Closer Than Blood

“I didn’t say you could,” she said, raising her voice a little for the urgency. Parker’s eyes flashed at his mother.

“Are you serious? Are you really trying to control me? Give it up, Mom. You lost that ability a long time ago. I’m doing what I want to do, for the reasons that make me happy.”

“I’ve made dinner.”

“You’re a shitty cook, Mom,” he said. The door slammed and Laura turned off the oven. The lasagna that was one of her son’s favorites wasn’t going to be served that evening. The little boy whom she had loved was lost to her. She knew it. She knew it the way that a mother does when her child no longer looks up with adoring eyes, but eyes that see the truth. I pushed him. I pushed him too hard. Why did I do that? Laura poured herself some wine and went into his room. A Ghostbusters poster, a reminder of her boy’s favorite movie, hovered over his bed. Laura sat down and looked around the room. On his desk was a cutting board and spools of colored duct tape. He’d once spent hours there making duct-tape wallets that he and his best friend, Drew, thought they could sell door-to-door. It seemed so long ago. It seemed like he was a different boy. She wondered when he’d grow out of his moodiness. She hadn’t been a perfect mother, but she did the best that she could. Like her mother, probably. And her mother’s mother before her. There was no owner’s manual dispensed with each hospital birth. She noticed the packaging for a webcam and she wondered what that was all about. I really don’t understand all this social networking stuff, she thought.

In his car, Parker called his buddy, Drew Cooper, and explained that he wanted to lie low and that he’d told his mother he was staying with him. He didn’t have a hands-free device, so he hunched a little as he passed a Washington State patrol vehicle parked by the Puyallup River Bridge exit. The last thing he needed was to be noticed.

“When are you going to tell me about the chick you’re boning?” Drew said. Parker laughed.

“Soon enough, bro.” He and Drew were no longer close, and he’d never tell that doofus about Tori. Drew had a big mouth and a judgmental mother. Confiding in him was as good as posting it on his Facebook wall. In two minutes’ time, the information would be shared by everyone he knew.

“You staying with her?” Drew asked.

“Yeah. For a day or two. Watch my back, all right?”

“Sure. Her parents gone?”

“Something like that.”

“Why can’t I be so lucky? What do I have to do to get a girl to put out?” Don’t go for a girl, go for a woman.

“Don’t have an answer for you, bro,” Parker said.

“Just be patient. The right one will come along.” That was a lie, too. Parker Connelly knew that soul mates almost never really found each other. Drew was a loser like the rest of the people he knew. Like his dad. His mother. They couldn’t conceive of the power and deep satisfaction that comes from finding the other half of one’s self. For always like swans. Parker hung up and turned on the radio and listened to the news. Tori liked him for his body and his brain. He wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met. He was handsome, strong. Smart. He parked and made his way to the airport ticket kiosk. It was the one tricky element of their plan, a ticket to the Caribbean so they could start their life together. They talked about the danger of leaving a trail of any kind, even though there was absolutely no way they’d be caught. He didn’t even buy the ticket under his own name. Tori thought of everything. He wore a down vest under his dark blue hoodie and kept his head down.

“I wish we could buy a ticket with cash,” Tori had said as they snuggled in bed, making their plans.

“But those terrorists have screwed up everything for everyone.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Cash in your father’s frequent flier points,” she said.

“Got it handled, Tori.”

“Then make love to me.”

“So the money will be transferred at midnight?” Tori asked.

“Midnight their time, but yes, that’s right.”

“We do not have to take any action to have the money go directly into the offshore account?”

“Nope,” the lawyer said.

“Nothing. All set up.”

“Wonderful,” Tori said.

“Two million dollars, that’s some birthday present,” she said. Tori felt a surge of excitement, like the first few minutes of really good sex.

“Yes, it is. He’s a very lucky boy.”

Kendall crawled under the covers and nuzzled Steven. He was asleep, snoring softly in the manner she found more charming than irritating. The regular rhythm of his slumber was something that she could always count on and it comforted her just then. She found herself thinking of how her life might have gone if they’d stayed apart. She remembered how lost she’d been those lonely, dark days. Jason Reed’s voice reverberated in her memory.

“Kendall, I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t, either,” she said.

“We need to do what’s right.”

“I need more time to sort out some things.”

“I’m begging you,” she said.

“Please.” That was the last time that they really spoke. She was seventeen, ashamed, and feeling as if the world was going to come to an end. She talked things over with her mother. She prayed to God. She’d done what every other teenage girl who became pregnant since the world made such things shameful did. She hid it from everyone. But the baby’s father. As she lay there next to Steven, she thought of how much the world had changed in the past fifteen years. Celebrities had babies without marriage every day. They even posed for magazine covers as if there was nothing wrong. The stigma had been washed away. Even in conservative Port Orchard, people had changed their thinking. And yet, Kendall had kept it a secret. She didn’t tell Steven, though there were many times when she could have. It was private and she wanted it to stay that way. As time progressed, she was able to set aside some of the emotion that came with her decision. I did what I had to do, she thought. I did what was the right thing at the time. Not the right thing for who I am today, but who I was back then. When Cody was diagnosed with autism, Kendall blamed herself. She felt that it was payback from God for the choice that she made. How many times can I say I’m sorry? she asked. She wrote a letter to Steven that she’d intended to give him, but never did.

When I dreamed of falling in love, I dreamed of you. I don’t know if you’ll ever understand, but I’m begging you to try. For the rest of my life, I’ll live with the shame of knowing that the mistake I made was only compounded by the lies that I’ve told, the past that I’ve swept away.

Years later, when cleaning out the bedroom closet of their Harper house, Kendall found a cache of letters in a cigar box that had belonged to her father. There were postcards, too, from trips she and Steven had taken before Cody was born. Paris. The Grand Canyon. Vancouver Island. Among the items was the “I’m sorry” note. She picked at it, not sure if she wanted to unfold it. The letters bled through the stationery like a ghost from a bad dream. She could make out some of the words, and her heart sank. So much to remember. So much to save. No review was needed, of course. Every word from that time had been etched in her memory. She unfolded it slowly, feeling the texture of the slightly rippled paper. She remembered she’d cried when she wrote it. The final words lay on the page like the message on a tombstone, destined to be forever. Forgive me, so I can forgive myself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Tacoma

If anyone passed him on the trail along the Thea Foss Waterway that morning, Eddie Kaminski would have conjured the image of an old steam locomotive. He ran through the chilly air, streams of warm breath following him step by step. Puff. Puff. Puff. His running was on autopilot because his mind was so wrapped up in his thoughts of what had transpired over the past few days. There was no denying that there had been some anomalies in the Alex Connelly case that made it of the twisty sort that detectives mull over. Sometimes obsessively so. Out running, in the car, or with his daughter as they shared a couple of calzones at a restaurant in Spanaway—any time, all times. Wealthy husband shot to death and a stunningly beautiful woman who seemed less concerned about her husband than the appearance of her own culpability. It was apparent to the investigative team that Darius Fulton had been obsessed with his neighbor and more than likely had been the triggerman. But had he acted alone? It was a question they were asking back at the Tacoma Police Department. In fact, a lot of questions were being asked. Nothing got cops talking like a beautiful and bloody blonde. The Connelly case was a far cry from a drug- or gangland-related murder, by far the most common in gritty Tacoma. A little digging by Cal Herzog had turned up one little nugget that suggested Alex Connelly might have had a girlfriend, possibly someone at work. And that affair, if true, had occurred before Tori slept with Darius Fulton. Had she done so to get back at her husband? The scenario was familiar. Kaminski stopped to catch his breath and rested his hands on his knees. Ten more pounds off the middle and a final run up and down the Spanish Steps downtown would be easier. He slowed his breathing a little and acted as if he was doing just fine when a young woman jogging with her Rottweiler ran by, the gravel crunching under the dog’s heavy black paws. As she disappeared around a corner, he resumed his labored breathing. Sweat streaked his back and the space between what he imagined should be well-defined pecs, but weren’t quite there yet. A moment later, composed, lungs no longer contracting, he went back to the office, showered, and dressed. He had an appointment at Alex Connelly’s office. The president of Pacific Investments had made the call himself.

When the elevator doors opened to the seventh floor of the Tacoma office building that was Alex Connelly’s place of employment, it was like the scene in The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy opened the door of the tornado-hurtled Kansas farmhouse to reveal the shiny, colorful world of Munchkinland. Pacific Investments was an opulent place of white leather couches, a tsunami of colorful artwork splashed on the walls. Eddie Kaminski was duly impressed—as would any visitor to a floor accessible only by invitation. Or by detective’s shield.

“Detective Kaminski?” He turned around from a painting that held his attention. A young woman in stilettos and a dark blue suit had crept up behind him. She was pretty, so he smiled.

“Yes. That’s me.”

