what Crane had said to me last night at the bar, that the brother had killed Madison. But that didn't make much sense, did it? If he'd hurt her, why was he paying me money to look into her disappearance? I couldn't reconcile that in my brain.

I had to admit that Mr. Webb was a little bit odd, though.

He rubbed his forehead, looking worried. "I didn't really know her friends. I'm not sure if I'll be much help."

"What about a boyfriend?" I said. "Was Madison seeing anyone?"

"Oh, not anymore, no," he said. "She had stopped seeing Curtis months ago."

"Curtis? Tell me more about him."

"Like I said, they broke up."

"Well, maybe Curtis had a grudge against her for leaving him?"

"No, no," he said. "He was the one who broke it off. He met someone else. Madison was devastated, but I always told her that Curtis was no good. Of course, she wouldn't listen. But I have to tell you, I was glad when I heard that they weren't together anymore. I never liked that guy, and he wasn't good enough for my sister."

"She was devastated?"

"Yeah, she kept calling him, and he wasn't interested anymore. I told her to leave him alone, but—"

"She was harassing her ex."

"I wouldn't call it harassing." He glared at me. "She was upset. She liked the guy, and he didn't like her back. It was typical behavior. She wasn't hurting anyone. Besides, that Curtis guy deserved it for breaking her heart."

I nodded. "Yeah, I get it, Mr. Webb. I think I'd still like to talk to Curtis. You got a last name for me? Maybe an address?"

* * *

Curtis Michaels lived out in one of those townhouses in a planned community that I'd mentioned earlier. It was just outside of the city limits of Renmawr, deep inside a housing development. I had to wind around various tree-named streets to find it. The townhouse was forest green, and it was sandwiched between two identical houses—except that they were brown and blue respectively. None of them had front yards to speak of, but someone was across the street, pushing a lawn mower over his tiny square of grass.

Curtis apparently worked an early shift at a restaurant that only sold breakfast and lunch, so I knew he was home. According to Mr. Webb, that was how Curtis and Madison had met. She used to work as a waitress at the same restaurant, but she'd since moved on to a different place.

Sure enough, he answered the door right when I rang the doorbell.

"Curtis Michaels?" I said.

He looked confused. "Can I help you?" Curtis had longish hair. It was down to his chin, and he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. He was barefoot.

"I wanted to ask you a few questions about Madison Webb. She's missing." I found a direct approach to be better than introducing myself right off the bat. Once people found out that I was a private investigator instead of a cop, they weren't as likely to open up. But opening with the fact someone was missing gave the whole conversation an air of gravity. It stacked the deck in my favor. He'd be more likely to talk to me.

"Missing?" said Curtis. "What do you mean?"

"Well, she's gone," I said. "Didn't take anything with her. Left her cell phone behind even. You knew Madison, didn't you? At one point, you were close?"

He was stunned. "Gone? I can't believe that."

"Can I come in?" I said.

He moved away from the door, letting me walk past him.

That was good. I'd gained access to the house. I peered around at my surroundings. The townhouse opened onto a small foyer area. There was a set of steps heading up to the upper level. To my right, a doorway opened onto a living room, which was a little cluttered. Beer bottles on the coffee table, a mussed blanket on the couch. In front of me, a small hallway led into the house. I could see the edge of a counter top, indicating the kitchen was through there.

"You, uh, want some water or something? Coke?" Curtis asked.

"Water would be great," I said.

He traipsed back into the kitchen, and I followed him. He took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and handed it to me.

I noticed that there were sonogram pictures on the fridge. "Someone's expecting?"

"Yeah, my girlfriend," said Curtis. "She's about twenty weeks along."

I did some quick math in my head. "And you and Madison broke it off... when?"

He studied his shoes. "Look, I'm not saying that I'm proud of..." He sighed. "Madison is kind of clingy, you know? It was hard for me to end things with her, because she just seemed so pitiful, and I couldn't do it, even though I was already with Debbie. I'm not that kind of guy, though. I don't date two girls at the same time. And as soon as I found out that Debbie was pregnant, I totally cut Madison out of my life."

"How long ago was that?"

He thought about it. "Uh... months ago. Back in May. I haven't even talked to her in ages. It's over between us."

I nodded. This was probably a dead end, but I needed to make sure I followed through. "I understand that Madison didn't take the breakup well?"

He laughed. "Oh man, that is the understatement of the year. She was way crazy over it."

"What do you mean?"

"She, uh, wouldn't leave me alone. She'd call me all the time, like sobbing and begging me to come back to her. She was just a basket case."

"But you haven't spoken to her recently?"

"Oh, well, she got over it," he said. "It took a while, but she got it out of her system, and then the calls stopped. I might have had to get a little tough with her. I said she was being crazy, that I might have to call the police or something. She shaped up."

"So, then, you don't have any issues with her right now?"

He drew back, eyes narrowing. "Hey, why would you ask me that?"

I shrugged, drinking some water and trying to look innocent.

"Hey, you don't think that like... something happened to her, do you? I thought she was just missing, like she ran off?"

"So far, there's no evidence to say anything different. But I'm still sniffing around, covering my bases."

He eyed me. "Yeah, who are you exactly?"

Well, this was the downside of not introducing myself up front. I smiled. "My name's Ivy Stern." I offered him my hand.

He didn't shake it. "Why are you in my house? Are you a cop or something?"

"I'm a private investigator."

He nodded slowly. "So, uh, who hired you?"

"Does that matter?"

"Was it that brother of hers? Did he say that I hurt her? Because that guy is insane, let me tell you. He's just way too attached to her. He was always over at her house, like all the time, and he never liked me, but I never did shit."

Interesting.

"You tell him that I would never, ever do anything to hurt Madison, okay? Can you tell him that?" Curtis folded his arms over his chest.

"Like I said, Mr. Michaels, I'm just covering my bases."

"Yeah, well..." Curtis shoved his hands in his pockets. "If you're not a cop, then I don't have to let you stay."

"Not necessarily," I said, "but I'm not trying to make an enemy here. I'd like it if I could come back and ask you more questions if I needed too. What I'd really like to do is find Madison."

"I don't know where she is. I got nothing to do with her anymore. Okay?"

I smiled. "Okay."

"I think you should go."

* * *

"So, is it the ex-boyfriend?" said Brigit when I got back to the office.

"We don't even know if she's dead," I said. "She could be alive and well and on a cruise ship for all we know." Maybe Madison had decided to become a high-paid call girl and had been swept off by a pimp, who was teaching her the trade.

Man, listen to me. I was getting just as bad as Crane, coming up with ridiculous scenarios. He could maybe make that a book, though. I'd suggest it to him. Of course, maybe there wasn't much point, considering that he never finished anything he started.

"True," said Brigit, "but something weird happened. I think so, anyway. If she ran off, she would have taken her stuff. Especially her phone." She held it up.

"You went through the stuff I took from her house?" I said. I had brought her purse, her phone, and her laptop back to the office to check out. "I haven't even had a chance to look at that. Listen, we need to have a talk about not touching things unless I say it's okay."

"Sorry," said Brigit. "The laptop is password protected, and I can't get in. But the phone just had a swipe thing on it, and I tried a couple of the patterns that come standard on them—I googled it—and voila! I got in."

I had to admire the girl's initiative. I chuckled. "I thought you aspired to be an artist."

"I am an artist," she said. "But I'm not making much money at that. You're going to pay me to work here, however, so I thought I should help out as best I can. But if you don't want that, then I guess I won't."

"I'm paying you to answer the phones and schedule appointments and talk to clients about my rates."

She looked down at the desk.

"But you did good with the phone," I admitted.

She beamed up at me. "Yeah?"

Man, I gave this chick one compliment...

"Because I've been scrolling through her texts, and I think there's something suspicious about the ex," she said.

I furrowed my brow. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, for one thing, they text a lot, and they don't text the kinds of things that people text when they're broken up."

"They text a lot?" I held out my hand for the phone. "But I just got done talking to Curtis, and he claimed that they never talk anymore."

She handed the phone over. "Oh, they talk."

I scrolled through Madison's text messages. The first few were just a couple words from various people. Things like, See ya, and Kay.

But then I saw the first text from Curtis. Hey there, thinking of ur sexy bod. I raised my eyebrows. "Sexy bod?"

"It gets worse," said Brigit. "Keep going."

I found more texts from him. Two or three seemed to be about arranging time to meet up, saying that Wednesday wasn't good or that Tuesday was. And then there was one that said, Can't wait to see u tomorrow. Want to kiss every square inch of ur body.

I set the phone down on the desk. "So, Curtis was lying to me. He was still involved with her."

"Yeah, those texts are recent," said Brigit.

She was right. The one I'd just looked at was from a week ago.

"That guy isn't her ex. He's her current."

"But Curtis has another girlfriend," I said. "A pregnant girlfriend."

Brigit's eyes got huge. "Oh my God, you're kidding."

"Nope. I saw the sonogram pictures on the refrigerator. He said she's about five months along."

"Augh." Brigit's jaw dropped. "That asshole."

I started to pace in front of the desk. "Why would he lie to me? If he would have come clean, this wouldn't raise my hackles."

"He must have done it." Brigit got up from behind her desk and started to pace too. "Think about it. He's got two girls—one's his baby mama and the other one's just in the way. So, he has to get rid of one."

I stopped pacing. "What are you doing?"

She stopped pacing. "I was just... talking."

I gestured to the path she'd paced and raised my eyebrows.

She tucked her head down. "Sorry." She went back to the desk and sat down.

"What you're saying could be right," I said. "But he doesn't sound annoyed with her in the texts. I mean, Madison obviously knew about the other girlfriend, and she was still having sex with him. Maybe it's not a problem for Curtis. Maybe it's a wet dream come true."

"No way," said Brigit. "Too complicated. He must have hated it. Besides, we know he could get into her house. So he has opportunity and motive. We just need to see if he has an alibi or not."

"That's going to be a problem," I said. "We don't know exactly when Madison disappeared. We know that her brother hadn't seen her for three days. If she was killed, it could have been at any time."

"We can see when she sent her last text message," said Brigit, reaching for the phone.

I handed it back to her.

Her fingers flew over the screen. "Let's see..." She scrunched up her nose. "Okay, looks like the last text she sent was on Sunday, to Curtis."

"Sunday?" I said. "But she's supposed to have been gone by then. Andrew said he went by her place on Friday, and the bed was stripped."

She made a face. "Well, that's weird."

"Yeah." Did it mean that Andrew was lying? But why would he lie to me? He'd hired me to help.

Brigit set the phone back down. "What happens if it really was him?"

"Who?" I said.

"Curtis. What if he killed her?"

Right. Curtis. That was who I was currently looking at. "Well, if I could find some evidence of that, I'd turn it over to the police, of course. I can't arrest anyone."

"What kind of evidence are we talking here?"

I shrugged. "Oh God, I don't know. It could be anything. But let's not jump to conclusions. Good detectives don't get so seduced by their first hunches that they ignore everything else. Curtis lied, but that doesn't mean he killed her. So, the first thing I'm going to do is go confront him about that lie."

"Right now?"

I checked the time. "Tomorrow. I'll go see him again tomorrow."

Brigit grinned. "And then you'll put the squeeze on him, right?"

I laughed. "Then I'll confront him. Best I can do."

CHAPTER FOUR

Colin Pugliano came by the office later that evening, around six o'clock or so. Brigit was just getting ready to leave, and she asked me if I wanted her to hang out, but I told her that it was fine. I could handle this on my own. She looked a little disappointed but left anyway. I couldn't get a fix on that girl. She was eager and helpful, and she seemed really interested in what I did for a living. I supposed perhaps it was only youthful enthusiasm, but it had been a long time since I'd had that kind of enthusiasm for much of anything. I couldn't really relate.

I plugged my camera into the printer and printed out the photos to show Colin.

While he waited, he tapped his fingernails against the arm of the chair he was sitting on. I couldn't tell if he was feeling nervous or impatient.

I sat down across from him, holding the photos in one hand. "I wish I had good news, Mr. Pugliano."

"Call me Colin," he said.

"Colin," I said, sliding the photos across the desk to him. "It looks like your suspicions about your wife are true, however."

He flipped through the photos, one after the other. His expression was unreadable.

I watched him, feeling crappy about it. I really didn't like this part. It was bad when I found evidence of cheating. Of course, it was bad when I didn't find evidence. Then the spouse would always insist that I keep digging, and it would drag on forever. But it was bad when I caught the spouse red-handed. I didn't like watching people have to go through this. I wasn't exactly, well, good at being reassuring or emotional or...

It wasn't that I didn't like people. I mean, in theory, I thought people were swell. I liked the human race as a whole. But when it came down to individual people...

I don't know. I often sort of felt as if I wasn't exactly the same species as everyone else. Not that I was special and different—a unique snowflake or something. Because sometimes I did find people who seemed the same as me. Pike, for instance. We were the same. And I had a lot in common with Crane too.

But regular, normal people. The kind that I'd meet on the street or who would come into my office. Those people often seemed really alien to me. I didn't know how to relate to them. When I tried, it seemed to blow up in my face.

I really hoped Colin wasn't going to start crying. I hated it when they cried, especially the men. That was really hard for me to take.

He slammed the photos down on my desk. "I knew it."

"You were right," I said.

"And I know the guy." He shook his head. "He's my fucking cousin."

"Oh, I'm sorry." I cringed. Was that the right thing to say?

He let out a big sigh. "Fuck."

"I really am sorry, Mr. Pugliano—Colin."

"Not your fault. You helped me out. I was in the dark about it," he said. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have even known."

It was quiet. I didn't know what to say. I never knew what to say.

"It's almost a relief," he said finally, his voice quiet. "Because before I just didn't know one way or the other, and it was driving me crazy. But now, now I think I can get some peace."

"Well, that's good." I said. He was taking this better than a lot of my other clients did.

He sighed again. "It's a shock, though. Even though I expected it, it's a shock."

"I'm sure," I said. I really was out of my depth here. At least when they cried, I could offer tissues. What was I supposed to do in this situation?

"What I wouldn't do for a drink," he muttered.

Oh. That I could do. "I've got bourbon," I said. Usually, when I drank, I drank beer. Drinking liquor tended to get me drunk way too fast, and I wasn't a big fan of that. But occasionally, I really did need a taste of something stronger.

"Really?" he said. "That would be great."

I got up and got the bottle out of the cabinet, along with the two glasses that I kept there. I set them all down on the desk and poured us each a shot.

He snatched it up and guzzled it down.

I shot mine down as well.

He closed his eyes. "Yeah. That's better. Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said.

It was quiet again. I didn't know what to say or do. I just watched him, sitting there, holding the glass, his eyes squeezed closed as if he was in agony.

His eyes snapped open. "You think I could have another drink?"

* * *

Colin Pugliano wasn't circumcised, and I liked that. Uncut dicks were always so silky soft, and it was so much easier to rub them. I always said that no man should be circumcised, just for the ease of hand jobs alone. Of course once he had a condom on, I couldn't tell anymore, and that was a little tragic, but it was a necessary evil. Condoms were a requirement in my book.

I didn't mean to have sex with him, especially not in my office. There were a lot of reasons why that was a bad idea, chief among them the fact that he was a client. As I lay under him, feeling his cock push deep inside me, pressing against the spot inside me that felt so, so good, I reasoned that he wasn't a client anymore. Our business was concluded, now that I'd found the evidence about his wife, so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

But I knew better, even two seconds away from an orgasm, I couldn't make that stick.

This was bad, bad, bad.

I hadn't intended for it to happen, but Colin and I had taken quite a few more shots together after that first one. As I mentioned, drinking liquor tended to make me get really drunk, really fast. When I was really drunk, I had no inhibitions and no boundaries. It was also a lot easier for me to talk. Colin's lips were similarly loosened, and we found ourselves conversing about relationships and why they never worked out. Apparently, Colin also felt as if he couldn't find anyone who was right for him. He said that he'd been sure Rhonda was the one when they got married, but that she'd changed after their wedding, that she wasn't the girl he'd fallen in love with.

I did my share of commiserating and moaning about relationships.

And then we started talking about sex, because that seemed to be the next logical step in the conversation. Which was a bad idea. When two drunk people of the opposite sex (assuming that they're both straight, that is) start talking about sex, well... a lot of times, they end up doing it. Not all the time, of course. There are people who have a lot of self-control, but I'm not one of those people.

Apparently, Colin wasn't either. It was a very mutual sort of progression, neither of us leading the way. Before I knew it, there we were, having sex on my office chair. Colin wanted it on the desk, but I wasn't about to do that. The desk was organized, and I couldn't handle having it get gross and messy from sex. Even I had standards.

The sex was good. It felt good. Hell, it felt great. And I lost myself in it. It took me away from everything, catapulted me into an oasis of pleasure. I basked in it. I gloried in it.

And then it was over.

Colin stopped moving in me, grunting as he finished, and we were entwined.

It was in that moment that I realized how close we were. Our naked bodies were touching everywhere, and I had his body secretions all over me. Unless I took a shower, I'd smell like his cologne all night. Actually, there was a good chance I'd smell like bourbon, considering I was still drunk. That was going to be seeping out of my pores.

Whatever the case, the situation now seemed the opposite of sexy. It just seemed... sordid.

Colin extricated himself from me and stumbled to his feet. He yanked off the condom and deposited it in my trash can.

I made a mental note to take that trash bag out and put it in the dumpster.

He reached for the bottle of bourbon and upended it into his mouth. Then he grinned at me. "Let's get out of here."

I raised my eyebrows. "Out of here?"

He bent down over me. He kissed me.

I let him, but I didn't kiss back. I was done with this now. I felt ashamed.

That was the way it went a lot of the time. I craved sex, because I craved having my moments where everything was quiet and peaceful, where I was totally in the moment, oblivious to the past and the future. But then after the moment was over, the past and the future came crashing back. And that meant guilt. And that meant consequences. And that meant...

God, what the hell had I just done?

With a client?

In my office?

I pushed him away. "Listen, this shouldn't have happened. It's utterly inappropriate, and—"

"But it did happen." He was still grinning. "And I thought it was fucking awesome."

"I'm not saying it wasn't good sex." I got up and began putting my clothes back on. "But it's got to stop here. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Why not?"

I tugged on my pants. "Because you're a client. It's not right for me to get into... entanglements with people I work for."

"How come?" He looked genuinely confused. Despite his very nice penis and his obvious sexual prowess, he wasn't especially smart, was he?

I felt another dollop of shame and guilt. "It just isn't. I'm sorry, but you need to go."

"Hey," he said. "Hold on a second. You can't just kick me out. You and me—" He gestured back and forth between us. "We have a connection. I felt it."

"No." I snapped my bra back on. "We don't have a connection."

"Oh, come on. You're not like other women."

He was exactly like other men. I pulled my shirt over my head. "Colin, it's nothing personal, it's just that I can't get involved with clients."

"So give me back my money. Then I'm not a client."

I glared at him. Seriously? "Please go."

I was completely dressed, but Colin was still stark naked. He stole a glance down at his discarded pants, but he didn't make a move for them.

"This was a mistake," I said. "I'm really sorry that I let it go so far."

He shook his head. "This wasn't a mistake. You're wrong about that. There's something going on here. I know you feel it."

I folded my arms over my chest. "I don't."

His jaw twitched. "How the fuck can you do that?"

I picked up his pants and thrust them at him. "Get dressed."

"We were talking, like really talking. And you said that you felt alone, and I said that I did too—"

"Be serious. Everyone on earth feels alone, no matter how many people are close to them. Now put on your fucking pants."

He gave me a look, broken-hearted and betrayed.

That upped my guilt quotient even further. I didn't like hurting people. But really, Colin was a grown man. He'd had plenty of time to realize that having sex with someone didn't mean anything. It wasn't as if he was some wet-behind-the-ears high school sophomore.

He put on his clothes.

I sunk my hands into my hair. "Listen, I really am sorry."

"You're lying to me," he said. "Or you're lying to yourself. I don't know which. But I know there's something here." And with that, he stalked out of my office.

I sank down into my office chair, relieved to be rid of him.

Then I popped right back up off the chair. Damn it. I'd just had sex on this chair. I was going to have to scrub it clean if I ever wanted to use it again.

* * *

"I thought you hadn't talked to Madison in months," I said, standing on the front stoop of Curtis Michael's house the following afternoon.

Last night, I'd stayed late at the office, cleaning every square inch of it. When I arrived the next afternoon, it didn't smell anything like sex. Instead, it smelled like bleach. Brigit noticed and asked me if I'd killed someone and was getting rid of the evidence.

She was joking.

I didn't tell her anything. I was really starting to like Brigit, and I didn't want her to know what a colossal fuck-up I was. The cleaning had helped, at least a little bit. It had made me feel like I was wiping away my sins, cleansing the area of any wrongdoing, washing it all away. But when I'd gotten home and lain down in bed, the whole evening had started replaying in my head. On repeat. Over and over again, I watched myself pour the bourbon for Colin and me. Over and over again, I watched myself part my lips, lean in to the kiss he was offering. Over and over, I watched myself unzip his pants and reach inside to stroke his erection.

Each time I saw it, I felt worse. It seemed like it was a more dire crime with every subsequent viewing of the act.

The worst of it, of course, was that I couldn't shut the peep show the fuck off. It just kept playing and playing in my head, torturing me.

I didn't sleep much.

And despite the fact that I'd stopped drinking early, I still woke up with a killer hangover. Much worse than my typical beer hangover. But that, I reasoned, was possibly because I hadn't bothered to eat anything the night before.

I was happy to get to work and to have something else to focus on besides my personal shame.

Curtis tried to shut the door. "I don't have to talk to you."

I whipped out Madison's phone. "You recognize this? It's Madison's phone. You've been texting her."

"No, I haven't." He continued to push the door closed.

I put my foot in the door to wedge it open. "You didn't tell her that you wanted to kiss every square inch of her body two weeks ago?"

"Just because she's getting texts from someone that her phone says is Curtis doesn't mean it's me, you know," he said.

Well, I supposed that was true, as far as it went. I selected his name on Madison's phone and told it to call Curtis.

Immediately, Curtis's pocket began making noise.

I glared at him.

He snatched out his phone and stopped the ring tone. "Look, I can't talk about this right now." His voice dropped several octaves. "Debbie's home, and she doesn't know about what I was doing with Madison."

"So, you were still seeing her?"

He looked over his shoulder, and then he stepped outside, shutting the door firmly behind him. "I didn't want to. But Madison wouldn't let up. She just... kept calling me and crying, and I felt bad about breaking up with her..." He dragged a hand over his face.

I looked him up and down.

"Listen, when Debbie goes to work, you can come back, but I can't stand out here and have a long conversation with you about this."

"Well, then, answer me one question," I said. "Why'd you lie to me?"

"Are you kidding? Admit that I was still sleeping with Madison? Hell, I'm ashamed of that. I keep thinking that I'm going to stop. It keeps me up at night, thinking about how much I'm screwing up, what I'm doing to Debbie and the baby. I don't want to be that guy. And I keep thinking, that if it makes me feel this bad, I've got to stop it. I'm going to, you know. I think I'll say no the next time she calls. But then she does, and..."

"And you don't say no," I said dully. This was sounding fairly familiar. I knew exactly the feeling he was talking about. I had that feeling about my sexual conquests sometimes. I kept thinking I'd stop. I kept thinking I'd wake up and put my life back together. But then it all seemed hopeless, and...

"I really can't talk right now." He opened the door.

"Where does Debbie work?" I said.

"At the Lane Bryant. Why?"

"Just curious," I said.

* * *

"I don't know, that's kind of a stretch," I said.

Brigit was sitting behind her desk, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "It's possible, though. Maybe he wanted to stop having sex with her, and the only way he could figure out to do that was to kill her."

"Maybe," I said, "but as motives go, it's a little convoluted. No, I'm liking the girlfriend more."

"The pregnant one?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Debbie."

Brigit considered. "She finds out that Curtis is cheating. And in a jealous rage, she breaks into Madison's apartment and puts a pillow over her face and smothers her."

"Could have gone down that way. Then, afterward, she was worried about the body, and she couldn't carry it, so she wrapped it up in bedsheets so that she could slide it through the house." I pointed at Brigit. "Make a note that I need to go back and look at the house to see if I see any signs of something big and heavy being dragged through the hallways."

"Okay," said Brigit, scribbling on a post-it note.

"But what did she do with the body after that? Did she transport it somewhere?"

"If she's five months pregnant, she's not going to be able to move a body by herself," said Brigit.

"You sure?" I said.

"Well, no, but it just seems unlikely."

I mused for a few seconds. "Yeah, maybe. I still think I'll go and talk to her, though. Can't hurt. And while I'm at it, I need to hit up the restaurant where Madison worked. Maybe if we know when the last time she was at work, we can pinpoint when she was allegedly killed. Plus, I can talk to her co-workers."

Brigit gave me a bright smile. "You want me to come along? I could help."

"No," I said. "You have to stay here and cover the phones."

"Oh, come on, the phone barely ever rings. Besides, I could forward all the calls to my cell phone."

"No." I shook my head. "That's not your job."

"But I want to watch you interrogate people."

"I work alone."

"Except for the fact that you needed to hire me."

"What happens if a potential client comes by the office while we're both gone? That's lost revenue. Revenue that pays your salary, I might add."

She sighed. "Fine. I'll stay here."

* * *

Debbie worked retail in one of the new shopping centers that had gone up in Renmawr. It was on the outskirts of town, of course. There was nothing much respectable left downtown except the post office and the library, and there was talk of moving both of those at town council meetings.

The shopping center was one of those horse-shoe shaped strip malls, with the parking lot in the middle and all the stores facing the center. Debbie worked in a plus-sized women's clothing store, even though she wasn't at all plus-sized. When I found her, she was tidying up a display in the back of the store, folding one shirt after the other and putting them back onto shelves. She was a very tiny woman, even five months pregnant. Petite in the truest sense of the word.

"Can I help you?" she said.

"I actually wondered if I could ask you some questions about Madison Webb."

She stiffened and went back to her task. "Are you that detective lady? Curtis told me you came by yesterday."

Well, there wasn't much use lying about it, was there? "That's me. I'm Ivy Stern, and I've been hired to try to find out what happened to Madison. She disappeared and no one's seen or heard from her in seven days."

Debbie folded briskly. "I wish I could help you, but I didn't really know her."

"Your boyfriend was dating her when the two of you got together, wasn't he?"

She set down the shirt and turned to me with a look of disgust on her face. "What are you talking about? That's not true at all."

I winced. Well, Curtis hadn't shared much of anything with Debbie, had he?

"Look," she said, "Curtis and I had a little bit of a rocky beginning, but it was all that girl's fault. She was crazy. She acted like she and Curtis were still together, even though he'd broken it off with her ages ago. She wouldn't leave us alone. Now, I don't want anything bad to have happened to her, I really don't. But I can't say I'm all that upset that she's gone. I hope she stays gone, for that matter."

Well, that was interesting. Debbie didn't have any problem being open about the fact that she wasn't very fond of Madison. But did that make her more likely to have killed her or less likely? If she was the killer, she probably wouldn't admit that openly, would she? Or would she think that I'd eliminate her as a suspect because I would assume she'd never be so stupid as to admit her dislike?

"I don't see why you're talking to Curtis and me, anyway," Debbie went on, going back to her folding. "We really haven't had any contact with her in months and months. So, whatever's going on with her, it's not even our business."

I nodded slowly. "Well, her brother seems convinced that some kind of harm may have come to Madison."

"Really?" Debbie stopped folding again. She turned back to me, and there was a nervous look in her eyes. "Well, just because she drove us crazy doesn't mean that we would have hurt her, you know? We're not those kinds of people."

"And yet," I said, "by both your admissions, Madison was harassing you, and neither of you did anything about that. You could have brought in the authorities, possibly gotten a restraining order—"

"I wanted to," said Debbie. "But Curtis wouldn't do it."

I raised my eyebrows.

She sighed. "It's not because he still has feelings for her. Curtis is just too nice for his own good. He feels sorry for her." She picked up a shirt and began to fold it. "And that's why he would never hurt her. It's just not in him."

"So, you haven't had any contact with Madison at all."

"No," said Debbie. "I stayed clear of her."

* * *

"Oh God, did something happen to Madison?" said Rose Senna. She worked at a restaurant called Happy's near the mall, the same restaurant where Madison had worked. The mall, like most malls in America, seemed to be a shell of its former self. Most commerce had moved out to the shopping centers like where Debbie worked. But the mall was surrounded by restaurants, a real planned-out commercial area, designed for a complete day out. It had probably worked well twenty years ago. People had gone to the mall, and then shopped until they dropped down at one of the nearby restaurants.

Still, this restaurant didn't look like it was in bad shape, exactly. It was located pretty close to the movie theater, so maybe that accounted for its prosperity. Of course, movie theaters weren't exactly raking in the cash these days either. I predicted that by the end of my lifetime, people wouldn't leave the house much to spend money. Bars would still be open, of course. People liked to go out and drink and socialize. But no one truly enjoyed fighting crowds to go shopping. At least not as much as they enjoyed having new stuff. They'd buy it all online, and all these stores would go out of business.

I didn't share these musings with Rose, who was taking her cigarette break next to the dumpster in the back of the restaurant. She had red hair, pulled into a tight ponytail on top of her head, and she was wearing a lot of makeup.

"No one knows what happened to Madison," I said. "That's why I'm looking into it."

"Jesus." Rose took a drag on her cigarette, eyes wide.

"You said that you knew her."

"Sure. We worked a lot of the same shifts, so I saw her most every day."

"Did she give any indication that she'd be leaving?"

"No," said Rose. "In fact, she was on the schedule for this week, but she hasn't shown up, of course, so..."

"That's not cause for alarm?"

"People do shit like that all the time. They don't show up for work, and they don't answer their phones. After a few days of that, they're just fired. I've seen it happen more than once."

"So, no one suspected that Madison was in trouble?"

"No way." Rose puffed on her cigarette, shaking her head. "Man, this is awful. I can't believe she's missing. You think she was, like, kidnapped or something, don't you?"

"I'm trying to keep an open mind and explore all the possibilities," I said. "What makes you think that's what happened? Was it unlike Madison to shirk her responsibility?"

"Gosh, I have no idea. I mean, she usually showed up for work. But it wasn't like she loved it here or anything. No one loves it here. I mean, we're probably all about five seconds away from quitting. Sometimes I think that if one more person complains to me about something that I have no control over, I'm just going to snap. Like lose my shit for real, you know?"

I nodded, even though I wasn't entirely sure what she meant. But it was a crap job. Everyone worked crap jobs at some point. I got that. "Did Madison have any enemies that you know of?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, she and the boss didn't really get along, but who gets along with the boss, anyway, right?"

"The boss?"

"Yeah, the manager here. His name's Brian, and he's a total douche bag. Don't tell him I said that." She laughed and smoke came out her nose. "Anyway, I don't know what happened, but I think Madison said he was going to make her take a drug test or something, and she was pretty pissed about it."

"A drug test? Did Madison take drugs?"

"I have no idea. Maybe. It's not hard to get stuff around here. I mean, you know that there's all that ecstasy coming out of that lab that's somewhere out in the woods north of here, right?"

There were definitely a lot of drugs in Renmawr, but there was no hard evidence of this ecstasy lab, even though everyone talked about it. Personally, I tended to think of it as an urban legend. I blamed the drugs on the presence of the Irish mob. Most ecstasy was made out of the country anyway. It wasn't like crystal meth, in which the ingredients were ubiquitous enough for people to be making it in trailers all over the country.

"You think she did ecstasy?"

"If she did, it wasn't at work," said Rose. "Rolling while waitressing is not fun or easy. No, most people around here who are doing anything are snorting a little coke now and then. It's apparently a lifesaver if you have to work a double. Not that I'd know, because I don't touch that stuff. But anyway, if Brian finds out anyone's got drugs on the premises, he's not pleased. You basically lose your job over it."

"But Madison didn't lose her job."

"No, so she either wasn't doing drugs, or Brian hadn't been able to prove it. Anyway, there was friction there."

"Is Brian here right now?"

"No, he's not. Um, he's around most of the time, but not today. You should check back, I guess."

Great. Another trip to the restaurant. Just what I wanted to do.

Rose dropped her cigarette and stepped on it. "Listen, I really can't keep talking. My break's basically over."

"That's all right," I said. "I appreciate what you've told me."

She started to walk back inside. "You think maybe she's dead?" Her voice was quiet.

I followed her. "I don't know enough yet to think anything."

"I wish I could help more. I didn't really know her outside of work. I was friendly with her, but we weren't close."

"Well, if you think of anything else..." I handed her one of my cards. "My number's there."

"Oh," she said. "Oh sure." She pocketed the card.

We were back at the back door to the restaurant, and she pushed open the door to go back inside, but then turned back to me. "Hey, you know what?"

"What?"

"You should talk to Yasmine."

"Who's that?"

"She works here too, and she and Madison hung out together. Like outside of work sometimes. She might know more about what was going on."

"Is Yasmine here?"

"No, she works morning shifts mostly."

Morning shifts? I sighed. Great, just great. When the hell was I going to manage to drag myself out of bed to come down to Renmawr and question a waitress? But I forced myself to smile. "Thanks. That really helps. I appreciate it."

Rose smiled. "I hope she's okay. Really, I do."

"So do I," I said. But that was sort of a lie. I wanted this to be a big, juicy murder case, if I was honest. It had been a long time since I'd had anything worthwhile to do.

* * *

"Look, I could go to talk to Yasmine in the morning," said Brigit. "I don't live that far away from the mall."

"You don't work in the mornings," I said. "I specifically hired you to work in the afternoon, in this office."

She pouted.

I yanked a chair over from the waiting area so that I could sit down opposite her desk. "Level with me, here, Brigit. Why'd you really want this job?"

She busied herself with the computer screen. "I told you. I just want something to help pay the bills."

"Then you should be happy sitting here and answering the phone."

"The phone doesn't ring very often."

"Exactly. What that means is that I'm paying you to surf the Internet most of the time."

She swung back around to look at me, sighing. "Okay, okay. I guess that I really admire you, because you started your own business, and you've made it successful. I tried to start my own business. I painted until my fingers cramped up. I worked really hard. I had tons of inventory. But it didn't matter, because no one wanted to buy it. So, I just feel like a failure. But here... you're a success."

I snorted and got out of the chair. "I'm not a success, Brigit."

"I think you are."

I wouldn't look at her. "This isn't what I wanted for myself when I was your age. I had a successful career as a police detective. And then..." Damn it, hadn't I decided that I didn't want her to know about this stuff? On the other hand, who was I kidding? She wouldn't have to dig too far into the past to find the newspaper articles about my dismissal from the force.

"Then what?" she said. "Because I think being a private detective is way better than working for the police. You get to set your own schedule and pick your own cases. That's what I want. I want to be free... follow my own path."

I turned back around. "If you want to follow your own path, why do you want to do my job?"

"Well..." She bit her lip. "I guess I was thinking that I could learn the ropes from you, and then maybe someday, I could branch out on my own."

"So, you want me to teach you how to be my competition?"

"I didn't mean it like that," she said. "I just thought... Your life seems so awesome."

I could only shake my head. "You have no idea, Brigit."

"Sorry," she muttered. "I guess it was stupid."

"Being a private eye doesn't mean you're free," I said. "It's not like that at all. You need your clients to pay your rent, to eat. So, you have to keep them happy. It's like the opposite of being free."

She wrinkled up her nose. "Well, I guess so, but—"

The door to the outer office opened, and Colin Pugliano came in.

My heart stopped when I saw him. Not because I was happy that he was here or anything, because I wasn't. My whole body reacted in revulsion. Colin was the embodiment of my own secret shame. He represented everything that was wrong with me. Seeing him was like being plunged into a dark pool of misery. I struggled to breathe.

"I figured it out," he said, striding across the room towards me. "You kicked me out last night because I was still married to Rhonda, didn't you?"

I looked at Brigit, feeling terrified. I didn't want her to witness this, but I also didn't really want to be alone with Colin either. I just wanted him to go away, so I drew myself up. "If you don't have business to discuss with me, then you really shouldn't be in my office."

"You're not that kind of woman, and you wanted me to know that. Well, you'll be glad to know that it's over between me and her. I made Rhonda pack her bags and leave today. We're separated, and I'm filing for divorce. So, you don't have to worry—"

"Not here," I said. "This is my place of business, and I won't discuss matters of this nature here."

"But Ivy, that makes a difference, doesn't it?"

I took him by the shoulder and led him out. I pulled the door closed after us, and we stood in the hallway.

"Don't come here ever again." I was shaking all over, furious.

"Well, then, where do I see you?"

"You don't. I don't know how to make this clearer to you. What happened between us was a mistake, and it's over."

"Come on, don't say that."

"Please go." I pointed down the hallway in the direction of the exit.

"This is because I barged into where you work, right? I'm sorry about that, but I needed to see you. I can't get you out of my head. I keep thinking about you. The things you did with your—"

"Stop." I couldn't believe this. How dare he come back here and remind me of what had happened? I was trying so hard to never think of it ever again, and he was making that nearly impossible.

"If you won't see me here, then meet me tonight."

"Colin, I don't want to—"

"At the Outback," he said. "Meet me there around seven, and we'll have dinner. It'll be a proper date. We can start things out right between us."

"I don't want to start things," I said.

He leaned in and kissed me.

I shoved him away. "Get out."

"Tonight," he said. "I'll see you tonight." He gave me a long, lingering look, and then he did walk down the hallway, leaving me alone.

I leaned against the door, sucking in slow breaths, trying to calm my pounding heart. What the hell had I gotten myself into? Why couldn't I make Colin understand that I wasn't interested in him? Why was he insisting on the idea that we had some kind of romantic connection?

Well, hopefully after I stood him up tonight, he'd get the message.

I let out a shaky breath and got myself together before going back inside.

Brigit was standing right next to the door, her eyes wide. "Wasn't that the guy that was here last night? He was a client, right?"

"Don't, Brigit," I said.

"Is he like, stalking you or something?"

I strode back to the inner office. I couldn't talk to her about this.

But she just followed me. "You don't have something going with him, do you?"

I rounded on her. "Is this your business?"

She backed off. "I guess not."

I started to shut myself in the inner office, but I paused at the last minute. "My life is the complete opposite of awesome, you understand?"

She nodded slowly.

I pulled the door closed.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Did you find something?" Mr. Webb's voice on the phone was apprehensive but eager. "Do you know where she is? Do you know what happened to her?"

"I'm afraid not," I said. "I haven't gotten that far." I was hiding in the inner office, because after what had transpired in front of Brigit, I couldn't bear to face her. Since I couldn't stand thinking about Colin Pugliano either, I had decided to try to talk to Madison's brother about some of the things that I'd learned today.

"Well, what is it?"

"I wondered if you had any knowledge of Madison using drugs," I said.

"What? Drugs?" He was appalled. "Absolutely not. Madison wouldn't do something like that. Why would you say something so horrible?"

"I was speaking to a co-worker of hers today."

"And that co-worker said that Madison was on drugs? Because you can't trust those waitresses, you know. The kinds of girls who work in restaurants, well, half of them are barely better than prostitutes."

Okay. That was harsh. And untrue. "Your sister was a waitress."

"Well, not all of them," he allowed. "But it's not exactly a profession that attracts stable, goal-oriented people, if you know what I mean."

I wasn't going to touch that. I happened to think that waitressing was a perfectly respectable profession, but I wasn't going to get in an argument with Mr. Webb about it. He was paying me, not the other way around, so I could keep my mouth shut if he said ridiculous shit. But I was starting to realize that I didn't really like him, and it was beyond my general discomfort with people in general. He was the kind of person I would avoid under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of doing so now.

I cleared my throat. "Well, to be fair, the co-worker wasn't certain if Madison was using drugs. She only said that Madison's boss was forcing her to take a drug test, and that Madison wasn't happy about it."

"Well, of course she wasn't happy. No one enjoys being accused of something they didn't do."

"Yes," I said. "I suppose that could account for it."

"Why would you even bring something like this up? It can't have any bearing on what happened to her."

"On the contrary. If Madison's mixed up in drugs, it puts her in a much more precarious situation. It might explain why she's gone, for instance. Maybe she's gone on a bender, and she was too drugged up to take any of her personal effects with her. Or maybe she owes money, and she's been a victim of foul play for that reason."

"Oh," said Mr. Webb. "I hadn't thought about that."

Right. Why would he think anything reasonable? He was too busy being offended that I'd accuse his sister of being something other than perfect.

The truth was that it was unlikely that a girl of Madison's age could have made it this long in the area without at least trying some kind of illegal substance. There were a lot of drugs around here, and nearly every graduate of Keene College had experimented at least a little during his or her time in school.

Of course, a little experimentation didn't mean that Madison was a junkie or anything. Still, it was important to know one way or the other.

"You know, I suppose I don't really know what Madison got up to every second of every day," said Mr. Webb, and he sounded a little annoyed by that fact, as if Madison's personal life was his business. "So, I guess it's possible she did occasionally... but she didn't have a problem. I would have noticed if she was addicted to drugs. She and I were very close, you know. And if I'd had any inkling that she was doing something so destructive, I would have put a stop to it immediately."

"I'm not accusing either you or Madison of anything, sir," I said. "I'm trying to help. I'm trying to find your sister."

"Of course you are." He let out a noisy breath.

I shied away from the phone's receiver. It sounded like he was blowing into my ear. "While we're on the subject of Madison, can you confirm to me that the day that you found her missing was Friday?"

"What?" he said, sounding confused.

"You came to see me on a Monday, and you insisted that you had been to her house on Friday, when you found her stripped bedsheets and the apartment in disarray."

"Did I?" he said.

"Is that correct?"

"If that's what I said, then it's correct." He sounded annoyed. "Anyway, I suppose there was that girl she was spending time with."

"Girl?"

"She still attended the college. She didn't seem very old, but Madison said she was a friend. I saw them palling around several times. Occasionally, when I came over to the house, that girl would be there."

"Who was this girl? What was her name?"

"I don't remember her name. All I really remember about her was that she always looked a little strung out. Just kind of spacey, if you know what I mean. She was always polite. She always smiled and shook my hand. But she simply seemed, well... I don't know exactly what people on drugs are like, but that girl acted really strange. Maybe she was on drugs. Maybe she was giving them to Madison. I wouldn't put it past her. I really didn't like that girl."

"You weren't fond of many of the people that Madison chose to spend time with, were you?" I'd noticed that Andrew didn't much like Curtis—and maybe there was good reason for that, since he seemed kind of like a dick. But Andrew did seem heavily involved in Madison's life and fairly judgmental of her choices. I personally didn't have an older brother. Maybe that was just typically the way big brothers were.

"I just wanted her to make good choices, that's all. I worry about her."