“I’m Daphnia. Mr. Johnstone and the rest of Alex’s team are in the boardroom. Follow me.” She led the way, Kaminski’s eyes embarrassingly, but unavoidably, riveted to her backside as they made their way past a row of rosewood desks and Eames chairs. She pressed a burnished nickel-plated button and a pair of frosted-glass double doors slowly opened. Three people—two men and a woman—occupied a conference room large enough to play a volleyball match. A Chihuly hung like a sheaf of glass bananas from the ceiling. The firm spared no expense. Eli Johnstone was a physically fit man of about sixty, with light gray eyes, a shaved head, and a tuft of white hair protruding from the front of his collar. The firm that his father had built from nothing was impressive—a multimillion-dollar portfolio that had made it through the junk bond years and the scandals that defined Wall Street in the first years of the new millennium. Johnstone was no Bernie Madoff. Eli sat at the head of a black walnut table in a conference room that looked out to the cold waters of Commencement Bay. At his right was a woman of considerable beauty. She had faded blue eyes and a short blond haircut that looked still damp from the shower. She seemed cold and indifferent—almost as if she had better things to do and couldn’t wait to get back to them. Next to her was a young man with the kind of eager-beaver attitude that Kaminski knew might come in handy. Overly helpful is always a plus, he thought.

“I’m sorry for the loss of your friend and colleague,” Kaminski said as he approached the group. Johnstone put out his hand and shook the detective’s like he meant to choke the life out of him.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Alex was an important member of our team here.” He motioned for Kaminski to sit as he introduced his colleagues: Lissa March was the ice-princess vice president of Human Resources, and Hank Wooten was Alex Connelly’s assistant, a trainee that he’d mentored for the past year.

“Thanks for seeing me.”

“Alex was very important here. Important to all of us.” Kaminski looked at the others, but none seemed broken up at all. They were young professionals on autopilot with their emotions.

“You said you had some information that might be helpful in the investigation of his murder,” Kaminski said. The company president acknowledged the remark with a quick nod.

“That’ll be your job to determine.” Neither of the other two said a word, though the younger man appeared to bobble-head with great enthusiasm.

“Ms. March advised me of a turn of events that we thought you might find of interest.” He turned slightly in Lissa’s direction and she immediately produced a black file folder. Kaminski looked at the folder.

“What do we have here?”

“Last year Mr. Connelly made a change to his life insurance policy,” Lissa said, her voice softer than her standoffish body language might have suggested it would be. Kaminski caught a faint accent, maybe North Carolina. Maybe Lissa wasn’t as tough as she wanted the world to believe she was.

“What kind of a change?” he asked.

“An interesting one,” she said, her tougher façade back in full force, “especially considering the recent tragic turn of events. Alex removed his wife as a beneficiary and left the sum of the policy’s payout to his son, Parker.” It was an interesting change, indeed.

“I see,” Kaminski said, reaching for the document that Lissa had excised from the black folder and slid across the high gloss table.

“Shouldn’t the beneficiary be his wife?”

“Ordinarily, yes,” Johnstone said.

“In fact, she called here not wanting it that way at all. She said it wasn’t about the money, but what was best for Parker. Tori thought that setting up a trust for Parker would be best for the boy, too.” Kaminski directed his attention to Hank.

“Were there any problems between the Connellys?” The younger man drank some water before answering.

“Well, not that I know about. I mean—”

“—everyone has problems,” Johnstone said, effectively cutting short Hank’s comment.

“Tell me,” Kaminski said, in part, a comment about his own life and dusted-up marriage, but also, he wanted to know more.

“This is a murder investigation.”

“We work in black-and-white here. We don’t delve into pie-in-the-sky theories or gossip.”

“Understood,” Kaminski said, “but was there trouble in the marriage?” Pacific Investments President Johnstone’s eyes flashed and he glanced in the direction of the comely human resources executive.

“This doesn’t leave this office,” he said. Kaminski shook his head.

“I can’t promise that.”

“It has nothing to do with any of this.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Johnstone, but you can’t be the decision maker on that. That’ll be up to me, then the Prosecutor’s Office. What are you holding back?” He looked at Lissa and she shifted nervously in her chair. All of a sudden she looked more frightened than sophisticated. Kaminski had seen it before, many times. Fear had a way of dissolving all traces of beauty.

“I had a brief affair with Alex,” she said.

“Tori knew about it.” Tears started to roll down her cheeks and she turned away to wipe them. She dabbed gently at her skin as if she didn’t want the humiliation of her disclosure made worse by the smudging of her makeup. Eli Johnstone handed her a second tissue. Kaminski would never have thought the woman in the pencil skirt would have been a crier.

“The affair was brief. Very brief. Lissa came to me and disclosed the indiscretion—which was against company policy. Since she reported it to me, I agreed to keep her on.” He looked in Lissa’s direction. She was dabbing her eyes.

“Alex was reprimanded, too.”

“I see. When was this?”

“Last year,” she said.

“It was a couple of dates following our Christmas party. We broke it off amicably.” If it was so amicable, why was she crying about it still? he wondered.

“How do you know his wife knew?”

“She confronted me and I broke it off the next day. There was a lot of drama, but it was really over after a week or two.”

Kaminski pushed the button to the elevator and got inside. Just as the doors inched closed, Lissa March slipped between the panels. Her eyes were red and her makeup was smeared. She caught a glimpse of herself on the polished chrome-plated doors.

“I look like hell.”

“Going down?”

“I’m already down. But, no.” She reached over and pushed the STOP button.

“I just wanted to tell you that Tori Connelly scared me.”

“How so?”

“Look, I know I shouldn’t have messed with Alex. I can’t even say it wasn’t my idea, you know, to make me look like a better person. And I wouldn’t lie about a dead man. She came to my condo after she found out. She’s a pretty woman, but she wasn’t pretty that day.” Lissa took a breath. She was beautiful, smart. She’d made a big mistake and it was clear that she’d been paying for it.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“All right,” she said.

“From the beginning.”

Lissa March was sweaty from a workout on the elliptical machine in the living room of her top-floor Stadium District condo overlooking Commencement Bay. It was a Sunday afternoon and she relished the respite from Pacific Investments. While others were at church or with families on Sundays, she was usually at the office catching up on paperwork. Her job was her life. Lissa wrapped a towel around her neck, put on some smooth jazz, and poured herself some Evian with a slice of lime and looked out at the water. Things were good just then. The mezzanine doorman buzzed to tell her that a woman was there with a delivery—a large bouquet of white lilies.

“Can she leave them?”

“She wants to come up. Says she knows you.” Lissa wasn’t expecting a visitor, much less flowers. Fleetingly, she allowed herself to believe that Alex had sent them as a peace offering.

“Oh. Who is she?”

“Name’s Tori Connelly.” Lissa could feel the air go out of the room. It wasn’t Alex, after all, but his wife. Lissa felt a wave of nausea. She never wanted to be the ugly part of a triangle. It was certainly nothing her Southern upbringing had ever considered even the remotest of possibilities. Her mom always said, “The other woman is always a tramp. Tramps always end up with nothing but a swim in a pool of shame.” In that instance of guilt and introspection, Lissa felt she had no choice but take her lumps and steep in the shame of what she’d done.

“All right, send her up,” Lissa said. She patted her face with the towel, ran her fingers through her hair, and made the best of her attire by smoothing out the black T-shirt she wore over a pair of black workout shorts. She didn’t look good. I don’t deserve to look good. A knock on the door, and she opened it. Tori Connelly stood outside, poking the bouquet of overly perfumed lilies at Lissa.

“Are you alone?” she asked, her blue eyes sparking disgust as she ran the length of Lissa’s body. Lissa’s face tightened, but she nodded.

“Yes. I’m alone.” She knew that the comment was a dig, a suggestion that she’d pulled herself away from a horny suitor just then.

“You look so damp, I just thought . . .”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to get out of our lives.” Lissa took a step backward.

“I’m out. It’s over.”

“Really? I know women like you never give up on what you want. I brought these for you,” she said, shoving the white flowers at Lissa as if they were a weapon.

“When my mom died we buried her with these, her favorite flower.” Reflexively, Lissa took the bouquet thrust at her.

“I don’t want any drama, Tori. I made a mistake. I’m working through it.”

“Poor you.” Tori looked around the condo, her eyes taking in the expensive furnishings, the original artwork over the fireplace.

“You have expensive taste, Lissa. Uninteresting, but expensive. You can’t have my husband.” A chill ran down Lissa’s spine.

“I don’t want him. Will you go now?”

“I’m leaving. I just wanted to make my point. If I can’t have Alex, no one can. You see, he’s boring and rich. That’s enough for me. At least the rich part is. You’ll be sorry—he’ll be very, very sorry—if you cross me.”

The elevator holding Lissa and Kaminski started to move and the female executive quickly pushed the button to the next floor with her perfectly squared-off French-manicured nails.

“I’m getting out here,” she said.

“I just wanted you to know that Tori Connelly was a total bitch. I might have deserved what she said, but I want you to know I felt that she making a serious threat. She looked at me with those ice-cube eyes of hers and told me basically that it wasn’t beyond her to make sure that no one got in her way.” Lissa stepped across the threshold of the elevator. She was more composed than she had been. It was as if getting the story out had eased her mind. And maybe her conscience.

“If she couldn’t have him, no one could,” Kaminski repeated.

“That’s right.”

“Did you think she was threatening to kill you?”

“No. Not at all. I think she was going to kill him.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Tacoma

The previous summer

Tori Connelly looked out the front window, the sun falling in patches over the precision-mowed lawn onto the street and into Darius Fulton’s front yard. She sipped a diet soda through a long red plastic straw. She’d bleached her teeth to an icy white and didn’t want to stain them. She was dressed in a filmy sleeveless blouse and capri pants. A strand of liquid silver coiled around her spray-tanned neck. There was a lot to think about. The summer was edging toward fall. Alex had been more distant than ever, and Tori wasn’t exactly sure why. She’d been so very careful, covering her tracks. Taking a lover right under their own roof had seemed reckless at first, but it had proved to be the cleverest solution to a problem that needed solving. Parker came down the stairs, showered and with a tiny piece of tissue red-glued onto his chin. He’d shaved, though he barely had to.

“Plans for the day?” she asked.

“We’re having dinner tonight with your dad at Indochine.”

“I hate Thai food,” he said.

“Oh, really? I thought you liked a little spice, now and then.” The teenager smiled, catching the sexy undercurrent of her words. He felt himself get hard. All she had to do was look at him in a certain way, turn her head, laugh, talk. Just about anything excited him to the point where he had no control over his body. At least what was below his belt buckle, anyway.

“You’re going to have to learn how to tame that,” she said, looking at his obvious arousal. He moved closer and touched her. She pulled back.

“What up?” he asked.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said.

“You might want to try using your other head.” She was irritated, but she hadn’t meant to hurt him. The look on his face told her she’d gone too far.

“That’s harsh,” he said.

“What I meant is that we need to figure a way out of this, and that will take two of us. I can’t be expected to do everything, Parker.”

“Just leave him. We can go away.”

“I’ve explained that to you. Maybe you just can’t grasp what I need you to.”

“I know what I want you to grasp,” he said.

“Knock it off, Parker.” She looked out the window again. She could see Darius Fulton move about the space of his open carriage-house garage. He was clearly organizing the things that his ex-wife had left behind.

“I’m going to wash the Lexus,” she said.

“I can do that for you,” Parker said. Tori shook her head and went toward the staircase.

“Why don’t you play a video game or something?”

“You can be such a bitch,” he said, softly, in the quiet voice that is still meant to be heard.

“I guess I can be,” she said. A few minutes later, she passed by Parker’s bedroom. She was wearing short shorts and a tank top sans bra.

“I hope I don’t get my top wet,” she said. He watched her from the window, as she lathered up the car, allowing the spray to fall over her. Darius Fulton was watching, too. They always did. Later that night after the strained dinner with Alex, Tori arched her back and Parker’s eyes landed on the scars under each of her breasts. They were thin, faint, but unmistakable reminders of the surgery that had made her look the trophy wife that his father had wanted. She had once told him that his father had always wanted triple Bs.

“Huh?” Parker had never heard of the size.

“Boobs, blond, and brainless,” she said.

“That makes me sick. I think you were probably perfect before,” he said. She wrapped her arms around her breasts and shook her head.

“I don’t like talking about it.”

“I’m sorry. I just think, well, that I would love you no matter what. You’re more than a beautiful body,” he said.

“Your father didn’t think so.”

“He’s an asshole.” He reached over and loosened her arms, to expose all that she was.

“He’s just wired like a lot of men, Parker. You’re not that way. You’re deeper, more evolved than those typical guys. That’s one of the reasons you fascinate me so.” Her words pleased him and he wanted to know more. It was as if whatever Tori had to say was like a giant candy bar; he’d always want another bite.

“I fascinate you?” he said. Tori smiled slightly, the kind of smirk that promised some kind of conspiratorial disclosure.

“Of course you do.” Parker kissed her.

“You really love me, don’t you?”

“I love you more than you will ever know,” she said, embracing him with a forceful hug.

“We are like those swans. We are forever.” Down the hall in the master bedroom, Alex Connelly woke up and turned to the empty place in his bed. He felt around, but nothing. Where is Tori? he thought. It took him a moment to compute that it was a sound, not spicy Thai food, that had awakened him in the first place. A thumping and voices. It was coming down the hall from the room where Parker was staying. The dark wood of the hallway floor made it difficult to navigate in the night, so he flipped on the lights. The noise stopped instantly. He turned the knob on his son’s door. Tori was sitting on the edge of the bed. Parker was under the covers, his face turned away.

“What’s going on?” Tori turned around and faced her husband.

“Oh, you startled me.”

“What’s happening here?” he said a second time.

“Did you know Parker has night terrors?” Tori patted the teen on the shoulder. Alex took a couple of steps closer. He noticed a candle was lit on the nightstand. A damp washcloth was folded next to it. Did the boy have a fever? The bed was so completely thrashed that it was clear that Parker had been in some kind of sleepless torment.

“Son, are you all right?” Parker seemed out of breath, but he answered.

“I’m okay.” Tori looked at her husband and then over at her stepson.

“I’m so glad I could be here for you, Parker. Let me know if you need anything more.” Parker lifted his head slightly from the pillow.

“Thanks, Tori. You really helped me a lot.” Tori and Alex backed out of the bedroom and returned to their own.

“I don’t think you should dress that way around Parker,” Alex said, indicating the short, thin nightgown. Underneath she wore no panties.

“Honestly,” Tori said, “how I dressed when I went to help him was the last thing on my mind. The boy needed me. Needed someone, for God’s sake. You wouldn’t know much about that, would you? You seem too wrapped up in work. Too wrapped up with that bitch Lissa in the office.”

“Let’s not go there. I was just saying . . .”

“Good night, Alex. You don’t have a clue how to be a decent person. Not to me. Not to your son.”

Parker lifted the top sheet and comforter that he and Tori hastily pulled over his naked torso when the hallway light went on. It was a close call. Somehow the fact that he and his stepmother-lover had almost been caught red-handed excited him. He reached for the washcloth and wiped up the semen. Tori had been there for him that night. Oh yes, she had.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tacoma

The interrogation room at the Tacoma Police Department was windowless. The only break in the pale gray drywall was the grate for the heating duct that filled the room with stifling warmth on a cold winter’s day and so much cold air during the summer that a pair of gangbangers actually asked for—and got—a couple of blankets.

“Trying to do something about the AC,” Eddie Kaminski said as he led Maddie Crane and client Darius Fulton to a pair of plastic molded chairs that would be more appropriate for a campus dining hall. Maddie dropped her coat onto the table to demonstrate that she was bored and irritated. It was a couture label, but so convoluted in its design that one had to know it by sight and not read it. To be sure, Kaminski didn’t care about those things. There was a good bet that the man sitting across from him was exactly who he was looking for. Maddie was as high priced as she was shrewd. She wasn’t about to show up with her client if she didn’t think she could persuade the police to back off and look somewhere else.

“What you have so far is annoyingly circumstantial,” she said, her flinty eyes bearing down on Kaminski.

“The gun was his,” he said, glancing at Darius before returning his gaze to the lawyer with the great coat and imperious demeanor.

“So? It was stolen.”

“Wasn’t reported.”

“He didn’t know that.”

“Are you kidding me?” He glanced at Darius, who looked passively in the direction of the vent as it funneled hot air right at his face.

“Look, everything about your client suggests that he runs a tight ship. He knows where everything is.” The lawyer had quick answer.

“He’s had some personal problems as of late. He’s recently divorced. His wife took things from the house and he wasn’t exactly sure what she pilfered. She absconded with his stamp collection, for crying out loud.”

“And my dad’s antique decoys,” Darius said. Maddie shot him a look.

“You’ll talk when I say so.” Kaminski almost felt a blush of embarrassment for the guy just then. His wife took his stamp collection and his lawyer had snipped him of his manhood.

“All right. That’s your explanation for the whereabouts of the gun—that, by the way, conveniently turned up in a murder across the street.”

“Yes, Detective,” she said.

“That really is an interesting coincidence.”

“All right, then,” Kaminski said, reaching for a file folder that both the person of interest and the lawyer had been keeping an eye on like it was some scorpion sitting on the table in front of them.

“What can you tell me about the e-mails?” Darius seemed confused.

“What e-mails?” Maddie leaned across the table.

“I’m talking here. What e-mails?” Kaminski pulled out a sheet of paper, making sure that it was obvious that there were many, many others inside.

I want you. I need you.You are everything to me.

Darius shook his head.

“I didn’t write that. I didn’t even know her e-mail address.” Maddie touched his shoulder with the tip of her index finger. It was not a gesture meant to calm and show support, but to pointedly get him to zip it.

“Please, I’ll handle this,” she said. Darius wasn’t having any of that. He was flustered.

“Handle this? This thing is beginning to spin out of control. This damn handling you’ve been doing is going to send me to Walla Walla with a needle in my arm. I didn’t write to her. I had sex with her once—and I admitted that. I didn’t even fantasize that there would be any other encounters. Not seriously, anyway.” He slumped back down in his chair and put his hands on his forehead. He started to rub the beading sweat from his eyes. He looked puffy and red. A heart attack waiting to happen.

“Can we turn down that goddamn heater?” he said, loud enough for the investigator on the other side of the mirror to hear without the benefit of a microphone.

“Sorry. We’ll get you out of here in a minute.”

“We’re going now,” Maddie said. She snatched up her coat and moved toward the door, motioning for her client to follow. Kaminski went in for the kill just then. He didn’t want Darius Fulton to drop dead, but he was all but certain this was the last chance they’d be able to speak unencumbered by a legal process that would send up walls to keep them apart.

“Your hair was in a ski mask hidden between the cushions on your sofa. Tori Connelly confirms that it was the mask that the intruder wore the night she and her husband were shot. Will you stop lying just for a second?” Darius looked like he was going to have a heart attack. His eyes popped like a hermit crab.

“I’m not lying,” he said. Maddie shook her head at Kaminski.

“This interview is over. Mr. Fulton wanted to be helpful—against my advice.”

“Fine,” he said.