Yeah, he worried about her. He also seemed to jump to the worst conclusions, thinking she was dead and all. Of course, she very well might be. "That's understandable," I said, more to mollify him than because I actually understood. "So, about this friend of Madison's. You remember what she looked like?"

"Uh... dark hair? Kind of spacey, like I said."

Great. That was totally helpful.

* * *

Despite not knowing much about this mystery friend of Madison's, I decided to spend a little time on campus, showing around Madison's picture and asking if anyone had seen her around with a dark-haired girl.

I went by after leaving the office. In Keene, the college takes up about half of the town, and so it was easy to walk around campus and start up conversations with any of the students I saw.

I struck out, though. There weren't too many people out and about in the early evening, although there were some. None of the people I approached recognized Madison, and none of them knew anything about a spacey girl with dark hair, not that I really expected them to, not based on that description.

I needed to get to bed early tonight so that I could be up in the morning and go back to Renmawr. I needed to talk to Yasmine at the restaurant and also try to catch Madison's boss. The intelligent thing would be for me to go home right now, make myself some dinner, watch some TV, and then go to bed at a normal time, just like every other human being on earth.

I went to the bar.

I told myself that it was just to get one drink for happy hour, and that I'd be out of there by seven or eight. Nine at the latest.

But that didn't happen. People come to the bar in waves, and I caught the happy hour crowd when I showed up. They petered out, and I nursed my beer, figuring I'd leave after I finished it up. But then the later crowd started showing up, and I got sucked into conversations, and before I knew it, it was ten, and I was buying another drink.

I kept looking at the clock, telling myself that I needed to get out of there, to get to sleep early.

But once it was past midnight, I just gave up.

I ended up getting into this weird debate with some kid who was a senior at Keene. We were talking about climate change, and he had obviously been smoking way too much pot and reading all kinds of conspiracy theories, and I kept trying to tell him this, but he was adamant. He invited me back to his place, admitting that he thought older women were "hot." I told him I thought the same thing about younger men.

We had sex on his couch, but before we did it, he went down on me for ages, which was pleasant and unexpected. He had a very talented tongue, and he brought to me to this crashing, exquisite orgasm before he pulled me on top of him and slipped inside me. I was still clenching around his hard, young cock as I rode him.

It was bliss.

And by that time, it was after three in the morning. He wanted me to stay, but I said that I had to work in the morning, and he didn't argue.

I left his apartment and stumbled home to my own place. There was Chinese takeout in the refrigerator. I ate it cold, chasing it with a big bottle of water before crawling into bed and falling instantly asleep.

The next morning, my alarm went off at eight, because I'd thought that I'd just get up early anyway and go to Renmawr. But that was ridiculous thinking. There was no way I was getting out of bed.

I didn't get up until eleven.

And then I felt guilty. I knew that I didn't have time to get ready and get to Renmawr before the morning shift was over at the restaurant where Madison used to work. So, I went into town, and I got my latte and my egg white omelet and toast, which they always made special for me at the Sunshine Skillet restaurant in town. Then, almost as a penance to make up for my sins, I went back on campus and spent an hour and a half futilely showing Madison's picture around and asking about this friend of hers that Mr. Webb had described.

I got nowhere, though. A couple people said that they thought they recognized Madison, and that they might have seen her with a girl with dark hair, but they didn't know who either of them were.

Most people, however, had no idea who she was. It was a bust.

Still, I felt like I'd at least attempted to do something productive, and I drove to Renmawr feeling a little bit less guilty.

* * *

I happened to run into Kitty Richards coming out of the front door of my office building, just as I was going in. Kitty was a heavy-set woman who dyed her hair an unnatural strawberry blond and curled and sprayed it in place around her head like a helmet. She wore very red lipstick, and she usually had some of it on her teeth. She always seemed out of breath whenever I talked to her. But then, she was always angry whenever I talked to her, and maybe the exertion of the emotion was too much for her corpulent frame.

I tried to ignore her, because exchanges with Kitty never went well, but she was having none of that.

"Ivy Stern," she said when she saw me.

I looked up and tried to smile. I'm fairly sure all I really managed was a grimace. "Kitty."

"You were in my apartment again." She stopped right in the doorway of the building, putting her hands on her hips. She took up the entire space, effectively blocking my path.

I tried to squeeze past her, but there wasn't any room. "I don't know why you'd say that."

"Because I know Fluffy didn't let herself out of the bathroom."

My face twitched. Man, I did not want to get into this with her right now. And Fluffy? Seriously? That was her name for that poor dog? No wonder he whined all the time. She, I amended. Kitty had referred to the dog with a feminine pronoun. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You have no right to go into my home," she said. "I'll have you know that I won't be keeping a spare key outside the apartment anymore. You won't be able to get in."

"Really, Kitty, I wish I could help you, but I just haven't the foggiest—"

"Don't play dumb, Ivy." She screwed up her face. "I know it was you."

I stared at my shoes.

"You have no right to interfere. Fluffy knows that when she makes a mess of things, then she'll have a punishment, and that means being locked in the bathroom for a day."

"What?" I said. "That's not how you punish dogs." Damn it. I needed to keep my mouth shut.

She raised her eyebrows. "I don't think it's any of your business—"

"No way is the dog making the connection between whatever it did the day before and being locked in the bathroom. She doesn't know why it's happening. You're just torturing that poor thing."

She drew herself up. "I love Fluffy."

"Then don't keep her shut up in that apartment all the time. She can't be happy up there. It's like a museum or something."

Kitty narrowed her eyes. "So, you have been in my apartment."

I sighed. "Look, Kitty, when your dog is locked in that bathroom, she barks all day long, and it's loud, and it drives me nuts. I'm trying to do business here, you get that? This is my livelihood. So if I hear that dog barking, I'm going to do something about it."

"If you continue to enter my property, I will press charges."

My nostrils flared. I was getting really angry now, and I was starting to shake. I ran full force at the doorway. If I ran smack into Kitty, so be it.

But at the last minute, she moved out of the way. "You stay out of my home!" she trilled.

I hurried down the hall toward my office, eager to get away from her.

I yanked open the door and shut myself inside.

"You're late. I was worried about you," said Brigit.

I turned to look at her. "Oh, sorry. I, uh, spent a couple of hours on campus at Keene. I got a little bit of a lead from Madison's brother."

"Oh," she said. "Do you do that often? Just come in whenever you want?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so," I said. "Sometimes my job does take me out of the office."

She nodded. "That makes sense."

I took a deep breath and started back for my desk.

"Did you run into that Pugliano guy again or something?"

I cringed. "No, and don't bring that guy up again."

"Well, he called," she said. "He said you didn't show up last night, and he wants you to call him back—"

"Seriously, I don't want to talk to that guy." I pointed at the ceiling. "It was the owner of the dog. She and I don't exactly... get along."

Brigit laughed. "Gee, I wonder why."

I rolled my eyes and made my way to my desk.

"So what was the lead?" called Brigit after me.

I sorted through my legal pads. "Oh, just some girl that Mr. Webb says Madison hung out with. She still goes to school at Keene, so I thought maybe I could find her. He says the girl has dark hair and that she looks 'spacey.' He thinks she's on drugs."

Brigit appeared in the doorway. "It could be Cori Donovan."

I turned to look at her. "Huh?"

"This girl. I don't really know her, because I graduated, right, and she's a freshman. But she's like this drug dealer." She paused, then her eyes widened. "I mean, I don't get drugs from her. I don't do that kind of thing. But I know people who, you know..." Brigit twisted her fingers together, turning red.

"It's okay, Brigit," I said. "I don't care what you do with your down time."

She laughed nervously. "Well, this Cori person has dark hair. And she sometimes does look... spacey. I mean, I think so, anyway."

"Mr. Webb didn't say she was a drug dealer," I said. "But, uh, it might be worth checking out. Thanks."

"I could maybe get someone to get in touch with her?" said Brigit. "Tell her that you want to talk to her?"

I shook my head. "Nah, I don't want to spook her, in case she does know something. Just tell me where I can find her, okay?"

"Sure." Brigit beamed. "See, I'm helpful, aren't I?"

* * *

Nick's was a pub that sold beer and wine but was also a restaurant. They sold an abbreviated menu late into the night, which meant that they could keep their doors open to underage people. It was a popular college hangout, and kids of all ages generally hung out here. I tended to steer clear of it unless I came with someone. Sure, way back when I was in school, this had been a cool place to hang out, but now I felt far too old.

It was late afternoon, but Brigit insisted that this Cori Donovan would be here. She apparently had it on good authority. I scanned the pub. It was small, only two rooms besides the kitchen. They were dimly lit and crammed with mismatched chairs and tables. Art from a local student hung on the walls—something abstract and colorful. The atmosphere was eclectic, and that was typical for this place.

It was mostly empty at this time of the afternoon. The waitress was leaning against the counter, talking to the guy behind the register.

There weren't any customers sitting in the front room, so I went into the back. That was where the beer cooler was. A makeshift bar ran along one wall, tables on the other.

I saw a girl sitting in one corner, a glass of wine in front of her. She had dark hair.

"Cori Donovan?" I said.

She looked up at me, alarmed. "Who are you?"

I approached her table. "Funny. I was under the impression you were too young to order wine."

She smiled a little. "Who says it's wine? Maybe I ordered juice in a fancy glass. You a cop or something?"

Well, that was a funny thing to ask me right off, wasn't it? Did I still exude a cop aura or something? If so, maybe Cori was observant enough to notice it. "Can I sit down?"

"You are a cop, aren't you?"

"I'm a P.I. I'm looking into the disappearance of Madison Webb. You know her?"

Cori gestured at the seat across from her. "Haven't seen her in a while."

"You do know her, then?" I said.

She raised her eyebrows. "Sure. I've seen her around."

"You've been to her house."

"Maybe." Cori took a sip from her glass.

"So you two are friends? Or are you her dealer?"

"Dealer?" Cori laughed. "That's quite an accusation to be throwing around, isn't it? Who says that I do anything like that?"

"Oh, people," I said. "It seems to be common knowledge."

"Or maybe it's a vicious rumor." Cori leaned across the table. "I just started going to Keene, you know. I have no idea why all these people want to spread lies about me."

There was something about the way she said it. She managed to sound sincere, but with just a touch of irony. So little that I wasn't even sure that it was there. This Cori person was a cool cucumber, especially for her age. She couldn't have been older than nineteen.

I took out one of my legal pads, wrote on it. "So, you deny dealing drugs, then?"

"What are you writing down?"

"So, you and Madison were friends?"

"Sure."

"To your knowledge, did Madison do drugs?"

Cori laughed again. "Why the focus on drugs, anyway? And what do you mean, she's missing?"

"Answer the question," I said.

She shrugged. "Maybe I don't want to. Maybe you make me feel nervous. Maybe I'm not sure what I think about your intentions. I talked to Madison recently, and she wasn't missing then."

"When'd you talk to her?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was last week, maybe the week before."

"What did you talk about?"

"Does that matter?"

"You were selling her drugs, then? Did you go to her house?"

"Seriously, I don't see why you're so stuck on this drug business."

"Well, Madison's missing, and if she had a habit, it might help me figure out where she is. Or if there was anyone she was mixed up with that might have hurt her."

"Oh, no way." Cori shook her head. "This isn't that kind of town, and Madison would never mess with those kinds of drugs. Whatever she did, she was always with good people, and she would only take things that didn't hurt her."

"Like ecstasy? You saying ecstasy isn't dangerous?"

"It's not heroin." Cori laughed a little. "And I really don't know one way or the other. But it's not like she owed money or something like that."

"And you're sure about that?"

"Pretty sure. I mean, I didn't see her all the time."

"Did she buy any drugs from you recently?"

"I told you. I don't sell drugs."

"Maybe enough to go on a crazy binge somewhere? Enough drugs to make her leave behind her phone and her purse?"

Cori furrowed her brow. "She didn't take her phone?"

"Did you sell her anything recently?"

"Shit." Cori's voice was quiet. "That's kind of scary. Do you think someone took her?"

"Did you sell her anything?"

"I told you." Cori glared at me. "I don't sell drugs."

* * *

Crane was sitting at a table in the back of The Remington alone. I was just getting to the bar after work, and I was holding my usual bottle of High Life.

"Hey," I said, sitting down with him.

He gave me a dull look. "Hey."

Oh. This didn't look good. Crane was in one of his moods. Damn it. And I'd sat down with him. I didn't know how to get away from him now. I was going to have to try to talk to him for a bit, but it wasn't really going to go well. I knew that from previous experience. "You doing okay?"

He shrugged, picking at the label on his beer. He was drinking Budweiser—another bad sign. He didn't even care enough to get a snobby beer.

"Did something happen?" I said.

"No," he said. "It's just... you know, everything's pointless."

"True," I said. "But there's no point in pouting over it. Might as well enjoy yourself instead, you know?"

"I'm not pouting."

Great. I'd been here two minutes, and I'd already managed to insult him. I took a drink of my beer.

It was quiet.

God, when Crane was like this, it was like talking to a brick wall. I cared about him, and I wanted to help him feel better, but there was no way that I could change who he was. He went through phases like this, and that was that.

He was technically bi-polar. He was medicated, but the medication didn't really seem to help very much. Or maybe he wasn't very good at taking it. I really wasn't sure, and I tried not to pry. Usually, Crane was fine, but sometimes, he got manic. Manic Crane was a good bit of fun, but he usually ended up getting involved with a twenty-two-year-old when he was manic, and leaving me in the dust. These down phases of his could end up being as short as a night or as long as several months. It was difficult to tell with Crane.

I reached across the table to touch his hand. "Look, you know you can talk to me."

He laughed bitterly. "Talking doesn't help, Ivy. You and I both know that. The thing about people like us is that we're broken. And we spend all our time trying to fit in the mold that this world wants to shove us in. But our jagged edges just don't fit..."

I patted his hand. "You should write that down. It was very poetic." Some artists were good at creating when they were depressed, but Crane wasn't one of them. When he was down, he was drained. He didn't do much of anything. It was as if he'd lost the will to act at all.

Once, he'd stopped going in to teach—just canceled his classes for an entire month. The crazy thing was, he didn't even get in trouble. None of his students complained, apparently. And when he recovered, he went back to teaching right away and resumed classes.

Sometimes I wondered if not having consequences made it easier for Crane to be the way he was. I doubted it, though. He was right. He was broken, and I was broken too. We weren't the kinds of people who'd ever be able to be normal exactly.

I took a swig of my beer. "What about your book? The one about the secret society? How's that coming?"

"I deleted it from my hard drive," he said. "It was a stupid idea, anyway."

I should have seen that coming.

"Inspiration is so fleeting." He shook his head. "It leaves me before I even get a chance to write anything."

"You really shouldn't delete these things from your hard drive. When you're feeling better, you might reread them and realize they aren't so bad after all."

He gave me a tight smile. "You don't understand, Ivy. When I'm 'feeling better' as you put it, I'm laboring under a delusion about the universe. I think that it makes sense to feel good. I go absolutely crazy. You've seen the things I've done. Remember when I drove to California on a Wednesday?"

"Well, you didn't make it to California until Sunday."

"That was me being insane," he said. "This is me in my right mind. In my insanity, sometimes, I think I have talent. I think that I can write well, and that people out there might want to love me. I delude myself, Ivy. And then reality sets back in. And I realize what I am. I'm nothing. I'm a pathetic, aging college professor who will never get married or have a family. I spend my nights getting drunk and I spend my days babbling at post-adolescents who tune me out and don't bother doing the reading I assign."

"You're not pathetic," I said.

He sighed. "Don't try to make me feel better. You know I'm pathetic. You know that what I'm saying right now is the truth."

"Crane..." I dragged my hand over my face. "Of course it feels true. When people are depressed, they always think the worst things are true. But just because it feels true—"

"It is true."

"No," I said.

"I'm not going to argue with you," he said.

That was the hell of it. Anything that I said to try to make him feel better came out confrontational. I had to challenge his ideas, because they were making him feel sad, and every time I challenged one, he saw it as my arguing with him.

I should know better, anyway. I couldn't argue Crane into a better mood. His issues went far too deep for that.

I drank more of my beer, surveying him.

He peeled at the label of his own bottle.

"Um, Crane..." I didn't usually ask these kinds of questions of him. "Are you still, you know, taking your meds?"

He glared at me, nostrils flaring.

I winced. "Sorry."

"If they had meds that would keep you from spreading your legs for every guy in town, would you take them, Ivy?"

Okay, that was hitting below the belt. I stood up. "Look, if you don't want to talk—"

"I don't. I didn't ask you to sit down."

"Well, pardon me for wanting to check on you."

"Whatever." He upended his beer into his mouth, finishing it. He slammed it down on the table and got up too.

"I'm going to leave you alone for a bit," I said.

"Look, I didn't mean..." He clenched his hands into fists. "I'm not exactly great company tonight. I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay," I said. "I understand. It's not a big deal."

* * *

And most nights, it wouldn't have been a big deal. I knew to steer clear of Crane when he was in his moods, and I didn't have any problem leaving him alone.

But that night, the bar just seemed emptier than usual. Most of the time, I could run into someone that I knew or I could strike up a conversation with someone I'd just met. But that night, there weren't very many people to talk to. Under other circumstances, I might have just said screw it and gone home, but the stuff that Crane had been saying had kind of gotten to me.

I wasn't chronically depressed like he was, but I wasn't exactly a cheery person, either. I knew that my life was shit, and I knew I was going a hell of a lot of nowhere. I dealt with that knowledge by refusing to think about it, which is what I think most people do. No one is entirely satisfied with his or her life. Most people had big dreams when they were younger—to be professional sports players, to be famous, to be rich—and most people didn't actually achieve those goals. So, for most people on earth, the life they lived was a second-best life, a consolation prize, the thing we'd eventually settled for.

And the way people dealt with that disappointment was to tell themselves that the thing they wanted was actually unrealistic, and that they wouldn't have ever gotten it anyway. And then to focus their attention elsewhere. There was no point in dwelling on the things you didn't get. It was better to focus on reality—the way things actually were.

That was what I did most of the time. Still, Crane was right that things were fucked up, and that we were both pathetic.

I didn't have anything real anymore.

All I had were compulsive vices—addictions.

And I didn't like thinking that way. There was only one thing that I could think of that would allow me to completely turn off my brain. I could shut all these awful thoughts out.

If I could just get laid.

And there was no one in the bar who was going to cooperate, I could see that now.

So, I got trashed. I ran into Mia, the owner of a little barbecue place in town. She and I slung back drinks and complained about men. I even let her talk me into doing shots—girly shots like Red-Headed Sluts, the kind of shots that taste like Kool-Aid.

The upshot of this was that we were both wasted. We were giggling, gripping the bar to stay upright, generally having a great time.

The bartender leaned over to tell us that he was going to be closing up soon. He wanted to make sure that neither of us were driving. But both of us lived within walking distance. He gave us a warning to be careful out there. Even walking, at the level we were at, we were in danger of getting slapped with a public intoxication charge.

And it was at that point that Colin Pugliano sauntered into the bar. He wasn't alone. He was with another guy, some guy that looked vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't place it.

"We're closing up soon," said the bartender.

"Just one drink?" said Colin.

"Yeah, just one," the bartender agreed.

I pushed away from the bar, struggling to remain upright. I pointed at Colin. "You!" I yelled. "What are you doing here?" My speech was slurred.

He turned to me, and when he recognized me, his eyes widened.

"You don't even live in Keene," I said. "You live in Renmawr. Why would you come to this bar?"

"You stood me up," said Colin.

"Yeah, because I don't want to have a relationship with you or something. We had sex, but you act like it meant that we're soul mates. It was just sex, for God's sakes."

He furrowed his brow. "You're very drunk."

I giggled. "Yup."

"You ordering a drink or not?" said the bartender.

"Oh." Colin turned back to the bar.

"I got it," said his friend, who was smirking at me. "You want me to buy her a drink too?"

"Oooh," I said. "Please do."

"You've had enough, Ivy," said the bartender.

I snorted. "I'm fine. I can keep drinking for... hours."

"What do you want?" said Colin's friend.

"Whatever you're drinking," I said.

Colin's friend turned to the bartender. "Three shots of Jagermeister." He pointed at Mia. "Oh, make it four. Give her one too."

Mia shook her head. "That's okay. I'm going home." She touched me on the shoulder. "You want to come with me?"

"No, I'm cool," I said.

She shrugged and made her way out.

The bartender poured the shots. He gave me a look, a kind of pitying look that I didn't really care for.

I glared at him, picked up the shot, and swallowed the licorice-flavored liquor down.

Almost immediately, I stumbled.

Colin caught me. "You okay?"

"I would have sex with you again," I told him, pointing in his face. "But not if you think it's like... a commitment or something. Because it's not."

Colin's friend was laughing. "Who is that chick, man?"

"She's the private investigator I hired to track Rhonda," said Colin.

"Damned right I am," I said.

And that was the last thing I remembered.

CHAPTER SIX

Blacking out is such a twenty-one-year-old thing to do. I wish I could say I rarely blacked out, but the truth was that I probably got that drunk about once every three or four months. I never meant to do it, but sometimes, I just got carried away. The funny thing was that when I was actually twenty-one, I never blacked out. Back then, I'd just throw up. As far as which one was more embarrassing, it was kind of a toss up. The nice thing about being blacked out was that I really couldn't remember what I did.

That was scary, too, but overall, it was better. I didn't like remembering the things I did. Hell, some days, I didn't even really like being me. I wished I could go to some office somewhere and tell them that they'd made a mistake and matched me up with the wrong personality. What kind of person feels massive amounts of guilt and also can't stop herself from doing the things that make her feel guilty? Even seems to enjoy those things, in fact?

That didn't make any sense. If I was going to have such hedonistic appetites, why couldn't I embrace them instead of feeling out of control and ashamed?

Whatever.

I woke up the next morning in a strange bed with a pounding head.

I had no idea where the hell I was.

The last thing I remembered was being at the bar and taking the shot. But clearly things had happened after that.

I wasn't wearing clothes, so those things had probably involved sexual intercourse.

I sat up in the bed. I was in a nondescript room. It had cream colored walls and matching carpet. There were some framed pictures on the walls of still lifes.

Was I in a hotel?

No, it was a regular bedroom. But I had a sneaking suspicion that I was in one of those cookie-cutter houses that they build in those housing developments. Those houses are all perfectly functional, but they have no soul. This felt like one of those rooms.

So, where the hell was I?

There weren't any housing developments within walking distance of downtown Keene, so I was probably farther away from my home than I might like.

I was alone in the bed. For now, anyway. Someone could have gotten up after sleeping with me there the whole night.

God damn it. Had I had sex with Colin Pugliano again?

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Why was I such an idiot? What the hell was wrong with me?

I flopped back on the bed. "You need to stop drinking, Ivy," I told the ceiling.

Easier said than done, unfortunately.

I lay there for a few minutes, head pounding, tasting the dead-thing taste in my mouth from too much drinking, and wanting water more than anything.

And then I got out of bed and started to hunt down my clothes.

Luckily, they were all in a pile at the end of the bed on the floor, along with my purse. I got dressed and then I opened the door of the bedroom.

It opened onto a hallway carpeted in the same carpet. I made my way down it. It ended at a set of carpeted stairs, which I started down. My head was pulsating.

Midway down the steps, I heard voices.

"Look, just 'cause you do a job doesn't mean you're back on the inside, you know," someone was saying. "It can just be a one-time thing."

"I don't know," said someone else. Actually, I recognized the voice as belonging to Colin. What the hell was up with that? Why did I recognize his voice now? Geez.

"You don't have to know. We're offering you the option, though," said another voice.

"The only reason you got out in the first place was because of Rhonda, right?" said the first voice. "And she's out of the picture."

"Good riddance, too," said the other voice. "All that chick did was hold you back."

"I'm legit now," said Colin. "It's taken a while to get to this point."

"You're not legit," said the first voice. "You been looking the other way for the family for years."

"Not the same thing," said Colin.

Wait a second, I thought. Legit? Looking the other way? The family?

"Maybe not, but it proves your loyalty," said the other voice.

"Well, I wouldn't sell out my own blood," said Colin. "Still, I'm not sure about getting much involved right now."

And right then, it hit me. Colin's friend from the bar last night? I knew why he looked familiar. I'd seen him on an arrest back when I worked for the department. That was Derek O'Shaunessy.

Holy fuck, I thought. I have to get out of here.

I was even pretty sure I knew who Colin was. He had to be the son of Moira O'Shaunessy who had married some guy with an Italian last name. God, I was really fucking stupid.

Not only had I slept with a client, but I'd slept with a guy who had ties to the O'Shaunessys, and now I was pretty sure I was in his house.

I tiptoed down the rest of the steps as quickly and as quietly as I could.

The conversation the other room kept on. All of them were oblivious as I eased the front door open and let myself out silently.

My head was still pounding.

I walked down the driveway, pulling out my phone. I had the number for the cab company programmed into my phone already, and I dialed.

I peered up at the street signs. Where the hell was I?

* * *

The good news was that I was awake in the morning, and that I was in Renmawr. Also, I was in need of breakfast, and the restaurant where Madison used to work was serving it right at that minute.

Maybe this wasn't a complete disaster.

O'Shaunessys.

No, it totally was.

The O'Shaunessys were a crime family that had taken up residence in Renmawr generations ago. They had a lot of influence and a lot of money, and they were responsible for a significant portion of the crime that happened in Renmawr. They had influence elsewhere as well. I had heard that they sold drugs all up and down the east coast. My interaction with them had been regarding murder, though. We'd been able to get an eyewitness to pin a killing on Johnny O'Shaunessy, one of the guys high up in the organization, the big boss's son. But the case had fallen apart when they somehow managed to get to the eyewitness.

We thought we had him somewhere safe, but the guy ended up with a bullet in his head. It was proof that there were corrupt cops inside the department, people willing to take a payback from the O'Shaunessys.

Still, Internal Affairs wanted to use their time digging up all the people I had sex with, because that was more pressing.

Was I bitter?

Hell, yeah.

When I got to the restaurant, I made a beeline for the bathroom, bypassing the hostess and everything. I spent a couple minutes in there trying to make myself look presentable. I was hungover and disgusting, so it wasn't exactly possible, but I did my best. My hope was simply not to scare Yasmine when I talked to her, since that was the whole reason I'd come here in the first place.

I didn't have my legal pad, more's the pity, but I did have pens in my purse. I'd take notes on napkins if I needed to.

I decided to get some food into me before trying to talk to Yasmine. I was frightfully hung over, and I needed my wits about me. Some food, some coffee, and some water would do the trick.

And indeed, after eating, I felt much more like a human being.

After I paid my bill, I asked about Yasmine, and the cashier pointed her out to me. I had to wait until she could take a break, but I got the chance to talk to her. Same place as I'd talked to Rose—out back by the dumpsters.

Yasmine smoked too. "Oh, man, I've been waiting for someone to come in here and ask questions about Madison."

"You have?" I said.

"She just disappeared. I knew that was fishy. I tried to call her a couple of times, but she never answers her phone."

"She left her phone behind."

"No, I don't think so," said Yasmine. "I think something happened to her. It was that other woman. Curtis's current girlfriend."

"Debbie?" I said. "Why would you say that?" I hadn't completely ruled Debbie out, but I had to admit that it was a stretch to think that a pregnant woman could carry out a murder and hide the body, so I'd put the theory on the back burner.

"That's her name. Debbie." Yasmine nodded, puffing on her cigarette. "Madison was totally freaked out about her. She came here one day."

"Debbie did?"

"Yeah." Yasmine nodded. "She demanded to talk to Madison, and they went out back. I didn't hear what went on, mind you, but Madison said that Debbie knew that she and Curtis were still hooking up, and she was pissed off about it. She was threatening her up and down to back off her man and leave the whole thing alone. Madison was freaked out." Yasmine shrugged. "Of course, I told that girl that there was no point in sticking around in that relationship with Curtis. I said to her that he had obviously made his choice, and he was picking his baby mama. He was living with her, you know? But Madison was stupid when it came to Curtis. She was like, 'Oh, no, we're going to work it out. I can't let him go.'" Yasmine rolled her eyes.

"You're saying that Debbie came here and threatened Madison."

"That's what I'm saying."

So, Debbie had lied to me. She'd said that she hadn't had any contact with Madison, but she clearly had. Not only that, she seemed to know what was going on between Curtis and Madison. This didn't look good for Debbie.

"And not only that," said Yasmine, "Madison said that Debbie came by her apartment one night. She said that Debbie was saying the same kind of threatening stuff."

"What did she threaten her with?"

"Oh, I don't know, exactly. I think she was just saying that she could make Madison's life miserable, and that she wasn't going to let her get away with what she was doing."

"So, these weren't physical threats."

"Debbie's not exactly physically intimidating."

True. She was a fairly tiny woman.

"Anyway," Yasmine continued, "Debbie obviously did something to Madison."

I considered. Debbie did have a great motive. And she was looking more and more unstable. But if she was the murderer, how did she pull it off? I chewed on my lip.

Yasmine shrugged. "But then, you know, on the other hand, I guess she might have just skipped town. Sometimes, Madison and I would go do karaoke. She had some kind of voice, you know? She'd talk about how she always wanted to run away to New York City and try to be on Broadway."

"Really?" I said. This was the first I was hearing about any kind of aspirations or reasons to leave town.

"I didn't think she was serious. But maybe she just got sick of everything. Maybe she finally wised up about Curtis, and she wanted out of all of this. Maybe she left."

I nodded. "Thanks. You've been really helpful. I appreciate this."

"No sweat," she said.

"Listen, I wanted to talk to Brian, the manager. Is he around this morning?"

"Um... actually, he's not," she said. "He probably won't come in until around eleven."

"I talked to one of the other girls who works here. Rose."

"Yeah, I know Rose."

"She said that there was some friction between Brian and Madison. Something about a drug test?"

"Oh yeah." Yasmine nodded, sucking on the last of her cigarette. "Yeah, Brian was being a total dick to her about that. He's allowed to require us to take random drug tests, you know, but he didn't have any reason to do that to Madison. He was just fucking with her."

"Why?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask him."

"Yeah, if I can ever catch him here," I said.

* * *

I was tired, and I wasn't on my best game, so I caught a cab back to my apartment in Keene. The price was freaking ridiculous. Once at home, I left a message at the office for Brigit, telling her I might be a little late, and then I went back to bed. I napped for a few hours, got up later, took a shower, and felt a little less horrible.

I surveyed myself in the mirror, wondering for the umpteenth time how much longer I could sustain all this before I fell apart.

"Eh," I said aloud to myself, "I got this. I'm Ivy Stern. I can handle it."

I was on my way to see Debbie again. She had lied to me, and things didn't look good for her. She and Curtis had both lied, in fact, which made them both suspicious.

But Curtis had claimed that he'd lied because Debbie didn't know about Madison. Turned out that Debbie did know. If Curtis knew that Debbie knew, then he'd lied to me again. I should probably talk to both of them, I decided.

I headed to their townhouse before going in to the office.

But when I arrived, Curtis wasn't around. Only Debbie was there.

"I told you everything already," she said. "I don't know anything else about Madison Webb."

"You knew where she worked," I said. "I got witnesses saying you came and talked to her. And they also say you were threatening her."

Debbie sagged against the door frame. "Oh, hell." Her lower lip started trembling.

Great. She was going to cry. What should I do? Should I get gentle, try to ease her into opening up? Or would she only respect strength? Maybe I should just keep badgering at her, doing the tough guy act. "Can I come in?" I asked.

She drew in a shaky breath. "You don't understand." She burst into tears. "Here I am, pregnant and that... that bitch was still going after my man. She had her hooks in him good. And I couldn't handle it. So, I went and told her to back off. But I didn't really mean it. I couldn't have hurt her. Look at me."

"None of that explains why you lied to me about it."

"Well, I knew it looked bad," she said. "I didn't want you to think that maybe I had something to do with her disappearing. 'Cause I didn't."

"Why don't you let me come inside, Debbie? We can talk this out."

"Curtis is an asshole, isn't he?" Tears were streaming down her face. "You know, I never told anyone about what he was doing to me, about how he was screwing around behind my back. I didn't tell, because I was ashamed of him. And ashamed of myself for staying with him. I'm not usually this stupid."

"Hey, hey, it's okay." This was veering way out of the boundaries of what I wanted to investigate and heading into personal territory. I didn't really care what Debbie thought about her relationship.

"I'm not the kind of girl that takes it out on the other woman either. I know better. I know it's Curtis that's the one who hurt me, not Madison. He's the one I should be pissed at. He's the one I should have been threatening. But I've just been so scared. I'm pregnant, and I didn't want to do it alone. I thought being with an asshole was better than being by myself. But look what he's turned me into." She started sobbing in earnest.

Awkwardly, I patted her on the shoulder. "It's all right. You don't have to cry."

"I cry all the time since I got pregnant," she said. "It's an everyday thing. Look, I'm sorry if I made life hell for that poor girl. She shouldn't have been sleeping with my boyfriend, true, but I was acting like some kind of skank going after her that way. I guess I lied to you about it because I was in denial." She wiped at her eyes. "Actually, I'm glad you came by, and that you've been asking these questions. You've really helped me put things in perspective."

"Well, that's great," I said. "But I still have a few questions about Madison. You also went to her house to threaten her? When exactly was this and what exactly did you say?"

"Oh, God," said Debbie, looking over my shoulder.

Instinctively, I turned. Curtis was walking up the sidewalk, face an angry mask.

"What the hell are you saying to her?" Curtis yelled at me. "You don't have any right to come in here and upset my pregnant—"

"Shut the fuck up," said Debbie, stepping down between Curtis and me.

Curtis looked confused. "What?"

"I can't believe I put up with you for as long as I have," she said. "You think I didn't know about you and Madison? I knew. I've known for ages. I should have left you the minute I found out, but I was weak and I stayed."

Curtis shot me a venomous glance. "Hey, did this detective woman tell you that I—"

"She didn't have to tell me," said Debbie. "I told you, I already knew. I want you out."

"What?" he said.

"It's over, Curtis. You get your stuff, and you get gone." She flounced back into the house and slammed the door after herself.

Curtis turned to me, seething, hands clenched in fists.

I backed up. "Hey, I'm staying out of this."

* * *

Brigit was laughing. "I can't believe that. She knew?"

"She sure did," I said.

"Well, what do you think?" said Brigit. "Doesn't that mean her motive is really strong to hurt Madison?"

"Yeah, it does," I said.

"And you liked her before for it."

"Well, that was before I met her and saw how tiny she was."

"Right." Brigit chewed on her bottom lip. "Thing is, we don't know how Madison was killed. Maybe she was shot with a gun. You don't have to be big to do that."

"No, but you have to have strength to move her body."

"Maybe she didn't die in the house," said Brigit. "Maybe Debbie got her to go on a ride with her willingly. She drove her out into the middle of nowhere and popped her in the head."

"Then why take the sheets?" I said.

Brigit was quiet, thinking.

"I'm not ruling her out," I said. "But I just don't think that's the way to go there. I mean, it's a big complicated mess, the three of them, but I'm feeling like the drug angle has more potential."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Oh," I said. "And apparently, Madison might have run away to try to make it on Broadway. Her friend Yasmine said it was her dream. She said Madison had a pretty voice."

"Run away, huh?" Brigit shook her head. "It would be crazy if she really was out there, totally fine."

"Have there been any hits on the credit cards?"

"No, I check them every morning. Nothing."

"It doesn't seem like she ran away," I muttered.

CHAPTER SEVEN

After Brigit left for the day, I stayed in the office, working on organizing some files. I preferred my evening activities to be out of the office. I liked to be out in the field, even if it was only staking out some hotel somewhere. But I didn't have any other cases brewing at the moment, and it needed done.

Around eight o'clock, I finished up for the night and started to gather up my stuff to leave.

There was a knock on my office door.

I had it locked because I wasn't expecting clients or anything. Geez, I thought. I really hope it's not Colin Pugliano. The way I'd left things with him probably wasn't good, especially considering his ties to a crime family. Man, when I decided to screw up, I really screwed up, didn't I?

But it wasn't Colin at the door.

"Pike," I said when I recognized him. I opened the door to let him come inside.

He stepped in, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Stern."

We surveyed each other for a minute. Miles Pike, homicide lieutenant and my ex-boyfriend, had broad shoulders and a tapered waist. He could have been a catalog model—back when there were still catalogs, that is. The J. C. Penney one used to appear in my house when I was a little girl, thick like the phone book and full of pictures of pretty men and women in brand new clothes. Pike always looked like one of those men—classically handsome, easy with a smile.

I took a deep breath. "Um, what can I do for you?"

He searched my expression, and then he stared pointedly at his toes. "Uh..."

Pike wasn't that great with social interaction, truth be told. He was fine as long as he was talking about work, but he seemed lost when it came to feelings or pleasantries. I used to tease him that he had a mild case of undiagnosed Asperger's. He usually didn't much get the joke. But I think he liked it when I teased him. I remember the way he used to smile at me when we were alone sometimes. Not his catalog smile, but something open and true and vulnerable.

God. I wanted to touch him.

I couldn't be near him without wanting to touch him. I'd trained myself to reign it in, though, even while we were dating. He wasn't a touchy-feely kind of guy. And as sweet as his smiles were, I hated the flash of his anger. He always seemed so... pained when he was angry. And I didn't like hurting him.

"I was thinking about you," he told the floor. "I thought..." He raised his gaze.

My heart stuttered.

"Are you doing okay, Ivy?"

"I..." I'm drinking like a fish and blacking out a lot and ending up in bed with mob flunkies. "Yeah, I'm doing great."

He nodded. "Really?"

I tried a smile. "Really. Thanks for sending this case my way. It's been interesting."

"You're getting somewhere with it?"

"I will," I said. Right now, the pieces were a little scattered, but that didn't mean that I wouldn't get them in order soon.

"I worry about you sometimes."

"Don't." I was aiming for a light tone, but I seemed to choke on the word. I cleared my throat, trying to recover. "Really, I'm doing okay."

Suddenly, he lurched forward. He lifted one of his hands and placed it against my cheek.

I gasped, as much in surprise as at the sensation. He never did things like that. He never touched me.

He searched my expression again, but this time, it was as if he was asking permission.

I parted my lips, just looking at him, drowning in him.

He kissed me.

Pike was a tentative kisser. When he did it, I could always sense a hint of nervousness and confusion underneath, as if he wasn't sure if he was doing it properly. The sheer vulnerability of his kiss belied its sweetness, and that sweetness made his kiss powerful.

My knees started to shake. I gripped his shoulders to stay upright. I opened my mouth to him. I put my tongue against his.

He flinched.

And then we weren't kissing. We weren't touching.

I took a steadying step backwards and hugged myself.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's okay," I said. "We don't... do that."

"I thought..." He turned away from me, running a hand through his hair. "I thought maybe I could..."

"Miles, you know you don't have to..." I wanted to touch him again. I wanted to comfort him. But I knew touching him would have the opposite effect of my intention. So, I just hugged myself harder.

He turned back to me. "No, let's try that again. I think if I was expecting—"

"Why?" I said.

He scratched the back of his head.

"Why did you come here, Miles?"

He and I had broken up during the time when I was getting fired from the department. It hadn't been a bad breakup in the traditional sense, but then there wasn't anything traditional about Pike and me. There hadn't been angry fights or violent outbursts. We'd both been sad, but we'd agreed it was best.

I needed things that Pike couldn't give me. And as much as he might try to be okay with my getting it elsewhere, deep down he wished that I didn't want it either. It was better if we were apart. A relationship between the two of us was doomed.

He sighed. "Teagues made an announcement today. He's going to have a baby."

"Oh," I said. "Becky's pregnant?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's good. That's nice for them. You should tell him I said..." I trailed off. Teagues and Becky probably both thought I was trash these days.

Pike turned his hands over, studying his palms. "I just got to thinking about it."

"Thinking about what?"

"About, you know... babies."

I made a face. "What about them?"

"Well, you know, how you were the only woman I ever met that I could stand to spend that much time with, and I know we had problems, but maybe if I could change, then, maybe..."

"Because of babies?" I couldn't believe this. "You don't mean that you and I..." I pointed back and forth between us. "You can't mean that."

He touched my cheek again—not a caress, but with his fingertips, tracing the angles of my features. His touch was investigative, exploratory. But not passionate. "We're not young anymore, Ivy," he whispered. "I'm four years away from forty, you know. I always thought that someday I'd be settled. And, yeah, have children."

I snorted, pulling away. "Well, that would be tough to accomplish, wouldn't it?"

He flinched again.

Fuck this. I was just going to lay it out there. Maybe it would upset him, but I didn't care. "You know, Pike, in order to have babies, you have to have sex."

He glared at me. "Maybe it would be different if we were trying to conceive."

My jaw dropped open. "You're kidding."

"I don't know." He sounded a little irritated now. "Maybe."

"After everything we went through together. All the things we tried, you're saying that if it was to make babies, then..." My nostrils flared. "Fuck you."

"Don't be like that."

"Look, Pike. I'm a nymphomaniac, and you're asexual. This isn't ever going to work. Ever." I examined my fingernails. "You should go."

"You're not a—"

"Pike—"

"You shouldn't talk like that about yourself."

"It's just the truth."

His jaw worked. "So, you're saying that you don't... that you don't ever think about having a family."

"I'm not the kind of person who gets to have a family. I'm too screwed up for that." Tears were filling my eyes. I wouldn't meet his gaze. It hurt to say something like that out loud, even if it was true.

"You don't know that."

I swallowed hard, clenching my hands into fists. "Look, Pike, I don't want you to want me because I'd be your own personal baby-making machine, okay? I want something more than that from a relationship. And I sure as hell don't only want sex whenever you want another rug rat."

"Jesus, Ivy, that's not what I meant."

"Go," I said, my voice crowded out by more tears. If he didn't leave soon, he was going to see me start sobbing.

"Fine," he murmured. "This was a bad idea anyway."

Wordlessly, I nodded. If I said anything out loud, the floodgates were going to open.

He gave me one last look. I could swear there was some deep longing behind his eyes, but it wasn't the kind of longing I craved, and it never would be.

And then he left.

* * *

I didn't go out that night. Instead of my typical routine, I went home and ordered takeout from this Italian place in town. They made huge portions of pasta, big enough for two people. I ate the whole thing myself, lounging in front of my television in my pajamas. I felt empty and exhausted.

Miles Pike always made me feel that way.

God, I missed him.

Missing him was what hurt, but being with him had been painful too. Frustrating and confusing. Eventually, impossible.

I didn't need to think about that anymore. It hurt too much.

Hence the drowning of my sorrows in lots of food.

I fell asleep while watching TV, and I didn't wake up until morning.

I wasn't hung over, and it felt strange. My head wasn't pounding, and I wasn't dying of thirst. I did feel a little queasy, though. I'd eaten far too much the night before. Still, as mornings went, I felt great.