“Just one more.” Darius looked at the bottled water but didn’t touch it. He’d crawl on his hands and knees through Death Valley before he’d fall for that ruse a second time.

“Drink it. We don’t need your prints again,” Kaminski said.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Maddie said, still hovering with her coat. He took the bottle and guzzled.

“You really want me to believe that you’ve been set up by Tori Connelly? That she screwed you one time to spin a web around you and make you the fall guy? Why in the world should I believe that? You haven’t given me any reason to make that seem one bit plausible.” Darius blinked hard.

“I wish I had some answer that would satisfy you, Detective. I wish that I hadn’t been a big, dumb, old fool.”

“Did you think that the plan to kill Alex would allow you to step right in?” The lawyer glanced at her client, telegraphing with a finger to her glossed lips for him to remain mute.

“We’ve already told you, Detective,” she said.

“Mr. Fulton had absolutely nothing to do with the murder—the planning, the execution of it. None of it. If I were you, I’d focus on the merry widow. We’re done here.” When she opened the door, the air felt like a blast from a freezer as it met the Panama heat of the interrogation room. Darius lingered.

“I didn’t hurt anyone. I would never shoot anyone.”

“Shut up, Darius. We’re leaving.” His eyes were pleading.

“Now!” she said, snapping him to attention the way his wife had done throughout their whole marriage. Darius jumped to his feet.

Their father had always said that one had to “break some eggs to make an omelet,” but Tori Connelly highly doubted that he was referring to murdering people in order to get one’s heart’s desire. Yet the thought circled through her brain. She would not always be beautiful. She might not always be rich, but she was willing to do what she had to do to try to get that way. She owed it to herself. Tori looked at the date on her phone. In just a few days, Parker would turn eighteen. Her sister would be dead. She’d be rich. Life would be so, so good.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Tacoma

Instead of meeting a stone wall, Eddie Kaminski was greeted with the offer of coffee or a drink when he knocked on Tori Connelly’s front door to relay the latest updates to the case, though some details had already been on the news.

“Chilly out there, maybe you’d like something that would really warm you up,” Tori said as she led the detective into the living room where her sister was sitting with an open laptop.

“A break in the case,” she said.

“I’ve offered him a drink, but he’s on duty.”

“Just like on TV,” Lainie said. She’d grown weary of her sister’s antics with men. She could see how Tori used her body to call attention to herself. That day she wore a fuchsia-colored scoop-neck sweater that left very little to the imagination.

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it” was one of Tori’s catchphrases from high school.

“Been a lot of activity across the street,” Lainie said.

“Nothing on the news, though.” She looked at her laptop and shut the lid with a snap. He took a seat on the end of the sofa. Tori brushed against him as she bent close to take his coat from his lap.

“Let me hang that up for you,” she said.

“Oh, thanks,” he said. Lainie watched as the detective’s eyes followed Tori. If her sister had hooked a worm and dropped it into Puget Sound, Eddie Kaminski had his mouth open, ready to take the bait. The moment was uncomfortable and familiar.

“What’s been going on?” she asked again. Tori slithered back into the space next to the detective. Kaminski breathed her in, deeply. Maybe too deeply. She smelled of wild honey and flowers. He glanced at the wall, the vacant spot where the tacky painting had hung before the forensic team came and confiscated it.

“My husband loved that painting,” she had said as they carried it away.

“It makes me sick that it was used in such an evil way. Used against me by that awful man next door.”

“Mrs. Connelly—” he started to say.

“Tori,” she said.

“All right then, Tori. I have a few questions. I’m hoping you can help.” Lainie watched as her sister inched a little closer to the detective.

“I have nothing to hide.”

“What can you tell me about your affair?” She shifted a little and crossed her feet at the ankles.

“Oh, that. It all comes back to that.”

“I’m sorry. I know it is painful to recall all of that.”

“He practically raped me.” Kaminski was surprised, but he didn’t show it.

“Mr. Fulton?” Tori looked right at him, with those drilling-deep-as-possible blue eyes.

“Who else?”

“But you’ve never indicated it was a rape. I thought it was consensual, an affair.” Her eyes started to flicker. The tears are coming, Lainie thought. And they did.

“I didn’t put up a fight; there wasn’t a struggle. But I told him I didn’t want to do it. He just kept pushing and we drank too much. It was not an affair.” The remark was curious. Kaminski looked at the e-mails recovered from Fulton’s computer. He could quote them almost verbatim, though he didn’t just then. Instead, they ran through his mind like the juvenile prose from a lovesick middle-aged man. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. You make me feel so good. Too good. I can’t take it. I saw you today in the yard. I love the way the sunlight spins your hair into gold. When can I see you? When will he be gone? Maybe I’ll just have to make him gone.

“I feel completely violated,” Tori said.

“I’m sure you do. You have every reason to feel that way.” Lainie said nothing. Her sister was fascinating as always, and this man, this detective in their midst, seemed to play her in a way that she hadn’t seen before. It was unclear if he was buying all that she had to sell.

“One thing the team wonders about,” he finally said, “is how it was that you didn’t recognize him when he was in your house the night your husband was gunned down. It was in this room, right?” All three of them knew full well that it had been.

“Yes,” Tori said.

“Right here.” She reached for her glass. Ice water? Vodka? “So how was it that you didn’t know it was him?”

“I told you. He wore a mask.”

“Yes, you did say that. But didn’t he seem at all familiar? His voice?”

“Not really. I was too upset. I was in shock.”

“Of course you were.” Lainie thought of jumping in to defend her sister, but she thought better of it. Tori was a big girl and if she’d gotten herself into trouble, she alone was the one to extract herself from the mess. No one could wriggle out of a conflict better than she. Tori set down her glass, aiming for the ring of condensation on the coaster. She liked things to be just so. When she stayed mute, Kaminski asked once more.

“I mean, you knew him pretty well.”

“He had his pants on, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She looked at him, then at her sister.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I know you are doing your job.”

“Yes, I am. So, please, how was it that you couldn’t place the intruder as someone whom you’d slept with?” She tilted her head and looked at him, once more, dead-eyed.

“It’s hard to keep track of my lovers, detective.”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything like that,” he said.

“Really?”

“I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“I’ll add it to the list of things I’m trying to get over. It’ll be somewhere at the bottom on a list topped by the fact that the Tacoma Police treat crime victims like criminals.” She stood.

“I’m glad that you’ve got that creep, detective. I am happy to help with the investigation in any way that I can, but I will not have you come in here and treat me like trash for an error that I made.” Kaminski got up and thanked the women for their time. His eyes lingered on Lainie, who said nothing more.

A good night’s sleep was so needed. The endless drama with Tori had tied her stomach in knots. Lainie O’Neal looked up at the gauzy canopy and stared. There were no tiles to count and her eyes were too tired to try to discern something in the weave of the fabric to hold her interest and work her brain into slumber. She slipped out of bed and put on a robe that Tori had hung on an antique hook by the doorway. She wasn’t really thirsty, but a glass of milk seemed like a good idea. As she walked down the hallway, she noticed a sliver of light coming from under her sister’s doorway. Maybe she can’t sleep, either. She was about to knock when she heard Tori’s voice.

“All right,” she said.

“That sounds good. But be careful.” Silence.

“Look, for this to work you have to use the phone I gave you.” The phrase was odd. Lainie pushed closer to the door frame and turned the knob, cracking it open a bit more so she could hear exactly what her sister was saying.

“. . . soon. I love you. I need you.” Lainie felt the muscles in her legs weaken some. Who was her sister talking to at that hour? Who in the world did she love? Her husband was dead. She let go of the knob and took a step backward, turned around, and started toward her room.

“Lainie!” The voice was loud, jarringly so for the stillness of the night. She turned around. Tori stood right behind her.

“What are you doing up?” Lainie stood still before slowly folding her arms. She was unsure of how that hallway meeting would go. Argue? Confront? “Just can’t sleep,” she finally said. Confrontation never worked. Tori studied Lainie’s face, looking for something.

“I have some pills I can give you,” she said.

“To help you sleep.” Lainie shook her head.

“No, thanks, Tori. I think I’m just going to lie down and try it again.” She had another thought on her mind and she knew right then she’d never voice it. She couldn’t help but wonder just what pills her sister would give her. To help her sleep . . . like in the dream of their mother’s death.

Tori had scattered three dresses on her bed. They were expensive with fine embellishments that caught the light, organza overlays that undulated in the crisp air from a cracked-open bedroom window. Oversize tags hung from the bodice of each, reminding the purchaser that “special occasion” dresses could not be returned without the tag intact. Lainie peered over Tori’s shoulder and offered her assessment of the dresses that they’d looked at the week before when they were doing a reconnaissance shopping expedition at a downtown Seattle department store.

“I thought you only got the blue one,” she said. Tori offered up a slight and knowing smile.

“I went back for the yellow and the lilac.”

“I didn’t realize you had so much money,” Lainie said.

“I could barely afford one.” Her sister smoothed the fabric on the lilac dress.

“Who says I paid for them?”

“Seriously, Tori. You’re bad, but not that bad.” Tori sat down on the bed and faced Lainie.

“I guess you don’t really know me.” She grinned as though she’d revealed some big secret. Lainie refused the obvious bait. She’d been there before a thousand times. Tori liked to challenge her, provoke her. Push her. That afternoon she was having none of that. She was in too good of a mood. She was excited about the dance, her date, the evening out of the house. Lainie pointed to the blue dress. It was the shortest of the three with a sweetheart neckline that she knew Tori would like. She always liked to shove what little cleavage she had into the faces of her admirers.