But it was also uncomfortable, like it was itchy inside my own skin. I didn't know what to do with my morning if I wasn't in full-blown recovery mode. A certain sense of urgency was missing.

I puttered around in my house for a bit. I was up earlier than usual and feeling very rested. Oddly, though, I didn't have a lot of energy. It was as if getting a good night's sleep had made me lazy in some way.

I took a long shower and got dressed. Then I went into town to get my coffee and breakfast. Instead of my egg white omelet, I opted for a fruit salad. I didn't want anything heavy after all that pasta the night before. Everyone that I saw commented on how good I looked. Had I changed my hair? Was that a new shirt? Boy, did I look well rested!

It made me feel a little awful. If I looked so great now, what did that mean about the rest of the time?

I ate my fruit salad and thought, for the umpteenth time, that I should really stop drinking so much. I thought about a life with Miles Pike, both of us sober and only fucking to make rug rats. I felt a wistful tug towards the idea, but it also repelled me. I wasn't that kind of woman.

When I got to the office, I was really early, and Brigit wasn't coming in since it was Sunday. I checked to see if there were hits on any of the credit cards, but there weren't. Idly, I decided to take a peek at Madison's phone. I scrolled through text messages for a while, but nothing jumped out at me. I decided to try to broaden my horizons. I'd go into her email and social media.

But Madison hadn't ever set up her email in her phone. When I clicked on the email app, it asked me to sign in, which I couldn't do. She didn't have twitter on her phone, and her Facebook app didn't work. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. I tried it three or four times. Every time I would attempt to open the app, it would simply sit there on a screen that had the Facebook logo for five minutes. Then the screen would turn black.

Frustrated, I went in and uninstalled the app and reinstalled it.

But then—duh—it wanted me to sign in, and I didn't know Madison's information.

Her laptop was password protected, and I wasn't any good at cracking that kind of stuff.

I made a phone call.

The phone rang a few times, and then someone answered, "Yeah."

"Eden?" I said.

"Yeah."

"It's Ivy. I'm in need of your expertise."

"Now?"

"Well, it doesn't have to be right at this second but fairly soon, yeah."

"Okay." And the phone went dead.

I took my phone away from my ear and made a face at the receiver.

Ten minutes later, Eden Foxcroft appeared in my office. I hadn't seen Eden in a few months, and she always looked different. She liked to change her hair a lot. Right now, it was dyed dark brown with a few strands of purple in it. She had it cut around her shoulders in an angular cut—shorter in the back.

She grinned. "Hi, Ivy!" And then she wanted to hug.

When Eden was aware of her surroundings, she was hyper and fun, bubblegum excited. But when she zoned in on stuff, she was the monosyllabic person she'd been on the phone. I must have interrupted her earlier.

I extricated myself from the hug. "Sorry if I caught you at a busy time."

"Oh, no," she said. "I was playing this game is all. I'm all yours." She was still grinning, and I swear her eyes were twinkling. She was like a cyber elf.

"Well, I've got a case. Girl disappeared, but left behind her phone and computer. We got into the phone, but I can't access anything other than her text messages and call log. No email or social media or anything. I figure all of that would be on the computer, but it's password protected. You think you could get it cracked for me?" I dug out Madison's laptop and held it up.

Eden held out her hand for it.

I handed it to her.

She opened the computer and turned it on. Immediately, the password screen came up. "Sure. Shouldn't take too long."

"You don't have to do it right now," I said. "You can take it back to your office with you and charge me your typical hourly rate, you know."

She shut the laptop. "Okay. Cool."

Eden was my old college roommate. We had met by chance when we were stuck together sophomore year, but we'd quickly discovered that we got along great and had gotten an apartment together the following year. We were both problem solvers, and we were both just a little off-center. We weren't exactly like everyone else, that was for sure. If I had a best friend, it would be Eden. Of course, we didn't really see each other much now that we weren't roommates.

"I swear," I said, "it's like you're allergic to making money."

"I'm not," she said. "I just forget about it. Besides, it's not that big a deal. If I need money, I can get money."

Eden was pretty talented at her computer stuff, whatever it was she did. She didn't exactly have a business, but people did pay her for various services. Sometimes, she seemed to get big windfalls of money from some project or other.

She wasn't secretive about that stuff, but she was incapable of explaining it in English, so I really had no idea how it all worked. I just knew that she occasionally helped me out with my detective work, and when she did, I made sure to pay her. I figured we self-employed types should help each other out whenever possible.

Eden tucked the laptop into her messenger bag. "So, how are you doing?"

"Fine," I said.

She raised her eyebrows. "Come on, don't bullshit me. You're upset about something. I can tell. I know you."

I shrugged. I wandered over to the waiting area of the outer office and sat down in one of the chairs. "Pike came by last night and said he wanted me to be the mother of his children."

"Whoa." Eden sat down opposite me. "Isn't that a good thing? I mean, isn't that what you want?"

I shot her a disbelieving look. "I don't want... Can you see me being a mother?"

She shrugged. "Maybe."

"Really?"

She made a face at me. "I just don't get it. Seriously, Miles Pike is like your soul mate, and you don't want to be with him?"

"I don't believe in soul mates. I didn't think you did either."

She shrugged. "Well, maybe not for me, but for you?"

I arched an eyebrow at her.

She giggled mischievously, twirling a stand of purple hair around her finger.

"I don't know. It just really shook me up."

"Of course he shook you up. He's your soul mate."

I laughed, shaking my head. "Stop it."

She got up and gave me another hug. "Sorry it's bugging you."

This time I liked the hug. "It's okay. I'll be all right."

She pulled back. "You know, Ivy, I've told you this before, but I really think that you could be happy if you'd just get out of your own way."

I rolled my eyes.

"Seriously," she said. "There's nothing wrong with you except that you think that there's something wrong with you."

"Well, that's not confusing," I muttered.

"If you stopped feeling guilty and worrying so much, maybe you could focus on actually living your life the way you want to. You could find happiness."

"Who says I'm not happy, huh? Why don't you just work on fixing that laptop instead of fixing me?"

"That's what I'm saying. You don't need fixing." But she raised her hands in surrender. "But I get it. I'll leave it alone. You've got to do what you've got to do, I guess."

* * *

I was back at Happy's, talking to the hostess. "I'm just wondering if Brian is here," I said.

"You don't want a table?" The hostess seemed confused.

"No, I've been here a couple of times. You might remember seeing me?"

"I remember you were here for breakfast."

"I'm a private detective. I'm looking into the disappearance of Madison Webb."

"Who?"

"Madison Webb. She worked here. She was a waitress."

"Really?"

"That's not the point. Seriously, is Brian here?"

The hostess chewed on her thumbnail, unsure. "I don't know."

"Can you check?"

"Okay," she said. She walked back into the depths of the restaurant.

I stared up at the ceiling, feeling annoyed.

Several minutes later, the hostess returned. "Yeah, he's here."

Great. At least something was going well. "Well, did you ask him if he could talk to me?"

"You didn't tell me to do that."

I rolled my eyes. "Never mind." I pushed past the hostess. "Where is he?"

"In the back..." She pointed.

I stalked through the restaurant, pushing through the door that said Employees Only and emerging in the kitchen. The room was big and hot, lined with ovens on one wall and a ten-burner stove plus a big stainless steel sink on the other. It was crowded full of people who were all wearing hairnets and bending over food, whether they were chopping it, stirring it, or putting it in an oven.

"Where's Brian?" I said.

A man's head popped up. He was in his mid-twenties, and he had red hair. "Hello?"

I went over to him. "Brian? Are you Brian?"

"Who are you?" he said.

"My name's Ivy Stern. I just wondered if I could ask you a few questions."

"Questions." He knitted his eyebrows together.

"Yes, about Madison Webb."

Alarm shot across Brian's face. He swallowed hard. "Who the hell are you? Why are you here?"

"I'm looking into her disappearance. She's been gone for ten days, and I just want to find her or find out what happened to her."

"Well, I don't know that." He wouldn't look at me. "I haven't seen her, and I wouldn't know where she is. But she's fired from this job, because she blew off like four shifts in a row, and she wouldn't answer her phone. And that's all I know about it."

"I'm wondering if you knew anything about Madison and drugs? I've heard that you wanted her to take a drug test. That true?"

"Look, I don't have time to talk to you." He glared at me.

"Okay," I said. This kitchen did seem pretty busy. "That's fine. When would be a better time?"

"I don't actually see why you want to talk to me at all. I really don't know anything about Madison Webb."

"Well, it's just a few questions." I gave him my most reassuring smile. "It really won't take too long. Tell me when would be a good time to come back."

He shook his head. "No, you know what? I don't want to do this at all."

"Look, it's really not a big deal," I said. "I promise to be brief."

"Get out of this kitchen," he said.

"Would tomorrow be better?"

He smiled tightly. "Get out of here now, or I'll have you thrown out."

I raised my eyebrows. "Well, maybe I'll try you again later. Maybe you'll be in a better mood."

"It's not about mood, lady, it's about you not respecting boundaries. You are not welcome back here."

I nodded. "Sure. Talk to you soon." I left the kitchen.

"Hey," he called after me. "Don't come back here."

I shut the kitchen door behind me.

Well, that Brian guy was obviously hiding something. I was going to be all over him from now on.

I left the restaurant in much higher spirits than I had been. I might actually be getting somewhere with this case after all.

* * *

But when I got to my car in the parking lot of the restaurant, I was stunned to see that Colin Pugliano was leaning up against it.

Shit.

I needed to get rid of him, but how? I debated my options, and then I decided to play it cold and annoyed, like I just didn't have time for someone as insignificant as him.

Glaring, I approached the car. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hey, Ivy." He looked nervous. "I knew you weren't happy when I showed up at your office, so I didn't bother you there again. I followed you here instead."

"You followed me?" I pressed my lips into a severe line, so that he could see that I wasn't amused.

"We need to talk." He gave me a pleading look.

I shook my head briskly. "Sorry, Colin, but we really don't." I tried to move past him, so that I could get into my car.

He blocked my path. "Now, come on, just hear me out."

"Please let me by." I struggled to keep my voice cold. Inside, I was starting to get a little freaked out. I didn't like the way he was physically stopping me from getting away from him. It wasn't a good sign at all.

"Come on a drive with me." He spread his hands. "Just a drive. We'll talk for a little bit, and then I'll bring you back to your car."

"We don't have anything to talk about," I said.

"Now, that just isn't true," he said. "You and me, we have something going on. I know you're in denial about it, but you are really some kind of woman. The other night, when I ran into you—"

"I was really drunk," I said. "I don't actually remember what happened. Trust me when I tell you that everything between us has been a mistake. I don't want to have anything to do with you."

"Sure, that's what you say, but I know differently. I can feel it. When we're close, just like we are now, there are... sparks."

"No," I said. "There aren't. Now, let me by."

"Come on, Ivy, just come on a drive."

"No," I said.

"Then we'll talk about it right here." He reached for me.

I backed up. "Don't touch me."

"That's not what you said the other night."

"Well, like I said, I was drunk that night. I could have said anything."

"Listen, I've been looking for a woman like you—"

"You don't know anything about me," I said. "And I haven't been looking for a man like you."

He sighed heavily. "Oh, come on, Ivy. When are you going to drop this act? You try to play this uptight role, but I know what you are." He touched my chest. "I know what's inside you."

I seized his wrist. "I said not to touch me."

He shook me off, and it wasn't hard for him at all. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close. Staring into my eyes, he said, "I know just how passionate you are. You're a wild woman. You don't have to be ashamed of that. You don't have to run from it. You can embrace it. I want you to embrace it. I want you."

"Well, I don't want you." My voice came out as a squeak, because I was trying to get free from his grasp and having no luck whatsoever. He was too strong.

I didn't carry a gun as a private investigator. I was having trouble with some nasty people with connections to the department holding up my permit for a firearm. Generally speaking, it wasn't a problem because I didn't run into any really dangerous situations in my work. But right now, I was cursing the fact that I wasn't packing. Not because I would have shot Colin, but because I could have used that gun to let him know just how serious I was.

Colin thought we were flirting. He thought we were playing a little game, that I was saying no when I really meant yes. I couldn't get him to understand that I really did mean no. It was harder to make it stick when I'd said yes twice before. I got why he was confused, but that wasn't really my problem. I needed away from him, and now.

"You are going to come on a drive with me," he said.

My heart was thudding in my chest. "No. You need to let go of me."

"I'm not going to let go of you, sweetheart. I'm holding on tight."

"Please, Colin." My voice cracked, and my fear leaked out.

He didn't seem to notice. He pressed his lips against mine.

I bit them.

He swore, pulling back.

I struggled, trying to get free.

He chuckled, holding tight. "Oh, we're going to play it like that, are we? Okay, well, that's fine with me. I like that kind of game."

"Not a game, Colin. I am dead serious. I don't want to go anywhere with you. Now, let go of me." I aimed a kick at one of his shins.

He laughed again, evading me. He yanked me close, turning my body so that my back was against his front. He pinned me against him, and I couldn't move.

I was terrified. How had this gotten so bad so fast? Here I was being totally dominated by a mob flunky, and I didn't know what was going to happen to me.

He threw me inside his car, into the back seat.

I scrabbled to sit up, to get the door open.

But he was in the front seat, screeching out of the parking lot before I even had a chance.

I yanked at the door handle anyway. I'd throw myself out of a moving car. We weren't going that fast yet.

But the door wouldn't open.

"Child protection locks," said Colin.

I swallowed. "What are you doing, Colin? You kidnapping me?"

He just laughed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Colin pulled the car into the back lot of Shamrock's bar, a notorious hangout for the O'Shaunessys. He opened up the back door and yanked me out of the back seat.

"What are we doing here?" I said.

"We're going to talk, like I said." He tugged me through the back door.

We emerged into a room full of pool tables. There was a dart board on one wall. The room was mostly empty, but there were a few guys at one of the pool tables. They looked up at us, and I recognized one of them as Derek O'Shaunessy.

From the way he stiffened, I was pretty sure that he recognized me as well.

But Colin didn't pay them any mind. He pulled me out of the back room, through another door, down a dark hallway, and inside another smaller room. He shut the door behind us and flicked on the light.

The room had a sagging couch along one wall and a sink and fridge on the other. It was like some kind of break room for the employees who worked here or something.

Colin pushed me down on the couch.

"What the hell?" I managed. I wanted to sound outraged, but my voice was trembling. It was obvious that I was terrified. This wasn't cool. I was completely out of control, and I was trapped in this room with this guy, who wasn't exactly trustworthy. I had no idea what he was going to do to me.

Colin tackled me, pressing my body down into the couch, all of his hard, muscled girth jamming against me.

The breath went out of me. I was startled.

His lips were at my neck, his hands underneath my shirt.

I tried to push his hands away. "Colin, please. What do you think you're doing?"

He grinned at me. "I can't keep my hands off you. Every time I see you, I want you again. You are such a sexy little slut."

"Stop it," I said, but my voice didn't carry any authority. I was terrified—scared out of my mind. I was going to get raped on a couch in the back room of Shamrock's bar, and there wasn't anything that I was going to be able to do about it.

The worst thing was that it was going to be hell to prove it was rape anyway. I'd already consented to him twice before... well, maybe you could discount the blackout, but that would be tough to prove. Anyway, his high-priced lawyers would drag me through the dirt, and I had a lot of dirt, and...

Shit, he was going to rape me, and I was probably not even going to bother reporting it.

Fuck, how did this happen to me? How did I get here? How did I become this person?

I struggled against him, pushing at his chest. "Get off of me. Stop it. Stop it now. I mean it." My voice was shrill.

He pulled up for a minute. "Hey, are you serious?"

"Hell, yes, I'm fucking serious. What do you think you're doing, you jackass?"

He stood up, furrowing his brow. "No. No way. You wanted this. I could tell you were just begging me—"

"Let me out of this room." I vaulted off the couch and started for the door.

He backed against the door, blocking my path. "Wait a second. We still haven't had a chance to talk."

"How many times do I have to tell you that there is nothing to talk about?"

"I don't believe you. There is something between us. I never felt a connection like this before."

"There's no connection." My hands were shaking.

"There's a connection, all right." He stepped forward. "I'm going to show it to you. When we're close, I know you feel it." He wrapped his arms around me, his mouth on my mouth.

I struggled, screaming against his lips.

The door opened.

"Colin, what the hell?"

Colin let go of me and turned. "Dude, some privacy?"

A guy walked into the room, and I recognized him immediately as Johnny O'Shaunessy. I'd arrested this guy before. Pike and I together, back years ago, when we were still partners.

"You know who the fuck that is?" Johnny pointed at me.

"She's Ivy," said Colin.

"She's a cop."

"She's a private eye," Colin countered.

I swallowed hard. Things were bad before, but now they were worse. As a general rule, mobsters weren't particularly thrilled with the officers who'd arrested them. Johnny didn't like me, and he probably wanted to hurt me. "It's true. I'm not a cop anymore."

Johnny sneered at me. "Where's your big, bad partner now?"

"I work alone," I said.

Johnny reached for me.

Colin stopped him. "What the fuck you think you're doing?"

"She's a fucking cop. You don't bring a cop in here. You don't kiss a cop," said Johnny.

"I'm telling you. She's not a cop," said Colin.

"Sure as fuck used to be. Which is the same thing in my book." He reached for me again.

Colin shoved him. "Leave her alone."

Johnny shoved Colin. "Back off, fucker. You don't even belong back here. You skipped out on the family a long time ago."

Colin's face got red. He balled up a fist and slugged Johnny in the jaw.

Johnny's head snapped back, but he recovered quickly and drove a fist into Colin's stomach.

Taking advantage of the distraction, I scurried past them into the hallway.

"Get back here!" yelled Johnny.

I threw open the first door I came to and flung myself inside.

It was a storage closet, full of kegs of beer. I found a corner and crouched behind a stack of kegs.

It was quiet and dark inside here. All I could hear was the sound of my own breath. I endeavored to breathe less loudly, but it was hard. I was still scared.

For several minutes, there was nothing. I was alone in the darkness, hiding behind the kegs, smelling a musty beer smell, as if the walls and floor were seeped in the stuff.

Then the door opened.

I jumped, startled.

I couldn't see anything, not in the dark, behind the keg.

"Hey, you in there, bitch?" came Johnny's voice.

"Man, why the fuck you gotta be such a dick?" said Colin. "She's not hiding in there. She's probably back at my car, and probably wants to get the hell out of here. Thanks so much for the cockblock."

"Yeah, whatever. She wasn't hot for you, man. If she's been spending time with you, it's because she's trying to take down the family. She's a cop. She's the enemy."

I held my breath. If they found me back here, either Johnny would hurt me or Colin would "rescue" me. But I wasn't keen on whatever Colin would do to me once he'd done that.

"She's not a cop. I'm telling you. She's a private investigator," said Colin.

Someone switched the light on, and I jumped.

Shit! Had they seen my movement? I looked to the left side and to the right, trying to make sure that I was completely hidden by the kegs.

"She's a cop. Trust me, I know."

Oh my God, my leg was sticking out. I needed to move it, to hide it. But what if they noticed the movement? What if that caught their eye and caused them to see me?

I cringed. What should I do?

"I'm not standing here and looking through the storage room, okay?" said Colin.

"We gotta find this bitch. You don't understand. If she's here, she's doing something to try to hurt the family in some way. She's using you to get close, and now she'll be in here, spying—"

"She's not a fucking cop!" Colin sounded pretty pissed off now.

"Whatever." The light snapped off.

Oh, were they leaving?

Good. Leave, I willed them.

"The last time I saw her, she was a fucking cop," said Johnny, but his voice was getting a little farther away.

"Well when was that?" Colin's voice was drifting away too.

Johnny said something in return, but I couldn't make it out. They were walking out of my earshot.

I grinned, letting out a relieved sigh.

My first inclination was to get out of there right away, but I forced myself not to move.

I needed to be sure that they were far enough away that they wouldn't see me leave the room.

So, I waited.

The position that I was in wasn't very comfortable. I was getting a cramp in my calf. I carefully tried to massage it, but it didn't help very much. I adjusted as carefully and quietly as I could, putting my back against the wall, stretching out my legs a bit.

But they collided with the kegs.

Shit.

I reached forward to steady them.

That was the last thing I needed. If I knocked over the kegs, then I'd bring everyone running. That would make a lot of noise.

I should get up now, shouldn't I? Why was I staying in here? Colin and Johnny were gone, and there wasn't any reason not to get moving.

But how long had it really been since they'd walked off? Maybe they were still in the hallway. Maybe I should give it a few minutes, just to be on the safe side. I knew that Johnny had it in for me, and I could still taste Colin's mouth on mine, a mix of alcohol and breath mints. I didn't want Colin to touch me, not ever again.

Oh fuck, when I thought about how close I'd been to getting...

Shit. I wanted to cry. When it had been happening, I think I'd been too horrified to react emotionally, but now it was all crashing down around me. Colin Pugliano was not a good guy, and he had it bad for me, and I didn't know how I was going to protect myself.

I needed a gun.

I could probably get one, too, if I needed to, even if it wasn't legal for me to carry it. It would be worth it, because then if Colin tried anything else—

But no, what was I thinking? If I shot Colin with an illegal gun, I would get in a ridiculous amount of trouble.

Maybe I wouldn't have to shoot him, though. Maybe I could just scare him with it.

Still, I'd always been taught that you don't take out a gun unless you're prepared to use it.

I shook myself. Okay, this was silly. Why was I sitting here, thinking about this behind the kegs in the Shamrock's storage room? Enough time had surely passed by now. I'd just go ahead and get out of here.

I tried to get to my feet. But when I moved my legs, I realized both of them were asleep.

Painful pins and needles radiated up to my torso.

I winced. Crap, that didn't feel good.

But the only way I was going to get blood pumping back into my legs was to stand up. Wedging my back against the wall, I began to push myself into a standing position. Each inch higher was agony. God, how had my legs gotten so asleep so fast? Or maybe it was just hurting so bad because I was going so slowly, trying hard not to knock over the kegs.

The light in the room came back on.

I froze. Shit.

"In here," said a voice.

Okay, I didn't think that was either Colin or Johnny. It was someone else.

"Dude, why are we going into the storage closet?" A different voice.

My heart thudded. I stayed right where I was, wedged against the wall, half standing, half crouching. I didn't dare move.

"Because we got problems, dude," said the first voice.

Blood was still flowing back into my asleep legs. It hurt like fuck. I grimaced and didn't make noise.

"What kind of problems?"

"Problems with Cori."

Cori? Wait a second. Why does that name sound familiar? I wondered.

"That little piece of freshman ass you picked up at the college? Why would she be a problem? She can't be a buck ten soaking wet."

"Not everything is about size, Pumbaa."

Pumbaa? What was it about gangsters and nicknames from Disney movies, anyway?

Pumbaa laughed. "Well, what kind of problems she causing?"

"She's taking over our territory. I hear stories that she's swinging X at parties in Keene."

"What are you talking about?" said Pumbaa. "That's your piece of ass, man. Can't you control her?"

"Yeah, that's the thing. We're not together anymore. It's a whole big story. I don't feel like getting into it."

"Fair enough. But how's she getting her supply, if she's not getting it from us?"

"I don't know that either. But she's got something. Look, I introduced her to half of the people she's selling to right now. I set her up. I let all the customers know who she was. Now, she sails in there and takes over, and it makes me look bad. If anyone finds out..."

"What do you want to do about it?" said Pumbaa.

"We got to figure out some way to stop her."

"You mean, you want me to stop her?"

"I don't want her hurt. At least, not bad. Just... scare her mostly?"

"I don't know, Chase. She's just a kid. And she's a girl."

"All right, we'll talk about it more later, but I just wanted to take this chance to explain the situation, okay?"

A sigh. "You screwed up bad, dude."

"Shut up." The sound of the door opening.

The light flipped off. "Just saying, you go chasing that young tail, and bad shit happens."

They were leaving.

I strained my ears to listen as their conversation dwindled.

Cori. Were they talking about Cori Donovan, the girl I'd spoken to in the back of Nick's? She'd sworn up and down not to be a drug dealer. If it was the same Cori, then it was pretty clear she'd lied to me.

Man, maybe there was something to the drug thing when it came to Madison. After all, I couldn't get her boss to talk to me about it, and—

This was not the time to think about this shit. I was getting out of there, and I wasn't going to wait around forever this time either.

I scrambled out from behind the kegs, back into the dark room. The door was open onto the hallway, and a sliver of light shone through.

I made my way over to the door and eased it open a little bit. I stuck my head out the door and looked up and down the hallway.

Empty.

And there was a door at one end. It had an exit sign over it. That door was the way out.

I surged out of the closet and made a run for it. I wanted out of here as fast as I could.

I threw myself out the exit door and into the welcoming afternoon air. I didn't think anything had ever felt quite so good.

Now, how to get out of here? Shamrock's was on the complete other side of town than my car, which was still parked at Happy's.

Luckily, I still had my phone. I yanked it out of my pocket and dialed the cab company. I told them where I was, and they promised to be there in ten minutes.

But now I had to hang out near Shamrock's for ten minutes waiting for the cab. Which I wasn't exactly excited about. Colin was probably still looking for me, and I didn't want to see him.

Should I call the cab company back and tell them to pick me up a block down or something?

I could, but by now, they'd probably already dispatched a driver to my location, and they might not be able to get in touch with him to tell him to change the pickup. I wasn't even sure how the cab company dispatched drivers anyway. Did they call people in their cars or send them out from the cab station? Maybe they had walkie-talkies in their cars. But I couldn't ever remember hearing a cab driver talk on a walkie-talkie. For that matter, I'd never seen one on a cell phone either.

I should just call. This was the twenty-first century. They'd have some way to get in touch with the driver.

"Ivy."

I whirled.

Colin was coming around the back of the building.

Crap.

I turned back around, nearly tripping over my feet. I teetered, struggling for balance.

"Ivy, why'd you run from me?"

I managed to right myself, and I took off, running for the front of the building. It was on the street, and there would be people there. He couldn't rape me in front of people. Plus, the cab was going to be there. Soon, I hoped.

"Ivy!" he yelled.

I ran as fast as I could, emerging on the sidewalk in front of Shamrock's. There was as sign on the front of the building, an illustrated leprechaun next to the name.

A few guys were lounging on the steps, smoking cigarettes.

"Hey there," said one of them. "Where you going in such a hurry, honey?"

Generally, anyone who was that familiar with me right off the bat would be a guy that I would steer clear of. But right at this moment, I could use a little machismo, and men like that were always full of themselves.

I ran over to him, my voice shaking. "He won't leave me alone."

"Who won't?"

At that moment, Colin burst around the building.

The guy who'd spoken to me let out a low laugh. "Colin, are you terrorizing this poor girl?"

Shit. They knew each other.

Of course they knew each other. This was Shamrock's, and it was all one big incestuous clusterfuck.

Where was the goddamned cab?

"Come here, honey," said the guy. "I'll keep you safe from Colin." And then he laughed again.

I swallowed, lurching towards the edge of the sidewalk. I peered down the road, hoping to see the cab driving up.

"Ivy." Colin was right next to me.

Could I see even just a hint of yellow? Somewhere?

He grabbed my shoulder.

I shook him off. "Keep your hands to yourself."

He took a step back. "What the heck is going on?"

"What's going on is that you're deaf," I said. "I told you that I don't want anything to do with you."

He gave me a look that was half frustration and half disbelief. "Are you playing with me? Is this some kind of game?"

"No game, Colin."

"But-but—" He was sputtering.

"I don't want to see you ever again," I said.

He still couldn't form words. His face was turning red.

And then—thank God—the cab pulled up. I ran for it. For good measure, I threw over my shoulder. "And you have a small penis!"

Which was a lie. His penis was not small, not at all. But I figure that if I embarrassed him in public, he'd be less likely to think that we had a connection or whatever the hell he thought. As I slid into the cab, I could only hope that he'd leave me the hell alone from now on.

* * *

"Jesus, Ivy," said Crane in a quiet voice.

It was four in the afternoon, and I was in the bar in town, sipping on a Jack and Coke. I'd needed something stronger than a High Life after the day I'd had. I hadn't expected anyone else to be here in the bar, but Crane was there. We were two of about seven customers, and we were sharing a table in the back.

"Yeah, it was pretty insane," I said. "After the cab took me back to my car, I couldn't handle going back to the office, so I called Brigit and told her to close down everything on her own, and I came straight here."

He puffed on his e-cigarette, bathing us in a chocolate-mint scent. "Ivy, you shouldn't be doing shit like that."

"I didn't," I protested. "I was taken against my will."

"It's dangerous."

"No shit."

"Well, I don't like it. I worry about you. After a story like that, I'm going to worry about you more."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please, Crane, don't get like that. You do not own me, and you don't get to tell me what to do. Just because I slept with a crazy guy—"

"That's not what it's about. It's about you being safe."

"I used to be a police officer. That wasn't safe."

"You could call backup when you were a police officer." He furrowed his brow. "Who are you supposed to call now, huh?"

He had a point.

But I wasn't going to admit that to him. Besides, there wasn't anything I could have done about this situation. Well, besides not sleeping with Colin in the first place and not getting blackout drunk the other night at the bar, I supposed. Still, I hadn't asked to be kidnapped, taken to Shamrock's, and nearly forced against my will.

"Speaking of the police," he continued. "You should report this."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, get real, Crane. This is the O'Shaunessys. They're richer than Satan. This would go nowhere. If it even made it to trial, their lawyers would rip it to shreds. No one likes me, you know. I don't exactly have an exemplary character."

"There's nothing wrong with your character," he said. "Just because you sleep around a little bit—"

"Oh, let's face it, I'm out of control. I have ethics, you know, and I've sworn never to get it on with a client. Admittedly, I never thought this would happen, but I knew it was a bad idea. I knew all of that, and I did it anyway. Something's fucking wrong with me."

He looked down into his own drink and didn't say anything.

I turned my glass around on the table. I hadn't brought the coaster I'd gotten from the bar, and it was leaving a ring of condensation on the wooden surface.

"Listen, everybody's got something wrong with them," said Crane, taking a thoughtful puff on his e-cigarette. "Trust me, I know that I'm not anything close to normal here. But the thing is, no one's normal. Everyone's got something screwy going on—sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's psychological, sometimes it's both."

"Doesn't mean that people don't judge me. They think I'm a slut, and they aren't wrong."

"It's why they judge you," he said. "What's wrong with you isn't wrong with them, and that makes them feel better. They say to themselves, 'Well, I might be fantasizing about having sex with chickens, but I don't do that.'"

I laughed a little.

He gave me a wry smile.

I laid a hand on his leg. "Hey, how are you doing, anyway? The last time I saw you..."

He laughed, looking embarrassed. "Well, you were right. I stopped taking my meds. So, I started taking them again, and it's already better. It'll take a while before they build up to full strength, though."

"Why'd you stop?"

He shrugged. "Why'd you sleep with your client?"

I nodded. "It's like that, huh?"

"Sometimes, I just do stupid things. I might have reasons at the time, but they almost never make any sense in retrospect. Like I routinely lose my ability to think things through."

I laughed. "Well, I know how that goes."

"Yeah, I think you're doing it right now. That Colin guy is bad news, and I think you need to tell the authorities. You could get a restraining order or something, right?"

I sighed. "Crane, drop it. It's over. I got away. I don't want to think about it anymore."

"Yeah, and what if he shows up at your office tomorrow with a gun and blows your head off?"

I toyed with the straw in my drink. "That's not going to happen."

"You don't know that."

I didn't respond.

It was quiet between us for several minutes.

I sucked my drink through the tiny stirrer straw.

Crane sighed heavily. "Fine. I need another drink. You want something?"

* * *

There was someone waiting for me at the office the next day when I got there, but it wasn't Colin Pugliano. Instead, it was Brian, the restaurant manager. He was pacing in the waiting room area, drumming his fingers against his thigh.

"He's been here since I opened the doors," said Brigit. "But if you need a couple minutes to get yourself together—"

"No, it's fine," I said. I raised my voice. "Brian? You want to come back to my office?"

He turned to look at me and nodded.

I gestured for him to follow me, and he did. Once inside the inner office, I sat down behind my desk and got out my legal pad. "Have a seat."

"No, that's all right," he said. "I don't have a lot to say anyway."

"I didn't think you wanted to talk to me," I said.

He glared down at me. "I didn't. But I didn't want you coming back to the restaurant and bothering me again and again, like you were threatening to do."

"I wasn't threatening you. I only want to ask a few questions."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." He rubbed his chin. "Look, Madison Webb was a good worker, but I didn't know much about her. I was surprised when she stopped showing up for work, but I didn't think that anything had happened to her. In our business, we have a pretty high turnover rate, so I just chalked it up to typical attrition and moved on. She was one of over thirty employees, and nothing about her really stood out."

Then why are you so nervous? But what I said instead was, "What about this drug test you were making her take?"

"We order employees to take random drug tests," he said. "I don't remember ordering Madison to take one, but I might have. I get a notice that I'm supposed to pick someone, and so I do."

"So, it was random. You didn't suspect Madison of doing drugs?"

"Not really." He shrugged. "Look, everyone in that restaurant is partaking of something on the illegal side after hours. Honestly, I don't really care about what they do with their free time as long as it's not affecting their performances."

"And Madison's performance wasn't affected?"

"No, she was fine. Or at least, I don't remember much about her, so there must not have been a problem."

"I see."

"Is that all, then? Can I go? You won't come by the restaurant again?"

"Well, I can't promise that, of course. I'm still working on an active investigation into Madison's death. If I need to come back to the restaurant, then I will. I might even need to talk to you again."

"No." He shook his head. "You leave me out of this. I got nothing to do with this. I'm a good guy, Ms. Stern. I don't hurt women."

"I didn't say that you did." I knitted my brows together. Why was he being so defensive?

"You won't leave me alone, though. You're coming by and asking about me all the time, and you want to talk to me about Madison. Well, if something happened to her, I didn't do it."

"We don't know that anything happened to her. She could have run away."

"You think she ran away?" He gave me a terrified look, and then he plopped down in the chair opposite me. "You don't think someone hurt her?"

I leaned forward. "Do you think someone hurt her?"

"No, I... I don't know. I don't know anything." He took a deep breath. "I thought that you were accusing me of something."

"I'm not. I'm only looking for information." But you've just moved to the top of my suspect list now that you're acting so weird.

"I just thought..." He fidgeted, staring at his fingers. "Well, um, well, that's good. Because I'm not the kind of guy that would hurt a girl, and I don't want you to think that about me."

"What makes you think that Madison was hurt?"

"Well, why would someone be investigating if she wasn't?"

"Because we don't know where she is," I said. "It's fairly rare to jump to the conclusion this is a homicide case without some evidence. A body, for instance. Until then, Madison is just a missing person, and there's only so much the police can do for a concerned loved one. That's why Madison's brother reached out to me."

"Her brother?" Brian shook his head. "Of course he thinks something bad happened to her. He's the type to think the worst."

"You know her brother?"

"He came into the restaurant once looking for her. They had an argument. He didn't like her working as a waitress or something."

"You remember that? I thought you didn't remember much of anything about Madison."

He leaped to his feet, pointing at me. "See? You are accusing me of something, aren't you? You're not just taking me at my word. You're trying to twist me up and make me mess up or something. Well, forget about it. I'm not talking to you anymore."

"Hold on a second. I only wanted to—"

He stormed out of my office, throwing open the door.

I got up and went after him.

But he was determined, and he ignored me when I called after him.

I sighed. I wasn't going to pursue him out of the building. If he didn't want to talk to me, I couldn't force him. But I wondered what was going on with that guy. Why was he so paranoid?

"I think that guy was on something," said Brigit.

"On something?" I said. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Some kind of speed, maybe. He was wired."

Huh. Did Brian do drugs? If Brian did drugs, why would be be on Madison's case about taking a drug test? Of course, maybe he was telling the truth about the tests truly being random. I couldn't be sure.

I needed some time to think about Brian, because I wasn't sure how he might fit.

I turned to Brigit. "Speaking of drugs, you think you could get me in touch with Cori Donovan again?"

"Um, probably," said Brigit. "But why? I thought that she wasn't giving anything up."

"Well, I found out some stuff about her yesterday, and I think she knows more than she's letting on."

"What exactly happened yesterday? Why didn't you come back to the office?"

I made a face. "Brigit, trust me, you don't want to know."

CHAPTER NINE

"You again." Cori Donovan was in the library on campus at Keene College. Brigit had told me just where to find her. She had friends who knew these kinds of things, apparently.

"Hi." I gave her a little wave.

Cori got up from the computer where she'd been sitting. "I don't want to talk to you."

"I know that," I said. "You made that pretty clear when you lied to me the last time I talked to you."

"I didn't lie. You accused me of illegal activity. I was offended." Cori moved the mouse and clicked a few things, logging off the computer. Then she turned and walked away.

I went after her.

We waded through the computers, which were set up in little pods throughout this room in the library—labeled Media Center.

"I know you sell drugs, Cori. I know because I overheard a conversation at Shamrock's about you."

She walked faster, moving out of the media center and into the stacks of books.

I caught her by the shoulder. "You know someone who calls himself Pumbaa?"

She turned around. "Leave me alone."

"How about..." What had Pumbaa called him? "Chase. An ex-boyfriend of yours." I was really proud of myself for recalling this conversation in such detail, especially considering I'd been terrified at the time. Apparently, I'd really honed my investigative instincts. I was kind of awesome.

Her eyes widened. "You been talking to Chase?"

"I may have... contacts within the O'Shaunessy family." Total lie, of course, but she'd started it.

She folded her arms over her chest and looked one way and then the other. Then she yanked me down one of the aisles of books. "Look, I'm not working with the O'Shaunessys."

"No, so I understand. You've got some other supplier, and you've poached their territory and customers. They're kind of mad."

She paled. "What were you saying about Pumbaa?"

"I'll tell you more if you tell me what you know about Madison. You sold her drugs, right?"

"No, I never did. Madison was just a friend. We met at a party, and we hung out a few times. I sold some X to her other friends, but never Madison. She wasn't into it."

I raised my eyebrows. "So Madison didn't do drugs? I find that hard to believe, considering I've had other people tell me that she did."

"I didn't say she was straight-edge, did I? No, she liked to partake, but X wasn't her thing."

"So, she did drugs, just not ecstasy."

"Do you have to keep saying 'drugs'?"

I laughed. "What would you like me to call them instead? Candy?"

"Sure. Fine." Cori looked around again, clearly nervous.

"What was Madison into?"

"Maybe coke," said Cori. "Maybe some other amphetamines. Pills. Ritalin, maybe."

"Ritalin? The stuff they prescribe to little kids?"

Cori nodded. "Yeah, people love that shit. It wakes you up and focuses you. It's especially popular on college campuses. Lets you party all night and still concentrate enough to take an exam the next morning."

"Madison had already graduated."

"Right, but she was looking for stuff to help her get through the day at the restaurant. She'd be up all night, trying to hang the way she did when she was still in school, and then she'd have to go to work, and she'd feel like hell. She was taking stuff to help her perform at work. That way, she could have it both ways. Party hard and work hard."

I guessed that made sense. I still hadn't quite gotten that balanced out, in fact. I knew I drank too much. But I forced myself not to think about that. I was focusing on Cori and Madison right now, not the train wreck of my life.

"So," I said, "she was buying stuff to keep her awake."

"Yeah," said Cori.

"But not from you." I wasn't sure I believed this.

"No, not from me."

"You know I'm not a cop, right? You know I can't bust you for dealing."

"I'm not lying about this." Cori sighed. "Look, I got a hookup for product, but it's only X, it's nothing else. That's all I provide to anyone. Besides, I'm not really down with stuff as hard as cocaine and the prescription stuff."

I snorted. "Ecstasy's somehow better. Shit kills people. I read about it."

"Shit kills people when they mix it with stuff." Cori glared at me. "I sell pure molly from a good source. It's safe, and it's harmless. It only makes you feel good. It makes people like themselves, and it makes them like other people, and it makes the world a big love bubble. There's nothing bad about that. I don't care what people like you say. You don't get it."

"Fine," I said. I had no interest in having a druggie debate with Cori. I wouldn't be able to hold back my opinions. Some whack jobs had shot both my parents dead when I was a teenager, and they were whacked out because of whatever drugs they'd been taking, so I didn't think that drugs were all rainbows and love beads. But I didn't need to get into that with Cori. She could think what she wanted.

"It's not fine, though," she said. "I see you judging me—"

"Everyone's judging everyone else," I said. "Get over it." Wasn't that what Crane had told me yesterday? "Listen, Cori, if you weren't selling her this stuff, then tell me who was."

"I don't know. I never saw her buy it," said Cori. "But I bet it had to be the O'Shaunessys. They're the only game in town that would have that kind of product."

"Maybe she bought them from your ex?"

"Chase? No, Chase was swinging X, not anything else. At least not that he told me. But there are all kinds of different businesses going on with that family, you know?"

I did know. "So, you have no idea who was selling it to her?"

"Well, I know she'd go out of town to get it. She wouldn't just buy it at a party or something. She was a habitual user, and she'd go regular to her dealer. That was somebody in Renmawr, some O'Shaunessy, but I don't know who."

"You were dating an O'Shaunessy—"

"It's a big family. Besides, I thought you had contacts there."

Damn it. The problem with a lie was that it was so easy to get caught in it. "Yeah, okay. I'll do my own digging if you really don't know anything."

"Do you know anything? What you were saying about Pumbaa?"

"That Chase of yours sounds like a real prince. He said he didn't want you hurt. Well, not hurt bad."

Cori blanched even whiter. "Do you, um, know when? Where?"

I shook my head, feeling sorry for her.

"Shit," she muttered. "Look, I really need to go. I need to deal with this."

"Did Madison ever indicate to you that there was any kind of problem with her dealer?"

"No. She paid on time. She was a regular." Cori dragged a hand over her face. "But with the O'Shaunessys, who can be sure? They tend to change their minds pretty quick. Maybe there was bad blood there, and I just didn't know about it."

"Well," I said, "if you can't tell me anything else..."

She shook her head. "No, that's all I know. Look, I hope you find her. I hope she's okay."

It wasn't looking good, but I didn't say that. I just agreed with her and let her go. Truth be told, Cori Donovan and I weren't in situations that different. We both had bad dealings with an O'Shaunessy, and we were both apprehensive. I knew how she felt. I hoped things went better for her.

Of course, she could probably stop this entire problem by simply not selling drugs.

I couldn't feel too sorry for her, I guessed.

But it was true what Crane said. People tended to demonize the weaknesses in other people that we didn't struggle with. I didn't know what kind of issues Cori had. But acting as if I was as pure as the driven snow was misrepresenting myself. I had my own issues.

* * *

"You didn't tell me you got a new assistant," said Eden, beaming at Brigit.

Brigit beamed back. "Hi there."

Inwardly, I groaned. Eden and Brigit were both way too cheerful, weren't they? I didn't want to think about how insufferable they'd be if I let the two of them interact for too long. By themselves, they were manageable. Together, I might murder them both.

"You got the laptop for me or what?" I asked Eden.

Eden offered Brigit her hand. "I'm Eden. I do computer stuff."

Brigit shook her hand. "I'm Brigit. I just started recently. It's such an exciting job, you know?"

"Oh, definitely," said Eden. "Just don't let Ivy here grump you to death. She's always in a bad mood."

"I'm not," I said. "I'm not always in a bad mood. Hand over the laptop, please."

Eden and Brigit both started laughing.

I put my hands on my hips. "What?"

Eden, still laughing, gave me the laptop. "I like Brigit much better than the last one. I think she'll be good for you."

I snatched the computer away. "Thanks for this. You want a check or you want me to Paypal you?"

"I'll send you an invoice," she said. "I hate having to go to the actual bank, don't you?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so." I didn't have strong feelings about the bank.

Eden gave me a hug. "Have you talked to Miles since?"

I pushed her away, glancing meaningfully at Brigit.

"That a no?"

"Who's Miles?" said Brigit.

I shut my eyes, trying as hard as I could not to start screaming.

"Miles is Ivy's ex," said Eden.

My eyes snapped open. "Jesus!"

Eden and Brigit both gave me innocent eyes.

"I don't want to talk about that, okay?" I said. "Especially not with my assistant. It's my personal business."

Eden rolled her eyes. "Oh, sorry."

"Don't," I said. "You have no idea how to respect boundaries. Get out of my office."

"You're always overreacting," she said, turning to go.

I stalked over to the door and opened it pointedly.

She left, but she was smirking.

I shut the door after her. God, I could kill her. Really, I could.

"You have an ex?" said Brigit.

"Brigit, I don't want to talk about that," I growled.

She shrugged. "Okay."

Taking the laptop with me, I made a beeline back to my desk and slammed the door after me.

Once alone, I didn't do anything but breathe for several moments. I needed to calm down so that I could focus. It was one thing for Eden to know about issues with Miles. We were friends. We used to be roommates. But Brigit worked for me, and she was ten years younger than me. She looked up to me, or she would have if I weren't such a fuck-up. She'd already seen Colin Pugliano one evening. Who knew what she thought about that?

People might be judging me all the time, but I'd appreciate it if my assistant wasn't. I needed to work with her, and I needed her respect. Besides, my last assistant had judged me plenty, and that hadn't worked out.

I threw myself down in my desk. I couldn't think about this right now. I needed to focus on something else.

I opened the laptop.

No password screen anymore. Instead, it booted right up to the desktop. I got the computer to connect to the wireless in the office and then I opened up the Internet and went straight to her social media sites.

I combed through her Facebook messages, but I couldn't find anything too interesting there. She hadn't communicated much with messages, it seemed. Most of them were months old.

Twitter didn't have anything that wasn't publicly visible.

So, I began checking the regular suspects to try to find an email client.

I got lucky first time out and found a Gmail address. I scrolled through her inbox, which was jammed with a lot of unread messages at this point, although most of them were advertisements for places like Amazon and Best Buy.

Man. That was the thing about email. It could contain all kinds of good information about a person, but it was a pain in the ass to sift through. Generally, I'd pawn off a job like this on my assistant, but I couldn't handle talking to Brigit right now.

For about five minutes, I just scrolled through messages, hitting the button to see older ones at the end of every page.

I scanned each message for something suspicious, something that might help me figure out what had happened to Madison.

This was getting me nowhere.

I sat back in my chair and scrutinized the screen.

On a whim, I leaned forward again and typed Brian's name into the search box on the email screen.

The screen filled with search results.

My heart leapt.

And then it sank again. It seemed that Brian emailed out the schedule to employees at the restaurant every Monday. These weren't personal emails. They were just mass messages sent to everyone.

Except...

Wait, what was that?

The subject line was blank, not like the other messages that had the date on them.

I clicked it.

Same time tomorrow? it read.

Below, I could see Madison's attached response in the conversation. Definitely.

I kept scrolling.

Another message without a subject from Brian: You coming tonight?

Madison's response: Can't. Hanging out with my brother.

The brother that snoops on your phone and won't stay out of your business?

Madison hadn't responded.

Okay, okay. I didn't know what this meant, but I did know that it meant that Brian was lying to me when he said he didn't really remember Madison and that he didn't know her very well. He clearly did.

If it wasn't obvious before, it was obvious now that he was hiding something.

CHAPTER TEN

"You knew her." I had printed out the emails and now I set them all down in front of Brian, who was at a table in the back of Happy's. He had two cash drawers out, and he appeared to be counting down the money. "She wasn't some random employee. You were sending her emails."

He glanced down at the pieces of paper, his face a mask of terror. "You can't keep coming to my place of work, lady. You're undermining my authority here and getting in the way of my job."

I sat down on the opposite side of the table. "Talk to me, Brian. What are these about? Why were you emailing her?"

"Oh God, oh God." His voice was high-pitched and terrified. He looked around the restaurant as if he was hoping for an escape route to appear before him.

"What did you do to Madison?" I pushed. This guy had guilt. Big guilt, and I was going to find out what it was.

"Nothing." An indignant squeak.

"Don't bullshit me. I know you're hiding something. You and Madison had some kind of relationship, didn't you? Were you sleeping together?"

"No, she had some stupid boyfriend that she wanted to be faithful to even though he apparently wasn't being faithful to her. Got some other chick pregnant or something, and yet Madison still wanted to stand by him. I didn't get it."

"So, you admit that you and Madison were closer than what you said before?"

"We weren't close."

"You lied to me, Brian."

He cringed. "I don't want to do this. I don't want to talk to you. Don't I get a lawyer or something?"

"You get a lawyer if you're arrested," I said.

"I'm not arrested?"

"I'm just trying to ask you some questions." I might have pointed out the fact that I couldn't arrest him, but I thought that might weaken my stance here, so I left that out.

He took a deep breath. "Right. Questions."

"Why did you send these emails to Madison? What was your relationship?"

"We were just... friends." He looked nervous. "We hung out sometimes after work. That's it. That's really all."

I sorted through the emails. "This. You asked her if she was coming tonight? Coming where?"

"I don't know. Could have been all kinds of places. We went out. We went to parties. We went to clubs. It's all kind of a blur."

"You and Madison went alone? No one else came along?"

"Well, sometimes people did, sometimes they didn't."

"But you weren't involved. There was nothing romantic going on."

"No."

I didn't buy this. Something wasn't adding up. "If you and Madison were just friends, why did you go to all the trouble of hiding it from me? And why didn't anyone at work know you were friends? All I got from the other workers here was that there was friction between you two."

He cringed.

"Come on, Brian, come clean."

"Not so loud." He leaned across the table. "Look, let's go outside."

"You going to tell me the truth outside?"

"I..." He got up from the table and started for the door.

I got up too.

He stopped and turned back around. "Hey! Meg, keep an eye on the money, all right?"

"Got it, boss!" came an answering call.

Brian and I stepped outside of the restaurant. He looked from side to side, as if he was worried that people might be listening or watching.

"Look," said Brian in a quiet voice, "Madison hooked me up sometimes. That's how it all got started."

"You and Madison hooked up? But you just said—"

"No, she hooked me up. She got me stuff."

I raised my eyebrows. "Stuff? You mean drugs."

Brian looked around again, making sure there still wasn't anyone listening. "Yeah. Mostly coke, but sometimes some other stuff too. That was what it was all about, seriously. We weren't, like, together or anything like that, even though her brother seemed to think we were."

That was right. One of the messages had mentioned the brother. "Why'd he think that?"

"Well, at first, I was just texting Madison, not sending her email. Like a normal person would. But apparently, her brother got hold of her phone, and he started asking her all these questions and calling her names and shit. He did that when he came to the restaurant too. Called her a whore. I didn't understand why she would even give him the time of day, but she was always making excuses for him. Anyway, she scrubbed her phone, took off all her apps, and she told me to email her instead of calling. That way her brother wouldn't know."

Well, that explained why Madison's phone didn't have email on it, then. Huh. "I don't understand, Brian. You've been acting shady about this from the moment I tried to talk to you. Why?"

"I don't want it broadcasted out there that I'm doing cocaine to get through my shifts here. I could lose my job. I need this job."

"Did you ever give Madison a drug test?"

"Yeah, I had to do the random ones. She was pissed about it, because she said I was a hypocrite. She wasn't wrong. Anyway, I told her I'd hold off on it, and that the coke should be out of her system in three or four days. She just needed to stay clean and drink a lot of water. She did. She took the test. She passed. But she was really pissed, and everyone saw us arguing about it."

"So that's why people thought there was friction between you two."

"I guess so. Look, I didn't want my employees knowing that I was doing coke either. Madison promised to keep her mouth shut, and I guess she did."

Hmm. Maybe that was a possible motive? Brian wanted to make sure that Madison didn't talk?

"You go to visit her at home?"

"No. I didn't even know where she lived."

"But it wasn't just her procuring cocaine for you, was it? You guys also went out to clubs and parties?"

"Yeah, after a while, we started to hang out sometimes. See, at first, she was real secretive about her dealer. Said the guy was twitchy and that he didn't want any new people brought in. So, if I wanted anything, I had to give her the money and she brought it back. We wouldn't pass it off at work, so we'd meet at parties or at clubs, and she'd give me what I'd paid for. After a while, we did get more friendly. We'd hang out a little bit, sometimes do a few lines together. And over time, she finally did introduce me to her dealer."

"She did, huh?"

"Yeah, his name was Derek, I think. I never caught a last name, but he was probably one of those O'Shaunessy boys. Had the look, if you know what I mean. Anyway, after Madison disappeared, I tried to get him to sell to me, but he wouldn't see me. Said that we couldn't do business without Madison."

I narrowed my eyes. "Did you tell him that Madison was gone?"

"I don't think so."

"But he knew?"

"Well, maybe. I don't know. He just said that without Madison, it was no deal. He didn't trust me alone." Brian swallowed. "You don't think that, um, Madison got hurt because of drugs, do you?"

"The O'Shaunessys have a reputation," I said. "I don't know, but it's something I have to check out."

"I liked her," said Brian. "She was a nice girl, and I never wanted anything bad to happen to her."

I narrowed my eyes and looked him up and down. I wasn't sure if I was satisfied or not. I didn't have proof that Brian wasn't responsible for Madison's death, but my suspicions about him had dampened during the course of the conversation. I hadn't ruled him out. He was still in the running. But other theories were starting to float to the top of my list as more probable.

* * *

"Another High Life?" asked the bartender.

"Yes, please," I said, smiling at him. I turned back to Crane. "So, there's the boyfriend, Curtis. He might have bumped her off to make his life less complicated. He was doing double-time with another girl, Debbie, who he'd knocked up."

"Baby mama sounds like she's got more of a motive." Crane sucked on his e-cigarette, which glowed green at the tip.

"Yes," I said. "She does. However, she's like five foot three and tiny. I don't see how she's physically capable of doing it without help."

"You mean her and Curtis together?"

"Possibly," I said. "But I'm not real sold on that idea. He seemed to think that she wasn't aware of his infidelity, and she was pretending not to know because of the baby. But now everything's blown up in their faces. I saw them arguing, and it seemed genuine. I don't think they're murder partners, but I could be wrong. And that would be a great plot for your book, wouldn't it?"

He blew out some thick vapor that smelled like dessert. "Fuck the book."

I laughed. "You can't fool me. You might have given up now, but I know that you'll be back at it in no time. You never quit writing for long."

"And I never finish anything either," he said. "I start and then I quit. It's pointless. There's no reason to start again."

"There is," I said. "The reason is that maybe this time you actually finish something."

He waved it away. "Let's get back to you. So far, you've named off two suspects and eliminated both of them."

"They're not eliminated, per se," I said. "They're just not at the top of the list."

"Right," he said. "So, who's at the top of the list?"

"The O'Shaunessys," I said.

"What the hell?" He furrowed his brow. "What do they have to do with anything?"

"Apparently, Madison snorted a lot of coke, and she got it from Derek O'Shaunessy. Who happened to be in this very bar a little while ago. I hung out with him when I was blackout drunk, and I've got to get a chance to talk to him again."

"Just because Derek was her dealer? How's that give him a motive?"

"Oh, there's always some kind of stupid motive when it comes to drugs. Maybe she couldn't pay. Maybe she saw something she shouldn't have seen. Maybe Derek got paranoid that she was telling too many people about him. The possibilities are endless."

Crane gestured for the bartender. "Another cranberry and vodka, please?"

The bartender came over and took his glass. We watched him assemble the new drink, dumping ice in the glass, pouring in the vodka and topping it off with cranberry juice. He tossed it in the shaker to mix it up, poured it back in the glass, and set it down in front of Crane.

Crane thanked him and told him to put it on his tab.

The bartender wandered away.

"Let's be honest, here, Ivy." Crane gestured at me with his e-cigarette. "You're focused on the O'Shaunessys because you don't like them."

"What are you talking about?"

"You've been pissed off at that family ever since you had trouble getting that murder charge to stick years back."

"Yeah, well, they've got it coming." I took a swig of my High Life.

"But does it even make sense for them to have hurt Madison?"

"I just told you it did," I said. "I laid out several very likely possibilities."

He sighed. "How you planning on getting close to Derek O'Shaunessy, huh? You think he'll just answer your questions like any other suspect?"

"Well, probably not. But the good news is that I've got an in. I've got Colin Pugliano."

"What?" Crane slapped his hand down on the bar.

"You heard me," I muttered.

He shook his head is disbelief. "Wasn't it yesterday that you were in here, practically shaking, saying that Colin Pugliano nearly raped you. You remember that?"

"Yeah, of course I remember that. But this is too important. I can use him to get close to the other members of the family, and I can get dirt on Derek. If I do my job right, I can get a murder charge to stick against one of those bastards. That's worth whatever happens. It's not like I haven't slept with Colin before, anyway. I can deal with it."

"You were terrified." He glared at me. "You were shaking. I've never seen you like that before. And now you want to go back to that guy? Are you insane?"

"Just for information." I took a drink of beer, sighing. "Of course, the last thing I said to him was that he had a small penis, so I don't know how I'm going to salvage this whole thing. I'm going to have to figure something out."

"Maybe you should let it alone."

"Let it alone?" I said. "I've been hired to solve this case."

He sighed. "Look, sometimes you get obsessive about things. One of those things is the O'Shaunessys. I think you're trying to force this case to connect to them when it really doesn't. Come on, don't you have any other suspects?"

"Well, there's the boss, but he's the one who told me about Derek O'Shaunessy."

"See? Maybe that guy was trying to throw you off his own tail by implicating the O'Shaunessys."

"No, it wasn't like that. He really didn't have any idea what he was saying when he brought it up. I don't necessarily trust him, but I don't think he was trying to get me off his trail." I tapped my bottom lip. "I definitely think the O'Shaunessy connection is something to pursue. I've got to figure that out. There's something there."

"You're going to get yourself hurt."

"That's a risk I've got to take." I squared my shoulders.

Crane took a drink. "I can't believe you sometimes."

"Don't be like that," I said. "It's not a big deal. Let's talk about your job instead, huh? You have any really funny papers get turned in lately?"

He wouldn't look at me. "I'm not going home with you tonight if you're going after the O'Shaunessys."

Seriously? Well, he was being a jerk. "That's fine. I never said I wanted to go home with you tonight. You know, it's not like I can't get laid if you don't have sex with me."

"You make me so angry sometimes."

"I'm doing my job. It's none of your business."

"It'll be my business if something happens to you. I care about you, you know?"

I sighed heavily. "Look, if it'll make you feel better, I'll try to keep it professional with Colin. I'll be upfront with him about the case and tell him I need to talk to Derek. I'll tell them to come to my office."

"I guess that's better than nothing."

"I don't think it'll work though," I said. "I'll probably have to resort to something a little bit more down and dirty."

* * *

"Look," I said into the phone, "I can appreciate that you might not want to talk to me."

Colin was quiet on the other end of the line.

"I know that I might have said and done some things that didn't make you particularly happy. And I just want you to know—"

"It's okay," he said.

I hadn't been expecting that. "It is?"

"I realize that the way I treated you the other day was wrong," he said. "I should never have been so forceful with you. I wasn't in my right mind. Truth is, I'm really upset about what happened with Rhonda. I guess I just wanted to replace her right away. If I focused on having a new connection with another woman, then I wouldn't have to focus on my own pain."

That was bullshit. Colin hadn't been focusing on me so much as being really creepy, and only when it suited him. But I wanted to play nice, so I accepted his explanation. "I guess I could see that."

"I came on too strong, and I freaked you out," he said.

"A little bit," I said.

"Well, I won't do that again. I promise. And since you're calling me, I'm hoping that means there's a possibility you're interested in giving me another chance. Are you?"

"Well, it's complicated, Colin," I said. Whoa, this was going better than I had hoped. I could skip past all the groveling that I'd had planned and just get right to the tangled little web I wanted to spin. "See, there's another case I'm working on. A missing girl. And it's come to my attention that a friend of yours might be involved."

"A friend of mine?"

"Yeah, that night we took shots?" I said. "You were with Derek O'Shaunessy, right?"

"So?"

"Well, Derek might be connected to my case."

"So?"

"I've told you before that I don't want my work life and my personal life to intersect. If Derek knows something about this girl, and it turns out that he's tangled up in it, it would make things really awkward."

"Then you're saying no? So why'd you call me in the first place?"

"I'm not saying no. I'm saying the opposite of no. Listen, just get Derek into my office so that I can talk to him. Maybe he can help my case. Maybe he can't. But hopefully, I can clear him off my list, and remove the last barrier between the two of us trying to officially date."

"Oh," said Colin. "So, you're saying that if Derek isn't involved—"

"I'd sure like his help," I said. "If he knows something, it would be wonderful. If he could give me something that would help me close this case, I'd be very..." I let my voice get breathy and suggestive. "Grateful."

"I see," said Colin.

"What do you think? Do you think you could get him to come by my office later? Just to talk?"

"And if I do?"

"If you do, then we can talk too." I smiled into the receiver, even though inside, I was gagging. I didn't really want to be anywhere near Colin Pugliano ever again. But if this worked, then it wouldn't be so bad at all. I'd have them in my office, and that would be a lot safer than, well, Shamrock's, for instance.

Colin chuckled on the other end of the phone. "I think I'd like that."

"So would I," I murmured.

"All right, I'll see what I can do," he said. "Let me get back with you, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

We hung up, and I was stunned. I couldn't believe that had worked. It was a convoluted little cover story, and it didn't really make any sense. If Colin thought too hard about it, he'd probably see all the holes in it. I was hoping he wouldn't think too hard about it.

I purposefully hadn't tried too hard, figuring that I'd have to go straight for the jugular. I thought I'd have to seduce Colin and use my feminine wiles to get him to let me talk to Derek. This was so much easier.

Hell, I must have made more of an impression on Colin than I'd originally thought. I thought that the first time we had sex was okay, but it wasn't mind blowing. What had I done when I was blacked out? What the hell had we done? What would make a guy that eager to see me?

It was too bad that I hated Colin Pugliano, because he was a good lay. If all I cared about was sex, he'd probably make a decent boyfriend. Problem was I wanted more than that. Companionship, interesting conversation, shared interests... that kind of thing.

Colin didn't qualify, and he never would.

The fact that he was connected to the O'Shaunessys was the final nail in the coffin. That sealed the deal. Nothing would ever happen between Colin and me. Nothing important.

A knock on my door.

I looked up, and Brigit was peering inside, door open a crack. "You still on the phone?"

"No, I'm done," I said. "Is something up?"

"Andrew Webb's here. He wants to know what the status of Madison's case is."

"Did I have an appointment with him?"

"No, he just showed up. He's waiting out there. Should I tell him to come back another time? Have him make an appointment?"

"No, it's fine. I'm not busy at the moment. Send him on in."

She smiled. "You got it."

* * *

"What do you mean they were friends?" Mr. Webb's face was red and he was gripping the back of the chair in my office. "That man was corrupting her. He was making untoward advances, and I know it."

"I don't think so," I said. "Brian made it pretty clear that they were only associated because of their drug habit."

"And stop saying that," he said. "My sister did not have a drug habit."

I sighed. Sometimes, this was the worst part of the job, having to let family members know things about their loved ones that didn't fit with their mental picture of the lost member. "Mr. Webb, maybe if you could just sit down and take a couple deep breaths."

"Are you patronizing me?"

"No, sir, I—"

"You're patronizing me. Well, that's rich," he said. "I hired you, remember? You work for me."

"You hired me to find the truth about your sister," I said. "I'm telling you the truth."

"You're not digging deep enough into Brian Crohn," he said. "I know that he was up to something."

"Madison apparently deleted all the applications from her phone so that she could communicate with him without your knowledge. Were you checking her phone?"

"I was worried about her. I've been worried about her."

"And you should have been. Because she was doing drugs, and she was mixed up with bad people."

"Mixed up?" he said. "You mean sleeping with?"

"No, I didn't say that," I said.

"She better not have been doing that." He threw himself into the chair in front of me, and suddenly he was crying—big tears squeezing out of his eyes and trailing down his face. "It's like I didn't know her at all. I thought I knew her better than anyone on earth, and here she was hiding things from me and trying to keep me out of her life." He buried his face in his hands and broke into loud sobs.

I was alarmed. I didn't know what to do other than offer him a box of tissues. Of course, he couldn't see the tissues because he had his head buried in his hands. I wasn't used to men breaking down like this in my office. He was really crying. He was in anguish.

I just averted my eyes and kept quiet.

He stopped after several minutes and seized the box of tissues off my desk. He began to mop at his face. "We were inseparable as kids. We did everything together. I had friends who would make fun of her. They'd tell me not to bring my stupid kid sister along for everything I did. And I told them that if they had a problem with Madison, they had a problem with me. I wouldn't leave her behind. She meant way more to me than they did. She always has. But ever since we grew up, it's been so much harder. I've been feeling like I was losing her for years. Every year, she seemed to get further and further away from me. Now... she's really gone. Not just emotionally distant, but gone. And no one knows where she is." He blew his nose.

I cleared my throat. "Well, I'm going to find her."

"You won't find her," he said.

"Mr. Webb, I can assure you that I'll do everything within my power—"

"She's dead. I just know it." He pounded the center of his chest with one hand. "I feel it here. She's gone forever." He started to cry again.

I didn't know what to say again.

"Oh, maybe it's for the best," he said.

"Mr. Webb?"

"If she really was the druggie slut you're painting her to be, then there isn't much reason for her to have kept going. She was already doomed."

I furrowed my brow. That was a very weird thing to say.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"So, that was strange," Brigit was saying. "I could hear him crying from out here. I never heard a man cry like that before."

Andrew Webb had exited into the hallway just a few minutes before, still clutching a tissue to wipe at his eyes.

"Yeah, I guess he and his sister were really close," I said. "But... I don't know... how much of that did you hear?"

"Well, pretty much all of it," she said. "You weren't kidding about the walls in this place."

"So, he's maybe a little overly obsessed with his sister," I said.

"Yeah," said Brigit. "What were you saying about her phone?"

"Apparently, he got hold of her phone and found messages from Brian the boss on it. And good old Andrew wasn't the slightest bit happy about that, so he started harassing Madison about it. It bothered her so much she decided to keep him from being able to snoop on her phone by telling Brian to email her and deleting her email app from her phone so that Andrew couldn't look that way."

"But he's just her brother. And besides, they're both adults. What does she care what he thinks?"

"That's weird all right," I said. "He acts like he's her father or something."

"And then there's the fact that he's convinced she's dead."

"Yeah..." I chewed on my lip. "Suspicious, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"But he didn't kill her," I said. "I mean, he wouldn't have hired me if he killed her."

Brigit tapped her chin. "Would he have?"

"It wouldn't make sense," I said. "Because if he did it, he wouldn't want to call attention to it. He'd let it go, and then he'd play the concerned brother. The end. Why make a fuss? And besides... what's his motive?"

"Um... he was angry at her for throwing her life away? It was a crime of passion?"

I shook my head. "No, it's not the brother. It just can't be the brother."

"Maybe he didn't kill her, but there's still something weird about him."

I made a face. "Yeah, he definitely rubs me the wrong way. Hell, maybe she did run away. Maybe she just wanted free of her crazy, whack-job brother. And if that was the case, I don't know if I'd tell him where she was."

"Well, if she really wanted rid of him, there are things she could have done to keep him away. She could have got a restraining order or something."

"No, she wouldn't have done that. She didn't play on the right side of the law. She did a lot of drugs, and she wouldn't have wanted to attract police attention." I paced the length of the outer office, thinking. "She wasn't a person with a lot of backbone, I don't think. She let Curtis walk all over her. She let her brother walk all over her. She was a college graduate who was working as a waitress. She wasn't chasing after her dreams or using her degree." I turned back to Brigit. "Madison Webb wasn't a fighter."

"Well, that's why we need to fight for her," said Brigit.

I nodded. "You're right. She needed an advocate before it came to this, and—"

I was interrupted by a series of shrill barks, coming from overhead.

I cast my glance up at the ceiling. "Oh, hell, no."

Brigit looked up too. "What is that?"

"It's Kitty Richards's dog. The dog she locks up in the bathroom as punishment, because she's a total idiot about animals." I strode over to the window to look out. Sure enough, she was getting in her car and pulling out of the parking lot.

"Um, so, last time that happened, you disappeared for a while. What were you doing?" said Brigit.

The dog was really barking now, just going to town.

My jaw twitched. "Well, I can't get any work done with that damned dog barking up a storm, can you?"

"Uh..." Brigit looked a little nervous.

"Not good for the dog anyway. You should see the size of the bathroom that woman locks the poor thing up in."

"How did you see it?"

I stormed out of the office, ignoring Brigit's question. The barking was getting even louder. I needed to stop the dog from making noise before it drove me absolutely insane.

But Kitty hadn't lied about not leaving a key outside the door. It was gone. It wasn't under the mat, it wasn't under the potted palm she had by the door, and it wasn't on the top of the door frame. I looked around for a little longer, hoping she'd just hid it somewhere tough, but I couldn't find it.

So, I stalked back down to the office.

"Um, Ivy?" said Brigit. "Are you going to tell me what you're doing?"

"Freeing the damned dog." I went back to my inner office and tore through some drawers until I found a set of lock picking tools. I'd purchased them online when I first got my job as a private investigator. It wasn't strictly legal to break into locked places when looking for clues, but that didn't mean that I necessarily paid attention to that. Sometimes, I needed lock picking tools. I didn't use them often, but they were good to have when I needed them.

I went back to Kitty's apartment once again, but this time Brigit came after me. "Seriously, Ivy, you're acting crazy."

"Go back to the office." I knelt down in front of the door and inserted the first lock pick, a long, thin piece of metal that would depress the tumbler inside the lock.

"You're picking the lock? You can't just do that."

"Someone needs to be manning the phones," I said. "That's what I pay you to do, isn't it?" I inserted the next pick, a slightly smaller thin metal piece, this one with a series of notches on it. The trick was to move the notches so that they worked essentially the way a key would, making all the tumblers line up so that the door would open.

"Oh my God, you have to stop," she said.

"I need to concentrate, and you're not helping." Picking a lock took some time. It was something you kind of had to feel out. It was trial and error kind of work, and I needed to be able to listen to the lock, to feel how it responded.

"This is insane," said Brigit.

I wiggled the picks, ignoring her again. "Ha!"

"What?" she said.

"I've got part of it. I just need to get the rest of it to.... There!" The doorknob turned and the door opened. I grinned.

Brigit shook her head, her jaw hanging open.

"Don't worry, little dog," I called. "I'm coming to put you on the porch."

The barking quieted almost immediately.

* * *

Brigit's mind was blown. "You broke into that woman's house."

"I just let the dog out onto the porch," I said. "I didn't steal anything. I didn't hurt anything."

"But that's, like, illegal."

"The dog was suffering," I said. "It was an issue of being humane. Cruelty to animals and all that. I should really report Kitty to the ASPCA."

"I don't think putting your dog in a bathroom is cruelty."

"You didn't see the size of the bathroom," I said. "I told you to come and look, but you wouldn't."

"Well, I wasn't going to go in there. Then I'd be just as guilty as you were."

I shrugged.

"You can't do that anymore," said Brigit.

"What am I supposed to do? Just let the dog bark?"

"Yes, that's what people do."

"But it's annoying," I said. "I can't think when that dog is barking. My job is all about thinking, so when that dog barks, it destroys my livelihood."

"You can't break into people's houses."

"And it's not fair to the dog either," I said. "She keeps that poor thing locked up in that apartment up there. She only takes the dog for one walk every day. Just one. I don't know when the dog even gets a bathroom break. Most of the time, she's just cooped up in that apartment."

"The dog is?"

"Yeah," I said. "Miserable. And Kitty told me that if the dog messes up her furniture, she punishes the dog by putting her in that bathroom the next day. But I'm telling you that's a stupid way to train a dog. Dogs don't understand being punished the next day for something they did the day before. They don't get it. So, she's just torturing the poor animal, and it makes me sick."

Brigit knitted her eyebrows together. "I didn't know you were such a dog person."

"I'm not," I said.

Suddenly, the door burst open.

Startled, I turned toward the noise.

Colin Pugliano and Derek O'Shaunessy were coming into the office, both of their faces sneering masks.

Derek pointed at Brigit. "Grab her."

Colin seized Brigit, pulling her tight against his body, so that she was facing forward, and he was pinning her arms to her sides.

Brigit's eyes bulged.

Derek advanced on me.

"What's going on?" I said. "Colin, what's this about?"

Derek caught me by the throat. "Come clean, bitch. What do you want with the family?"

I couldn't breathe. I scrabbled at his hand, trying to get him off of me. Derek wasn't very smart, was he? If he wanted me to answer questions, he was going to have to let go of my neck and let me draw in air.

As if reading my mind, Derek threw me backwards into the chairs in the waiting room area.

I collided with them painfully, knocking them askew. I came to rest on the ground, chair legs surrounding me. I sucked in breath, and my lungs hurt. "What the hell?" I managed.

"Hey," said Colin. "I don't want you putting your hands all over her, Derek. You said that I could—"

"Hold the other one," Derek threw over his shoulder. "This is business, and you haven't made a commitment."

"Is that all it is?" said Colin. "Well, then, fine. I'm in. Just let me be the one to talk to her."

I pushed aside chairs and got to my feet. My entire body was trembling. "Talk," I gasped. "That sounds like a good idea. Let's talk."

Derek backhanded me.

His knuckles stung against my cheek, and I staggered backwards, clutching myself.

"The only time you speak is after you've been asked a question, got that?" said Derek. He turned to Colin. "Hold the other one."

I held up both of my hands in surrender. "Look, if you just let me know what's going on—"

Derek picked up a handful of my shirt and tossed me back into the chairs again.

My back screamed in pain. This time, I didn't get up right away. I let out a little moan and looked up at the ceiling. "At least let Brigit go. I don't know what this is about, but I know it doesn't have anything to do with her."

Derek knelt down in front of me. "You think we're idiots, don't you?"

I was lying painfully on a half-collapsed chair. I shifted my weight and let myself topple onto the floor.

"Answer the question." Derek lifted his hand.

I flinched.

He didn't hit me. "Speak when spoken to, and we won't have any problems."

"You're an idiot," I managed, trying to sit up.

This time Derek slapped me—open palm on the other cheek.

I couldn't help but cry out. I flinched away, and then I turned back to him, spitting out my words. "Look at the two of you, coming in here and slapping around two women who are half your size."

"Shut up," said Derek. "See, we know it's no coincidence that you started fucking Colin here."

I looked at Colin. "What?"

"Yeah, we know who you are, bitch," said Derek. "You're a cop."

"No," I said, and this time I managed to make it into a seated position. "I got fired from the force for sleeping around. I'm not a cop."

"Bullshit. That's your cover story, sure, but you're trying to infiltrate the family, and Colin is your way in."

I glared at him. "You really are an idiot."

Derek hit me again, harder this time.

I cried out again. He'd gotten my nose, and the pain was radiating out through my sinuses. I clutched my face. Oh. Great. My nose was bleeding. Fuck.

"You call him asking to talk to me about a case? You think we wouldn't figure that out?" said Derek.

I took my hand away from my face and looked at the blood on my fingers. It was so red. The sight of the blood made me panic. My heart started to race. What the hell were they going to do to me?

One thing was apparent. Derek might be an idiot, but I was too, for thinking that I could manipulate my way inside the family and get information. That obviously was never going to happen.

"I did want to talk about a case," I managed. "It was all to try to find out what you know about Madison Webb."

Derek got to his feet. "Listen up, lady. You stay clear of Colin. You stay clear of Shamrock's. You stay the hell out of our business. We're not going to let you try to pin some bogus charges on us. We know who you are." He kicked me—front of his shoe colliding with my chin.

My head snapped back, agony splintering through my jaw and neck. I screamed.

"You need to learn a lesson," said Derek, and he kicked me again.

I tried to curl up in a ball, to protect my body against the blows that were raining down on me, but I couldn't escape him. His kicks came one after the other, tearing my sensitive flesh, bruising me, hurting me.

I was sobbing. I couldn't help it. It hurt, and I was terrified, and I didn't care if it made me look weak. I was weak, and he wasn't stopping. "Stop," I cried out.

Derek laughed. "You going to stay away from us?"

"Yes," I sobbed. "Stop, please."

Derek kicked me again anyway.

I moaned.

"Hey, man, she's had enough," said Colin.

Derek ignored him.

His foot came down on my head.

Mercifully, as it turned out, because everything winked out, and I lost consciousness.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I awoke to someone shining a light in my eye. Instinctively, I shoved the light away.

"Now, hold still," said a gentle voice.

I was still in my office, which was trashed, and the office was full of people. I was on a stretcher, and someone in a paramedic outfit was leaning over me.

"Just testing your pupils," he said. "Making sure you're okay."

"Brigit," I said.

"I'm here." She was behind the paramedic, watching. She didn't look hurt.

"She awake?" said another voice.

Everything hurt. My whole body ached. I didn't think I'd ever been in this much pain in my entire life.

The voice belonged to a uniformed police officer. She crouched down next to me, holding a notepad. "Can you tell us who did this?"

"I told you," said Brigit. "It was Colin Pugliano and another guy. Colin called the guy Derek."

I couldn't help but be impressed that Brigit had noticed Derek's name in the middle of all of that commotion and confusion. She might actually have the makings of a good detective after all.

"Derek?" said the uniform. "Derek O'Shaunessy?"

I just groaned.

"Well, what did they want?" she asked me. "Why'd they do this to you? You have some business with them?" She gestured with her head back at Brigit. "This one says that one of them was one of your clients. You working for the O'Shaunessys now?"

"No," I said.

"Wouldn't put it past you is all," muttered the uniform.

Seriously? I didn't even recognize this woman, but she knew me by reputation and was judging me while I was all banged up? In what universe was that fair?

"Look, can't this wait?" said the paramedic. "I haven't finished examining her."

"Oh, I didn't mean to get in your way." The uniform got to her feet and backed up, but she stayed close enough to hover over us, glaring down at me.

The paramedic stuck the light back in my eye again.

I winced away from it. "I did a job for Colin Pugliano, but I didn't know he had connections to the family. Then, when I found out one of my cases had ties to the O'Shaunessys, I tried to use that connection to get information. But it didn't go so well. I'm the victim here."

"Well, then," said the uniform, "I suppose you'll want to press charges."

"Of course she will," said Brigit.

I groaned again. Would pressing charges be worth it? What would happen to Derek for beating me up? Would he even do any jail time once the O'Shaunessy lawyers got through with the case?

The uniform pressed her lips together. "That's what I thought. You're lying about this, Ivy Stern. You were always shifty."

The paramedic cleared his throat. "You're upsetting my patient."

The uniform shrugged.

The paramedic shone the light in my eye again.

This time I didn't stop him.

* * *

"Ivy?"

I was in the hospital, and I hadn't had any visitors besides Brigit, who'd seemed so white-faced and terrified, I'd convinced her to go home. She wanted to know if there was anyone she should call.

I said there was no one.

But now, someone was coming in to my room. I pushed myself up into a sitting position as the person came inside.

It was Pike.

He yanked a chair over to the bed and sat down. "What the hell were you thinking?"

I shut my eyes. "I got cocky, that's all."

"There's all kinds of crazy talk at the station. People saying that you're working with the O'Shaunessys. I been shutting them up as much as I can, telling people you'd never do that. I'm not wrong, am I?"

"Of course I'm not working with the O'Shaunessys." I glared at him. "Listen, Pike, the missing girl you sent over to me? She bought cocaine from Derek O'Shaunessy on a regular basis. I don't think it's a stretch to think that maybe he's messed up in her disappearance."

Pike raised his eyebrows. "You think the O'Shaunessys are involved?"

"Maybe they killed her. Maybe she saw something she wasn't supposed to see. They sure as hell don't have a problem using violence to get their message across." I gestured to my body.

"And what message were they trying to send you?"

"Stay away from them."

"That's probably wise."

I leaned my head back against the bed. "Yeah, well, there's no way I'd be able to get in and investigate now. They wouldn't let me come near them if I tried it. I fucked it all up. If I hadn't been so damned cocky, then maybe—"

"This isn't your fault."

"I just kept thinking that if we could get the O'Shaunessys on a murder charge, really get one of them, it would set a precedent."

"Oh come on, you know how that goes. If Derek did do it, he wouldn't go down for it. They'd have one of their flunkies cop to the murder—come in and confess, knowing all the right details, and we'd have no choice but to put the wrong guy away. Not that he'd be inside for too long, anyway. Overcrowding would push him out on early parole—"

"This isn't some dealer or some other mobster, though, Miles. This is a girl. A pretty young girl, and if we pinned that murder—"

"Exactly why it's probably not the O'Shaunessys," he said. "They wouldn't be so stupid."

"Maybe it was an accident."

"You don't even know if it was a murder, Ivy. You don't have a body."

"But that fits. They got rid of the body. Of course they did, because they didn't mean to kill her."

"Well, they didn't do a very good job trying to make it look good, did they? Don't you think the O'Shaunessys would have enough knowhow to move her car, take her phone, maybe have someone use one of her credit cards before she dropped off the face of the planet?"

Shit. Maybe he was right. It really didn't sound like an O'Shaunessy job. After all, they had experience disappearing people. They wouldn't have made this much of a mess of it. I twisted my hands together in my lap.

Pike's voice was quiet. "Hey, I want to nail the O'Shaunessys as much as you do. But you have to realize you're not in a great position to take them on. You're on your own. You don't have the department behind you."

I chewed on my lip. Generally, I would have glared at him or made some kind of smart remark about being able to take care of myself, but it seemed fairly obvious that I couldn't take care of myself, because here I was in the hospital, beaten all to hell. "I just thought that I could handle it."

"I know what you did," he said. "You got an idea in your head, and you couldn't let go of it. You had to try it out. You got focused on it, and there was no way to deter you from it. I know that about you. Hell, I love that about you."

My head snapped up at that word.

He winced.

I looked at the ceiling.

"I don't like seeing you like this," he muttered.

I didn't say anything.

He reached out and took my hand.

Handholding was a big deal to Pike. He didn't like touching people in general. Touch was overwhelming to him. A brush of a hand or a quick hug was full of dizzying sensation to Pike. It was so much—too much. The touch was unpleasant, and he didn't like it. So I appreciated what it meant that he was holding my hand.

We didn't speak for several moments. We simply sat together, touching.

"Try to be careful, please," he finally said, his voice only a little louder than a whisper. "And if you've got something on the O'Shaunessys, come to me before doing anything like this."

"I can't always do that," I said. "We don't work together anymore."

"But I've always got your back." He gazed into my eyes.

The stare was so intense that I had to look away.

"Aw, hell, Stern, promise me you won't get yourself into a mess like this again."

"I can't make promises like that." I stared at our intertwined hands.

He sighed. "I shouldn't have come by the other night like I did."

"We don't have to talk about that." I swung my gaze up to meet his again, trying to put into my expression that I didn't blame him for anything.

"Look, I was just in a mood," he said. "If it was anyone else, I wouldn't have come right out and said that stuff. But with you, I've always felt like I could say whatever it was I was thinking. You're not like other women, where I have to watch every other word, because they'll misinterpret it. You're different."

I nodded. "I know. You're different too."

"Anyway, I'm sorry."

"It's really okay."

He took his hand away, studied his knuckles. "When I found out this all started because you were sleeping with that Colin guy, it made me—"

"I know." I was mortified. I always tried to keep that side of myself from him. I knew he didn't like it. Even when we were dating, he'd given me permission to take care of my urges, but he'd asked me not to discuss it with him. He understood why I had to do it, but it bothered him.

For a long time, that made me angry, because it seemed to me that if he could get jealous, he should be able to figure out how to fuck me himself.

But after he did try once for me, and I saw how painful and miserable even the attempt made him, all the anger melted away. I only felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for both of us.

He took a deep breath, still not looking at me. "I still feel things, even if I shouldn't, I guess. But I do understand that it wouldn't work between us, Ivy. That it couldn't work."

I swallowed. "I know."

He got up from his chair and put it back against the wall where he'd gotten it. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

* * *

"Are you sleeping?"

I opened my eyes. Oh, geez, I was still in the hospital. There was a woman bending over me. She was probably the one who'd spoken. I squinted at her.

"Did I wake you?" she said.

Oh shit. I backed away from her, scrambling up the bed. "Rhonda, what are you doing here?"

I couldn't think of one good reason why Colin Pugliano's cheating wife would come to see me in the hospital. She and I had never even officially met. All I'd done was take pictures of her kissing another man.

"It's okay." Her eyes widened in what I guess she thought was a reassuring expression, but she was wearing so much makeup that she just looked painted and strange.

I clutched the covers in front of my body like a shield. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to say thank you," she said. She pointed. "I brought flowers."

Was she crazy? "Thank you for what?"

"For helping me get away from Colin," she said.

"Okaaay," I said, still keeping the covers up.

She let out a huge sigh. "You wouldn't believe what it was like being married to him. At first I thought he was sweet, you know. He seemed so into me, and he followed me all over the place, saying we had a connection and that he never felt like this about anyone ever before and a bunch of other stuff that seemed really romantic."

Actually, that sounded a little bit familiar.

"But," she continued, "after we were together, he got really different. It was only annoying stuff at first. If I was five minutes late getting home from work, he'd call me and want to know where I was. He didn't like it if I went anywhere without him, and he'd kick up a big fuss about me going out with my girlfriends."

That was interesting, because when he'd hired me, he'd made out that she spent all her time with her girlfriends.