“I like that one,” Lainie finally said. Tori made a face.

“I hate that one,” she said.

“Boring. I like the yellow.” Lainie let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Then why did you ask me?”

“Because I know you’ll pick the worst one. You always do.” Lainie resisted the urge to offer up an insult of her own. She could do it, of course. But not right then.

“Guess you know what not to wear, then.” Tori thrust the yellow dress at Lainie.

“I want you to put this one on,” she said. Lainie shook her head.

“I have a dress.”

“I know, stupid. I want you to put it on so I can see how I’ll look in it. You know, to decide.” Lainie knew there was no arguing with her sister. The only thing that made her truly happy about the approaching South Kitsap dance was that it was the beginning of the end, the constant sharing. The car. Classes. Their father’s house. Soon, they’d go off their separate ways to different colleges and different lives. Their twinship would bind them forever, of course, but the pressure to be close would abate. At least that’s what she told herself. She stripped down to her underwear and stepped into the dress. She didn’t ask Tori to zip it; instead, she struggled on her own, reaching awkwardly around her back and pulling up the zipper. Dress on, she faced her sister.

“I don’t expect you to stomp it out on the catwalk, but can you at least stand up straight? I would never stand like that. Maybe hold your pooch in a little.”

“I don’t have a pooch, Tori.” She was getting angry then, but anger never seemed to get anywhere with Tori. In fact, it made matters worse. It was almost always better to just give in.

“Whatever,” Tori said.

“Turn around.” Slowly, and without any joy, Lainie spun in a single rotation. No trace of a smile on her face. Just the look of a teenager who wished she’d never said yes to the request.

“I’ll stick with the blue,” Tori said.

“You can have that one. Cute on the hanger, but ugly on us. Or maybe it’s just ugly on you.”

The Tacoma News Tribune missed the news cycle of the arrest in the Tacoma murder case, leaving KING-TV the scoop on its broadcast and updated website:

Fulton Arrested for Connelly Murder and Assault

Darius Fulton was arrested by Tacoma Police in his home across the street from the shooting that took the life of Alex Connelly and left his wife hospitalized on May 5. Police say that Fulton, 55, had been stalking Tori Connelly for several months.

“His advances were unwanted and relentless,” lead investigator Edmund Kaminski said, though he refused to elaborate.

“Although we’re devastated by the news of the arrest,” said Charla Maxwell of the North End Neighbors’ group, “we’re glad to know that our quiet street is safe once more.” Police had originally suggested that the killing was a home invasion gone wrong.

If Darius Fulton had thought even for a nanosecond that his life couldn’t get any worse up until that moment—arrested, handcuffed, and dispatched to the Pierce County Jail like a common criminal—he was sadly mistaken. He was herded into a holding pen with three dozen other men, drug dealers, violent felons, guys who knew their way around the system. Or at least knew there was no way around it whatsoever.

“Dude, you like this?” a shirtless man called over from the other line. Darius looked away.

“Like cattle in here. You’ll get used to it.” He shrugged, thinking that some reaction might be more prudent than completely ignoring the guy. An officer took an orange marking pen and drew an ID number on Darius’s upper arm.

“Branded, dude! You’ve been branded!” As he sat there wondering how an afternoon with a beautiful woman could have gone so wrong, Darius Fulton said a silent prayer. He prayed he’d live long enough to get out of there in one piece. His frame of reference for prison life was an old HBO television series, and he was sure that even though it was on cable, it was sugarcoated. He wasn’t with a gang and there was no one to protect him. He’d called his lawyer and she was on her way. Carrying his meal—a cellophane bag containing a slice of bologna, two pieces of bread, and a yellow mustard pack—Darius was led with a half dozen other men to another holding cell. Whether it was shame or self-preservation, he couldn’t be sure. He kept his head down low. As the linked-up badasses passed the metal detector, he looked up. He heard a familiar voice. It was Eddie Kaminski talking with a corrections officer. There to see him suffer, maybe? “Kaminski!” The detective turned toward the sound of his name. Fulton jerked on the chain to slow down the stream of men.

“I didn’t do this! I would never hurt anyone. I liked Tori Connelly. I know she didn’t like me.”

“Shouldn’t talk to anyone but your lawyer, Fulton.” The prisoner next to Darius looked back at the disheveled businessman.

“He’s right. Shut the fuck up.” After he passed by, the detective walked in the direction of a couple of prisoners yakking it up on payphones. Kaminski picked up the phone, dropped in some coins, and dialed.

“These phones are for inmates only,” said a young man with a spiderweb tattoo over his neck.

“Use your own phone.”

“Screw you,” Kaminski said, flashing his badge.

“I’ll use whatever goddamn phone I want.”

Maddie Crane could not have been angrier at her client. They sat in a private cell set aside for lawyers and clients. If its walls could talk, they’d likely scream. Wife murderers. Child killers. Boys and men who’d killed for the fun of it. All types of evil had been housed in that jail, and they had crawled around the slab floors like the vermin they were. Maddie, relieved of her purse and luxurious coat, sat like a chorus girl in search of a date as she nervously waited for Darius to come down the corridor. She stiffened a little when she heard the rattle of chains and the sound of voices. A beat later, Darius appeared in the doorway to the holding cell. He wore a county-issue jumpsuit and flip-flops. The marking on his forearm was still visible. He’d come a long way from his cozy life in North Tacoma. A very long way, indeed.

“Do you realize that you’ve got to get it together?” she asked as he sat across from her.

“I’m doing the best I can, Maddie. This is more concentration camp than boutique hotel.”

“Yes, I know, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“What are you talking about?” Nervously, Maddie looked up at the guard who was pretending to ignore them.

“The last thing we need to do is get the likes of someone like him to testify against you.”

“Why would he?”

“Look,” she said.

“No more phone calls, okay? You have no idea what these places are like.” Darius was unsure of what she meant.

“I didn’t call anyone,” he said.

“This is a setup. That bitch across the street set me up.” She looked hard at him.

“Look, I understand how you feel. I’m going to get you out of this mess. We have to work through the system.” Darius was sure he was going to have a heart attack.

“Trust me,” he said, almost laughing at the words that just came from his lips.

“I’m getting a very good idea about how things work around here. An hour ago I saw two guys beat the shit out of each other for a deflated bag of potato chips.” Maddie drummed her nails on the table.

“I’m not going to spell it out,” she repeated.

“Just trust me. Call only me.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Tacoma

Tori Connelly stood impatiently in the reception area at the Tacoma Police Department. Her blond hair was a halo. Her blue eyes caught the light in a way that seemed almost unearthly, so sparkly, so capable of drawing someone in. Eddie Kaminski almost blinked when he met her to go upstairs to an interview room, where Cal Herzog was waiting.

“You’ve met Cal,” he said, introducing the forensic specialist on the Connelly investigation team.

“Yes, Cal,” she said.

“How’s your leg?” Cal asked, as she sat down in the interview room.

“You look like you’re doing better. No limp.”

“Are you flirting with me?” she asked.

“I didn’t mean anything personal, just asking.” She pretended to be a little disappointed.

“I’m better, thank you.”

“What can we do for you?” Kaminski asked.

“We’ve arrested your shooter, your husband’s killer.”

“I’m grateful for the attention you’re giving my husband’s case. My case. That’s why I’m here.”

“You’re welcome,” Kaminski said.

“Anything else, Mrs. Connelly? Anything else on your mind?”

“Tori. Please.”

“All right then, Tori, anything else? I mean, if you’re here for a status update on the case, I can’t tell you anything more than I already have.” Tori nodded.

“I didn’t come here for anything other than to thank you.”

“Now that you’re here,” Cal said.

“I guess we can go over a few things that I’ve been wondering about.” She looked surprised.

“Loose ends?”

“Something along those lines,” he said, looking for his notes.

“All right, shoot,” she said, then corrected herself.

“Guess that’s not the best expression to use under these circumstances.” Kaminski shook off Tori’s attempt at disarming him with a little humor.

“About the insurance,” he said.

“You didn’t know that Parker was the beneficiary, did you?”

“My husband left me well provided for. If his wish was to take care of his son, then fine. I’m grateful to be alive.” Cal took the next question.

“You weren’t devastated by his office affair?” Tori’s eyes stayed fixed firmly on his.

“You know I was. But I’ve made my peace with that. I forgave Alex. Water, detective, under the bridge.”

“Right,” he said.

“You don’t believe me. That’s because you don’t know me. I have been through a lot in my life. I can be very forgiving.” This time Cal pushed a little harder. It wasn’t good cop, bad cop. Just Cal on overdrive.

“Are you referring to your incarceration? Or the death of your first husband?” Once again, Tori did not flinch.

“I came here to thank you. You’re treating me like a suspect.”

“Just looking for some answers ... Tori,” Kaminski said.

“My record was expunged. I’m guessing someone from Port Orchard told you. Small-town people never forget things like that, though they should. I served my time. I went on with my life, and, above all, Jason Reed’s death was a terrible, tragic accident,” she said. She reached for a tissue as if she were about to cry, but there was no evidence of tears.

“I’ve talked with the Sheriff ’s Department,” he said.

“Detective Stark?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a very good friend of mine,” she said.

“She knows what I’ve gone through.”

“What about Zach Campbell?”

“What about him?”

“His death.” Tori indicated a water bottle and Cal handed it to her.

“An accident. I told you.”

“But it made you rich.” Her face tightened a little. Loveliness turned to menace.

“I loved him. Do you really think for one second that I’d have wanted his money over his life?”

“You tell us, Tori.”

“You know I came here to say thank you. I came here because I was going away for a few days and I wanted you to know how to reach me. In case you needed any help. Talk about blaming the victim. If this rinky-dink police department had a victims’ advocate, I’d go to his or her office right now and read him the riot act.” Kaminski stood and held his hands out, as if to push down the diatribe.

“Hey, calm down. Those questions had to be asked. And they will be asked. At trial, Fulton’s people will make sure that they tie you up and run the bus over you back and forth, every which way they can. They’ll make you out to be a total bitch.” Cal wanted to interject, “Which is exactly what you are,” but he refrained from doing so.

“I understand that, Eddie,” she said.

“But you have no idea what I’ve been going through.”

“Please, call me Detective Kaminski,” he said, looking over at Cal.

“And yes, I have an idea. A pretty good one.” After Kaminski walked her to the elevators and down to reception, he returned to find Cal hovering by his cubicle.

“Jesus,” Cal said, scratching his head.

“What a piece of work that one is.”

“No kidding.”

“Only one thing I got out of that.”

“What was that?”

“She likes you. I’d watch out.” They both laughed.

“Why do you think I’ve taken up running? To get away from women like her.”

Kendall Stark stood on the Harper Dock while Steven and Cody pulled in the yellow nylon rope tethered to a crab pot they’d baited and dropped earlier that day. She held her phone to her ear and listened as Eddie Kaminski called back about the condom wrapper Lainie had found in the guest room.

“Anyway, can you cut us some slack on this? This isn’t your case and, besides, Darius Fulton’s our guy.”

“I guess so,” Kendall said, not believing her own words. The air was cool and the wind had started to blow across the water. She closed her phone.

“Catch anything?” she asked as Steven and Cody teamed up to draw in the line, hand over hand.

“I should ask you the same question,” Steven said. Kendall smiled at her husband. Steven was supportive and patient. He knew the importance of catching the bad guy, or in that particular case, the bad girl.

“Working on it,” she said. The crab pot broke the surface of the silvery water of the Sound. Inside, a large Dungeness crab clamped onto the punctured cat food tin the Starks used for bait.

“Look, Mommy!” Cody said.

“Watch out. Sharp!” The pot on the dock, Steven stooped down and opened the lid to the trap.

“Damn!” he said.

“It’s a female! Got to throw her back. Don’t let her get you.” Kendall thought the same warning might have been good one for the men involved with Tori O’Neal Campbell Connelly. Don’t let her get you.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Port Orchard

Fifteen years ago

It didn’t matter if the twins were in the same room or a thousand miles away from each other. Key moments in their lives often percolated in their thoughts at the same time. The big moments, the ones that shaped each girl into the woman she became. And while they thought of the same things, they didn’t always share matching perspectives. Lainie tossed and turned in the loneliness of a bed that she never shared with anyone more than a few nights at a time. Alternately, Tori curled up next to a man and did what she could to keep him interested in her, even if she wasn’t truly paying attention to him. And yet they thought of Port Orchard, what happened that night on Banner Road, and in the months that followed. Both had reasons to keep it all secret.

The visiting room at the Secure Crisis Residential Center was outfitted with sofas, tables, and bolted-down end tables and lamps. It was either the milieu of Motel Hell or the sitting room of a paranoid miser who wanted to ensure that nothing left the premises. Handwritten signs indicated that visitors and residents would be searched after the conclusion of their time together. Visitors got a simple, unobtrusive pat-down by a pleasant-faced person of their own gender. Though it wasn’t always the case—because it depended on who was on duty—residents were strip-searched. Women were examined by a rubber-gloved female officer, of course, but for safety and security reasons, an observer would be present, too. Often it was a male. And while they purported that they were there only for the benefit of the person doing the search, some were there because, like all creeps, they liked to watch. Daniel Hector was one of those. A thirty-five-year-old who became a corrections officer because he liked the control, the gatekeeper’s power, and the kind of personal proclamation that came with the duty. He was a short man with dark dead eyes, hairy knuckles, and a Fu Manchu mustache. The difference between his ID badge and the inmates’ badges was solely based on the better lighting afforded staff members. Indeed, if a photo ID was set before anyone with an array of inmate and corrections officers and someone was asked to pick out who was who, Hector would be the first pick for the criminal. And, considering what he did, they’d be right.

“You’re a pretty little thing,” he told Tori a few days after her incarceration. She had come out of the shower room, her flip-flops and robe on.

“You’re pretty gross,” she said.

“You have pretty titties. I’d like to see them.”

“You would? What’s in it for me?”

“I don’t know,” he said, stepping closer.

“Maybe you’d like a cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Candy bar? Magazine? I can get you whatever you want.”

“Not interested,” she said.

“You’re not a chick with a dick, are you, Tori?”

“Funny. Like you haven’t checked me out already, you freak.” He grinned.

“Yeah, I’ve checked you out. Like to get another look at you.” She had no idea what it would get her, but she agreed. She opened her robe. He put his hand against his crotch and stepped away, out of the sightline of the video cameras and their unblinking eyes.

“Nice,” he said.

“Want me to do anything?” she said, aware that she hadn’t set a price.

“Yeah,” Hector said, “I want you to move around a little. Dance a little for me.” Tori almost said she was a good dancer, but she didn’t bother. She didn’t know why it was that she was performing for him the way she was, but she could see the twisted pleasure that he was getting from what she was doing.

“Slower,” she said to him. He complied. She was the captive one, of course. Yet she held some kind of odd power over him. He was a piece of garbage, but he was a man nevertheless. She was in control. She liked it that way. That was better than a candy bar any day of the week. The visits between Tori, Lainie, and Dex O’Neal in juvenile detention were always fraught with emotion. Tori cried. Lainie cried. Dex wanted to cry, too, but he felt that someone had to be strong in the situation that had heaped on more heartache than their little family ought to bear. Vonnie was dead. Tori was in jail.

CORRECTION CENTER flashed on the caller ID. Lainie was getting ready to go out with some friends from school and she almost decided to pretend that she didn’t hear the phone. Her father was painting a chair in the garage. He wouldn’t hear it ring. She picked up and waited for the message that warned her where the call was coming from and how she should immediately hang up if she didn’t know who might be calling.

“Hang up immediately!” A robotic-sounding woman’s voice intoned. Lainie answered.

“Hi, Tori,” she said. Silence.

“Tori?” Then she heard some sobbing.

“Tori, is that you? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. I need to see you. I can’t take it anymore.”

“You only have a few months to go. I know you are getting out soon.”

“You don’t understand. I’m going crazy in here.” Lainie thought she heard someone else talking.

“Who is that?”

“Just some bitch that wants to use the phone. I’ll get rid of her.” She set down the phone. A moment later she picked it up and spoke.

“I need you to come on Saturday.”

“Dad is working. We can’t come until the Sunday visit.”

“You can come. I need you, Lainie.”

“I can’t get in without Dad.”

“You can. I arranged it. I have special privileges here now. Good behavior.” Lainie noticed that Tori was no longer crying.

“Okay. I’ll be there at eleven.”

“Come at ten. We can have a special visit.” Special visit was code for something Tori had planned for her sister. Something, she was sure, she’d never forget.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Tacoma

The previous summer

Naked and tangled in the damp white sheets under the canopy bed, Tori Connelly pressed her breasts against her stepson’s back and whispered in his ear. She did so with a gentle puff of each breath so he would not only hear her words, but feel the desire that came with each one.

“You want to play again, Parker?” It was late in the evening and, save for the creaking that comes with an old house, it was quiet, so very still. It was as if at that very moment there were no others in the world. No husband to control her. No mother to tell him what to do. No one. Just the two of them. The teenager grinned and rolled over to face his lover. The light from the bedside lamp was low and golden. She was beyond beautiful. A dream. A very sexy dream. Even in the dimly lit room her hair glowed. Her lips shined with gloss and the moisture from their lovemaking.

“I like it when you call me that,” he said. She smiled.

“It’s your name.”

“I know. I guess it’s the way you say it.” She brushed her fingers down his hairless chest, stopping at his stomach for a teasing moment before moving lower.

“You’ve gotten bigger, haven’t you?” she said playfully. Parker tried to suppress a proud smile, but it was impossible.

“Shut up,” he said, not meaning it.

“That’s embarrassing. But I’m glad you noticed.” He kissed her again, his tongue exploring the warmth of her mouth.

“I’ve grown up a lot since last summer.”

“You have,” she said, proffering a condom from the bed stand. She rolled the wrapper in her fingertips.

“Want me to put it on?” she asked, pulling away from his embrace. Parker shook his head.

“I don’t want to wear one. I want to feel you.”

“You can feel me just fine. I don’t want to get pregnant.”

“Would it be so lame if you did?”

“Let’s ask your father that question, Parker, when he gets home from New York.” She put away the condom for a moment and concentrated on pleasing him with her hands. Parker stretched out on the bed and looked up at the gauzy canopy.

“You could lie to him. You know, tell him that it’s his baby. That would be kind of funny.”

“That wouldn’t fly at all. He’s had a vasectomy. I thought you knew that.” Parker shook his head.