"It got to the point where I wasn't going anywhere," Rhonda continued. "I stayed home all the time and tried not to upset him. But nothing worked. He got upset about the most random, stupid things. And then eventually, he started accusing me of cheating on him. I would argue with him and tell him that I didn't even leave the house. How could I possibly be cheating? But he wouldn't let up on it. Finally, I just couldn't handle it anymore. I decided to try to leave him. But he wouldn't let me. He would find me wherever he went. He had all those O'Shaunessy cousins, and they'd hunt me down and bring me back to him. So, I was trapped. And I was miserable. And I figured it didn't matter anymore. I started cheating for real. And then you found out, and gave him those pictures, and he let me go." She grinned at me, tears filling her eyes.

I propped myself up on the bed. "So, you're glad I broke up your marriage?"

She brushed away her tears. "I'm free now. I never thought I would be, but he got fixated on you right away, and he didn't care about me anymore." She cocked her head at me. "He slapped me around a few times too."

I pointed at my face. "Oh, Colin didn't—"

"You don't have to make excuses for him," she said. "I know him. Listen, there was another reason I came here besides thanking you, and that was to tell you to get away from him. Because he's bad news."

"Look, Rhonda, I'm not having a thing with Colin. I was working a case, and I was trying to get in with the O'Shaunessys. I tried to use Colin to infiltrate the family."

She gave me a sad smile. "If you don't feel you can admit it, it's okay. But know that I understand. Being taken in by an abusive man doesn't make you any less of a strong woman. He preyed on your weaknesses. He didn't play fair."

All right, so now that she mentioned it, Colin did display some typical abusive behavior, considering the way he'd followed me around and stuff. Maybe I should have seen that before. But to think that I would be in a relationship with a man like that? I had my pride. "Seriously, Rhonda. I only wanted to interview Derek. He sold drugs to a girl who went missing named Madison."

"Madison Webb?"

"You know Madison?"

"Well, not well, but Colin and Derek are friends, and we were around Derek's house when people would come by to pick up things."

"Things like drugs."

"I guess. I tried not to ask too many questions," she said. "Madison was there a few times, though."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Um... I think Sunday the fifteenth."

Sunday... the same day as Madison's last text on her phone. Two days after Andrew had said she was gone. That was strange. I couldn't make that line up. But it was another piece of evidence that Andrew hadn't been honest with me.

"You're sure?" I said.

"Yeah. I remember, because it was the last Sunday I spent with Colin."

"Hmm..." I really couldn't understand this. I supposed it could make sense that Andrew had just missed her on Friday, but for the house to be in the same condition as it had been on Sunday... well, that didn't make sense.

"Did I say something wrong?" Rhonda asked.

"No, actually, you helped me," I said. "I just don't know how yet. But thank you."

She smiled. "Well, you're welcome. I just hope you stay away from Colin from now on."

"Don't worry, I will," I said.

"I hope you mean it," she said. "So many times, I made excuses for him in my head and stuck around. I think if I'd gotten away from him in the beginning, it would have been a lot easier."

"Really, Rhonda, I'm not with him like that. I promise you."

She sighed. "Whatever you say."

* * *

"Well," Brigit was saying, "some of the chairs just weren't salvageable. So, I didn't know if you wanted me to buy new ones or not. In some ways, maybe it's not a big deal, because we never have very many people waiting to come see you, so we didn't really need that many chairs. But if you think we should replace them, then—"

"No, you're right." I surveyed the outer office, which was incredibly clean and ordered. There were definitely less chairs in the waiting area, but it still looked neat and tidy. "Did you do this all by yourself?"

Brigit nodded.

"That's great. Thanks so much." I half-wanted to hug her. "I..." I licked my lips. "After what happened here, you'd be well within your rights to quit, you know? There's nothing in your job description that says you have to deal with that kind of situation. I know it must have been terrifying."

"Yes." She made a show of smoothing down her clothes, picking lint off of them. "It was awful. But I don't want to quit. I just wish you were pressing charges against those guys. I wish they were going to jail."

"Trust me, it would be a waste of time. I don't have a stellar character, not after being fired from the police department, and they've got lots more money to throw at lawyers. It wouldn't end up with them in jail. It just wouldn't."

"But they're getting away with it."

"Yeah, it doesn't make me happy either." I looked around. "Really, it looks great in here."

"Thanks."

I turned to her. "Someday, the O'Shaunessys will pay. They have a lot to answer for. I'm going to make it happen. But I have to wait for the right moment. This all happened because I jumped the gun. I tried to tie the O'Shaunessys in someplace they didn't fit. I was hasty. Overconfident. I paid the price. It won't happen again."

She made a face. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying to press charges, not to go on some crazy revenge scheme."

"Don't worry," I said. "It won't be a crazy scheme if I try it."

She didn't look relieved.

"And it won't be revenge either. It'll be justice."

"Do you still think that the O'Shaunessys had something to do with Madison's disappearance?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm not barking up that particular tree anymore. Pike pointed out to me that it doesn't make sense. It's not the kind of work they'd do."

"So, we're back to square one?"

I scratched the back of my neck.

Brigit winced. "You know what? I'm sorry. You just got out of the hospital. It's your first day back at work. We don't have to talk about the case yet."

"No, it's fine," I said. "I'm back at work, and so I want to get back to work."

As if on cue, the door to the office opened and a woman walked in. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, a little pudgy but put-together. She looked back and forth between Brigit and me. "Which one of you is Ivy Stern?"

"That would be me," I said.

She pointed at me. "You. You're the person who's leaching money out of my husband."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The woman's name was Lissa Webb, and she was Andrew's wife. She came back into my office, but she refused to sit down. She paced back and forth in front of my desk, words spewing out of her mouth. She wouldn't look at me.

"I don't know what kind of scam it is that you're pulling here, but I don't appreciate it at all. You're preying on my husband. He's so wrapped up in Madison that he'd spend any amount of money to try to find out what happened to her, but I don't see what it is you've even been doing for all this time. It seems to me that he's paying you to twiddle your thumbs. By now, you should have found her, and I don't understand why you haven't."

"Ma'am, is there some financial difficulty?" I interjected. I didn't want to, but I might be able to make a special arrangement for my pay in this case. I was committed to finding out what had happened to Madison now, and I wasn't going to let anything stop me. I needed to get paid, but if I had to take less, well, I'd deal with it.

"No, and that's what Andrew keeps going about. I tell him that we're bleeding money to this private detective—to you—and he just says that we can afford it, and it's worth it if we find out who hurt Madison. But I'm telling you, I don't even see why he thinks she's dead. That girl had problems. He didn't want to see it. He always viewed Madison as pure and sweet, but she had a mess of issues. She ran off. That's what I've been telling him."

"Actually," I said, "the evidence really points to—"

"What evidence? It's not as if her body washed up out of the river somewhere. She's off living it up somewhere, you mark my words."

"She didn't take anything with her if she ran off, Mrs. Webb, not even her car. There's no activity on her credit cards. She hasn't been heard from or seen in thirteen days. She—"

"That's not evidence." Finally, Lissa looked up at me, and she didn't look happy.

"Listen, I've been in the hospital, so I'm a little behind on things, but I promise you that I've been working hard on this case. It's the only case I've been focusing on, in fact, and I swear to you, I'm going to find out what happened to Madison, whether she's living it up or not."

Lissa looked a little abashed. "You were in the hospital?"

"It was nothing."

"You do look a little... bruised."

I had two black eyes, actually. They were starting to heal, but that only meant that they'd taken on a yellowish-purple color which was very unsightly. I'd actually put on makeup to try to conceal them, and I never put on makeup. I cleared my throat. "Well, I'm out now, and I'm back on the case."

Lissa hesitated, looking from the door to me to the chair in front of my desk. Suddenly, she toppled down in the seat. "Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come in here like this. It's only that Andrew is..." She let out a noisy breath. "He's always been close to Madison. Closer than close. They're attached at the hip. When we first got together, I was even a little bit jealous of her, but over time, I've come to accept that Andrew simply has a close relationship with her, and he always will. No matter what that girl does."

"You really don't think anything happened to her?"

"Well..." She tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. "I don't want anything bad to have happened to her. I can't imagine what that would do to Andrew. And Madison doesn't deserve something like that, no matter what kind of messes she got herself in. No, I suppose it's possible, but I really hope it isn't true. I want you to find her somewhere."

This was the kind of reaction I'd expect from a family member at this point in the investigation. A dogged hope that the lost person was still alive, but a sad, tired acceptance that the worst might have happened. Honestly, Andrew's insistence that Madison was dead was strange. Everything about Andrew was strange.

"Of course you do," I said. "Honestly, I want that too." Well, bullshit. I wanted her murdered. Otherwise, I was doing a whole lot of investigating for nothing.

"You know, it didn't seem as if anything was out of the ordinary. Andrew went to see her the night before, like he almost always did. He was usually over at her house four or five nights a week. Sometimes, he'd just check up on her, sometimes he'd be there for hours. That night, he was gone for a long time, but when he got home, he said she was doing okay. And then the next morning, he went by and found the house the way it was, and he was convinced that she was dead. Just convinced of it. Went to the police and everything. I told him that we should wait to see if she turned up. I told him she was probably fine. But he won't believe me. And the longer she's gone, the more I'm starting to wonder if he's right." Her shoulders slumped.

"Hold on a second," I said. "Andrew went to Madison's house and then discovered her missing the next morning?" He had lied.

"Oh." She put a hand over her mouth. "I wasn't supposed to say that. He didn't think anyone would take him seriously if he said that he'd seen her the day before. On TV shows, you always have to wait forty-eight hours before a person's considered missing."

"Don't worry about that," I said. "You hired me, so I take whatever you say seriously. The thing is, Andrew didn't tell me that. I didn't know he saw her the night before."

"Well, he did."

"What day would that have been?"

"The fifteenth. Sunday."

I got up from my desk and started pacing myself. "So, if Rhonda saw Madison in the afternoon that day and Andrew saw her in the evening, if something did happen to her, it would have had to have been that night, because I know she was gone on Monday. I went to her house on Monday. Whatever happened to her happened Sunday night."

"Is that a good thing to know?"

"It's very good," I said. "Now, I can find out if people have alibis. I can narrow things down."

"Oh," she said.

"Can you have Andrew call me or come by? I need to ask him about the last time he saw Madison." And I needed to ask him why he left that piece of information out.

* * *

Debbie McCauley looked surprised to see me. "What do you want now? If you want to see Curtis, I kicked him out, and I haven't talked to him in days."

"I just have a quick question for you," I said. "The night of the fifteenth, can you tell me where you were?"

She shook her head, deep in thought. "I really have no idea, actually. What were you doing that day?"

"Well, I admit that I don't know off the top of my head," I said. "You want to look at a calendar? See if something jogs your memory?"

She nodded and let me in the house. We went to the kitchen, where she consulted a hanging wall calendar. She furrowed her brow, touching the dates with her finger, as if she was counting them. "A Sunday."

"Yes," I said.

"A couple weeks ago."

"Yes," I said.

"Oh," she said. "I remember that day. Curtis and I went to the movies."

"Movies?"

"Yeah, we saw that new movie about the guy who's suspected of killing his wife?"

"I don't really keep up with the cinema. Did you pay with cash?"

"No, we split it. I bought the popcorn, and he bought the tickets. We both used check cards."

"So, I could verify that?"

"I guess so. Is that a good thing?"

"It is for you and Curtis," I said. "You have an alibi." I smiled at her. "Take care of that baby now."

* * *

"Look," said the hostess at Happy's. "I don't think Brian wants to see you again. He said that if you showed up, we should tell you he wasn't around."

"So, he's around then?" I said, pushing past her.

"Hey." She came after me.

"Is he in the back?"

"I told you, he doesn't want to see—"

Brian came out of the back room. His face was swollen, his cheekbone bruised and red.

I hurried over to him. "What happened to you?"

He eyed my face. "I could ask you the same question."

I pointed at my injuries. "Derek O'Shaunessy."

He grimaced. "Oh, shit, is that my fault?"

"I didn't know you cared," I said. "According to your hostess, you're doing your best to ignore me."

"That's right, I am," he said and started walking the other direction.

"What happened to your face?" I said, walking behind him.

"Andrew Webb," he said. "He's got some crazy idea that I was corrupting his sister or that I hurt her or something. I don't know what. He thinks that Madison and I had something going that she was hiding from him. He just went nuts on me. I've never seen someone so angry."

"Andrew Webb did this?" I caught Brian by the shoulder and forced him to turn and look at me. Did Andrew do anything that wasn't completely batshit insane?

"Well, I tried to hit back, but I'm not especially good at that kind of thing," said Brian. "Jackass."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm working for him, but I don't condone that kind of behavior. And for what it's worth, I told him that I didn't think you were the one who hurt Madison."

He raised his eyebrows. "Really? I'm not your main suspect?"

"What were you doing on Sunday the fifteenth?"

"Working."

"Just like that? You know?"

"I do the schedule. I have to look at dates a lot. I know which days each week I'm working. That was one of them."

"People saw you working?"

"What's up with that date?"

"If something happened to Madison, it happened that night."

"Well, I was here until about two hours after close, around midnight. And then I went to Dog Town—that's a club—with Jack who works here. You can ask him if you want. He can confirm it."

"Thanks," I said. "That's very helpful."

* * *

On the way out of the office that night, I told Brigit she could meet up with me at The Remington if she wanted. I told her that I'd buy her a drink, because she'd been so helpful. I didn't expect her to take me up on it, figuring she'd be above it all, too good for the bar. But I guess I was somehow confusing Brigit with my last assistant, because Brigit's eyes lit up and she acted like I'd invited her to tea with the queen or something.

At the bar, I asked her what she wanted to drink.

"What are you going to have?" she asked, looking nervous, like this was a test, and she could get the wrong answer.

"I always drink Miller High Life," I said.

She made a dismayed face.

"But you don't have to drink that," I said. "I'll buy you whatever you want. You want a glass of wine or mixed drink or something on tap, just say the word."

"Um... maybe a hard cider?"

"Sure thing," I said, grinning at her.

I ordered the drinks, and then Brigit and I sipped at them in silence for several minutes. I was totally fine with it, but I could sense that she felt the urge to fill the silence with something, and so I began trying to think of small talk that I could make with Brigit.

I couldn't think of much. I didn't know anything about her other than she liked to make art and that she wanted to be independent. Also that she was the best assistant I'd had thus far, and that she was brave and smart. I guess I could have said that stuff. Probably would have made her feel good. But I couldn't figure out how to just say that out of the blue. Those compliments needed to be worked up to, and I didn't know how.

So, I didn't say anything, and neither did she.

Luckily, Crane showed up. He'd been in the back of the bar, and now he was coming up for a refill. I introduced Brigit as my assistant and indicated we should all find a table somewhere.

After we sat down, Crane immediately started asking about the case. "Anything new happening? I haven't seen you in a couple days, Ivy."

"I'm thinking it's the brother," I said, taking a swill of High Life.

Crane was squinting at me. "What's up with your face?"

"Hey," I said.

"The brother?" said Brigit. "Andrew Webb? But you said that it didn't make any sense for it to be him."

"You did say that," said Crane. He pointed at me. "It's like you're wearing a lot of makeup to cover up something. Do you have a black eye?"

"Never mind that," I said. "And I know it doesn't make sense for it to be Andrew, especially since he hired us. But there's too much weird shit going on with him."

"Did something happen to you? Did you get hurt?" said Crane.

"Actually," said Brigit, "she just got out of—"

"Brigit." I shook my head. "I'm fine, Crane. More than fine. Better than fine."

"What happened with the O'Shaunessys?" he said. "How'd that plan work out?"

"It didn't." I shrugged. "Whatever. I don't think it was them."

"You know I worry about you," said Crane."

"Stop," I said. "If you want to help me, try to figure out why someone would hire a private detective to solve a murder he committed."

"I called the brother in the beginning." Crane took his e-cigarette out of his pocket. "I think that was the first thing I said, wasn't it?"

"You did?" said Brigit. "He knows all about this. Do you discuss cases with everyone?"

"Just Crane," I said. "He uses them for fodder in his novels."

"You're a writer?" said Brigit. "What do you write?"

"Unfinished things," said Crane, putting the electronic contraption to his mouth.

"Anyway," I said, "sometimes getting it out and talking about stuff with someone helps me figure out a case. When I was police, I had a partner for that stuff. But now, not so much. Crane's a good sounding board."

He sucked on his e-cigarette, and it lit up. "I do what I can."

"Wait a second," said Brigit. "Aren't you Dr. Drakely? Don't you teach English?"

"My fame precedes me," said Crane, blowing out vapor. It smelled like butterscotch. "Did you go to Keene?"

"Yeah," said Brigit. "I can't believe I'm drinking with a professor."

"You never did that the whole time you were in college?" I said. "Keene's changed since I went there."

Crane laughed. "It's a drinking school with a liberal arts problem."

Brigit laughed too.

"It used to be," I said. "It's turning into a liberal arts school with a drinking problem if the professors and students aren't fraternizing over drinks anymore. But anyway, what about Andrew Webb?"

"Why do you think it was him?" said Brigit.

"Well, the biggie is that he hid the fact that he went to see Madison the night before he discovered she was missing. That's an enormous red flag."

"Totally weird," Brigit said. "Actually, everything the guy does is weird. Like, why is he so convinced that Madison is dead, anyway?"

"Unless he knows she's dead," said Crane. "Because he killed her himself."

"He doesn't have a motive, though," said Brigit. "He adored Madison."

"He was hard on her," I said. "He had standards, and she didn't match up to them. He was an overbearing big brother. He didn't approve of her boyfriend. He didn't approve of her drug habit. He didn't approve of her job. Maybe he just got sick of her being such a fuck-up and strangled her to death."

"I don't know." Crane took a drag on his e-cigarette. "As motives go, that's not the strongest one I ever heard."

"I know," I said. "But maybe we don't even know the motive. Maybe it's something she said to him when he came to visit her. Maybe he flew into a rage, and he couldn't stop himself. Then she was dead, and he bundled her up in her bedsheets, threw her in the back of his trunk and got rid of her body. The next morning he came back and pretended to 'discover' that she was missing."

"That's not unheard of," said Brigit. "It's like that guy who killed his whole family on Friday night, got up and went to work Saturday, and then acted like he 'found' them after work. Did you hear about that?"

"If that was his plan, why not just leave the body?" said Crane.

"DNA?" I said.

"But if he was always at her house, he could have just argued it was transference," said Crane. "His DNA's probably all over her apartment."

I furrowed my brow. "I don't know."

"He's sketchy, though," said Brigit, taking a sip of her cider. "There's something very weird going on with him."

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" said Andrew Webb, poking his head into my office.

I'd beaten Brigit here that morning. She'd been pretty sloshed when I left the bar, though we hadn't been hanging out anymore. She'd run into some people she apparently knew from the area, and she'd still been going strong when I got out of there.

I didn't go home with anyone last night, not even Crane. Especially not Crane. I didn't want to explain my bruises and cuts. I was still pretty sore too. Derek had roughed me up bad. I was lucky that nothing was broken and that I hadn't gotten a concussion, but I wasn't anywhere near a hundred percent yet. The only kind of sex I could handle would have been gentle sex.

If I'd been a normal person, I might have gone home and masturbated, but that would have meant that the reason I sought out sex was for the orgasm, and it wasn't. It wasn't about sensation for me. It was about escape.

Not that I was trying to claim that I didn't masturbate. Everyone masturbates.

I even had a few vibrators in a drawer somewhere, and I did use them when I got the urge. But that urge was completely different from the urge to go home with a guy. They came from different parts of my brain. The urge to hook up was about soothing myself. The urge to have an orgasm was natural and earthy. It didn't frighten me—not the way the other urge did.

Anyway, I'd gotten a good night's sleep, woken up early, and come in to the office around noon. I wasn't expecting anyone, and I didn't have any appointments, but there was Andrew Webb, claiming I'd summoned him.

"Hi, Mr. Webb," I said.

"My wife said you wanted to talk to me," he said.

Oh, that was right. I had asked her to have him get in touch. "Yes. Please come in."

He sat down across the desk from me. "What's going on?"

"Well, I have to admit I'm a little confused, that's all. When you first came in here, you told me that you'd discovered Madison missing on Friday. But then your wife tells me that you saw her on Sunday night, and that you discovered her missing on Monday morning."

"Oh, right." He nodded. "I just... I didn't want the police to think that I was crazy for worrying about her so soon. I figured it would be better if she'd been gone for days. They'd take it more seriously right off the bat."

"But I'm not the police," I said. "I'm working for you. Why didn't you tell me the truth?"

Andrew cocked his head, giving me a funny look. "Well, why are you asking me that question?"

"Because I need to understand."

"I explained it to you," he said. "I assumed you wouldn't start looking if you thought she hadn't been gone for very long."

"Mr. Webb, the precise advantage of a private investigator is that we'll go to work on a missing persons case before the police will. I can track people down for any reason if you pay me."

"Well, I didn't know that."

"Now you do," I said. I wasn't sure I liked that answer, but I couldn't fault it. "Is there anything else you've been keeping from me, anything at all? I need to know if I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

"Why would you say something like that?" His voice had tightened.

"I'm not accusing you of anything. It's only that—"

"It sounds like you're accusing me." Now his voice was downright strained.

"That's not my intention. I apologize—"

"What is it you think exactly, Ms. Stern? Do you think that I'm the one who killed Madison?"

Okay, he had just leaped to that on his own. I shook my head slowly.

"Why would I hire you if I was guilty?" he said. "That doesn't make any sense at all. I'm paying you a small fortune to find Madison's killer, and you're accusing me? I don't believe how incompetent and stupid you are."

"Mr. Webb, I never said that you were responsible for anything that happened to Madison. And to be very clear, we can't even be sure that she's dead."

"She's dead, all right."

"Why are you so certain? If you could share with me why you know this—"

"I told you. I feel it. Madison and I were close, and her spark has gone out of the world." He stood up. "You need to rethink your position on this case."

"I'm not accusing you of anything."

"You better not be," he said. "Because as you pointed out, you work for me. And you need to keep that in mind." He got up out of his chair and threw open the door to the inner office, only to come face-to-face with Brigit, who was standing just outside and had obviously been listening.

His nostrils flared, and he stalked past her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Brigit made a face at me. "Oops."

"Not your fault," I said, peering around the door as Andrew left, his footsteps echoing down the hallway outside.

"I couldn't help but listen in," she said.

"It's him," I said. "He did it."

"How do you know?" she said.

"Just a feeling at this point," I said. "We need proof. Hope you're not too hungover."

She grimaced. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it's going to be a long day," I said. "We're going to need to widen our search and go over everything we've looked at before. Dig out her phone, go through all the texts, see if there's anything suspicious there from him. Look through her email again, try to find anything from him that would cast aspersion. Any mention of him elsewhere—like if she talks to someone else about him. That kind of thing."

"Oh." Brigit's grimaced deepened.

"Yeah, it's not going to be fun," I said.

To Brigit's credit, however, she was a trouper, even though I don't think she was exactly functioning on all four cylinders that morning. I let her take the email messages, since that had a handy search function. The text messages were a little more complicated to go through, that is until I got frustrated and called Eden to ask if there was some way to get the text messages onto my computer.

She directed me to a program to install, and within a short period of time, I could search the text messages in the same way as the email, which did make things easier.

Still, in order to be very thorough, we read each and every mention of Andrew in the messages, and it took hours.

By the time we'd searched for every phrase, name, or word that could possibly be connected to Madison's brother, we each had a stack of messages we'd printed out and highlighted, but nothing concrete. No real proof, not even anything all that suspicious.

It was late afternoon. Brigit sorted through her stack of email. "He goes to see her a lot. She turns down several offers to hang out because he's coming over." She doled out the messages as proof. "It seems like he's there every few days. But that's not anything we didn't know. Andrew says they were really close."

"True," I said. "Anything else?"

"She seems annoyed by it a lot. A lot of her messages are like, 'Oh, I wish I could, but my brother's coming to see me' kinds of things. Not always, though. She does defend him on occasion."

I raised my eyebrows.

Brigit handed me an email. "See? Her friend was complaining that Andrew controls her life, and Madison says that he cares about her and that he means well."

I furrowed my brow. "Right."

"There are a couple more like that." Brigit handed over the pages.

I sorted through them, scanning the parts that Brigit had highlighted.

"Again, though," she said, "it's nothing we don't know. They're close, and he's on her case all the time. It's understandable that she sometimes finds his meddling endearing and other times intrusive."

"Any indication that he's ever violent towards her?" I said.

Brigit shook her head. "Nothing like that. And she doesn't seem to communicate with him via email. She only talks about him, not to him."

"Yeah," I said. "I seem to have all the direct conversations, but they're in texts, and there's a lot of context missing, so there's really nothing there either."

"Nothing?" Brigit's shoulders slumped.

"Well, there are discussions about when he's coming over or if he's running late, and there a couple oblique references to arguments, like this one." I sorted through my text messages until I found it. "He says, 'I promise to be nice." And she says, 'You better. Stop trying to tell me how to run my life.' Another time, they have a conversation where he says he only does it because he worries about her, and she says that she understands." I riffled through the papers. "Right there. See?" I showed it to Brigit.

She barely looked at it. "We just wasted our entire afternoon, didn't we?"

I laughed. "This is being a detective, Brigit. Most of it's boring and most of it's a waste. Being a police detective's even worse. You wouldn't believe the paperwork."

She laughed a little. "No, I guess I know that. It's only that it's discouraging, isn't it? I feel like we've been working on this case forever, and we still don't know anything."

"It's a process," I said. "We're getting there." I flipped through the pages of messages idly. "He was so defensive when I spoke to him. He's hiding something. I can tell he's hiding something. I just don't know how to prove it."

Brigit massaged the bridge of her nose.

"He's got to have made a mistake. I've got to find his mistake."

Brigit stretched her neck.

"Why don't you go home?" I said to her.

"But I'm supposed to be here for another two hours."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "You've put in enough work for today. I can get the phone if it rings. You go home and clear your head, rest a little, sleep off last night."

She grinned sheepishly. "That does sound nice."

"Go on, get out of here."

She didn't protest any further, just got her stuff and headed out, leaving me alone with a stack of messages and my own thoughts.

* * *

After Brigit left, I poured over the messages a little longer, hoping something might jump out at me, but it didn't. I felt strongly that there was something off about Andrew Webb, and I'd felt it from the beginning. There was the fact that he insisted that Madison was dead without any proof. There was the way that he seemed overly involved in her life. There was the way he was overly judgmental about perfectly valid life choices like being a waitress. The drug stuff was certainly a reason to be concerned, but apparently he hadn't known about that. He also hadn't much liked Madison's boyfriend, Curtis, which could be seen as fitting the pattern of his being an overbearing older brother, sticking his nose where it didn't belong. However, Curtis really was a shit boyfriend, so I wasn't sure if that fit or not. I wouldn't want my little sister to date him. If I had a little sister, that is. Which I didn't.

But back to Andrew. He'd also beaten up Brian at the restaurant, and his reason for this was that he was convinced that Brian was sleeping with his sister and "corrupting" her. That was strange, wasn't it? It was violent.

To me, it showed that Andrew was possessive of Madison. He seemed to think of her as an object that belonged to him. If that was the case, then he would have reasoned that he was well within his rights to snuff out her life. Maybe Andrew didn't have a clear-cut motive because he was just an abusive crazy man. It wasn't as if that didn't happen, after all.

I had my back to the door when it opened, but I turned around pretty quickly, startled by the noise.

"Hi, Ivy."

Shit. It was Colin Pugliano. What the hell? Why was he here?

I dove back into the inner office, shutting the door behind myself. Colin was out in the waiting area, where Brigit's desk was, but there was a wall between us.

I locked the door and braced my body against it. I didn't want him to come in. "Go away, Colin!" I yelled.

Geez. Speaking of abusive crazy men...

If Brigit was here, she'd tell me that I'd brought this on myself by not pressing charges. Maybe she was right. Maybe his being here was my own stupid fault.

He spoke to me from the opposite side of the door. "I guess I deserve that."

"Go away." My entire body was trembling. I was afraid, I realized. I thought about the pain splintering through me as Derek threw me around like I was nothing, as his boots connected with my flesh, and I could hardly breathe. My hands fluttered at my neck, as if I could free myself from some unseen vise grip.

"Ivy, I never meant for Derek to go so far. When we were here, I told him to let me talk to you. You heard me say that, didn't you?"

I didn't say anything. How was I going to get rid of him? Here I was, huddled in my office, all alone. I was helpless.

Fuck. I needed to get a goddamned gun. I didn't care what I had to do to make that happen, but I couldn't live like this anymore.

"I only want to talk," he said.

"Go away." My voice was a pathetic whisper.

"Oh, don't be like that," he said, and his voice seemed to take on a cocky edge, as if he could hear my fear, and he liked it. "Let me in, okay. I promise to be nice."

Man, that was the same thing that Andrew Webb had said to his sister. And then he'd killed her. If I let Colin in, who knew what would happen to me.

I shook myself. I wasn't even considering letting him in.

Why'd I thought about letting him in? Did I want to let him in? I couldn't want that. Of course I didn't.

The grip seemed to tighten on my throat. I gasped for air.

What if letting him into the office would let me breathe? What if that was the way to get rid of him? What if I just played along, and then he came in and talked to me, and then he left, and then it was over?

No, I told myself firmly. Stop thinking about it.

But now it was as if I couldn't think of anything else. My head was filled with images of my getting up and unlocking the door and stepping aside, allowing Colin to walk into my office.

As soon as he got inside, the scenario started over again, playing on a loop inside my brain.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Ivy," murmured Colin on the other side of the door. "We had fun together. Remember that? Remember how good it felt when we were together?"

I gritted my teeth.

"Let me in," he said. "I just want to talk."

I couldn't say anything. I couldn't move. I was afraid that if I did, I'd get up and let him into the room. Some part of me seemed to want to do that, seemed perversely compelled.

That was my problem. I was always perversely compelled to do stupid things. It was as if my wits deserted me, and I was tormented until I destroyed things.

Well, not this time.

I forced air into my nostrils, sucking in noisy breath. "Go away, Colin. I'm going to call the police if you don't go away."

"Oh, come on, Ivy. I'm not doing anything wrong."

I vaulted across my office and picked up the phone. I dialed the number for Miles Pike's office. I knew it by heart. It wasn't the same as calling the police, because it was safer. Miles would believe me. Miles wouldn't ridicule me. Miles wouldn't—

"Lieutenant Pike," he greeted as he picked up the phone.

"Miles," I whispered. "It's Ivy."

"Ivy? Are you okay?"

"He's in my office, Miles. He's here." And I hung up.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A knock on the inner office door. "Ivy, are you in there?"

I was huddled behind my desk, but I recognized that voice. I stood up. "Miles?"

"What the hell's going on?" he said. "Are you all right?"

I scurried over to the door and opened it. Miles was standing there. He had his hand inside his jacket, on his shoulder holster, ready to pull out his gun. I peered behind him at my office. It didn't look like anyone else was there. "I think he left. I wouldn't talk to him, and I think he left."

He looked around too. He took his hand out of his jacket. "Who?"

"Colin Pugliano."

Miles sighed.

I rubbed my face, backing away from him. "I'm sorry I called. I just... I need a gun."

"Ivy—"

"Someone's blocking my permit in the sheriff's office. You think there's anything I can do to get that moving?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "Are you okay or not?"

I nodded. "I got scared. Usually, I can take care of myself, but I couldn't last time. All I could think about was how he kept kicking me and how much it hurt..."

"But it wasn't Derek, right? It was just Colin. And he didn't touch you?"

"No." I hugged myself. "Do you think I was stupid not to press charges?"

"I don't think it would have come to anything. The justice system is not exactly fond of you. Melly is their darling girl, and everyone who works in the courthouse thinks you're a home wrecker and a—"

"I know what they think of me," I told my toes.

"Not to mention the O'Shaunessy lawyers would chew you up."

"That's what I said."

"But that doesn't mean you should have to live in fear. Look, if you want, I can call in a favor and have some uniforms swing past your office on their beat?"

"No." I shook my head. "The uniforms hate me just as much as the people at the courthouse. Everyone hates me except you. And you should hate me." I sighed, and wandered over to my desk chair, where I sank down into it. I was confused. I felt ashamed and embarrassed for resorting to calling Miles, like a damsel in distress who needs her stalwart hero in the face of danger. But I was also just glad he was there, that he'd come when I called.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and surveyed me from across the room.

I sighed, resting my elbows on the desk and burying my head in my hands. "I shouldn't have called you." My voice was muffled.

"What?"

I lifted my face. "It's crazy. It's like we both know that there's nothing between us. That there can't be anything between us. But I keep doing things like this. I keep stringing you along—"

"We both keep doing things," he said. "I'm the one who came by here the other week, remember?"

I looked down at my desk, nodding.

We were quiet.

"You should file a restraining order," he said. "I'll fill out a report for this incident, and I'll push it through the hearing."

"I just need a gun." I got up from my desk. "I'd feel better with a gun."

He hesitated for a minute, and then he nodded. "I'll see if I can do anything."

"Thank you for that."

"Of course."

And we were both quiet again.

"You're shaken up," he said. "You shouldn't be alone. Let me buy you a drink."

"You're still on duty, aren't you?"

He shook his head. "No, I'll clock out." He gestured to his phone. "It's actually kind of funny you called, because I was going to get in touch with you today. I might know something related to the missing girl case you're working. I was debating what the best way to contact you would be. I thought about just sending you an email with the information, but I wanted the excuse to see you." He smiled a tired smile. "I always want an excuse to see you, Ivy."

I melted. Suddenly, I was flinging myself across the room and into his arms. I knew better than to do that, better than to touch him out of nowhere.

I expected him to stiffen when I made contact with him, but he didn't. He folded his arms around me instead. I pressed my face into his lapel. He kissed my forehead and tightened his grip.

We stayed like that for several minutes. I could smell him, and I loved the way he smelled. He didn't wear any kind of cologne or anything, but he used this distinctive smelling soap that he got at the health food store. It was shipped from India, and it smelled clean and spicy and it mingled perfectly with Miles's natural smell. There was nothing nicer than being enveloped in his scent and his embrace.

If only this could be enough for me. If only I could be happy with these sweet embraces, these tentative closed-mouth kisses. If only I didn't always ache for more.

I lifted my face so that I could gaze into his eyes.

He ran his knuckles over my jaw.

I shut my eyes. "You should go back to work."

"What about that drink?"

"Where would we do that, huh? You want to be seen with me in town?"

"Fine. Come back to my place." His voice was dark and deep and rumbling.

I opened my eyes slowly, searching his expression.

He swallowed. "Not to..." His gaze darted away from mine. "Just for a drink."

We let go of each other.

"I know," I whispered. "Just for a drink."

He shoved his hands in his pockets.

I went over to my desk and began to straighten up some papers. "Maybe it would just be better if..."

Several moments of silence. I straightened the papers and straightened them again, even though they didn't need it.

"If I went back to work." Miles sounded defeated.

I turned around. "Thanks for coming."

"I'll check on your weapons permit."

"Thanks."

And he was gone.

* * *

That night, I left the office and went straight to the bar. I felt like there was a fire lit inside my belly, like there was no way I could quench it without some sweet distraction. Instead of spending time at The Remington, I went to Station Place, where a younger crowd usually hung out, and where they played dance music in the basement.

I wasn't crazy about dance music. I felt like I was mostly too old for it. It was monotonous, it went on and on. If I weren't drunk, it drove me crazy. I knew that when I said that, I sounded like a crotchety old woman, waving my cane and complaining about the "noise you kids think is music." But it truly wasn't my cup of tea.

Still, with a few drinks I could handle it. And I didn't want much discussion tonight. I just wanted action.

In the low lights, no one could see the fine lines around my eyes or mouth. No one knew I was in my mid-thirties. If I moved my body right, writhing in the strobe lights, shaking my ass and my breasts, I was just as desirable as the younger girls. And it wasn't long before someone was moving his body against mine.

I felt him press against me—his hands caressing my hips, his pelvis grinding against my backside.

I looked back to see his face. He'd do.

I moved with him.

We gyrated together, our bodies touching, our hands on each other's skin, urging each other close.

I turned in his arms, pressing my breasts against his chest. Another song went by, and we danced and gazed into each other's eyes.

When he kissed me, I let him.

We did it in the handicapped bathroom at the top of the stairs. It was unisex, and it didn't have stalls. It had a door that locked. It was handy for that kind of thing.

He pushed me down over the sink, face down in the porcelain, and together, we urged my pants and underwear out of the way, together we bared my body for him.

He struggled with the condom and the music seemed to vibrate the floor.

When he was inside me, I closed my eyes and felt the bass, and it was as if we were still dancing, still moving like one body on the dance floor. I was swept away into a calm, calm world. No fear of Derek O'Shaunessy. No worries about my failings with Miles. No concern about why I couldn't solve this damned case with Madison.

Nothing but pleasure, sweat, and rhythmic thrusts.

I groaned and gasped and grunted, and I gripped the cold sink as I climaxed, spiraling out into the strobe lights, losing myself in the music, and I clenched and spasmed on his cock.

Afterward, I got myself another drink and lost him on the dance floor. I never found out his name, and I didn't want to.

When I got home an hour later, I fell into bed, and I slipped easily into a deep sleep.

* * *

Brigit greeted me at the office by shoving Madison's phone in my face. "Madison got a phone call and there's a message."

I set down my coffee on her desk. "A message from who?"

"From a clinic," said Brigit. "A medical clinic called Renmawr Women's Center, where she had an appointment for a procedure tomorrow."

"Procedure?" I said. "What procedure?"

"Well, I don't know, because that's all they said. Here, listen." She touched the phone's screen and then the message began playing. It was an automatic voice, stilted and awkward.

"Hello. This is a reminder for. Madison Webb. You have an appointment for your procedure on. Monday at two o'clock. To confirm this appointment, please press one. To cancel this appointment, press two. To be connected to our offices, press pound."

Procedure? What the hell?

"Find the phone number for this Renmawr Women's Center place," I said to Brigit.

"Oh, way ahead of you," she said, picking up a post-it note and handing it to me. "I was getting ready to call when you came in."

I furrowed my brow. "Without me?"

"Well, I had to know what the procedure was, didn't I?"

I pushed her out of the way and picked up her phone. I dialed the number. The same automatic voice picked up, giving me options to press for various services. I hit pound to be connected to the offices.

The phone rang.

After three rings, someone picked up. "Renmawr Women's Center."

"Hi," I said. "Um, my name is Madison Webb. I have an appointment for tomorrow?"

A pause. "Yes, Madison. I see that. Is there a problem? Do you need to reschedule?"

"I was just wondering if there was anything I needed to do to prepare for the procedure? Anything I should bring along?"

"The doctor didn't talk to you about this?"

"Maybe? I'm just not remembering real well."

"Well, you need to know that you shouldn't have anything to eat or drink for about six hours prior to the appointment and avoid all over the counter drugs such as Tylenol or Advil. You should continue to take anything that has been prescribed for you, however. Dress comfortably and bring an extra pair of underwear. Don't worry about any feminine napkins. We'll provide them for you, but you should expect that bleeding will continue at home, so have some waiting for you. We recommend—"

I hung up the phone, eyes wide. "She was having a fucking abortion. She was pregnant."

"I knew it," said Brigit. "What else could it be?"

"You didn't know," I said.

"I did so. It was freaking obvious."

Well, just because she guessed one thing that I hadn't guessed first didn't mean anything. I was still the detective here, not her. I picked up my coffee again and took a long drink. "What the hell? Who's the father of this baby?"

"I don't know. Curtis? He's obviously capable of knocking up Debbie. Why not Madison too?"

"Well, we know for sure that they were sleeping together. He seems like the obvious choice."

"Yeah, and that gives him a really good motive for murder," said Brigit. "Because of course, he's not going to want two pregnant girlfriends."

I shook my head. "Curtis has an alibi. I saw the credit card charges. He was at the movies."

"Well, maybe Debbie used his credit card, and she's lying for him."

"Maybe," I said.

"But you don't think so."

"Well, Curtis left Madison because Debbie was pregnant, right? So, it seems like he finds the idea of pregnancy to be sort of sacred or something. I don't think he'd kill Madison if he knew she was pregnant. And he has an alibi."

"Okay, I guess I see that," she said. "What about Brian?"

"She and Brian weren't having sex."

"So he says."

"Well, he has an alibi too. It checked out. I looked into it the other day."

Brigit screwed up her face. "Well, we don't have any other suspects. Who else could it be?"

"We do have another suspect," I said.

"Yeah, but it's her brother."

We both got quiet.

Brigit looked up at me, and our eyes locked.

"You don't think..." Brigit said in a funny voice.

"Well," I said. "It kind of fits, doesn't it? How they're so close, and how he's always spending time with her and how his wife was jealous of their bond when they first got married?"

Brigit shuddered. "And how he doesn't like her boyfriend and how he beats up other guys he suspects of being with her?"

"Yeah, but that's crazy, right?" I said. "That's gross. That's beyond..."

"It would give him motive," said Brigit.

"Oh," I said. "God, maybe it would. He killed her to get rid of the baby?"

"Maybe not," said Brigit. "After all, she was getting an abortion."

I shook my head. "Yeah. There's no way. There's just no way this is all about incest."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lissa Webb was gripping the armrests on the chair in my office so tightly that her knuckles were white.

"Look, you said they were close," I said. "I guess I'm just wondering how close."

Lissa swallowed. "You know somehow. You figured it out."

I raised my eyebrows. "Figured what out?"

Lissa shook her head. "No, I'm not going to say it out loud. I never say it out loud. I... I try not to even think it."

"But you suspect that the relationship between Madison and Andrew might not be a typical brother-sister relationship."

Lissa's face was drained of blood. She shut her eyes, and she didn't say anything.

It was confirmation enough. I wasn't barking up the wrong tree here. Even if Lissa wasn't certain, I could see that she had her own misgivings. That was enough to keep me pursuing this line of inquiry. How it related, I wasn't quite sure, but I knew that it didn't look good for Andrew.

Man, poor Lissa. I wished there was something I could do for her. I was fairly certain that she was married to a man who was not only unfaithful to her with his own sister, but who was probably a murderer. This wasn't going to be easy for her.

Right then, I resolved not to push any harder on her. I wouldn't make this any more difficult than it already was.

"Listen, Mrs. Webb," I said, "I don't really need anything else from you—"

"I've known for a while." Lissa wasn't looking at me. She was staring down into her lap, and her face was pinched.

"You don't need to—"

"I walked in on them." She shivered. "It was years ago. Years and years ago. Andrew and I hadn't been married for very long, and I was pregnant with our first child, and I just couldn't..." She drew in a shuddering breath. "He was over at Madison's house, because he was always over there. I couldn't get him to stay home. He would spend hours with her. Sometimes, I'd tell him to invite her over to our house, and she'd come, but that was worse, because I felt invisible. They had all these in-jokes and they'd been through so much together, and when they talked to each other, there was no way to get a word in edgewise. It was just like being alone, only I had to wash their dishes. So after a while, I just let him go to see her, and I stopped inviting her over. I felt horrible, jealous of my husband's sister. It seemed like that should prove that he was actually a nice guy—how devoted he was to her. But..." She tightened her grip on the armrests even further.