“Figures. The asshole didn’t want to have any more kids. Never wanted the one he had.” Tori put the condom on Parker and they kissed, first slowly, then a little faster. She pushed his shoulder back and crawled on top of him.

“I’m going to make you scream,” she said.

“And you can’t stop me.”

“No,” he said, bracing himself as she moved onto him.

“No, no. Don’t ever stop.”

“I want this forever,” she said.

“I want you forever. We are soul mates.” Parker’s body started to shudder, his legs tightened, and his eyes nearly rolled backward. She felt so good. She was so beautiful. And she loved him so much. There could never be a better woman for him. Nowhere on earth.

“We are soul mates,” he said.

“Yes, baby, we are.”

“I want us to be together, too. For real.”

“I know. I know. But, you know, that can’t happen.” Parker indicated for her to stop.

“Because I’m younger?”

“Age is a number. Don’t even go there. You are more of a man now than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“More than my father?”

“Parker,” she said, leaning over him.

“More than my dad?” he asked again.

“Yes, baby, you are. You’re nothing like him,” she said, grabbing his hard penis again.

“You’re so much more.” Parker closed his eyes, allowing her to play with him.

“I wish we could be together like this forever,” she said once more.

“I wish he was gone,” Parker said, his eyes open a slit.

“You might not understand,” she said.

“But there’s more to the world than our love.”

“No there isn’t.”

“Trust me. There is.”

“What are you getting at, Tori?”

“I signed a prenup. If I leave your dad, I’ll have nothing.”

“Do you care about money or do you care about me?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said.

“I care about both.” Parker pushed back, turned away, and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to Tori.

“Look,” he said.

“I will do whatever it takes to have you.” Tori moved across the bed and put her arms around Parker’s shoulders.

“I’ll think of something,” she said.

“I promise.”

Tori poured red wine into two glasses and handed one to Parker as they sat in the living room and snuggled on the couch. They had made love for the last time before Alex would return from his business trip. All evidence of what they’d been doing that long weekend had been erased. They’d showered. The sheets in the guest room had been laundered and the used condoms had been wrapped into paper towels, tucked inside a plastic bag, and shoved into an empty pickle jar before being deposited into the trash.

“A pickle jar, nice,” Parker had said. Tori smiled.

“I thought so. It works on so many levels.” As the clock ticked toward Alex’s arrival time, the joy of their tryst faded. Reality was a car ride away. A tear rolled down her cheek and she looked away toward the TV, the news flickering on mute.

“Tori,” he said.

“What is it?” She faced him.

“Parker, I’ve been thinking about us. I just don’t think we’re ready. This thing is going out of bounds.”

“You mean that I’m not ready, don’t you?” His face was contorted in anger, not scarily so, but his eyes popped and the veins on his neck filled with blood.

“That I’m not mature enough.” Tori shook her head slowly, deliberately.

“No, I didn’t mean that. I mean that the world won’t understand our kind of love. It doesn’t fit into the way things should be.”

“Just because you’re older doesn’t mean a thing. I’ve looked it up. We could go to France or some other country where we could live in peace, where people understand that love has no limits, no boundaries. Mexico maybe.”

“You are so young, Parker. I don’t want to hurt you. But there’s no way we can live on love alone.” She took a sip of her wine, swirling the red liquid in her glass. Her hands trembling just a little. Just enough.

“I think you judge me more than the rest of the world would judge us. Sometimes, Tori, you can be a real bitch, you know.” She wiped her tears and forced a smile.

“I like it when you get a little mad. It shows me that you care.”

“I’m more than mad. I’m pissed off. I want you and me to be together.”

“Look,” she said, “this is very complicated. I know we are not related by blood, but people would judge us harshly. I don’t need a Woody Allen/Soon-Yi drama here.” He didn’t get the reference. He’d never heard of Woody Allen or Soon-Yi.

“We have that little problem beyond all of that. It is legal and it is real.”

“I’ve thought of it,” he said. Resolve had replaced anger on his face.

“I know what we can do.”

“What’s that, Parker? I’m not seventeen. I just can’t throw my things into a backpack and leave for Europe or Mexico or wherever. I can’t live that way.” Parker grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Let’s get rid of him,” he said.

“How do you mean?” Her eyes were wide, but not overly so. She knew the answer, of course.

“Kill him.” Tori leaned closer and planted a kiss on his lips. Parker could taste the salt on her skin and he set down his glass. Next, she put her hand on his crotch and loosened the buckle on his belt.

“I love you,” she said.

“You would do that for me?”

“I would do it for us,” he said.

“Do you know what you’re saying, Parker?” Parker leaned back while she brought him to climax.

“Yeah,” he said, barely able to get out the word.

“I do.”

“Good,” she said.

“I have some news and I needed to know the depth of your commitment to me.”

“What?” he asked. She touched her abdomen.

“I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a father, Parker.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Tacoma

No one who was not a twin would ever comprehend the connection shared between the two halves of a whole. It is Hells Canyon deep and Mount Rainier high. It is both unbendable and unbreakable. From the womb to the sandbox to college graduation, events were more complicated when they came in twos. Lainie and Tori were always competitors and supporters, both jealous of and comforting to each other. They came home from the hospital as a cherub-faced pair in matching lavender infant sleepers. The only thing to differentiate them was the color of ribbon looped around their pink wrists. When one cried, the other chimed in. It took Dex and Vonnie a week or two to tell them apart, but even though they could do so, the girls were considered a unit. Close, combined, and with a bond that could never be denied by those outside their private little world. And yet, as close as two people can be, there was always a flip side. A dark, disturbing flip side, indeed. When Tori indicated she was going to visit her lawyer in downtown Tacoma, Lainie said she didn’t mind being left alone.

“Unless, of course, you need me,” she said, although other plans she’d made kept her from being persistent.

“Oh, it might be fun to have you along. But I can manage. I always have,” Tori said, calling from the top of the stairs as she made her way to the landing where Lainie waited. Her sister, as always, was a sight. Tori was dressed to the nines in a charcoal suit and black boots that bent at the knees. She had a black handbag that Lainie figured would take two months to pay for with her web content work. Her makeup, once more, was a little more evening than daytime. Lainie was unsure if it was a Tacoma society thing or the remnants of her sister’s short-lived career as a singer. In general, Pacific Northwest women favored a less glamorous, less fussy appearance.

“I’ll be fine,” Lainie said.

“I’ll catch up on e-mail. Maybe watch some TV.” She paused for a beat, resisting the expected compliment that Tori always courted from onlookers as she made her grand entrance.

“What are you talking to the lawyer about?”

“The estate, the investigation, whatever,” Tori said, hearing the town car pull up.

“You know, I don’t really have a head for legal matters despite my unfortunate background.” Her tone was cool and the remark was meant as a little dig. Lainie pretended not to notice. Giving her sister any ammunition for an argument or challenge was to be on the losing end of a proposition. Tori always won. Though neither twin would concede the matter, Tori had won even the one time when she’d lost her freedom.

Lainie locked the front door and dialed Kendall on her crappy replacement phone and huddled by the doorway, making sure that her sister was really gone.

“She just left,” she said.

“Finally,” Kendall said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find out what I can. Anything that points to her being the liar that we both know she is.”

“You are not doing this as an agent of the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office,” Kendall said.

“You understand that?”

“I get that, Kendall. I’m doing this because I’m scared. I don’t trust her. She’s planning something and she has to be stopped.”

“Be careful,” Kendall said.

“You can bet on that. Later.”

Lainie had already gone through the medicine cabinet the first night there—the kind of thing that many overly curious houseguests probably engage in, but never admit to. Other than of a few prescriptions for antidepressants for Alex and a script for codeine for Tori—apparently for the residual pain for her gunshot wound—there was little to pique Lainie’s interest. A few things merely confirmed what she already knew—everything Lainie had was the best that money could buy. Her makeup was Chanel, her perfume was French. If you can’t pronounce it, you can’t afford it, she could hear her sister say. She moved quickly to the first-floor study and the immense mahogany desk, library bookshelves running the length of the room, floor to ceiling. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to find out. She told herself as she neatly put back each envelope and folder that she was only curious. Tori is a mystery to me and she shouldn’t be. Her affect about her dead husband is off. She is too cool. Tori cool. Most of the paperwork in a folder on top of the desk was related to Alex’s business affairs. As she flipped through the mix of originals and photocopies, she found that her dead brother-in-law had a sizable, though dwindling, stock portfolio. Like my lousy 401K from the paper, she thought. We’re all going down the drain. Some people like Tori and Alex simply have a bigger reserve. Next, she went upstairs to the master bedroom. In her time as a houseguest she barely set foot inside. Her sister, possibly rightly so, considered it her private sanctuary. The door was unlocked and she went into the room. The white linens and pillowy duvet cover made the large antique Rice bed look like it was topped by a cloud. A painting of Tori hung over the bed, which signaled in no uncertain terms who was the most important person in that room. Apart from a crystal dish that held two pairs of cufflinks, there was nothing in the room that remotely suggested a man had lived there after her sister’s discharge. It was all perfume bottles, sachets, and an étagère that displayed pink art glass. You can take a girl out of Port Orchard . . . Lainie thought. Lainie moved quickly to the dresser and started to prod through Tori’s belongings. It was wrong and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop herself. The compulsion to find out whatever it was that she was looking for was too great. She gingerly lifted her sister’s lingerie, all beautiful, white and ivory silk. Nothing trashy. Everything was tasteful and expensive—the kind of undergarments a woman buys for her lover, not because she needs them for herself. Under a set of cranberry-colored satin sheets, which seemed so ’80s that it gave Lainie some temporary relief from her jealousy of her sister’s lavish life, she unearthed a battered manila envelope. It was clasped shut but not sealed, making it fair game for an interloper. She went over to the bed and sat down, fanning out photographs and papers inside. Among them were images of the sisters, their father, their mother. It nearly brought tears to her eyes to think that Tori cared enough about any of them that she’d keep the photographs. Lainie soaked in each image. There was proof in the faded snapshots that indeed there had been happy times in the O’Neal household. Their mother sat on the old camelback sofa with her babies in each arm, their Siamese cat Ling-Ling at her feet. One photo showed their father with Tori . . . or was it Lainie? . . . at the seagull-calling contest in Port Orchard. Several pictures revealed the family as they opened Christmas presents under an obviously fake Christmas tree. Dad hated that tree, but Mom insisted it was wrong to cut down a living tree for the holidays, Lainie thought. Her blue eyes pooled with tears. Vonnie O’Neal had her moments. She was not always the tragic figure that she later became. For a time, she did love life. She loved her husband and her girls. She loved the family cat. She made chocolate chip cookies for the twins and never failed to put extra chips on the top of each cookie—“because you can never have too much of a good thing, girls.” Under the last photo Lainie found an envelope marked “Hawaii.” She instantly knew the connection her sister had with the Aloha State and her heartbeat quickened a little. It was a part of her sister’s life about which she knew very, very little. She pulled out the contents of the envelope—photocopies of a police report, a couple of photographs of her sister, and some other notes related to the accident that took Zach Campbell’s life. His photo, the Washington state driver’s license image, brought few memories. She’d seen him only once or twice before her sister called and said she’d married him.