I wasn't sure what to say. "Mrs. Webb—"

"But that night, I'd had it," she continued, still not meeting my gaze. "He'd been gone for hours, and I was all alone, and I needed his help with a household project. I'd been trying to get him to put together the baby crib for ages, but he kept putting it off. Finally, I decided I'd do it on my own, but I made a complete mess of it, and I had turned into a sobbing heap, lying on the floor in the nursery, surrounded by screws and pieces of wood and nuts and bolts. When I got a chance to breathe, I decided I'd go and find him. He was going to be a father, after all, and he was going to have to do his share. He couldn't spend all his time goofing off with his sister. I needed him too. So, I got in the car, and I went over to her house to find him.

"No one answered when I knocked on the door," she said. "I knocked a few more times. I could see his car was in the driveway, and I knew he was there, so I let myself in. They weren't in the living room, and they weren't in the kitchen. I went wandering through the rooms until I found them. And then... then I saw them. And they were..." Her nostrils flared. "Well, I just ran away. I ran away, and I never... Andrew saw me, and he asked me about it later, and I pretended like I didn't see anything. It was too horrible, you know. Just too, too horrible to even acknowledge. I tried to convince myself that I didn't see it. If I ever thought about it, I just shoved it to the back of my brain. If I acknowledged it, then my marriage was over, and I didn't want that to happen. I'm not the kind of woman who gets divorced. I wasn't raised to quit. So, I never said anything. I never did anything. I just pretended..." She covered her mouth with one hand, raising her gaze to meet mine.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. At a loss, I offered her the box of tissues.

She waved them away. "You think he killed her, don't you?"

"Why would you say that?"

"He's not right when it comes to her. He never has been. He's... obsessed. I sometimes thought Madison acted out so much because she just wanted to drive him away. Maybe she thought if she did all the things that disgusted him, he'd leave her alone."

Oh, fucking hell. This was horrible.

Lissa took a shuddering breath, and then she leapt up out of the chair. "I'm sorry. I can't..."

I stood up too. "Mrs. Webb. I'm so sorry. I know how difficult this must be for you to—"

"I shouldn't have said anything." She yanked her purse up over her shoulder, clutching it, her eyes wild. "Actually, I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything about any of this to you. If you try to claim otherwise, I'll deny it."

What? "But this is important, what you've told me. It's—"

"He's my husband. I love him. I shouldn't have—" She shook again, shook all over. And then she fled from the office.

I went after her. "Mrs. Webb, please!"

She scurried away from me, never looking over her shoulder.

I watched her go.

Well, hell.

* * *

"I'm not going to get as drunk this time," Brigit promised, sipping on a hard cider in The Remington. "But after a day like that, I needed a drink."

"Go over it again," said Crane, his eyes shining. "Tell me the whole story."

"I'm not going to do that," I said.

"It's just... the pathos." He clutched his chest. "It's like a Greek tragedy. Incestuous love. Murder. Agony."

"It's disgusting, Crane," I said.

He chuckled, stirring his drink.

"I just can't believe it," said Brigit. "I can't believe that the whole time, he and Madison were..." She wrinkled up her nose.

"It's gross, all right," said Crane. "But I don't get why you think finding this out proves he's the murderer."

"Well, we can't prove that yet," I said. "His wife said she'd recant the whole thing, for one thing. And it's not the kind of thing that people leave evidence of. It's a hidden thing. I don't know how we'd prove it."

"I wouldn't even want to," said Brigit.

"But what I'm saying," said Crane, "is that it doesn't necessarily make him more likely to kill her, does it? I mean, depending on how you look at the situation, it might make it less likely."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, he and his sister have been carrying on like this for a long time probably. He says that they're close. She'd probably the most important person in his life, and their bond is even stronger because of the secret nature of their forbidden love—"

"Stop making it sound like the plot of a trashy romance novel," I said. "This is totally disgusting."

"I'm just saying, why would he kill her?"

"Well, she was pregnant," said Brigit.

"But she was having an abortion," I said. "And maybe it wasn't even about that. No, to a person like Andrew, Madison is a possession, an extension of himself. He was disappointed in her, because she never made it up to his standards, and he was always trying to mold her into what he wanted her to be. But at some point, he got frustrated. And he decided that she was too flawed. So, he killed her, the way you might crumple up a bad attempt at a drawing."

Crane raised his eyebrows. "That's your motive?"

"He's an abusive asshole. Abusive assholes kill."

"No, they don't. They like having things to control. That's what makes them feel good about themselves, knowing that they pull all the strings."

"He killed her. He's creepy."

Crane shrugged. "Maybe he did. But if I make this into a book, I'm not having him as the murderer."

"Why not?" I said.

"It's too obvious, that's why not," said Crane. "I mean, sure, you could be suspicious of the guy, but once you find out the big reveal—that he's been screwing his sister—well, that's a big enough twist for him. No, the murderer's someone else."

Brigit drank some cider. "There isn't anyone else. We've been through all the suspects. It's the brother."

"Life isn't a book, Crane," I said. "The brother's creepy. He killed her."

Crane shrugged. "If you say so."

"You're right about one thing, though," I said. "I can't prove it. I believe it, but I don't have a shred of evidence."

"Well, we'll find some," said Brigit.

"I don't know," I said. "Because, see, the problem is, when your client is a murderer, it's pretty likely that you're not going to get paid if you expose him."

* * *

"You're off the case," said Andrew Webb. His face was the color of a tomato, and he'd just burst into the inner office.

I got up from my desk. "Mr. Webb. So good to see you."

Brigit poked her head in the door. "Um, Mr. Webb is here."

"Yes," I said. "I gathered that." I gestured to the chair. "Would you like to sit down, sir?"

He didn't sit down. Instead, he cast a venomous glance at Brigit. "Why don't you go ahead and invite your assistant inside? I'm sure she's just going to stand outside and listen in anyway."

I shrugged. "Okay. Come on in, Brigit."

Brigit shot me a confused look.

I motioned her inside.

She came in and shut the door.

"What can we do for you?" I asked Andrew.

He looked back and forth between us. "When you accused me of murder, I let it go—"

"I didn't accuse you," I said.

"Well, you came pretty damned close," he said. "But I let that go, because it proved to me that you were so interested in finding the truth of the case that you'd look at the person paying your bills. I found a certain amount of integrity in that. And since I know that I didn't lay a finger on Madison, I thought you'd find the truth of things eventually. But this..." He shook his head.

"Mr. Webb, perhaps if you took a seat, we could have a calm, rational—"

"Calm?!" He laughed wildly. He put a finger in my face. "What kind of ideas did you put in my wife's head?"

"Lissa and I had a conversation yesterday, it's true. But information she gave me, she volunteered."

"No." He shook his head. "You did it. You have her convinced of crazy things now. I come home to find her utterly destroyed. She's crying on our bed, and she's ignoring the kids, and she hasn't made dinner, and she tells me she wants me out of the house. And all because of you."

"Sir, if you're having marital issues, then I'm very sorry, but it really isn't my concern."

"How dare you accuse me of something so appalling?"

"Mr. Webb—"

"Madison was my sister. Only my sister. I would never have..." He clenched his hands into fists. "All this time, Lissa never once said anything, and then one conversation with you, and she's telling me that she's always known this about me, and it's—it's not true." He glared at me, daring me to challenge him.

I didn't say anything.

"She couldn't have seen anything," he said. "If she did see it, it was years ago. How could she even be sure she did see anything? No, I don't even think there's truth to that story. I think it's something that you spun up and planted in her memories."

"You think I'm a hypnotist or something?" I noted that there was something quite telling about that last little bit. He'd almost as good as admitted that he and Madison were involved in that way.

His nostrils flared. "Don't mock me."

"I'm sorry." I smiled tightly. "I assure you, sir—"

"Don't 'sir' me."

"I had nothing to do with your wife's memories. She volunteered them."

"You asked her questions. You stirred her up." He sank his hands into his hair and turned in a circle. "I've lost my sister. I've lost my home. My wife and my children. I have nowhere to go. And it's all because of you." He advanced on me. "Why couldn't you just find the person who killed Madison? Why did you have to go digging into everything about her, uncovering all her secrets like that?"

"I'm a detective," I said. "Uncovering secrets is what I do." But it wasn't the first time in my career that I'd seen how painful these secrets were when they came to light. Sometimes, it was easier on everyone to just keep them locked up in the darkness.

"It's like she doesn't have any dignity anymore." He clenched his hands into fists. "You stole that from her."

"I stole that from her?" I said. "Are you aware that Madison had an appointment for an abortion today?"

He froze in his tracks. "What?"

"When you killed her, did you know that she was pregnant?" I said. "Did you know that you were murdering your own unborn child?"

He shook his head. "I wasn't... I didn't kill her!" But the information had affected him badly. He couldn't stay on his feet anymore. He clutched at the back of the chair for balance, and there were strange, strangled noises coming out of his throat.

It took me a moment to realize that they were sobs.

Generally, I would have offered a crying client the tissues. But not in this case. This bastard didn't deserve them. He'd abused his sister and killed her. I had no sympathy for him.

"I didn't kill her," he said in a tiny voice. Then he staggered to the doorway.

Brigit and I watched him make his way through the waiting area and out into the hallway, visibly crying. He looked... broken.

After he was gone, we were both quiet for several minutes.

"Holy fuck," said Brigit.

"Well, that was a lot of work for no pay," I sighed.

She turned to look at me, furrowing her brow.

"You heard him when he fired us from the case, right?"

"Well... yeah."

"Don't worry. Your salary's covered."

"Wait," she said. "Is that... is that it? We're just done with this?"

"I'll pop by the police station later this evening and give what we uncovered to Lieutenant Pike, see if he can make a case of it, get Andrew arrested."

Brigit smiled. "Oh, good. You think he will?"

"Honestly? No. There's no evidence. There's no body. There's no clear-cut motive. I doubt this ever becomes a homicide, and I doubt Andrew Webb will ever be held accountable."

Brigit's face fell.

I went back to my desk and sat down.

"That's worse than doing a lot of work for no money," said Brigit.

"What is?"

"Doing all this work and there not being any justice."

"Well," I said. "The world's not fair."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Incest?" said Miles, raising his eyebrows from the other side of his desk.

"Wife says she saw it." I'd stopped by the station like I'd promised, and now I was giving my report in Miles's office. "I know I don't have much, but I got a gut feeling on this guy. He's a nasty piece of work."

"And he might be," said Miles. "But you've got no evidence that he's a killer."

My shoulders slumped.

"Hey," he said, getting up from his desk. "I forgot last time I saw you, but I said I had something that might help you out? You remember?"

"No," I said.

"I'm sure I told you. But, uh, we got a little distracted." He looked away, embarrassed.

Had he said something about the case? I wracked my brain, trying to see if it had registered. If he'd said something, and I hadn't even heard, then I was losing my touch. A detective needed to notice every single detail, and if my emotions were clouding my ability to stay sharp—

He put a folder in my hands.

I opened it up. "Another missing persons case?"

"Yeah," he said. "It's kind of oddly similar. Not our jurisdiction, but up the road in Jinn Springs. It ran across it. It jumped out at me, because the bedsheets were gone, but everything else was there. That's the same, right?"

I furrowed my brow, scrutinizing the file.

"Anyway," he said, "maybe this case is different than you thought. Maybe it's not your incest guy after all. Unless he's involved with this chick too."

I shook my head. "I don't get it. There's another disappearance? A similar disappearance?" I closed the folder. "Can I keep this?"

"No," he said. "You know I can't just give you a police file. Now, what might happen is that you and I get talking about something else, and we both forget all about it, and you walk out with that file on accident." He smiled.

"Shit, Pike," I said. "I accused the guy who hired me of incest and murder. I'm not even on this case anymore. I got to let it go."

He nodded. "Yeah, I see that happening. You're definitely the type to let it go."

"Hey, I let things go. I can completely let things go."

He snorted.

I fingered the edge of the file folder. "I can."

"You have any more issues with Colin Pugliano?"

"No."

"Well, hopefully you don't," he said. "I haven't any luck with that permit thing yet, but that's something I can't really talk about in the office."

"Right." I nodded.

We both studied our hands and didn't speak.

"Why'd you do it?"

I looked up at him, confused. "Do what?"

"Why'd you sleep with a lowlife like Colin Pugliano? I mean, Jesus, Stern, don't you have any self-respect?"

I sank down in my chair. It was my turn to be embarrassed. "I was drunk."

"Of course you were." He was sarcastic.

"I didn't think. It just happened."

"Yeah, that's what you always say. And it always sound like a cop out to me."

"Miles—"

"You are one of the most deliberate women that I know. When you're investigating something, you take your time and look at all the angles. You're not someone who just impulsively ends up—"

"It looks like that, but it's not true." I studied my fingernails. "Because sometimes I go in half-cocked, like I just did, and that's how I got my ass handed to me by Derek O'Shaunessy."

"So, I'm supposed to accept that you can't help it?"

"You don't have to accept anything. You can think whatever you want."

"I wish it didn't bother me," he said.

"It shouldn't bother you." I got up from the desk. "We're not together anymore. You don't have any reason to care about who I do and don't sleep with."

"Well, when we were together, it was pretty much the same deal, wasn't it?"

"That was your idea," I said.

"Yeah, maybe I didn't mean it seriously. Maybe I brought it up, and I thought you'd shoot me down. I thought you'd say, 'No, Miles, I don't need to get laid that bad. You're enough for me. I care about you and not your penis.' But that isn't what you said, is it?"

I squared my shoulders. "Is this the kind of conversation we should be having in your office?"

"Don't have anything to say to that, huh?"

"It's not like that, and you know it. What I do with those men, it isn't about... companionship or love or... or anything. It's just sex. I explained it to you, and you said you understood. You agreed to the arrangement. If you didn't like it, you should have—"

"What? Forced you to be faithful to me, when I can't satisfy you? I know there's something wrong with me. I know..." He took a deep breath. "You know, maybe we shouldn't be talking about this in my office."

I nodded, backing into his door and leaning into it. "I'm going to go now."

"Yeah." He took another deep breath. "You probably should."

I opened his door and backed out of his office, gazing at him the whole time. I wished like hell I hadn't fucked things up with him. This man was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I'd thrown it all away like garbage. Now, here I was stuck in this other shadow life, this echo of what could have been, where everything was just... wrong.

* * *

I settled back into my desk at my office. I sorted through all of my files and papers. Most of them still pertained to the Webb case, so I swept it into a hanging folder and put it in my filing cabinet. I found the file that Pike had given me, and I put it in there too. I was done with that case.

There was absolutely no point in pursuing something I wasn't getting paid for, even if it was intriguing to wonder why someone else in Jinn Springs had disappeared along with her bedsheets. Jinn Springs was just up the interstate. If someone was traveling up the highway, it was a brief jaunt from the Renmawr exits to the Keene exit (it only had one, being a tiny town) and the Jinn Springs one. So, even though Jinn Springs wasn't exactly real close to Renmawr, it was easy enough to get there.

Traveling between Keene and Renmawr or Keene and Jinn Springs, I didn't usually bother with the interstate, but if I was going to go from Renmawr to Jinn Springs, I'd probably get on the highway. I wondered if possibly Curtis had a third girlfriend, one up the road, and he'd killed her too.

But no, Curtis had an alibi.

And besides, I was done with this case.

I was really, really done with it.

Maybe this other girl—I couldn't remember her name—and Madison were both actually alive, and they'd run off to join some cult that had its members do unspeakable acts with bedsheets, like Crane had proposed originally. I giggled a little, trying to think of what kind of unspeakable acts could be accomplished using bedsheets. As weapons went, they weren't really the best—

Was that why the bedsheets were gone?

Were the bedsheets the murder weapon? Had Madison been suffocated to death?

Not thinking about this case anymore.

Brigit appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Brigit." I was glad of the distraction. Hopefully, she had something else interesting for me to focus my attention on.

She leaned against the doorway. "So, um, what do we do now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, now that we're not working for Andrew Webb, and we're not trying to solve Madison's case. What do we do now?"

"We wait for another case," I said. "Someone always shows up. Sometimes several someones. It tends to actually come in bursts, to be honest. It's a little frustrating, because I'll be bored out of my skull and then I'm swimming in so much work, I don't know how I'm going to get it all done."

"We just... wait?" she said.

"Yup."

"It's not bugging you?" she said. "The, you know, lack of closure?"

"Not at all," I said. Okay, maybe I was a little too forceful with that statement, as if I was trying to convince both her and myself, but I didn't think Brigit even noticed.

At any rate, there was no time to think about that, because a distraction magically appeared out of thin air.

Upstairs, the dog started barking.

I grinned. "I'll be back."

Brigit's eyes widened. "You are not going to go break into that woman's apartment again."

I grabbed my lock picks. Then I pushed past her, through the waiting area, and out into the hallway. I hurried up the stairs to the second level. As I approached Kitty's apartment, the barks grew louder and louder.

"Don't worry, little dog," I called. "I'm coming."

But the minute that I fitted the lock pick into the doorknob and started to rattle around in there, the door opened.

Kitty was standing inside, and she was livid.

"You're, um, home," I said.

She ripped the lock pick out of the doorknob. "I caught you red handed."

"Look, take the dog out of the bathroom," I said.

"No." She lifted her chin. "That's my dog and my bathroom, and I'll put her wherever I want."

"The dog is unhappy."

"As well she should be. She chewed up my very favorite slippers."

"Maybe you shouldn't keep a dog locked in a tiny apartment like this. Maybe that dog needs exercise. You ever think that?"

"If I catch you in my apartment again, I'm reporting you to the authorities."

I made a sour face at her, and I turned to go.

Brigit was standing there.

"What?" I said to her. I pushed past her again. I went back down to the office, Brigit on my heels the entire time.

When we got back inside, the dog was still barking. I balled my hands up into fists.

"You can't break into people's houses," said Brigit.

I glared at her.

The dog's barks turned into long, anguished howls.

"Let's go to the bar," I said.

"It's three in the afternoon," she said.

"So?" I said.

* * *

Brigit did accompany me to the bar, and I treated her to one stiff mixed drink after another. I wasn't in a particularly good mood, to tell the truth, and I didn't want anyone to see that. I was blaming it on that conversation with Miles earlier, where he ripped me a new one for not being able to control myself.

I didn't much like that about myself. I was always trying to control myself. I wanted to do everything right. But... well, it just never seemed to work. There was a point in which I started to lose my mind. Where some voice in my head whispered that I should give in and live dangerously, and that voice seemed to make more sense than the voice that said to be cautious.

Or...

That wasn't even exactly the way I felt.

It was more like the idea to do something that I knew was wrong would overtake me, and I couldn't fight it. It pestered me and pestered me and pestered me until I did it.

There. Why couldn't I explain that to Miles in that way? Then maybe he'd understand.

Or maybe he'd be annoyed. It seemed that every time I tried to explain myself to him, he'd get caustic. That's not what you said before, Ivy. You're always changing your story.

By seven in the evening, both Brigit and I were pretty wasted, and she left the bar, claiming she had to get something to eat.

That was obviously the intelligent thing to do. If I was the kind of person that Miles could spend the rest of his life with, that's what I would have done too. I would have left the damned bar, gotten something to eat, and slept it off.

But I was me.

And that's not what I did.

Instead, I kept drinking. I thought that Crane would probably show up within a few hours, because he usually stopped by in the evenings. But for some reason, Crane didn't even bother to show. I thought about calling him, because I could have really used an easy hookup that night, someone who wouldn't mind how drunk I was, who'd still sleep with me.

I kept telling myself that I'd call him after the next drink, though.

I don't know how many more drinks there were.

There were a lot.

And yet... somehow... I didn't black out. I think it was because I wanted to. Whenever I courted the sweet, sweet oblivion of alcoholic blackout, it never deigned to arrive. So, instead, I got drunker and drunker and drunker.

And as I stumbled and slurred my way through the bar, I got more and more sad. I was alone. I didn't have a case. I'd been fired from my dream job. I was probably wrong about Andrew Webb. He probably wasn't the killer.

I'd followed the trail as best as I could, but I'd made a mistake somewhere.

Why had I been so convinced it was him? There was no evidence that he'd killed Madison.

I'd trusted my gut, and where had it gotten me? Nowhere.

The worst thing about it was that if I hadn't jumped the gun, I might still be working on that case. Now, I couldn't work on it, because I'd sabotaged it.

I tried to explain this to people in the bar, even though I don't generally discuss cases with anyone besides Crane, because I was too drunk to have any ethics anymore. Fortunately, no one could really understand me.

I was at the stage of drunkenness in which no one wanted to be around me. I was annoying. I interrupted people when they spoke. I was desperately self-centered. I was unintelligible.

It was embarrassing.

Not that I was embarrassed then. No, that would be a gift that I would receive the next morning when I thought about all the stupid things I'd done.

Eventually, the bartender refused to serve me any more drinks. He didn't outright kick me out, but he let me know that I wasn't really welcome in the bar anymore.

When I got out onto the street and began my lumbering, sad walk home, I started crying. It seemed to me that the sky had caved in some time ago, and here I was living in a broken world, just trying to steer clear of the rubble. I was pointless and stupid. Why did I even bother?

I didn't go to my own house. Instead, I stumbled to Crane's and knocked on the door.

He didn't answer.

So I got loud. I banged and banged on the door, yelling for him. "I know you're in there, Crane! Open the door!" But I was drunk, so all my words bled together, and it barely sounded like I was speaking English. I was aware of the fact that I was slurring my words and that I was off balance, but I was unable to actually correct this.

I banged on the door until he opened it, wrapped in a blanket, his chest bare. He was pretty pissed off. "Go away," he said. "I have company."

"Oh." I gave him an exaggerated nod. Crane had hooked up with someone else. He wasn't there for me, because he'd probably found some cute girl in her twenties. Maybe he'd marry this one too. I hoped not. Whenever Crane got married, he disappeared for months, and I missed him. "Sorry." It sounded more like shorry.

"Go home, Ivy," he said. "Sleep it off."

"Sorry. Really sorry." I stumbled backwards, away from his door, tripped over my feet, and went sprawling on my ass. I started to laugh.

"You're fucked up," he said. "I wouldn't have slept with you in this condition anyway."

I was still laughing. "Sorry, Crane. Sorry I interrupted you with your inappropriately-aged conquest. Really sorry."

"Oh, you're one to talk," he said. "You sleep with your share of co-eds, Ivy, so leave it. And get out of here."

I tried to get to my feet, but my legs were tangled up. "Sorry!" I called again.

Crane slammed the door.

I still couldn't figure out how to stand up again. I tried to untangle my legs.

It seemed hopeless. Every time I tried to move, my limbs wouldn't work the way my brain wanted them to. I could see what I wanted to do, but my body no longer knew how to cooperate.

I laughed about it for a while. It was ridiculous, not knowing how to make yourself move. Even infants could do that.

But then I began to feel a little panicked, because I wasn't sure how I was going to get up. It wasn't so funny anymore.

I started crying again.

I sat in a heap on the sidewalk in front of Crane's house, and I cried.

And cried.

I cried until I got the hiccups.

And then somehow, I managed to figure out how to get back up. I wasn't steady on my feet, and I was hiccuping every three seconds. The hiccups brought up liquor-soaked bile from my stomach. It made me feel ill, but I wasn't going to throw up.

I hadn't thrown up after drinking since I was a junior in college, and I wasn't about to start it back up again now.

I staggered down the street, hiccuping, sick to my stomach, tear stained, and miserable.

Eventually, I made it home.

I looked around my apartment, which wasn't much. I had one bedroom, a small kitchen, an even smaller bathroom, and a tiny living area. The place was usually a little bit messy, because I didn't much bother with cleaning if I wasn't going to have visitors. I kept up with my dishes, and I kept the bathroom clean. I wasn't really worried about germs or anything, but I did think that there was something uncomfortable about a dirty kitchen and bathroom. Other than that, I put very little effort into the place. It wasn't something that I was proud of.

I went to the refrigerator and got a gallon jug of water. I looked for some leftovers in there that I could eat, but there wasn't anything, so I grabbed a loaf of bread and went into the living room.

I threw myself down on the couch to nurse the water and eat plain bread. The bread would soak up the alcohol, and with the bile rising to my throat, I wanted something bland anyway.

When I collapsed on the couch, the room began to spin.

Fuck.

I put my feet on the floor. The room righted itself, but it still felt like it was wobbling back and forth. I groaned. I was exhausted, but there was no way I'd be able to go to sleep until the spins stopped. I guzzled water.

The water seemed to be making the spins worse. However, it tasted delicious. My body knew that it needed it, and so I kept drinking it.

The feeling of needing to vomit hit me hard.

I groaned.

Not going to throw up, I told myself.

I managed to get up and stagger into the bathroom, though. I splashed water on my face and surveyed myself in the mirror.

The face that stared back at me was haggard and old. I used to be a fairly attractive woman, and I guessed I still was. I wasn't fat or anything, although drinking so much alcohol had begun to catch up with me lately, and I was getting a little soft pudge around my middle. I had blond hair and my features were straight and symmetrical.

But the woman in the mirror was tired and aged and pathetic. I looked like a wino on the street in Renmawr.

I winced, turning away from the mirror and heading back to the living room.

When I sat down, the room was still spinning.

Fine. If I had to wait that out, I might as well turn on the TV. But after I flipped through the scant channels that I got (I was too cheap to pay for a decent cable package) four times, I just switched the set off. I didn't want to watch TV.

I wished I could have found someone to fuck that night. That would have been a nice respite. But the fucking was a way to escape from everything, just like the drinking was, and maybe right now, it was time to face up to what had happened to my life.

Yes, I was pathetic. Yes, I was a failure.

No, I didn't have anything to be proud of.

Yes, there was no point in my being alive.

"Fuck that," I muttered aloud. I sat up straight on the couch. I shoved another piece of bread in my mouth.

If that was what waited on the other side of my various escapes, no wonder I didn't want to face it. Maybe it was true that I was a sorry excuse for a human being who had no redeeming qualities, but that didn't mean it was fun to think that.

Besides, there was something worthwhile that I did, something that benefited the world.

I caught murderers.

I stopped them from killing again, and I brought closure and justice to the families of their victims.

It was who I was, and it was the only thing about me that was redeemable.

When I was fifteen years old, my parents didn't show up for one of my show choir concerts. (Yeah, I was in show choir. So what?) It was weird to me, because I expected them to come. They were always around for my activities. They were good parents, and I loved them. Sure, we had our share of normal friction, but overall, we had a strong bond.

Anyway, this was before cell phones, so I had to try to call them at home from the school. No answer.

I went on with my concert, and then one of the other students was kind enough to give me a ride home. I wasn't yet old enough to drive, but some of the other students were older, and they had their licenses. The girl was a senior, and she told me that my parents had probably forgotten about me, and that everything was fine.

And it was true that the house looked normal from the outside when she pulled up in the driveway. The lights were on inside, and the car was in the garage, and it looked welcoming and ordinary. I figured the girl must be right, and I waved to her as she backed out of the driveway and left me there.

I didn't know it, but when I opened the front door, I was the only person alive in that house.

I wandered through rooms, calling for them. The lights were on in the kitchen, and there were vegetables out on the counter, as if my mother had been in the middle of making dinner. But something had stopped her, because she wasn't there.

Neither of them were in the dining room either, but the table was set. There were only two plates, one for each of them. They'd known I wasn't coming home for dinner.

They'd known about the concert, then. Why hadn't they come?

I yelled for them again. Screamed for my mother and father. For the first time, I felt fear instead of annoyance and confusion at their absence. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before that something bad had happened to them. Maybe it was because I was a teenager, and I felt so invincible. Maybe it was because the only violence I knew of was either far away in news stories or cartoonish in movies and television shows. But right then, terror gripped me.

I went into the den, and that was where I found them.

Our den was a room that we used as our actual family room. The living room was a formal, decorated room that we never entered except when we had guests or on occasions like Christmas morning. My mother liked to keep the living room pristine and untouched, like a home featured on HGTV or something. By contrast, the den was sloppy and comfortable. The saggy couch didn't match the two recliners, and the television set was in here. This was where my family relaxed together.

And this was where I found my parents' bodies. They were both face down in the carpet, neither of them moving. Their throats had been slit, and there was blood everywhere. Their hands and feet were bound with blood-stained duct tape.

What struck me at the time was the color of the blood. How dark it was in the places where it pooled under their bodies, almost black in its concentration. I'd never seen so much blood before.

I remember that it didn't seem real. And that's something that I've noticed throughout my life. Real violent death always seems fake somehow, as if it's a bad special effect.

It wasn't the way it looked that convinced me, though. It was the smell.

The road kill smell—coppery and meaty. The smell of death.

I couldn't stay in the room with them like that. They weren't my parents anymore, they were dead shells. That bothered me more than anything—more than the bad smell. The fact that they could... stop like that. That someone could cut them and bleed them out, and my parents would just be... gone. How could a thing like that happen? How could someone be moving around, walking, and talking and then... just... not? Surely that wasn't possible. Surely that was utterly ridiculous.

Dead.

I started screaming. I screamed and screamed, and I ran out of the house. I stood on my lawn and screamed.

But my parents had probably screamed when they died. And either no one had heard, or those who had turned to their affairs, not wanting to get involved.

So, eventually, I had to pull myself together, and I had to go back inside that house and go to the phone and call 911.

Which I did.

I was a suspect for a while. Not long, because I clearly had an alibi. I'd been at the show choir concert, after all. On stage in front of everyone.

But I became intrigued by the process by which they cleared me when I was called in for questioning. Before, I'd never given much thought to the idea of law enforcement as a career. Before the death of my parents, I'd been fairly set on being a veterinarian, in fact, even though my family didn't have any pets. I just thought it sounded cooler than being a human doctor, and I guess I wanted to save animal lives or something.

Not that I'm a bleeding heart for animals or anything. Because, you know, I'm not.

Anyway, after the death of my parents, I became obsessed with the idea of becoming a homicide detective. It was all I could think about, and it became my mission in life to achieve that.

My parents were dead, you see. There was nothing that could be done about that. They were empty and broken and over. But the police could work on finding their killers. That was something to do. A response to death, instead of simply sitting around and trying to accept something that didn't make any sense.

They caught the men who did it. They'd been sloppy. They were strung out on drugs, and they broke into my house to try to get money. They were so strung out that they didn't realize anyone was home until it was too late. They killed my parents because my parents had seen their faces.

They'd managed to steal only three hundred dollars.

It was still senseless after I knew why my parents had died. But at least there was something that could be done in response. The men were arrested. They went to trial. And they were both sentenced to life in prison.

That was what I wanted to do with my life. Respond to senseless death. It made me feel better, as if there was some order to the universe, as if everything wasn't simply black and formless chaotic pain. It was my salvation.

And it was the only thing that I had left.

I didn't get to do it very often, not since I'd had to begin working as a private investigator. But when a murder case came my way, it was proof that I still had something to contribute to the human race.

That was what was bothering me. The Madison Webb case. I didn't want to give it up.

I slugged down some more water. Well, what the hell? I didn't have another case right now. There wasn't any reason not to keep looking into it, was there?

At once, I felt better, like a heavy load had been lifted from my chest.

Well, sort of better. I was still dead drunk, after all, and the room was still spinning.

Ugh.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I woke up on the couch around eight o'clock, my head pounding and my mouth tasting like rotten sauerkraut. I didn't remember going to sleep. The gallon jug of water was next to me, so I downed the rest of it. I seriously needed water. I felt as if I'd been run over by a truck.

But I had something to do, so that motivated me a little bit. It was a spark that gave me a bit of hope. A reason to live or something. I don't know. Anyway, I got in the shower, and I brushed my teeth, and I felt almost human after that, but still in the grips of the worst hangover that I'd had in years, worse even than the one after the blackout with Colin Pugliano.

Ugh.

I grabbed my typical breakfast and coffee from The Sunshine Skillet. I took it to go, and I headed in to the office.

I didn't stay there, though. I went back to my file cabinet, got the file that Pike had given me, and then I took to the interstate.

It didn't take too long to get up to Jinn Springs. Once I had exited, I started looking at street signs, trying to locate the other victim's house. She lived only three blocks from the interstate, in a small house that sat in between two sets of townhouses. The house looked squat and lonely on its tiny yard.

I parked my car in the driveway like I knew what I was doing. Official-like, I marched up to the front door and began briskly looking about for the spare key.

I found it in two seconds. It was underneath the mat.

Really, people needed to stop doing that. If a person was going to hide her key under the mat, she might as well leave the door unlocked, in my opinion.

And frankly, a locked door wasn't much of a deterrent for any thief worth his salt. Locking the door might keep out some teenage hoodlums, but it wouldn't do much against any kind of experienced criminal.

I didn't lock my own doors.

But I lived in Keene, and nothing bad ever happened in Keene.

I unlocked the door and let myself into the house.

The door opened onto one room that contained both the living room and the kitchen. Together, they took up the whole of the bottom floor, except for a small bathroom in one corner. There was a set of steps leading up to a loft bedroom. This house was really not much more than a one-bedroom apartment, actually.

The first floor looked lived-in but not overly messy. There were unwashed dishes in the sink. Not many, just a skillet and a plate. A throw blanket was crumpled at the edge of the couch and the couch pillows were all on the floor.

I figured that the girl who'd lived here... I consulted the file... Sarah Aaron was her name. I figured that she'd probably done the stuff with the blanket and the pillows.

Before I climbed up to the loft, I put on a pair of rubber gloves. I didn't want to disturb any of the evidence in the scene if the police up here eventually did decide that this was a murder. Clutching the rail with my gloved hand, I ascended the steps.

The loft wasn't much of a bedroom. It had low ceilings and it barely took up half of the span of the second floor. But Sarah did have a dresser up here and a closet. It was open, and her clothes didn't seem disturbed.

Her mattress sat on the floor, and it had been stripped, just like Madison's had been.

Noticeably absent, however, was any sign of a struggle.

Things had been knocked over in Madison's bedroom. This room didn't really have anything like that, but then it didn't contain much furniture anyway. There was possibly nothing to knock over.

I turned around in a circle, surveying the room. Sarah had a little cork board over her bed. There were some pictures on it. Two young women with their arms around each other, grinning at the camera. A picture of a clean-cut guy holding up a beer in salute. The rest of the cork board was covered with little notes. Pick up dry cleaning by tomorrow. Get car inspected. Let out dog for Angela on Friday and Saturday.

I started to take a step towards the wall to read the others more clearly, but I stopped, because there was something in my path.

I knelt down and picked up Sarah's cell phone.

Huh. So Sarah hadn't taken her cell phone either, had she?

I turned it on and unlocked it.

I couldn't take Sarah's phone with me. I'd taken Madison's because I had permission from her brother. In this case, however, I wasn't working for Sarah's family, so I couldn't just take things out of the house. In fact, I should be careful to put the phone back right where I found it.

So, as quickly as I could, I flipped through Sarah's text messages.

Nothing jumped out at me. She was making plans to go out with friends or chatting casually.

I looked in her missed calls instead.

And I recognized one number straight away. That was a number for the Renmawr Women's Center.

I scrolled through her recent calls and called her voicemail. I might not get lucky, because she might have deleted it, but...

Yes.

"Hello. This is a reminder for. Sarah Aaron. You have an appointment on. Monday at three o'clock. To confirm this appointment, please press one. To cancel this appointment, press two. To be connected to our offices, press pound."

Shit. They were both having appointments at the same clinic? How much did I want to bet that they were both abortions?

* * *

I cradled the phone between my neck and shoulder and held up a finger at Brigit, who'd just got into the office.

"Hi there, this is Sarah Aaron. I missed an appointment, and I need to reschedule," I said into the phone.

"Oh, Miss Aaron, thank goodness you called," said the person on the other end of the phone. "People are looking for you. We were alerted by the Jinn Springs police department to make sure that we got you in touch with them. Where are you? Are you okay?"

Damn it. Now, I'd ruined everything. The police would think that Sarah was alive, when she wasn't, and it would give a false idea that she was alive when she probably wasn't.

I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry. Actually my name is Detective Ivy Stern, and I'm trying to get some information about Sarah's case. I thought it would be easier pretending to be her." It was illegal to impersonate a police officer, so I had to ride a fine line here. I couldn't come out and say that I worked for the police, but if I sort of implied it, that was okay.

"Oh. Well, that's odd. Because we just spoke to someone from the Jinn Springs—"

"I'm not with the Jinn Springs department."

"I'm sorry, you said you were a detective?"

"That's right."

"Are you with the police department in Renmawr?"

"Not in Renmawr."

"So, which police department then?"

Damn it. "I'm actually looking into the matter privately."

"Oh, well then, I'm sorry. I can't reveal information about a patient unless it's to law enforcement."

"Of course you can't," I muttered. "Thanks anyway." I hung up the phone.

Damn it, damn it, damn it. So, I was going to have to find another way to get information on Sarah Aaron. This was tricky. I didn't even have the benefit of having a client close to her who'd hired me. I could go and talk to the family, I supposed, but what would they think of me? It would be odd to be investigating a case like this out of the blue. I could explain that I was investigating a connected case, but that wasn't strictly true. At any rate, I kind of doubted her family was going to know about her scheduled abortion.

Brigit was confused. "What are you doing? Did we get a new case?"

"No," I said. "We didn't. But since we don't really have anything else to do, I thought we might as well keep digging into this Madison Webb thing."

"Really?" Brigit grinned. "Awesome."

I was glad she was on board. I passed her the file that Pike had given me. "So, I got this from Lieutenant Pike yesterday when I went to try to turn him onto investigating Andrew. Another girl disappeared."

Brigit sat down across from my desk. "Wait, so you don't think it was Andrew anymore?"

"Well, there's no evidence tying him to the murder," I said. "All we've got is a hunch that he's a bad guy. So, I thought I should just check out this other girl anyway, right? I went by her house this morning—"

"You broke in?"

"Don't worry about that," I said. "I went by her house, and I found out that besides the connection of the missing bedding, both Sarah and Madison left behind their cell phones."

"So, it doesn't look like this girl left on her own either."

"Nope," I said. "And then I looked through her cell phone, and I found out that she had an appointment with the same clinic that Madison did."

"Whoa," said Brigit. "So, how does that connect?"

"No idea," I said. "But maybe it's some crazy right-wing fanatic or something? Some guy who thinks that girls who have abortions should be killed?"

"Maybe he's not killing them," said Brigit. "They were both taken before their appointments, right? Maybe he's kidnapping them and forcing them to have the babies."

I considered. As ideas went, it wasn't impossible.

"We have to make sure that Sarah was having an abortion too," I said. "But the clinic won't release information to me."

"What are we going to do, then?"

I smiled. "Well... it's funny that you'd bring up the idea of breaking in—"

"No," said Brigit, shaking her head. "You can't keep doing that."

"Oh, come on, Brigit," I said. "Do you want to be a detective or not?"

"What? You want me to do it? I don't know how to break in someplace, especially not an abortion clinic."

"I want you to help," I said. "Do you think you can do that?"

She chewed on her lip. "Well... what would I have to do?"

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I waited outside an exit door to the clinic, doing my best to look casual, like I belonged there. A place like this clinic had a lot of security, and I figured it wasn't worth trying to breach that to get inside. No, it was easier to sneak inside.

To do that, I needed Brigit's help. I had her pose as a walk-in. Places like this almost always had a sliding scale payment form, and I knew she could get in for free if she pleaded low income. Right then, as long as everything was going according to plan, Brigit was filling out new patient information—which I'd told her to lie about. Every single thing, from her name to her address to her allergies. Once she was finished, she'd be taken back to see a doctor. But in a clinic like this, they always took a urine sample, so they'd send Brigit to the bathroom.

That was her cue to sneak over to this exit and let me in.

It could be any second that she came to the door. I just had to wait.

I peered out into the parking lot, which I could sort of see from my vantage point here at the exit. There was a big row of overgrown bushes in the way, and I could only see through the haphazard gaps in the greenery.

We hadn't had any trouble getting in, although there were a few protesters outside the clinic. They seemed mostly bored, holding up their signs that said things like, Abortion stops a beating heart, and It's a child, not a choice. Maybe it was because it was early evening, near the end of the business day. Perhaps if we'd gotten to the clinic earlier, then they would have been more energetic.

I totally understood the position of protesters, actually. I had a pretty strong stance against murder myself, and if I truly believed that abortion was murder, I'd probably be on the front lines, too, trying to stop it, or at least trying to punish the people who were doing it.

I didn't think so, though. I hadn't since a few months after my parents died. It wasn't a hot topic of conversation in my house, but I knew that my parents both found the idea of abortion distasteful. They weren't the kind who'd go picket a clinic, but they didn't think it was a great idea. I remember my mother saying that there was so much access to free birth control, she didn't understand how people got themselves into that situation in the first place.

So, if you'd asked me back then, I probably would have made some kind of noncommittal answer about abortion—that I didn't see why it was necessary with all the birth control out there or something. If someone had challenged me on it, really pushed me on the controversial topics like whether or not it was acceptable if the mother's life was in danger or in the case of rape, I would have folded like a deck of cards, because I really just didn't think about those kinds of things.

I was a teenager. What can I say? Before the deaths of my parents, not much was incredibly important to me outside of my own little sphere of existence. I cared about my grades and my social life and the clothes I wore and my own friends. But I wasn't much aware of anything going on beyond that.

After my parents died, it felt like the world stopped making sense. Suddenly, I was forced to confront all kinds of unpleasant thoughts, like whether there was an afterlife or not.

Trying to sort out my feelings on existentialism while also grieving wasn't easy, and I turned to things that might distract me. Not drugs, of course. I knew that my parents' killers had been on drugs, and I wasn't the least bit interested.

But, well... sex.

I was living with my aunt at the time. She had two sons, both of whom were in college, and she was also reeling from the loss of her sister. She'd had her fill of parenting teenagers, however, and she wasn't about to chase me around and create a whole bunch of rules and curfews. Anyway, I basically had free reign to do as I pleased.

After the death of my parents, I hadn't felt particularly close to my friends, with whom I had nothing to say, but I had been able to feel close to my boyfriend at the time. Physically close, anyway, because it wasn't as if we really had long, deep conversations on the nature of existence or what happened after one died or anything like that. Instead, we made out. A lot.

I liked making out with him. I think that was the first time I realized that the sensation of being physically close could block out all the bad stuff. It could make everything okay for a brief period of time, and I could forget all of my troubles.

Of course, as teenage kids, making out all the time tends to lead to other things besides making out, and though I'd had some vague idea—before my parents died—of remaining a virgin until marriage, that just seemed ridiculous in the face of a broken, strange world in which people who had been walking around and talking could bleed their lives out all over the carpet. One day they were there. The next they were gone. Who cared about stupid crap like virginity after that?

Hell, I could die tomorrow. I wanted to live while I was alive, even if it was a cheesy Bon Jovi lyric.

We tried to be careful, too. We really did. But there were a series of various mishaps. Once, our condom broke. Once, it somehow got lost inside me after we were done. (That was a panicky thing, especially at fifteen years old. I wasn't, at that point, comfortable with the idea of digging around in there with my fingers.) Anyway, it so happened that I found myself awaiting my period with trepidation one month.

I was terrified.

For the first time in our relationship, my boyfriend and I began to have actual conversations. Serious conversations about the future, and about what we'd do if these mishaps had resulted in life taking root in my very young womb.

And I didn't want that to have happened.

I realized, right then, that I would have an abortion if I found out that I was pregnant. My life was far too fucked up as it was. I had no parents. I was reeling from their loss. I was confused and scared and lonely. And I didn't want to be a mother. Nor did I want to get very, very pregnant and then give a baby away for adoption.

Was it selfish?

Maybe.

But I reasoned that the thing that might hypothetically be growing inside me couldn't live outside my body without my help. So it couldn't really be a person yet. Or, at least, if it was a person, I was more of a person than it was, because I didn't need to leach off someone else's body to stay alive. Honestly, I couldn't be asked to host this thing growing inside me for nine months just because it might someday be a person, could I?

And in the end, maybe the rationalizations didn't matter. I was still a teenager, still self-centered. I wasn't ready.

Anyway, I never had to make the decision, because my period came like it always did. It was two days late, of course—the worst two days of my young life besides the days surrounding my parents' murder—but it came.

No, near as I could tell, I'd never been pregnant.

But the question was one that I returned to from time to time. What would I do now? I wasn't exactly a stable person, considering all the drinking I did. Hell, if I got pregnant, I guessed I'd have to give up drinking for nine months.

I made a face.

Maybe, in some ways, I was still too selfish for pregnancy.

But I did remember the day that Miles had come into my office and asked me point blank if I ever thought about having a family... I did feel wistful about it. After all, I'd lost my parents, and—to this day—I felt their loss like a gaping hole. Maybe a family of my own would fill that up.

But...

It was silly to think about that.

Anyway, I did my best to make sure that I didn't get pregnant. I used birth control. I used condoms. It had never happened before, and I was getting old for it now. Sure, it was still possible, but I'd heard that fertility really declined in a woman's thirties.

Hopefully, it was something I'd never have to worry about.

Sometimes, I supposed, I did think about the distant future, when I was very old and very alone...

But I was alone now, and I managed just fine. No, I didn't think there was any point in worrying about that—

"Ivy," whispered a voice at my back.

I whirled.

There was Brigit, holding open the exit door for me. I scurried inside.

She closed the door after me. She had a small white cup in one hand.

"Is that your pee?" I said.

She glared at me. "They're going to wonder where I am."

I looked around. We'd emerged into a nondescript hallway, with closed doors on each side. I began opening the doors. "You go ahead back then."

"No, because how will I find you?"

The first door led into an examining room. I shut it. "Just wait for me in the car after your appointment."

"Oh, no. I'm not taking all the risks and then not getting to see any of the information."

I opened the next door. Another examining room. "Well, then I guess you can wait until I find someplace to hide."

"How about here?" She yanked open a door marked Supplies.

It was a closet. The fit would be tight, but I could squeeze in between the hanging lab coats. "Great," I said, grinning. "You're a natural, Brigit."

She smiled back.

"Come back for me after the office is closed."

* * *

I was in that dark closet for a long time. It felt like hours, but every time I would check my phone, only fifteen minutes had passed.

We'd timed Brigit's appointment to coincide with the end of the day, so the office should be closing fairly soon, but that didn't mean that it was comfortable in a cramped closet with no light.

I bided my time, waiting for Brigit.

Eventually, according to my phone, the office should have been shut down for the day. But I knew that sometimes it took a while to get everyone to go home for the day, so I waited.

I waited for a half an hour.

I wondered if Brigit had been unable to sneak back to me. Maybe they'd watched her like a hawk after the appointment, and she'd had to leave. Maybe she was in the car waiting, and I should just leave the closet and go for the files.

I started to open the door, when I had a worse thought. What if they'd figured out that Brigit had lied about who she was? That she'd made up her name and her address and her allergies? What if she'd gotten in trouble?

She'd never give me up. She wasn't the type. But if she'd been arrested or something, I was going to feel really bad. How would I make it up to her?

I cringed in the closet, imagining the worst.

And then Brigit opened the door.

The hallway outside was dark. "Sorry," she said. "I had to hide in the bathroom until I was sure everyone was gone."

"So, everyone's gone?" I stepped out into the darkened hall.

She nodded. "Come on. Let's go look up Sarah Aaron's files."

We padded over the carpet, through the darkness, to the front desk. I was glad I had Brigit with me, because she knew her way around the place now, having been roaming around for her appointment and sneaking me inside. I would have wandered about trying to find my way.

"So," she said, "I noticed that they put all my stuff in a file folder, and there are tons of cabinets back there. They do have computer files, but I think they keep the paper as a backup."

"Great," I said, heading for the cabinets. I began searching the labels, looking for the right alphabetical combination for Sarah.

"Only problem is that they're locked," she said.

I smirked at her, pulling out my lock picks. Kitty had taken one, but I had spares. Lock picks were probably my most important private investigator accessory. No way was I going to leave it at one set.

It was easier to pick the cabinet locks than it was to pick door locks, and we were looking through both Sarah's files and Madison's within a few minutes.

But the first thing that I saw in Sarah's file was a big disappointment. She wasn't having an abortion. She wasn't even pregnant. The appointment she'd missed was for a routine pap smear and birth control.

"Well, there goes our right-wing kidnapper theory," I said. "Sarah wasn't pregnant."

"Oh," said Brigit. "Well, why was she coming here for an appointment?"

"Pap smear," I said.

Brigit looked visibly disappointed.

I felt a little bit like the wind had been taken out of my sails too. "But they were both patients here, so there's got to be some connection. You've got Madison's file, right? Did they see the same doctor? Did Madison see Dr. White?"

Brigit shook her head. "Dr. Mills."

"Oh," I said. "Um... okay, well, let's just make photocopies of all of this stuff, and we'll analyze it in more detail back in the office tomorrow."

Brigit brightened. "Good idea. I'm sure that we'll be able to make better sense of it in the office. This isn't a great environment for thinking things out."

* * *

I spent the evening pouring over the two files. I didn't go out at all, even though I'd usually at least hit up the bar for a drink or two. I was still reeling from last night's all-out drinkfest, and I actually thought that I could stand a break. I figured that I might wake up a wee bit hungover tomorrow as it was. It still felt like there was liquor sloshing through my system, and I wasn't functioning on all cylinders.

It was frustrating, but I couldn't find any connection between the two girls in the doctor's files. They were both around the same age, and they both had gone to the same clinic for care, probably because neither of them had health insurance through their jobs and the clinic was low cost.

Beyond that, I couldn't find anything, and it was driving me nuts.

I actually was wishing it was time to go back into the office already, because I wanted to get Brigit's take on it. I couldn't believe I'd come this far with her. She'd gone from an annoying assistant to a person who's opinion I sought out. Really, I just needed another set of eyes on the whole thing. There had to be something I was missing.

I'd spent so much time on Madison's case, and now this new piece of evidence had sent me right back to square one. I was going to need to go back through all of the suspects, see if any of them were connected to Sarah as well.

But was it worth it? Curtis and Debbie had an alibi. Brian had one too. Who else had I even suspected?

The O'Shaunessys!

Did Sarah have some kind of connection to the O'Shaunessys? How could I even find that out? I knew better than to approach Colin again. Maybe that girl at the college. Cori Donovan. She might know something. As long as she was still okay. The last time I'd seen her, she'd been frightened of O'Shaunessy retribution.

While I was at it, I supposed I could take a crack at Sarah Aaron's medical contact, which was some guy named Jackson Cohen. Maybe that was her father. It was reasonable that people didn't always have the same last names as their parents these days. But somehow I doubted it.

I was going to solve this. I was committed now, and I was going to find both of these girls, even if all I found were their bodies.

There was a knock on my door.

That was odd. I didn't get visitors very often. It was probably some college kid looking for a house party. Probably had the wrong apartment. I went out to the door anyway and opened it.

It was Crane.

I felt my face flush. "Hey," I said. "I'm sorry about last night."

"Oh, it's okay," he said. "You've seen me worse."

"I don't know about that," I said. "I was pretty wasted."

"Don't give it another thought," he said. "I'm not one to judge. I just didn't see you out tonight, and I got a little worried."

That actually made me feel good. It was nice to know that someone noticed when I didn't show up at the bar. "I'm fine. I just drank enough for two nights last night."

He laughed.

"You, um, want to come in?" I moved away from the door. "Or are you just stopping by?"

He shrugged and squeezed past me into the apartment. "What are you getting into tonight?"

"Nothing," I said. "I was doing some work for a case—"

"You got a new case already?"

"Oh, no, I'm just working on the Madison Webb thing still, even though I'm not getting paid. Pike kicked me a lead, and I'm chasing it down. I feel like I've got to see this through, you know?"

He shrugged. "You know me. I'm not one for seeing things through. I'm one for giving up."

I laughed, heading back into my kitchen. "I think I've got some beer in the fridge if you want."

"If it's Miller High Life—"

"It's not," I said. "Someone left it here. It's Dos Equis."

"Someone, as in some age-inappropriate conquest?"

I cringed. "I thought you weren't going to judge me for last night. I'm sorry I said that. You're right I have no room to talk."

"I was just teasing you," he said.

I opened the refrigerator door. "You want a beer or not?"

"Sure, why not?"

We each took a beer and went into the living room.

Crane sat down on the couch and pulled out what remained of the loaf of bread I'd been eating last night. He raised his eyebrows.

I snatched it from him.

"It wasn't, you know," said Crane.

"What are you talking about?"

"Age inappropriate," he said. "It was some newly-divorced woman with three kids at home. She was nervous. Said she hadn't been with anyone except her ex in years. The sex wasn't bad, but I kind of felt like I was doing her a favor."

I laughed.

He grinned at me. "Are we crazy, Ivy?"

I took a drink of my beer. "We are. Most definitely. But why are you asking me that?"

"You and me," he said. "We work on some level, don't we?"

I looked up at the ceiling. "Oh God, Crane, let's not have this conversation."

He raised his eyebrows. "Why not? You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"You're going to say we could be together or something. That things between us could be more... defined."

He chuckled. "Oh hell no, I wasn't going to say that."

My turn to raise my eyebrows. "No?"

He grinned at me, eyes twinkling, and he was beautiful. "No, I like things the way they are. I like that we each have our own space, and that there isn't any pressure between us—no strings, you know? But that we still care about each other, that we're still there for each other."

I sniffed, turning away from him in an exaggerated huff. "I see. So, you don't want to be with me officially. I'm not good enough for you."

He laughed again. "Did I offend you?"

I laughed too, turning back. "I was teasing, silly."

"I know." He reached over and stroked my cheek. "I just like that you're here. Right now."

I smiled. "Me too."

He pulled me close. His lips found mine, and he eased his tongue into my mouth with a casual skill that only came from having kissed me so often.

I sighed, closing my eyes and surrendering.

He took my beer from me and set it down next to his. His fingers traveled under my shirt, brushing my bare skin, making me gasp.

I put my arms around his neck, sliding my hands over his broad shoulders.

He pushed me down on the couch. His mouth was at my ear, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I want you right here, face down in the pillows with your ass in the air and my hands full of your tits."

I shivered. "Yes," was all I said.

And then I was lost to it, lost to the bliss of the present moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Andrew Webb waved a piece of paper in my face. "You've lost your mind, you crazy bitch."

I had just stepped inside my office for the day, and I was still clutching my coffee. I'd drifted to work in a happy haze, brought on by a particularly nice night with Crane, followed by our sharing breakfast like an old married couple. Before this, I'd been feeling pretty good.

Now I had a guy who liked to fuck his sister screaming at me, and I had no idea why.

Brigit waved at me from behind him. "Hi. Sorry. He wouldn't leave until he saw you."

"I'm not paying this!" said Andrew.

"Paying what?" I said.

"Your bill," he said. "I got it in the mail today, and if you think I'm going to give money to a woman who slandered my good name and destroyed my marriage, well, you've lost your mind."

I looked at Brigit. "You sent him a bill?"

"Was I not supposed to?" she said.

I started laughing.

Andrew sputtered. "This isn't funny."

I went around him. "It's fine, Mr. Webb. What do you think I'm going to do? Turn you over to a collections agency? I know a losing battle when I see one. You're not going to pay, and that's that. See you later."

"You aren't going to get away with this. You've ruined my life, and you've made all kinds of unfounded accusations, saying I'm a murderer and that I'm... that I..."

"I don't think you're the murderer anymore." I turned around to face him, now from the center of the room. Without my back to the door, I didn't feel like I was being pushed out of my own office. "At least, I've got some reasonable doubts about it. What was your relationship with Sarah Aaron?"

"Who?" he said. "I don't know that person. Did she say I know her or something? Is she accusing me of some other disgusting thing?"

I believed him. I'd specifically worded the question in such a way that if he did know Sarah, he'd feel as if I already knew that. But he hadn't even hesitated, and he hadn't had trouble formulating a response. He didn't know Sarah Aaron. I narrowed my eyes.

"Who's this Sarah person?" demanded Andrew.

"She disappeared too. And her bedsheets were taken," I said. "Not only that, she and Madison go to the same clinic for feminine medical care."

His eyes widened. "So, Madison isn't the only one? There are other girls who've been killed too?"

"There's no evidence that either of them are dead. There isn't even any definitive evidence that they're connected. But it is suspicious."

"Are you looking into it?" he said.

I shrugged. "Well, Mr. Webb, I can't see why I'd do that. After all, I was working this case for you, and you've fired me and don't want to pay me. So..." I shrugged.

He pulled out his checkbook. "I want to hire you back. I want you to get to the bottom of this. I want you to find the person who did this to my sister. I cared about her more than anything on earth, you know that?"

I wrinkled up my nose. "Yes, we know how you cared about your sister."

He stiffened. "If you want my business—"

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't say a word."

"I'll pay you the balance on this bill," he said. "But not a cent more until you find Madison's killer. You owe me after everything you've put me through."

I just nodded, doing my best not to say anything else. I didn't want to screw this up.

After he left, I held the check in my hands, grinning from ear to ear. I was feeling pretty damned proud of myself. I'd somehow managed to get officially back on this case and get paid for all the work I'd done.

I turned to Brigit. "I can't believe you sent him a bill. You have balls, girl."

"Well, I didn't think it was fair," she said. "You did all that work. You should get paid. He should have to pay you."

I slapped the check down on her desk. "Get this deposited, then. We're back on the case. Officially."

* * *

Jackson Cohen had agreed to meet me somewhere public, so we sat together outside a coffee house in Jinn Springs. I was having my second coffee of the day. He was drinking some kind of Italian soda.

"So, what's this about? You said something about Sarah?"

"I guess you know that Sarah's missing?" I asked.

"Yeah, her parents said that they were going to report that to the police. You the police?" He was a tall guy, sort of stringy. He had a straggly beard and he was wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt with corduroys. He didn't look like he'd showered lately. Probably didn't smell like it either, but I wasn't going to get close enough to find out.

"I'm a private investigator," I said. "I'm actually looking into another disappearance down the road in Renmawr. It seems to have some similarities to Sarah's."

"Huh." He didn't seem very interested.

"What's your relationship to Sarah?"

"I don't have one."

"You're her emergency medical contact at the clinic she goes to." Then I winced. I shouldn't have let him know that I knew that. It opened me up to all kinds of bad questions. Hopefully, he'd never tell the authorities that I'd said that.

"Well, she used to be my girlfriend," he said. "But we broke up like six months ago. I never talk to her anymore."

I supposed that it made sense that Sarah wouldn't have thought to update her emergency contact after the breakup. Still, if this was a casual relationship, why had she listed him in the first place? "How long did you and Sarah date?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Maybe a year? I'm not angry with her or anything, so if you're thinking that I've got something to do with her disappearance, well, you're wrong. I don't. Her parents were all over me the other day. They found some stuff in her house about the abortion, and they flipped their lid."

I sat up straighter. "Abortion?" But there hadn't been anything in Sarah's records about that, unless I'd missed it.

He shrugged again. "She and I agreed not to talk about it. But I guess all bets are off now that she's gone. Besides, her parents know, and I think that's who she wanted to hide it from. She got an abortion about six months ago. It's the reason we broke up. I didn't want her to do it, and she did it anyway." He sucked some of his soda up through his straw.

Six months ago! I hadn't looked that closely at her older records. Damn it. "I thought you said that you weren't angry with her."

"Not anymore," he said. "I was at the time. But now I met someone else, and things are going well, and I'm kind of glad not to be tied down. I realize that Sarah and I weren't right for each other, and if we'd had a baby, then we'd be connected forever, you know? In some ways, maybe it was all for the best."

So, both Madison and Sarah had had abortions. Well, Madison'd had one scheduled. So, maybe there was a connection here. Something worth pursuing.

I sized Jackson up. Did I think he was a murderer? Maybe he had a motive, maybe he was paying Sarah back for getting rid of their unborn child. I couldn't be sure. But I didn't know how to connect him to Madison.

"Did you by any chance go to Keene College?" I asked.

"Yeah, me and Sarah both. That's how we met. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Did you know someone named Madison Webb?"

He shrugged again. "I don't think so."

I showed him Madison's picture.

He shook his head slowly. "I might have seen her around campus or something. I can't be sure. But I don't think I ever spoke to her. Who is she?"

"She's the other girl that went missing."

"Oh," he said in a different voice, reaching for the photo again. "So, like, you're trying to figure out what this girl and Sarah had in common?"

Well, he was bright, wasn't he? I nodded.

"Man, I wish I knew her. Did she go to Keene?"

"Yes," I said. "She and Sarah also went to the Renmawr Women's Clinic."

He kept shaking his head. "No, I don't know her. I have no idea." He handed the picture back.

"Did Sarah spend much time in Keene?"

"Now that we graduated? Pretty much never."

"What about Renmawr?"

"For shopping sometimes. But I mean... she could have totally changed her life around in the past six months. I haven't been talking to her."

"Right," I said. I sighed. "This might sound strange, but did Sarah do drugs?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Uh... what do you mean?"

"Did she have a drug habit? Did she possibly do some shopping for that kind of product in Renmawr?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I guess when we were in school, sometimes we'd spark up a joint at parties, but I never saw do anything except weed, and she never bought it."

My shoulders slumped. There went my O'Shaunessy connection.

* * *

"We've got to stop meeting like this," said Cori, who was sitting in the back room of Nick's again. "I'm starting to get the idea that you're stalking me."

I gestured to the other seat at her table. "Can I sit down?"

"What if I say no?"

I sat down.

She rolled her eyes.

I noticed that she was wearing a lot of makeup and that one of her eyes was puffy. "What happened to your face?"

She chuckled. "Oh, well, I guess you know all about that, right?" She eyed me. "Actually, are you healing a shiner yourself?"

I decided to come clean a little bit. Maybe it would create some common ground between us. "My contacts within the O'Shaunessys decided they didn't much like me."

"Those Irish boys do like to communicate with their fists, don't they?" Cori had a mug of tea on the table. She picked up the tea bag and dunked it up and down. "Chase and Pumbaa found me, just like you said. I guess I should say thanks for the heads-up, but, as you can see, it didn't actually help me out very much."

"Sorry," I said.

She squeezed out her tea bag. "There something I can do for you?"

I'd managed to get a picture of Sarah Aaron from Facebook. I handed her the printout. "You know this girl?"

Cori furrowed her brow. "I don't think I've ever seen her before."

Damn it. Why was it so hard to find any kind of connection between these two people? Was it because I was barking up the wrong tree? It was true that I had a hard-on for the O'Shaunessys. Maybe I was looking for something that wasn't there. Again.

"Are you sure? You never saw her with Madison?"

"No."

"Maybe when Madison went to buy coke from the O'Shaunessys?"

"Oh, I was never along on those little trips," she said. "Sorry. I don't know who that person is."

I took the picture back, sighing.

"Look," said Cori. "Everyone liked Madison. I don't think she had a single enemy. And she wasn't the kind of person who went into debt for her drug habit or who pissed off her dealers. She was a smart girl. What makes you think someone killed her anyway?"

I was sort of stunned for a minute. "Did I say that I thought she was killed?"

Cori shrugged. "I guess it's none of my business."

"Do you think she's alive?"

"If she is dead, she didn't bring it on herself. That's all I'm saying."

* * *

"Ugh," I said burying my face in my hands. I was standing at the bar, waiting for the bartender to bring me my first Miller High Life. It was nearly nine o'clock, and I'd spent the whole day trying to hunt down some kind of connection between Madison and Sarah, with no real results.

After leaving Cori, I'd gone back to the office. There, Brigit and I had worked as hard as we could on the abortion angle. Unfortunately, the records for Sarah's abortion were spotty at best. The paperwork hadn't been completely filled out—one of the reasons that we hadn't seen it right off. Still, it didn't seem that either of the girls had seen the same doctors or even the same nurses. They hadn't been there at the same time. Their appointments were generally months apart. The closeness of their appointments this time was unprecedented. And neither of them had actually made it to the clinic before disappearing, so we could rule out the idea that they'd been spotted by someone who was scoping the place out or who was present there all the time. (Brigit had posited a security guard or a janitor, but neither of those things made any sense.)

We did consider the idea that it could be someone who had access to the appointment records, but we couldn't figure out why the person might want to abduct the girls. The abortion angle was the best idea that we had—our right-wing nutso theory. But that was just a theory, and it didn't have any proof behind it.

I figured that I could go back out to the clinic the following day and interview the protesters, but I didn't know how much I could really find out from an interview. If one of them were our guy, he certainly wouldn't offer up the information.

I was getting desperate enough that I might try it though. I was getting really desperate.

Crane sidled up next to me. "Rough day?"

I lifted my gaze. "The worst."

"Buy you a drink?"

"Thanks," I said.

The bartender noticed me and headed for the cooler to get my Miller High Life. I smiled. At least something was still right with the world. Here in The Remington, all I had to do was walk in, and someone got me my favorite kind of beer without my even asking. Nice.

"What's going on?" said Crane, taking out his e-cigarette.

"Oh, it's this case," I said.

"The Madison Webb thing?"

"Did I tell you that another girl disappeared?"

"No, you just said you had another lead. So, you think this girl is connected?"

"I don't know."

The bartender set my High Life in front of me. I took a long, long drink. Damn, that was good.

"Put it on my tab," said Crane.

The bartender nodded.

I set down my beer. "It seemed like they might be connected. Both of them have disappeared without a trace, and both didn't take anything with them except their bedsheets."

"Yeah, that's a weird coincidence."

"Not only that, they both had appointments at a certain clinic. One had an abortion six months ago. One had an abortion scheduled."

"Whoa. That's a little weird." Crane blew out some coffee-smelling vapor. "Isn't that progress, then?"

I waved away the haze of his e-cigarette vapor. "No, I've hit a brick wall. I can't find any other common denominator between them. I don't know where else to look. I'm wondering if I just want there to be a connection. I spent hours today trying to tie this to the O'Shaunessys."

"Ivy—"

"I know," I said. "I'm obsessed, and it's not healthy. I'm overly interested in that stupid family, and they've got nothing to do with this case."

"Two girls taken from their beds," he mused. "It's got all the makings of a great mystery story, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, when you turn this into a bestselling book, I'm sure you'll make up a better connection between the two victims." I drank some beer. "Brigit and I have this theory about a right-wing crazy man who stalks the abortion clinic."

He made a face at me. "A what?"

An idea had just occurred to me. "You know what? Instead of going around and interviewing people who are picketing the clinic, I think I'll look into the other girls who had abortions at the clinic. If any of them are also missing, then I'll know there's a connection."

"A right-wing crazy man," he repeated. "Seriously?"

"On the other hand," I said, "I don't know how I'll get a list of all the girls who've had abortions at that clinic, damn it. That's going to be way harder than just interviewing the protesters."

"Maybe you're making this more complicated than you need to make it." Crane puffed on his e-cigarette.

I laughed. "You think?"

He grinned. "Uh, do they look alike?"

"Who, the protesters?"

"The two missing women."

I shrugged. "They both have brown hair."

"Do they style it the same way?"

"Does that matter?"

"Well, I was thinking of like, uh, what's-his-name?"

I raised my eyebrows.

"Ted Bundy," he said. "Like, maybe the only thing they have in common is that they fit a certain type."

"You mean, like a serial killer," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "Like a serial killer who kills girls with brown hair."

I waved for the bartender. "Hey, Alan, do I owe you anything?"

The bartender shook his head. "Nah, Crane got your drink."

I upended the High Life into my mouth, chugging it down. I wasn't about to let it go to waste.

"Are you leaving?" said Crane.

"You just reminded me of something." I slammed the empty bottle down and scurried out of the bar.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"You said something weird to me," I said into the phone.

"Who the hell is this?" said Ralph's voice on the other end of the line.

"It's Ivy Stern," I said. "You probably don't remember me. A while back, we had sex, and you gave me your phone number, because you were afraid that I'd get attacked by a serial killer on my walk home."

"Oh yeah," said Ralph. "The cute blond detective. How you doing?"

"I'm trying to figure out a case, and I'm trying to remember what you said about serial killers. Something about how we only know what the ones we catch are like?"

"You know, I'm not that far away right now," he said. "I'm on the road, but I should be pulling over for the night not too far from you. I'll be north of you, maybe an hour north, in Steel County. You think you might want to—"

"Ralph," I said. "This isn't a call to try to hook up with you again."

"It isn't?" He sounded pretty disappointed.

"No, it's about serial killers. I told you. I have this case."

He laughed. "Yeah, you said that you didn't hunt serial killers."

"Well, what if I stumbled onto one?"

"Why would you call me about that?"

"I just want to remember what you said. I feel like it might be important."

"I don't think I said anything," he said. "I think you said it."

"What did I say?"

"I don't know. Honestly, the whole night's a little bit fuzzy."

"Well, try and think."

"Why are you pushing this, sweetheart? What's your game here?"

I wasn't sure. It wasn't like me to call a guy that I'd fucked before, that was for sure. I had sincerely hoped never to talk to Ralph again.

"I thought you were a pretty sweet lay."

"Really. I seem to remember you had a hard time keeping an erection."

"Ouch," he said. "Why did you call me?"

"I told you why."

He was quiet.

"Okay, look," I said. "There's a case I'm working where two girls have gone missing, and they both left everything behind except their bedsheets. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a connection between these two girls, and then my friend at the bar says something about serial killers, and it makes me think of you. I feel like you said something about a killer who wouldn't use a pattern."

"No, I think you said that," he said. "Really, I'm not sure I can help you. I don't know anything about that kind of stuff. I'm just a trucker. If you don't want to hook up again, then maybe you should just work on this on your own."

Damn it. Now, I'd pissed him off. I took a deep breath, making my voice soft. "I'm sorry, Ralph. I did have a good time that night when all was said and done. But I was just hoping you could help me refresh my memory."

"Well, I don't know," he said. He didn't sound charmed. "You acted like you had serial killers all figured out anyway. You said it was always sexual, and it was always about control."

"Right..." I said, remembering. "But what if it wasn't? What if it was just about killing and opportunity?"

"Look," said Ralph, "I'm sure all this is really interesting to you, but I'm driving right now, so..."

"I guess I shouldn't have bothered you," I said.

"No, it's okay, sweetheart. If you change your mind, you could always come see me. I'd make sure you had a good time again."

"Well, that's a nice offer, Ralph, but..."

"Thanks, but no thanks?"

"I'm just busy with the case."

He laughed in my ear. "You're a strange one, lady. Even when I took you out of that bar, I thought, This chick wants it bad and she doesn't care where she gets it. You're like a man stuck in a woman's body, huh?"

"Thanks again for your time, Ralph," I said.

* * *

"Ivy?" said Miles. He was in the doorway to his apartment in Renmawr. I'd driven all the way out here to see him.

"I need to run something by you," I said.

He just stared at me.

"It's about this case that you've got me working on."

"I don't have you working on anything. I thought you got yourself fired from that case."

"Well, I got rehired. I think I'm onto something big here, Miles."

"So, you drove to my house?'

"Is there someone else in there with you or something?"

He stepped away from the door. "No, I'm alone. Come in, I guess. I just thought..."

I came inside, moving past him. "Thanks." I started into the apartment. I'd been here lots of times when we were dating, and I knew my way around. Miles's apartment was always spotless, but it was sparse. He didn't seem particularly interested in decoration, and what decoration he did have seemed out of place.

I went down the hallway into the living room, where Miles had two nice black leather couches and a decent-sized TV hanging on the wall. The only other thing hanging on the wall was a framed Star Wars poster. Miles also had a cluster of Star Wars figurines on a shelf on the opposite wall. The effect was strange—half twelve-year-old boy and half sophisticated lieutenant.

"I thought we agreed not to go to each other's houses anymore," he said from the doorway to the living room.

"Oh, this isn't about us, Miles," I said, turning to him. "Like I said, it's about the case."

He shrugged. "Yeah, okay."

"Look, what do you know about serial killers?"

"Not much. We've never had anything like that in Renmawr. I personally haven't investigated anything. You're saying the two missing people are the work of a serial killer? Because I guess I could see that."

"Not just any serial killer," I said. "A different kind of serial killer."

"What are you talking about?"

"Can you access the database, please?"

"What are you going on about?"

"Just log in for me. I want to check something out." I picked up his laptop off the coffee table and handed it to him. "Please?"

He sighed. "I swear to God, Ivy, I have no idea what you're going on about." But he settled down on his couch and began typing on his laptop. Within a few minutes, he turned the screen to face me. He was logged in to the police database.

Eagerly, I snatched the computer from him and sat down. I began typing in search criteria. I grinned as the first set of results came back.

"What?" he said.

"Look," I said. "All up and down the highway, some going back years."

"What are you looking at?" He snatched the computer back from me and scrutinized the screen. "Ivy, these are unrelated, unsolved missing persons cases. There's nothing here to connect them."

"Exactly," I said.

"Exactly?"

"Serial killers usually have a pattern, right? They pick out certain people, and they have a little ritual for the way that they kill them, and it's all got something to do with their messed up childhoods or something."

"I don't know about the messed-up childhood thing, but yeah, serial killers do have a pattern."

"Well, what if a serial killer didn't?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Okay, just imagine that you're a person who likes to kill people. And you want to be able to do just that. Kill. That's all. You don't want to rape them or pose their bodies or play with their corpses. You just want to kill people. So, the best way to do that and not get caught would be to pick random victims, right?"

"Maybe," he said. "But no one just likes to kill. You're describing some character from a slasher movie. They don't exist."

"Or maybe they do exist, and we never catch them because they don't leave nice patterns for us to follow."

Miles licked his lips, looking thoughtful.

"Okay, so think about it," I said. "A couple weeks ago, I had sex with this trucker."

He cringed. "Ivy, I don't want to know—"

"Okay, forget the sex part. Just think about being a trucker. If you were a serial killer who just liked to kill people, you could go up and down the highway, and break into people's houses and kill them."

"Maybe, but—"

"No, I was wracking my brain trying to think of what these two girls have in common, and I was grasping at straws. Coincidences. And then it hit me. What do they have in common? Their houses are both right off the interstate. Easy access. I figure this guy drives up and down the interstate and stops on various exits. Then he wanders around, finding houses that are easy to break into, and he takes the girls."

"And you think he's a trucker?"

"Well, he could be. That's not important. It was only because the trucker made me think—"

"Right, you just had to bring up your sex life." He glared at me.

"Miles, about the theory?"

He massaged the bridge of his nose. "It's worse than the incestuous brother in terms of proof, Ivy."

"But that's the point," I said. "He doesn't leave any evidence. That's what makes him such a good killer."

"What do you want me to do with this? If you're right, this guy is responsible for all of these disappearances." He gestured to the computer screen. "And on top of that, he's got no connection to any of these people. How am I supposed to find him? How are you supposed to find him?"

I rubbed my forehead. "Well..."

"Didn't think about that, did you?"

"I just... got excited."

"Like when you got excited and got mixed up with the O'Shaunessys and they beat you to a pulp." He shut the laptop. "You're right, Ivy. You are impulsive. You're not methodical at all."

I was thrown for a minute, but then I remembered the conversation we'd had before in his office about my various flaws. "You're hung up on the fact that I had sex with a trucker, aren't you? You aren't listening to my theory at all."

"I did listen to your theory. It's just a useless, unprovable theory. If you're right, you're at a dead end. You'd better hope you're not right."

Oh, hell. Maybe he was right. I got up off his couch and wandered over to his Star Wars figurines. I knew better than to touch them, so I just stared at the tiny Boba Fett and Princess Leia.

"Is this really why you came over here?" he asked, his voice quiet.

I didn't turn around. "Yes."

"Why? What did you think would happen after you explained your hair-brained hunch to me?"

"I thought you'd help me figure out how to prove it. I thought you'd help me figure out how to track the guy down. I thought we'd get him. We'd lock him up."

He laughed caustically. "Tonight?"

"No, but over time. I thought..." I looked over my shoulder. "That is what we do, isn't it, Miles? That's the most important thing to both of us. Catching bad guys."

He ran a hand through his hair. "You shouldn't have come to my house. We said we wouldn't come to each other's houses anymore. Why are you here?" His voice cracked.

"Is it really such a big deal?" I went back to looking at the figurines.

"It feels... It reminds me of before."

"Well, do you want me to leave?"

"No."

I turned around.

He was halfway across the room. He held out his hand to me.

"Miles..."

He closed the distance between us and picked up my hand. "I want to..." He kissed me.

The kiss was his typical kiss, closemouthed and perfunctory. There was sweetness behind it, wistful innocence even. But there wasn't any passion. If Miles had passion, he saved it for his work. Not that I minded. I was pretty passionate about my work as well. Still, there was something missing from his kiss, and it hurt. It always made me feel as if I wasn't enough for him, as if he was distracted by something else, and he couldn't give his entire self to kissing me.

He pulled back. "I want to try it again."

"Try what again?"

"You know what."

I raised my eyebrows. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Because you want a family."

"Because I want you."

I bit down on my lip. "I don't know."

"If I could make love to you," he said, "then we could be a normal couple."

"Maybe before," I said. "Maybe back when I was still on the force—"

"Maybe we could fix that too."

"Miles, I got fired."

"Well, whatever. The thing is, I want you back. I don't want it like this. I want it to work. Let's try it again."

"Last time we tried—"

"You don't want me, do you?"

"It seemed to... bother you last time."

"Just say you'll try." He gazed into my eyes, and his stare was so intense, and he was handsome, and he was the man that I'd fallen in love with all that time ago, and I'd wanted this at one point in time. I'd wanted this more than anything on earth.

So, I nodded. "Okay."

"Okay." He took a deep breath and took a step away from me. We were still holding hands, so he tugged on me.

"Right now?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Before I lose my nerve."

"But, um, about my serial killer."

"Jesus, Ivy, the serial killer's a dead end. We both know you came here to see me, not because you wanted to talk about that case."

But I had come because I wanted to talk about the case. Still, it seemed rude to say that now. Especially when he was willing to do this thing that he had never been willing to do before.

When we had talked about it during our relationship, he'd simply said that he didn't have a sex drive. He wasn't like other people that way. When he thought about sex, he just thought it sounded overly complicated, exerting, and messy.

Miles was a virgin. He identified as asexual.

He didn't even like the idea of sex. Now, he was offering...

"I don't want you to do this for me," I said. "We're not even together."

"It's for me," he said, backing up, tugging me in the direction of his bedroom. "I want this. I'm sick of being a freak. Everyone else on earth can do this. I want to do it too."

"But you don't like it."

"Well, I haven't actually tried it," he said as we moved out of the living room and back the hallway. "Didn't you say that to me once? Didn't you say I should try it before I gave up on it completely?"

"That was before the time we did try," I said. I remembered how awkward and awful that had been, Miles seemingly disgusted by the sight of my body, unwilling to touch me, unwilling for me to touch him. It hadn't been much of an attempt. "I don't need you to do it."

He stopped in the middle of the hallway, in front of the bathroom. He looked at me. "I think... I think if we were in the shower."

I swallowed. "Okay. I guess that might make it easier for you."

He gave me a nervous smile.

I wanted to back out. I wanted to run away. I tried to swallow again, but my mouth was dry. I tried to speak, and no sound came out.

"Just be patient with me," he whispered. "If I could do this with anyone, I could do it with you."

I nodded slowly. Okay, fine. I'd try it, if he wanted me to. Maybe it was better this way, anyhow. This wasn't the way it had been before, when I was so desperate to make our relationship work. This was now, after the entire world had exploded, and I was living in the ruins. What could possibly get worse now? Everything in my life was already shit.

We went into the bathroom.

He dropped my hand, and we stood in front of Miles's bare, but impeccably clean, sink, facing each other.

"So," he said. "What now?"

"Well, I guess we should take off our clothes." It all felt so awkward and stupid, not at all the way sex should feel. I grabbed him, pressing against him and kissing him again.

He stiffened.

I let go of him.

"Sorry." He kissed me again, mouth closed, eyes slammed shut. Our dry lips met and stuck together for a moment, and then he pulled away.

"Never mind," I said. "Don't worry about the kissing." I reached down to grasp the edge of my shirt.

He held up a hand. "Wait. Maybe..." He reached over and flicked off the lights.

The room was bathed in darkness. Now, Miles was only a silhouette in front of me.

He shifted, a shadow against the shadows. "I'm going to turn on the shower," he said. "You can go ahead now. Get undressed."

But I didn't. I listened as the shower came on. I felt the change in the air as the steam began to rise. Miles didn't turn to look at me. He faced away from me and methodically removed his clothing, folding each article of clothing and placing it on top of his clothes hamper as he did.

His body was beautiful. I couldn't see him clearly, but I could see the slopes and swells of his muscular back and shoulders in the scant light. The curve of his ass, shapely and strong.

My jaw worked. I was turned on, I realized. All it took was a shadowy look at naked Miles, and I wanted him.

"Are you still dressed?" His voice was barely there, and he wasn't looking at me.

"I..." I yanked my shirt over my head. I felt self-conscious, so I folded it. I folded my shirt, my bra, my pants, and my panties. With each piece of clothing I removed, I got more turned on. I wanted him. I'd always wanted this man, and now he was finally going to let me have him, and I didn't know if I could handle it. I couldn't speak.

When I was completely undressed, I stepped next to him. We stood in front of the shower, and I looked up at him.

He glanced at me sidelong, his gaze slipping over my body before looking away. Then he tore aside the shower curtain, and he threw himself inside. "Come on," he said in a choked voice.

It wasn't the reaction I wanted. I wanted him to find my body as attractive as I found his. I knew he couldn't help it, but it was still a familiar stab of pain that fractured through my body.

I waited for several seconds before I joined him inside the shower.

The water was too hot, and I cried out when it touched me.

"Sorry," Miles muttered. He was bent over already, adjusting the faucet. "I didn't mean for it to be so hot."

Steam swirled around us in the darkness, making it even harder to see. I wasn't sure I believed him. Maybe he did want it this hot. The hot water would scald away the messiness of our union. The steam would obscure our sight. Maybe this was his way of making the whole process disinfected, dark, and anonymous. Maybe the only way he could face it was by not facing it.

"We don't have to do this," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the spray of the shower.

Having adjusted the temperature, he faced me. "Please let me try."

I nodded, but for some reason, I wanted to cry.

"Ivy?"

Oh, right. He couldn't see me nodding. "Yes, okay."

I heard him taking a shaky breath, and then his hands were on my skin, smoothing over my shoulders.

I gasped. His touch sent shivers through me, even though it was perfunctory and rigid.

His hands slid lower, over my chest, until he cupped my breasts with both hands.

I sighed, because that felt nice too.

But then I caught sight of his expression, even in the shadowed bathroom, and I could see that he looked like he was concentrating very hard. He wasn't enjoying himself at all.

I backed away from him.

"What?" he said. "Am I doing it wrong?"

"What does it make you think of?" I said. "When you touch me?"

"I don't know, Ivy. Does it matter?"

"You don't like the way I look, do you?"

"You look the way you're supposed to," he said. "You look the way women look. You have breasts." He cast his gaze down to them and he furrowed his brow.

"Yes, but do you like it?"

"Does that matter?"

"Of course it matters," I said. "I can't enjoy this if you aren't enjoying it."

"Why not?"

I stumbled backwards, colliding with the wall of the shower. "Because it's not..." I shoved aside the shower curtain and threw myself outside. "Because it's like rape or something. Because it's... it's wrong."

"Ivy, where are you going?"

I pulled my clothes back on. I was wet, and they stuck to my skin, but I didn't care. "I can't do it, Miles. I just can't."

"Wait," he said.

I didn't wait.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I fled from Miles's house. I got in my car and tore out of there, and I drove back for Keene, feeling shaky and disoriented.

What had I just done? Why had I left him like that? He was trying harder than he'd ever tried before. He was doing what I'd always wanted him to do.

Maybe it was because I knew that if Miles and I had sex, it would be some kind of rote, mechanical act, utterly unsatisfying for either of us.

But I thought it was because I knew the real truth, and that was that there was nothing Miles could do to stop me from being the way I was. Even if Miles suddenly became a sexual dynamo, who was interested in having sex with me whenever I wanted it—three times a day in as many positions—that wouldn't stop me from needing to hook up with random strangers.

There was something about the anonymity of the act, the purity of it. It was pure because it was only about sex—nothing else. And that was what I craved. Straightforward sex with someone who I never had to face again. I couldn't completely give that up. Not for Miles. Not for any man, even if I loved him.

Tears started flowing out of my eyes, and I wiped at them with one hand, while the other gripped the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles were turning white.

"I'm a sex addict," I whispered to the car. "Oh my God, I'm a sex addict."

I started to sob.

The tears came stronger, blinding me as I tried to drive. I was going to have to pull over.

My phone started ringing.

Grateful for the distraction, I picked it up. Too late, I realized it was probably Miles, and I didn't think I wanted to talk to him.

But it wasn't Miles.

"Hi, Ivy."

"Hi?" I didn't recognize the voice.

"I was thinking that maybe I was a little rude to you earlier. I should have tried to help you with your serial killer problem."

"Ralph?" I said.

"I'm stopped for the night," he said. "You should come see me."

Ahead of me, I could see a sign for the interstate. "You're just up the highway, aren't you?"

"I'd really like to see you."

This was what I wanted. Straightforward sex. An escape. An encounter with a stranger. Well, a pseudo stranger. It wasn't as if I hadn't had sex with Ralph before. And yeah, the sex with Ralph hadn't been that good, but that was okay. It had been raw and real, and it wasn't forced the way it would have been with Miles.

And I was turned on.

I was still turned on from seeing Miles's bare back...

"Where exactly are you?" I asked him.

"You're coming to see me?"

"Yes."

* * *

Ralph was in an amorous mood, apparently, because he told me that we'd meet at a motel he knew about. Instead of having to get it on in the sleeping berth of his truck, we'd have a bed. I supposed I should have been impressed, but I was actually a little disappointed, because I felt like the motel room seemed too calculated—not like the raw, immediate encounter I had in mind. I hoped he wasn't expecting us to get to know each other. To sip wine and watch HBO or something. I wasn't interested in that kind of thing.

I needed to purge myself, get this animal lust out of my system, and then I'd be able to go back to trying to figure out this case, which was what I should have been focusing on, anyway.

Damn Miles. Why had he started all this? I hadn't gone to his house to rekindle things between us. I had gone for advice, because I thought I'd solved the case. Of course, he was right, there was no way to find the killer if it was a serial killer..

So, maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was no serial killer of opportunity trolling up and down the interstate, taking girls out of their beds at night.

After all, what would he do with the bodies?

And where did he kill them? If he killed them in their houses, why wasn't there any evidence of their deaths?

Anyway, it was a ridiculous idea I'd posited. It was a killer without ego.

Because that was the biggest problem with serial killers. They were so clever, and they wanted people to know how clever they were, so they left the patterns and the clues. They taunted newspapers and called police stations. They played dangerous games, and they always got caught. There was no way there was some guy out there just quietly killing people and never once trying to brag about it.

Wouldn't he feel diminished, knowing that no one knew all that he'd gotten away with?

No, he'd have to brag about it once and a while, wouldn't he?

I peered outside at the surroundings streaming past me. Man, this motel was really out in the middle of nowhere. I was following my GPS, and I hoped it was right, because I was going way off the interstate. The dinky two-lane road was narrow, flanked by underbrush and trees. The lines on the road looked as if they hadn't been refreshed in years. The twin yellow lines in the center were faint and cracked in places.

There wasn't anyone else traveling on this old road either. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen another car.

But then, that was what Ralph had said about this place. He said it was out of the way. He said he liked to come here for privacy. So, I drove on, trusting the GPS would get me there okay.

Finally, I arrived at the motel that Ralph had told me about. I pulled into the parking lot. The sign was dark, and I thought that was strange. Shouldn't the motel have the sign lit up? At the very least, there should be lights on inside the main lobby, and there weren't.

I got out of the car and shut the door behind myself. The night was warm, but the air was breezy, and a little tendril of cold wind lifted my hair away from my neck.

My car was the only car in the parking lot.

Wait. This couldn't be right. I had to be at the wrong motel. This motel was abandoned.

Now that I was out of the car, I could see that the sign was overgrown with ivy and vines. The paint on the motel was peeling, there were plants growing up through the cracks in the asphalt, the front door hung open, hanging off its hinges. It was like an open mouth, a maw of darkness that wanted to swallow me up.

My heartbeat started to pick up speed.

You catch serial killers or something?

Why had Ralph brought up serial killers that night? That wasn't a logical connection to my being a private detective. Was he....? Was he... bragging?

Ralph's precise words floated back to me. I could remember what he'd said now—all of it with crystal clarity. You've only read about the ones that got caught, though.

Oh, hell.

Oh fuckity fuck fuck, what the hell had I gotten myself into?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I dove for the door to my car, grasping the handle and yanking it open.

And strong arms grabbed me from behind, wrapping around my arms and torso, pinning my hands against my sides.

I struggled, tightening my grip on my keys. I could use them as a weapon, if I could just twist my hand far enough, get them into his flesh...

A grunt behind me, and then he was prying the keys away from me. "I don't want you going anywhere, Ivy," he whispered in my ear. "I've got something special planned for you."

I recognized Ralph's voice. It really was him. Maybe if I played dumb. "What's going on? Are we playing some kind of game, because I don't know if I'm into that." I sounded terrified, but that worked. I'd be terrified, even if I hadn't worked out that he was a serial killer.

He chuckled. "Yes, a game. One of my favorites. And it's actually a little bit better to play if you're not 'into it.'"

A shudder went through me.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. What was he going to do to me? Did he rape his victims? I didn't know, because we didn't have bodies. We didn't have any evidence of what he did to his victims, so maybe he did rape them. Geez. I thought about the way we'd had sex that first night, how he hadn't been able to get an erection until he was pushing my face down into the bed, and then, then, he'd fucked me hard and fast and...

Oh shit.

My breath was coming in gasps. I was going to hyperventilate and pass out. My pulse was racing. My entire body had broken out in a cold sweat. I didn't want this to happen to me.

Maybe if I begged him—

Fuck that.

Abruptly, I twisted in his arms, bringing my elbow back like a piston.

He oomphed as it collided with his ribcage, and his grip loosened.

I pressed my advantage, turning and digging my fingernails into whatever part of him that I could touch—his belly, his arm. I wished I could reach his face, but my arms were still pinned.

He let out a cry of frustration, and his grip tightened on me again—painfully tight, squeezing my ribs, practically popping them.

I yelled.

"Don't be difficult, please?" he murmured.

I wanted to keep struggling, but it hurt, and I could hardly move.

His arm settled around my neck, tightening there.

I panicked. He was already strangling me?!

I thrashed in his arms.

The pressure at my neck increased.

And I passed out.

* * *

When I woke up, I was tied to a bed frame in one of the abandoned rooms. I was spread eagle, hands and legs apart. To my relief, I was still wearing my clothes. But my pockets were empty, and I could feel the missing weight. I didn't have my cell phone, didn't have my wallet, didn't have anything. He'd taken my communication and my money.

Ralph was at the front of the room, humming to himself. There was a row of candles on the dresser, and he was lighting one after the other. From the rivets of old dried wax dripping down over the edge, I could see that he had done this many times before.

So, maybe I was wrong. Maybe Ralph did have his rituals. Maybe he was just like the other serial killers.

"You didn't need to do this," I said. "I didn't know it was you."

He lit another candle. "You knew enough. You were too close to figuring it out. I couldn't have that." He turned to me, blowing out the match he'd used to light the candle. Lit from behind by all the flickering lights, he was only a hulking silhouette. "It was thrilling, being with you that night, knowing that the body of the girl was so close, wrapped up in the truck's cargo container. Knowing you investigated things like that, and that you had absolutely no idea."

"And I never would have," I said. "If you'd kept your big mouth shut about serial killers, I never would have figured it out."

"Well, it doesn't matter what you figured out now, does it?" He advanced on me, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He touched my face.

I recoiled.

He smiled.

I glared at him. Okay, this was it. This was the part when I kept him talking and appealed to his ego, and I bought myself time to escape. "This is what gets you off? Torturing women?"

"Have I tortured you?"

"But that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's like I said before. Serial killers are always doing it because they're twisted up about sex. They can't do it like normal people, so they have try to turn their victims into willing—"

"It's not about sex." He glared at me.

Good, tell me what it is about, then. I looked around the room, trying to think about some way to get out of the room.

It didn't look good. The room was pretty bare besides the old bed and the old dresser. There were a few paintings on the wall, but they—and the wall—had been badly water damaged. The whole place smelled musty and old, like rotting wood.

"I have a completely normal sex life," he said. "I don't take the girls to have sex with them."

"So, you just kill them?"

"Yes."

"How?" I needed a weapon. Well, no, first, I needed to get untied from the bed. Then I needed a weapon. Surreptitiously as possible, I tested the ropes that held me. This wasn't going to be easy. They were tied pretty tight.

Ralph got a faraway look in his eyes. "Different ways. I like trying things. I like seeing how long they stay alive."

Oh. That shook me up. I didn't want to think about that. He was going to kill me, and he was going to take his time with it.

"See?" He pointed at the bed beneath me. "Sometimes, I bleed them out."

I could see a dark stain under my body. So, he'd killed another person in this exact same place? I was lying on someone else's blood?

It was all I could do not to shudder. "But it's always women," I said, my voice shaking. I was trying to sound defiant, but I wasn't sure I was succeeding. "So, you can't claim it's not sexually motivated."

"I pick women because they're easier to subdue," he said. "I like to kill them here." He gestured around at the room. "But sometimes I can't, because I'm too far away. Sometimes I have to kill them on the road and bring the bodies here. It can still be interesting to cut them up after they're dead." He traced a finger over the inside of my forearm. "It's easier to see where the muscles go together and come apart."

Okay, that time I did shudder.

Ralph cocked his head at me, sizing me up like a bug.

Keep him talking. You have to keep him talking. Distract him.

I licked my dry lips. "But how do you get the bodies here? I know for a fact you didn't park your truck outside Madison's house. You telling me that you carried her through the streets back to the truck stop?"

Of course, I had to admit that I didn't know what I was really accomplishing with this make-him-talk strategy. I hadn't come up with any ideas to get out of this, and I hadn't seen anything I could use as a weapon. Sure, I could maybe use the candles to burn the ropes, but there was no way I could move the entire bed over there.

He smiled. "Sometimes, I have to wrap them up in their bedsheets." He got up from the bed.

I looked up at the knots that held me to the headboard. I scrabbled, trying to get one hand down to attempt to untie it. But it was useless.

On the other side of the room, Ralph was holding up an enormous laundry bag—the kind with a drawstring at the top. "If anyone looks inside, all they see are the sheets."

I shook my head. "No, you can't tell me you carry a body in that?"

"Slung over my shoulder." He looked incredibly proud of himself.

"There's no way someone could do that. Too heavy."

"I'm very strong."

What the hell was I doing here? I was just freaking myself out worse. All this discussion of bodies in terms of weight—as if they weren't actual people—was messing with my head. And the atmosphere of the room was awful. The disarray and decay, under lit by the flickering candles... It was all I could do to keep breathing.

But then... then I saw a glint of metal at Ralph's waist.

I squinted. That was a knife. A little pocket knife that he had in his pocket. If I could get that...

Okay, think of something else to say. Get him back over here.

But what? What to ask? What to say?

"I don't believe it," I said. "You're not that strong. No one is."

He just laughed. "I can't even count the number of times I've done it. Sometimes all in one night, like with your missing girls. That night was glorious. One stop in Renmawr to pick up the first girl, then a quick jaunt up the interstate for a celebratory drink. Where I met you." He wandered back over to the bed, but he didn't sit down again. He just peered down at me. "See, sometimes I pick up women afterward. But that doesn't mean it's about sex. I like sex, of course. Who doesn't?"

I flexed my hand, as if I was just trying to get circulation running through it. In fact, I was stretching out to see if I could reach his pocket knife. No way. My fingers weren't even close.

I needed to get him closer. "I like sex, Ralph. That's what I came here for. Sex."

"Yes, you're different, aren't you? You're not like other women."

"I'm very different." Come over here, you fuckhead. I want your stupid pocket knife.

But he turned away from me. "I should have realized how different you were then. But I didn't. I was only upset that you didn't spend the night. It gets lonely on the road. Sometimes I want someone close."

He had to be kidding, right? He went and took girls out of their beds, shoved them in laundry bags and flung them in the back of his truck, and then he wanted to cuddle? Motherfucker. I reached out for the pocket knife again, even though I knew it was hopeless.

But...

Actually, I was at a better angle here. His back was to me, and his hip was angled close, and if I just strained...

"So, I got back on the road, went up another exit. That's when I found the other girl."

Almost there. Almost. Just another centimeter. The ropes dug painfully into my hand.

"I had to take her too."

My fingers brushed the knife. It fell out of his pocket, landing on the bed next to me, soundlessly.

He turned, hand going to his pocket.

My heart stopped.

He furrowed his brow, looking around.

Don't see the knife. Don't see the knife.

He took a deep breath. "The other one's really your fault, don't you see? If you'd just stayed with me that night, I wouldn't have gone after her."

"Well," I said, my voice tight, "it's like I said, I sleep better in my own bed."

His features tightened. "You're making me angry. Do you really think that's smart?"

"Way I figure it, things couldn't get much worse." I wanted to grab that pocket knife, but I didn't want to call attention to it with my movement. He might snatch it back up. However, every second that passed was another that he might notice it lying on the bed, and then I'd never get another chance with it. "You're going to kill me no matter what I do, aren't you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "There are bad ways to die, and then there are worse ways."

Okay, yeah, that made me feel queasy. I was already lying in someone else's dried blood here. I looked at the knife—just for a second, then I flicked my gaze elsewhere, because I didn't want to draw his eye there—and then I looked back up at him. I needed a minute alone. Just a couple minutes...

"What was that?" I said.

"What was what?"

"I heard a noise," I said. "Maybe it's the backup I called."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're not a cop. You don't have backup."

"Sure I do," I said. "I figured it out as I was driving up here. Right before I got here, I figured out that you were a killer, and I called my backup, and I told them to come. And that's probably them, right outside, ready to take you down."

His mouth twisted into a smile. "You're lying."

"Go check it out then," I said. "Call my bluff."

He hesitated. Then he walked across the room and pulled the moldy curtains away from the window. He peered outside.

I snatched up the knife, doing my best to work out the blade with one hand.

He turned back to me.

I froze, hand covering the knife.

"Don't go anywhere." He chuckled like he'd made a fantastic joke, and then he opened the door and stepped out of the room.

My heart was pounding like a steel drum. I flipped the blade out of the pocket knife and began trying to pick it up.

But no.

That was no good. I didn't have the ability to hold it and saw with it. The angles were too awkward.

I'd need to move the rope against the blade, wedge the knife down somehow...

I cast a glance back at the open door. All I could see outside were the stars of the night sky, but a breeze blew inside, tickling my skin, making the door rattle back and forth.

I turned my attention back to the knife.

There. Now I could get the rope against the blade. Like that.

I looked back at the door.

Nothing.

I sawed the rope into the blade. A few strands of nylon came loose.

I gritted my teeth, putting more pressure into it, yanking my wrist—and the rope—backwards.

The knife came free from the place I'd wedged it.

"Shit," I muttered.

And then I looked back to the door. He'd be back any second. This was taking too long. My heart was skipping beats now, pumping out an irregular rhythm that tripped over itself.

I put the knife back, and I yanked with my wrist, and—

The rope snapped.

I grinned. Yes.

Grabbing the knife with my newly free hand, I went to work on my other wrist. Now that I had mobility, it was much easier, and I got the other hand free in record time.

I sat up, going to work on my feet.

The door slammed.

My head snapped up, and I expected to see Ralph standing just inside the doorway, his face a sneering grimace. He'd rip the knife away from me, and I'd find out what he was talking about when he said that some deaths were worse.

There are bad ways to die, and then there are worse ways.

But there was no one there.

The breeze had blown the door closed. Some strong gust had shut me in here, all alone.

I drew in a shaky breath, and returned to my task, cutting my legs free from the bed. It took me seconds, and then I scrambled to my feet.

I crouched, holding the knife, unsure of what to do. I could go through the door, but I didn't know where Ralph was. He might be waiting for me outside.

The door was the way out, the way to freedom, the way to safety.

But if he caught me...

I turned and darted inside the bathroom. Inside, the toilet hung off the wall. The sink was full of rust stains. There was no curtain on the shower, where there were glinting spiderwebs in the corners. The tile was browned and aged.

And there was no way out. No window, no other door.

Out in the motel room, I heard the scrape of the door opening.

Fuck.

Ralph was back, and I had nowhere to hide.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"What the hell?" said Ralph.

He obviously wasn't expecting to come back in the room and find me gone. I thought of his stupid admonition not to go anywhere before he left the room. I couldn't help but smile grimly at the thought of outwitting him, if only temporarily.

But I wasn't going to outwit him, was I? Not really. Everything I'd done had been in vain, because he was out there in that motel room, just feet away from me, and he was coming back here.

I could picture it. He would step into view in the bathroom doorway in just a moment. His hulking figure would be a dark silhouette, and I would be trapped in this tiny room. He'd step inside. I'd back up. And then...

He'd slam me back into the sink, crashing my head into the mirror above it. It would shatter, and pain would lance through my skull. I'd be stunned and unable to struggle. He would press a thick blade into my gut, and the pain would be so much that I couldn't think. Blood would be gushing out of my body, my intestines would be slithering out, and I'd be too terrified to even scream—

No. I shook myself.

No, I could fight. I had this pocket knife after all.

I gripped it tightly in one hand and squared off with the empty doorway, legs slightly bent, arms out, tensed and ready to fight.

I waited.

I strained to hear something from the room. Ralph's footsteps as he moved closer, or his breathing, or—hell, maybe he'd say something else.

But it was astonishingly quiet. Apart from my own noises, I heard nothing. I was breathing. I could hear that, even though I was doing my best to keep my breath quiet. I could hear my heart beating too. It was pounding all through my body, and I felt it especially behind my ears—pulsing out blood.

He couldn't hear my heart beating. I thought it was deafening and loud, but I knew that it was only because I was afraid. Ralph wasn't going to hone in on my location by virtue of my loud heartbeat. More likely, he'd do it by process of elimination. If I wasn't in the room, I had to be in the bathroom.

And so I waited.

The knife was beginning to feel slippery in my palm. My hands were sweating, wet with tension, wet with anticipation. I redoubled my grasp, tensing...

What the hell? Where was he? It didn't take that long to walk back to the bathroom.

Maybe he was searching the room, looking for me anywhere I might have hidden. I pictured him looking under the bed, pulling aside the decrepit curtains near the window.

He'd come to the bathroom soon enough.

And what would he do to me?

There are bad ways to die, and then there are worse ways.

I thought of his discussions of the way he'd cut up his victims, of the stain of old, dried blood under my body on that bed.

And he was going to be angry with me. I had caused problems for him. I had run away. I'd made it difficult. That might mean he'd take his anger out on me, and maybe that would make it even worse.

I didn't want to die. I hadn't come here to die. I'd come here to get laid, to hide from the issues that I had with Miles, but all of that seemed so far away now. Still, I couldn't help but think that if I had just bitten the bullet and gotten it on with Miles—as unpleasant and mechanical as it might have been, I wouldn't be in this position.

It was too late, though. These might be my final moments on earth, and I wasn't going to spend them regretting everything I did. I was going to spend them fighting.

So when Ralph came through that door, I was going to—

No, you know what? Fuck that.

Why wait for Ralph to come to me? What if he really was bending down and looking under the bed? If I ran out there with my pocket knife and caught him unawares, that would give me an advantage. There was no reason to stand here and wait like a trapped rabbit.

I surged forward, bursting out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, brandishing the pocket knife. I was ready. I was going to stick him the minute I saw him. I was going to hurt him, slash him, cut him, do whatever I could to stop him.

He wasn't there.

My body went cold as I looked around at the empty room.

What?

I knew that I'd heard his voice, just a few feet away from me. I knew that I'd heard the door opening.

I surveyed the room, the flickering, burning candles now full enough of hot wax that they were dripping and adding new rivulets and layers to the wax already there. In their scant light, I could see the bed, and there was so much more blood on it than I'd ever even imagined.

I knew how much blood was in a human body. I'd seen it when my parents had been bled out on the carpet of our den. But this was so much worse. More than two—more than three people—had been killed on this bed, and it had been soaked with their blood, and I'd been lying on it.

I felt a crawling sensation on my back, an urge to scratch back there to clean my body of the filth and death and carnage and—

Goddamn it, where was Ralph?

I'd heard him out here.

Hadn't I?

Oh hell, what if I'd just imagined it? What if the wind had blown the door open, and I'd spent all that time in the bathroom waiting for him when he wasn't even out here, imagining the worst, like a stupid, idiot woman. Hiding when I should have been running.

I took unsteady steps forward, fully expecting him to jump out at me—materialize out of the shadows like some dark demon formed from smoke and imagination, eyes bright, teeth glinting in a horrible grin.

Of course, no one appeared. The room was empty, and I could see that.

The door.

The door wasn't closed, but it was almost closed. There was a little sliver of moonlight...

Had it closed all the way before? When it startled me?

I couldn't remember.

I took several more steps forward. Silent steps. Tentative steps. I wasn't making any noise, but I was going for that door.

If it had closed all the way—closed and latched—then it meant that Ralph had opened the door. The wind couldn't turn a doorknob.

Had it closed?

I couldn't remember.

I paused in front of the door, my hand on the knob.

I knew it had made a loud noise, and that I'd been startled, but I didn't know if it had closed or not.

Oh, hell. I couldn't stay in this room forever.

Or could I? I looked over my shoulder. Maybe if I could find somewhere to hide—somewhere good, somewhere he'd never find me, then I could just wait this out. After all, he had to sleep sometime, didn't he? I'd wait, and eventually, I'd get a chance, and I could get away.

Maybe that was the safest thing to do, after all.

My hand still on the knob, I craned my neck further back, scrutinizing the room. Where could I hide? Under the bed was too obvious, as was behind the curtain. There wasn't much else in the room to obscure me. Maybe if the floorboards were loose—

The door burst open.

"You gotta be in here after all, bitch." Ralph pushed the door against the wall with one meaty hand, propelling me with it.

I screamed. I couldn't help it. I was so startled, and he was right there, and it just ripped out of my lungs.

I was trapped, pinned against the wall by the door.

Ralph turned to look at me, a grin sliding over his features. "There you are." He reached for me.

I was still holding the doorknob. I pulled it, crouching down, using the door as a shield.

He grasped the other side of the doorknob and yanked.

There was a brief tug of war between the two of us, but it wasn't much of a contest.

Ralph ripped the door away from my body and closed in on me.

I was huddled against the wall, looking up at his huge form coming for me. I balanced on the balls of my feet, adrenaline shooting through me.

He wrapped his hand around my throat.

I pistoned up, using my legs to propel myself into his body, punching the blade of the pocket knife directly into his stomach.

He shrieked, letting go of me and stumbling backwards.

I tried to keep hold of the pocket knife, but it was slippery with my sweat and his blood, and it was stuck in his body, and the knife went with him, not with me. I didn't have time to get it. I had to leave behind my only weapon.

I scrambled out of the door, out into the night air, and I took off sprinting.

I careened across the parking lot, heading straight for my car.

When I got there, I ripped open the door.

No keys.

Right. Right, I should have thought of this before running for my car, shouldn't I? Why wasn't I thinking? I had to be smart here. There was a crazy man after me—

Ralph.

I turned around, looking for him.

I didn't see him anywhere. I could see the warm light of the candles emanating from the room I'd just left, but no Ralph.

Fuck. Where was he? Where was he? I hadn't stabbed him that badly, had I? He should be coming...

Oh screw it. I needed to get away. I couldn't drive the car without keys—although, note to self, learn to hotwire a car—and so I needed some other escape route.

What?

The road? Should I run down the road and hope I could wave down a car?

What was that?

I turned. There had been a noise. I thought there had been a noise. But now... nothing.

Ralph came staggering out of the room now. He was bleeding from his stomach, and his face was a mask of rage. He tore the pocket knife out of his wound and dropped it on the ground.

"You bitch," he said again.

I looked at the road. I looked back at Ralph.

I ran for it.

"Bitch!" he screamed.

I pumped my legs, feet colliding with the pavement. Once I hit the road, I ran right on the double yellow lines. They were my path to safety, they were my way out of—

Behind me, the noise of an engine turning over.

Ralph had started my car. He must have my keys. He was pulling it out of the parking lot and coming after me.

Fuck. What the hell? Was I supposed to outrun a car?

The car was already crossing onto the road, straddling the yellow line and heading straight for me.

I swerved, darting into some weeds that were growing out of the ditch.

Ralph brought the car after me, lurching off the road. I could hear the bottom of my car scrape the ground, and I winced in spite of myself. He was fucking destroying my car.

And that was the last thing that I should have been worrying about, because now I was running through a field of weeds with a car at my heels.

Ralph was right up on me. He had the window rolled down, and I could hear him laughing.

I turned back to see him, his arm hanging out the open window, his mouth twisted into a cruel grin.

I couldn't outrun a car.

On the other hand, if he was chasing me in the car, he wasn't killing me either.

Of course, he might just run me down, run over me with my own car. I'd be just as dead, and then he could dissect me like road kill, since that was apparently what he liked to do.

I turned back around, and saw that the headlights of the car illuminated a chain-link fence ahead of me. There was a dilapidated gate, hanging open and swinging in the wind.

Ha! He couldn't take a car through a chain-link fence, could he? I headed for it, a new rush of energy churning through my limbs.

I ran through the gate and realized that I'd come to the old pool for the motel. The pool was dry—no longer filled with water. I could see that as I approached. There was a tangle of lawn furniture in one corner, concrete under my feet, ringing the rectangular pool.

I stopped short of falling over the edge, panting and flailing. The headlights of the car were at my back, and Ralph was cackling in the background.

I looked down into the empty pool, and I saw that it wasn't empty after all. The bottom was littered with bodies—most too old to be anything other than skeletal, but bits of clothing still clung to their shriveled bones. Their bare bones grinned up into the night sky, lit up in the headlights and the light of the moon. And not all of the bodies were old. Some were fresher, still bloody, still covered in skin. The bodies were in pieces. They'd been cut and hacked. I saw an arm, a leg, toes poking up through the grisly collection. The toenails were painted a metallic blue that gleamed in the headlights.

I felt sick.

I reeled, stumbling back from the edge.

Behind me the engine revved. Ralph slammed the car into the chain-link fence.

I let out a cry, running away from the car, parallel with the pool. But where was I going? The pool was surrounded by this fence. I thought that I'd been so clever, and I'd only succeeded in trapping myself again.

The fence toppled under the weight of the car.

One of my headlights busted.

There was a painful scream—metal on metal.

Part of the fence came down under the weight of the car, but the car was stuck now. It couldn't go forward or backward.

Ralph leaped out of the driver's seat and came for me.

Where could I go? The rest of the fence was intact, and the gaps that Ralph had created were behind him. To get out, I'd have to run right for him.

I did the only thing I knew to do. I turned and ran.

There was no path except around the pool, essentially going in a circle. But I realized that was a good thing, because it meant that I'd get to the gap in the fence, and that I could get free.

I focused on the spot next to the car where the fence was bent down, where I'd jump over it and scramble out into the darkness.

Freedom.

He was too fast for me.

He caught me, tackled me.

I went down face first into the concrete. My chin glanced painfully, jamming my teeth against each other. Agony lanced through my jaw, so intense that I hardly felt the places where my skin had been scraped from the impact of hitting the concrete so hard under his body.

He pinned me down.

I screamed again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Ralph laughed, the sound loud at my ear. He was pressing his entire body into mine, and I could feel his hot breath on my neck. I was disgusted by the fact that I'd had sex with this man. I had terrible instincts. What kind of detective did I really think I was, anyway? What kind of woman? Shouldn't I have been able to sense that Ralph was what he was?

"You shouldn't have run from me," he said. "You're going to pay for that."

I struggled beneath him. He was heavy, and I could hardly breathe under his bulk.

He responded by settling more firmly on me. "Stop it."

I'd wounded him before. If I could exploit that weakness, literally hit him where it hurt, maybe I could get away.

I shut my eyes, concentrating on the way he felt on me. Could I feel where he was bleeding? Could I tell?

At first, all I could focus on was the strain on my lungs, the pressure on my rib cage. I was afraid that my bones were going to snap under his girth.

But then I did feel it. Warm and liquid. Right in the center of my back.

If I could wedge my elbow...

He grabbed at my arm, trying to pin it down.

I shook him off. I aimed my elbow.

And I planted it right in the spot where I'd stabbed him.

He squealed. He lifted off of me—just an inch, just for a second.

It was all I needed to wriggle out. I crawled on my stomach, kicking at him with my shoes.

He shrieked and grunted—half in pain, half in frustration.

I scooted out from beneath him. Free. Completely—

He seized my ankles.

I kicked.

He held fast.

I twisted, turning to look into his face. "You were a lousy lay, you know that?" And then I kicked sideways with all my strength.

My foot collided hard with his face.

He let go and went tumbling over onto his back.

I scrambled to my feet and kicked him again.

He slid off the side of the concrete and into the pool, landing in there with all of his body parts.

He howled.

I backed away.

I could see that he was wading through the macabre pieces and bones to the ladder out. He'd be after me again any minute.

I took off running again, jumping through the gap in the fence like I'd planned.

I emerged behind the motel. I could see the main lobby, back door gaping open. Through there, the front of the motel, the parking lot and the road.

I headed for it, through the door, inside.

The lobby had a high desk, facing the front door. I was coming up behind, and there was someone sitting there. I could make out the person's outline from here.

But that didn't make any sense. There was no one else here. Still, that was a definite human shape.

I shot a glance over my shoulder.

Ralph was bursting through the gate in the chain-link fence, his clothes smeared with blood and gore. He was baring his teeth as he came after me.

I turned back to the figure, running even faster.

I shot a glance over as I opened the gate for the desk.

Oh.

It was Madison—I recognized her. She was propped up in the chair, posed like a clerk. But her face...

Her eyes had been gouged out and there was nothing there but gaping holes, dark and empty, endlessly staring.

I let out another involuntary scream as I scrambled past her.

Then I was out of the motel, back in the parking lot again.

I started to run towards the road again. As plans went, it was the best that I had, even though I hadn't seen another car pass through here, it was true.

Slam.

Down on the pavement again, flat on my stomach, all the previous injuries I'd gotten smarting from repeat abuse.

This time, I couldn't blame Ralph, though.

This time, I'd tripped over a big chunk of pavement. It had broken loose and had been right in my path. I hadn't seen it.

Ralph was through the door of the lobby now. He was close—too close.

If I got up and tried to run again, he'd catch up with me.

So I froze. I curled my hand around the big chunk of pavement that I'd tripped on, and I stopped moving, played possum.

Ralph laughed. "See, that's what you get. That's what you get." He stopped next to me and nudged my body with my foot.

I let him, not reacting.

"Knocked yourself out, did you?"

I didn't breathe.

He bent down over my body, clucking at me. "Should have known better."

I waited until his face was close.

No, closer.

Until he was peering into my eyes, trying to determine if I was as stunned as I appeared.

And then I slammed the chunk of pavement into his stupid nose.

He yelled, blood gushing everywhere.

I brought the chunk of pavement down on him again—same spot—maximize the pain.

He let out a scream that almost sounded inhuman.

One more time.

And he was still.

"Fuck," I murmured.

I hit him over the head again, just to be sure.

His body reacted like a slab of meat.

I whimpered.

I went through his pockets and found my cell phone. I dialed with shaky fingers, keeping my eye on him the entire time.

"Nine one one, what is your emergency?" said my phone.

My heart was still beating so loudly that I thought it might burst out of my temples.

* * *

"Hey, you awake?"

I opened my eyes. I was in a hospital room in Steel County, not because I was very badly injured, but mostly because they wanted to check me over. I'd been assured that I'd be released pretty soon. I hadn't told anyone that I was here, so I wasn't sure who might be talking to me. I squinted at the figure at the foot of my bed.

"Miles?" My voice was hoarse from all the screaming I'd done. "How are you here?"

"Oh, someone recognized you and called me." He smiled wryly. "I guess your fame has spread beyond Renmawr."

I groaned. To think that people this far north also knew all about my getting fired didn't make me happy. "Geez, you'd think people would let it go. So, I had sex with a married man. That's hardly a reason to think I'm a terrible person." I still remembered how awkward my hearing had been, however. The guy I'd had sex with had been married to a transcriptionist who worked at the courthouse, Melly. Everyone loved her. She made homemade dough nuts twice a month—enough for the entire police department, and she was probably the nicest person in the history of the universe. I'd hurt her, and—for that—everyone hated me.

"For what it's worth, I agree with you. I don't see how your sex life is any of the department's business. But they did have those texts on your work phone—"

"He sent those texts," I grumbled, sitting up in my hospital bed. "Anyway, there's nothing I can do about it now."

"Doesn't seem like it, no."

"I have terrible taste in people that I actually sleep with," I muttered.

"You do," he said.

"I should have just slept with you. None of this would have happened."

He turned bright red and coughed.

"Sorry," I said. "Are we supposed to pretend that the thing in the shower didn't happen?"

He dragged a hand over his face.

I didn't say anything.

He didn't say anything.

Awkward silence. Everything was back to normal between Miles and me.

"You, um, you did good, Ivy," he said. "That guy you brought in. That motel... They aren't sure yet. They've got dental records to check and DNA to verify, but it looks like there might be bodies there from five states and counting. You were right. He went up and down the interstate killing people. It's going to be a heyday passing this guy from state to state for all these murders. I figure he'll have trial after trial for years."

I smiled, and it hurt. I touched my face. "Oh, crap, I'm all skinned up, aren't I?"

"You don't look great," he admitted. "But you just fought off a maniac, so it's to be expected." He cocked his head to one side. "How'd you figure it out, anyway? I mean, I thought that theory of yours was a long shot. I never thought you'd bring the guy in a few hours later. How'd you find him?"

I made a face. "Well, I didn't exactly. I was actually going to meet up with the truck driver that I'd hooked up with before to, um... well, like I said, I have terrible taste in people I actually sleep with."

"So, this was a tryst?"

Tryst? Who said that? Only someone who didn't actually have sex, of course. "I did figure it out. Right at the last minute. I remembered that he was the one who brought up serial killers in the first place, and all the pieces came together. But by then I was already out at that motel, and I couldn't get away."

"At least not at first," he said. "You messed him up pretty bad. I always said you were tough."

"It would have been easier with a gun," I muttered.

"Yeah, well, I'm still working on that." He gave me a half-grin.

I smiled back.

We stayed like that for a few seconds, just smiling at each other, quiet.

"Look, Miles," I said. "I'm sorry I ran off from you."

He hung his head. "It's okay. The truth was that I was kind of relieved that you did. You might have noticed that I didn't exactly pursue you and try to get you back."

I took a deep breath. "I have something I have to tell you. I know that when we were dating, I said that the reason I was sleeping with all those other people was because you wouldn't have sex with me. But that's not really true."

He swallowed. "So, then why?"

I hesitated. "I don't... I don't really know. I just need to do it."

"Ivy—"

"I'm a very fucked-up person, Miles."

He sighed.

"Anyway, it wouldn't have mattered if we did it or not, okay? It wouldn't stop me being the way I am." I examined my fingernails, unable to meet his gaze.

He didn't say anything for a long time.

Finally, I did look up at him.

And he was looking at his toes.

"Miles?" I said.

"I see," he said. "You couldn't ever stop."

I shook my head.

"Even though I was willing to start for you, you wouldn't be willing to stop for me."

I sighed. "I don't want us to be that way."

"What way?"

"I don't want either of us to have to compromise who we are just so that we can have a relationship. I love you, Miles, and I want you to be you. If it's not natural for you to have sex, then I don't want you to do it."

He ran a hand through his hair. "That's an excuse, Ivy, and not a good one."

"What? No, it's not. I just want us to be ourselves."

"No, you don't want to give up your sex addiction," he said, glaring at me.

I flinched.

"They're going to release you soon," he said, and he sounded exhausted suddenly. "I know you don't have a car anymore, because it's been impounded for evidence. At any rate, it's totaled. So, I was going to drive you back home. But, um..." He fidgeted. "I think it might be better if I called someone for you instead."

"Miles, don't be that way." I reached for him.

He evaded me. "Is there someone I can call?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Crane was grinning at me. "I have a surprise for you in the car. So get your ass out of this wheelchair."

"Hell, no," I said. We were outside the hospital, in the parking lot. "You're wheeling me right to the door. Come on. Curbside service."

"What? No way. You can walk just fine. I'm not pushing you around."

I folded my arms over my chest. "I've had a very, very bad day, Crane. The least you could do is facilitate a wheelchair ride for a friend."

He chuckled. "All right. All right." He went back around the wheelchair, grasped it from behind, and began pushing me over the pavement.

I leaned back and smiled at him. "Thank you. I very much appreciate it."

"You look like death warmed over. That guy worked you over bad."

"You are so complimentary."

He laughed again. "Hey, uh, was that your ex back there? Is he the one who called me?"

I sighed. Maybe it was shitty of me to have Miles call my long-running fuck buddy to come get me. Maybe it was one of those bitchy things that I should never have done. After all, Miles was genuinely hurt, and I was kind of a lousy person in general.

But on the other hand, Miles was picking quite a time to throw a hissy fit about all of that.

He was the guy who couldn't have sex, and he wanted to throw stones? Tell me I had an addiction? Be up on a high horse, like we weren't both screwed up? I didn't think so.

He deserved it.

Crane wheeled me up to the passenger side of his car. "You still see him sometimes?"

"Just for work stuff," I said. "You know that. He sends me cases."

"Yeah, the way you two look at each other, I can pretty much tell it's not all about work."

"Doesn't matter," I said. "Things could never work between the two of us. Besides, would you be here if there was anything going on between Pike and me?"

Crane shrugged. "Guess not. But I gotta say, Ivy, if you're—"

"You said something about a surprise, didn't you? You gonna talk my ear off or you going to surprise me?"

"Okay, you win. No more talking about your ex." He tugged open the door to the car and pulled out a six pack of Miller High Life. "For you, as a get-well-soon present. I think, if you're very quick about it, you can get one down while I'm putting the wheelchair back."

I snatched a beer. "Thank you, Crane. You know me so well."

"Don't think you're drinking in the car while I'm driving, though," he said. "So chug that."

I got up out of the wheelchair, twisting off the cap of one of the bottles. I put it to my lips, let the cold, foamy liquid wash down my throat.

That was good.

All was right with the world. At least for that moment, anyway.

* * *

All was right with the world until the news stations got hold of the story, and then everyone wanted to interview me. After all, here was this serial killer who'd been terrorizing the people up and down the interstate, right under everyone's noses, for years. No one had even noticed. Finding him and finding all the bodies started a chain reaction to close tons of missing persons cases in at least five states, maybe more.

Back when I was a police detective, I never had to worry about the news trying to interview me. The higher-ups would deal with that, not me. And thus far in my career as a private detective, I'd never broken anything quite this big.

Brigit couldn't understand why I hated it. She thought it was great. I deserved the attention after everything that I'd been through, according to her. Besides, it was good for business. Right after the news stories started going out, our phone started ringing off the hook—people wanting us to look into the disappearances of their loved ones, mostly.

It was going to be a busy season.

That was the way of things, though. Sometimes, business would be dead, but then it would pick up all at once, and I'd be buried under cases. I didn't really mind that, though. I liked the money, and I liked to keep busy.

But I wasn't crazy about the news interviews. They made me feel nervous, basically because I wasn't in control of them. I didn't know what the reporters might ask me, and I didn't know how they might edit my words to make me sound like an idiot. Worst of all, I was afraid they'd drag up my past, and that I'd be in the middle of an interview about tracking down Ralph and someone would ask me about Melly the transcriptionist and her husband Frank, and what right I had to sleep with a married man and carry on the affair during work time. Surely I was aware that the police were public servants, and that I had wasted taxpayer's money on my adulterous activities.

I waited for that question to come up in every interview I gave.

But it didn't.

Either the reporters didn't dig for it, or they didn't think it meshed with the image of me they wanted to create.

All I knew was that I spent two weeks holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And when the interview requests finally died down, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Ralph was being held without bail. He was considered a flight risk, and besides, there was a metric ton of evidence against him. He wasn't going anywhere. He was locked up tight, awaiting the first of many trials. The man would never see the light of day again.

Whatever the case, he was done with killing, and that was the important thing. I'd stopped a murderer from hurting anyone else. I'd made a difference. That felt good to me.

* * *

Andrew Webb was going to shake my hand off. He seriously wouldn't let go of me, thanking me profusely. "I just can't believe you faced down that man, that horrible, horrible man."

"All in a day's work," I said.

"Well, I can't thank you enough," he said. "I knew it all along, you know? I knew that Madison had been killed. I knew it. She and I were so close. I felt it. And when you confirmed it, well, it didn't make me feel good, of course. But it did bring me a certain sense of peace, knowing what happened to her."

"That's what I'm here for." I tried to pull my hand back, but he wasn't letting go.

In fact, he squeezed my fingers even tighter and looked deeply into my eyes. "Thank you. You got her body back, so that I had something to bury. You gave her back to me—at least what was left of her. I really feel as if I wouldn't have been whole for the rest of my life if I hadn't been able to find closure for my sweet, sweet sister."

Okay, ew. This was just getting gross now. I narrowed my eyes. "All I need for thanks is for you to pay me, Andrew. I was just doing my job."

"Don't worry," he said. "There's a final check in the mail. Money's a little tight right now, what with the divorce settlements with Lissa, but I'm squaring up with you. You deserve it. You went right into the lion's den and tangled with that psychopath."

I didn't know what else to say, so I just smiled and nodded.

"I know things weren't always smooth sailing between us," he said. "But I really, truly do think you did amazing work, and I am nothing but grateful to you for everything you did for me. And for Madison." Tears were forming in his eyes. "I'll never forget her. She was my everything."

All right, I couldn't handle it anymore. I gave my arm another tug. "I'm going to need this hand back, Andrew."

"Hmm? Oh!" He released me. "Sorry about that."

"Not a problem," I said, resisting the urge to wipe my hand on my pants.

He took a deep breath, looking around my office. "Well, I just came by to say thank you."

"Which you have done," I said. "Numerous times."

"Yes," he said.

An awkward pause.

"I'll walk you out," I said, heading for the door.

"Oh, yes. Well, I guess I should be going."

"Don't let me keep you." I opened the door for him.

"Thank you again, Ms. Stern. Really." He turned to me, eyes glittering with tears. "You have no idea what it means to me."

"I'm glad you're a satisfied customer, Mr. Webb." I gestured at the open door.

He walked through.

I watched him go down the hall, and then I shut the door after him. I rested my head against it, sighing. "I thought he'd never leave."

Brigit made a face at me from her desk. "He's still creepy, isn't he?"

"Oh, very much," I said.

She laughed.

"But, you know, that's why I do what I do," I said.

"Why?" She gave me a funny look.

"Well, for the warm glow I get when I help out someone who was incestuously involved with his sister, that's why."

She giggled. "Thanks for clearing that up, Ivy."

I grinned. "I got any appointments today?"

She turned to the computer screen. "Um... Mr. Bedford is coming by for an update on your surveillance on Mrs. Bedford in about an hour."

"Great," I said. "You have his bill ready for him when he leaves? You know how much I hate talking rates with clients."

"Absolutely," she said.

I grinned. Well, everything was back to normal. My life was still shitty, and I still wasn't getting my job back in homicide. But I'd gotten Ralph behind bars, and that was something.

I took a deep breath and headed back for my desk.
Now what?

Find information on the next book in the Blond Noir series here.

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Frenzy

a new adult romantic thriller

Sex. Drugs. Murder.

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