“He’s handsome, has some money, and wants to have a family,” Tori had said.

“I’m happy for you,” Lainie said, though she really wanted to say, “Since when did you want kids?” As she flipped through the pages she noticed a couple of other photos—a young man and a car. As she wondered about their inclusion in the packet, the security alarm sounded its quiet chime that someone was coming up the steps. Lainie turned toward the sound and crept toward the hallway to the staircase. She heard footsteps coming up the walk. It was the smacking of heels. Expensive boots against the pavement. Tori was back. As quickly as she could, Lainie hurried back to the bedroom. She shut the drawers, fluffed up the spot on the bed, and ran down the hallway to her bedroom. She went into the bathroom and locked the door. Her heart was pounding and sweat collected under her arms. What to do? How to explain what she was up to? “Lainie, I’m here! Forgot some paperwork,” Tori said, calling up the staircase. Lainie splashed water on her face and patted herself dry. She waited a beat and flushed the toilet, as if she’d been using it. She ran the water, taking another moment to eat up some time. She wanted the redness from her face to fade. She realized she’d taken the Hawaii envelope with her. Whatever panic had seized her when she heard her sister return was ratcheted up tenfold. Where to put it? She lifted the toilet seat cover and put the envelope on top before setting the lid back down. When she opened the bathroom door, Tori was right outside in her black boots and charcoal suit, with a wary expression on her face.

“I’m not feeling well,” Lainie said, pressing her hand gently against her abdomen.

“Must be something I ate.” Tori studied her sister.

“We had the same thing,” she said.

“I feel fine.”

“I don’t feel good,” Lainie repeated, which was the truth, though not for the stated reason. It was more about what she’d been doing and what she saw. She lingered in the doorway. Tori looked past Lainie.

“Oh, I see,” she said.

“There are some antacids in my bathroom. I’ll get you some.”

“No,” Lainie said, a little too forcefully. She didn’t want her sister to go into the bedroom. In her haste to put things back, there was room for error.

“I just took some.” Tori studied her sister. She could always see when she was hiding something.

“All right. I’ll be back at four or so.”

“I’m sure I’ll feel better then.”

“Good, because I want to take you out for a nice dinner to celebrate our reconnection, our sisterhood.” Lainie smiled and nodded as she watched her sister leave, hesitate for a moment, then head back to her bedroom before going down the staircase to the waiting car and driver. That was odd, Lainie thought, Tori didn’t pick up any paperwork.

Lainie O’Neal had no idea that the whole time she was rifling her sister’s belongings in search of God-knows-what, the eye of a webcam was on her. On the other side of Tacoma, in his bedroom in Fircrest, Parker Connelly watched the goings-on in the master bedroom that had once belonged to his father and stepmother. But now, in some strange way, he felt it belonged to him. Tori had told him so.

“All of this will be ours,” she said, not long after they first started making love in that very bed.

“Yours and mine.” Tori had kept the two-way webcam on for his pleasure.

“I have no secrets, baby,” she said.

“I want you to see me, as I am.” Sometimes she would linger a little as she undressed, teasing him with the beauty of her body. One time, she turned to the camera and fondled her breasts.

“When I was your age, I was told I had nice titties,” she said.

“I still do, don’t I?”

“I want to touch them,” he said.

“No fair.”

“Soon, baby.” They had talked the morning before she was to go to her lawyer’s to discuss the estate. Tori showed Parker different outfits, and he selected the black boots and the charcoal suit.

“Makes your hair look really sexy,” he said of the color he chose over a dark blue dress.

“And your legs, the boots make your legs look hot.” A few minutes after she left, he saw Lainie go into the bedroom. What’s she doing in there? he thought. He picked up his phone and texted Tori.

YR bitch sister is in YR RM.

Tori texted back: What is she doing?

looking where she shouldnt.

Ill take care of it, she texted. Ill give her a surprise. LOL.

Fifteen minutes later, Tori appeared in her bedroom and faced the webcam. She mouthed the words “Stupid bitch,” indicating her sister. Next, she blew a kiss at the webcam and whispered, “I love you.” A teenager with barely noticeable stubble on his chin was likely smiling back. She couldn’t see Parker, but she knew the power she held over him. It felt very, very good.

The shower in the guest bath was running and the door was shut. Tori Connelly set down her coffee cup and walked over to the bureau next to the canopy bed. Her sister’s purse was sitting on top, slumped over like it was just waiting for her to reach inside. She shifted its contents until she found Lainie’s cell phone. The water turned off and she heard her sister get out of the shower. With the precision and speed of a kid at a mobile phone kiosk, she opened the back of the phone and removed the SIM card. She inserted another, closed it up, put it back into the purse. Too bad Lainie doesn’t have enough money for anything better than a Coach, she thought. When Lainie emerged from the bathroom, she noticed that her sister had brought her some coffee. It wasn’t hot and it wasn’t a full cup, but Tori was never the “hostess with the mostest,” so it wasn’t a bad effort. She’s not all bad. She just can’t be, she thought.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that neither one of us had any kids?” Tori looked at her sister as they stood in the foyer of the grand Victorian.

“How do you mean, odd?” she asked. Lainie watched the street for the taxi. She wondered if the same driver would pick her up for the ride back to Seattle.

“I wanted to,” she said.

“But Alex didn’t. He said that Parker was enough and that he was getting too old.”

“He wasn’t that old. At least not by today’s standards. Look at Larry King.”

“I’d rather not. But, really, the point was pretty moot,” Tori said.

“He’d had a vasectomy years ago. I didn’t push it. I might have enjoyed being a mother, but honestly, I didn’t really want to ruin my body.”

“No, not when you’ve put so much money into it.” The remark was a dig and Lainie wished she hadn’t said it. Tori didn’t seem to care. It might have been that she was just as glad that the O’Neal sisters’ reunion was over. Lainie had come to Tacoma to help her sister get through a very rough patch. She was uncertain if she’d been asked out of love or because there was no one else who her twin would be able to call.

“How many years this time?”

“Excuse me?”

“How many years will pass before I see you again?”

“You’ll see me soon. I’m thinking of coming out to the class reunion. I’d like to show those losers that no matter what life has handed me, I’m still smarter, better looking, and, yes, richer than any of them.” The taxi parked and a driver started up the walk. Lainie turned to hug her sister good-bye. The past few days had been full of drama, resentment, bitterness. Except for the murder, it seemed like old times. Or maybe it was because of that.

“See you soon. Call me,” she said, as she walked out the door. Lainie smiled warily at the cab driver as he lifted the door handle to let her inside.

“Heading home. Stayed with my sister.”

“Nice visit, I hope,” he said.

“I guess so,” she said.

“I stayed about as long as I could, as I was needed.”

“I’ve got a sister like that, too,” he said. Oh, no you don’t, Lainie thought. She got into the backseat and reached for her phone. The screen was dead.

“Damn,” she said. The driver looked over his shoulder at Lainie before pulling away from the Connelly house.

“What’s the trouble?” She held out the phone.

“I recharged it, but it isn’t working. Says that the SIM card is corrupted.”

“That sucks,” the man said.

“That happened to me one time. You’ll have to start over.” Lainie didn’t say anything, but she agreed. She would have to start over. Seeing her sister brought back so many memories that needed to be laid to rest. Once and for all.

Kendall walked across the plaza toward the sheriff’s office. She looked down at her ringing phone. It was Lainie.

“How are things? How are you?”

“A nightmare. But you could have guessed that.”

“It wouldn’t take a detective to figure that out. You’re right,” Kendall said.

“How’s Tori?”

“She’s mad because the police want to question her. Again.”

“Tell her to get a lawyer,” Kendall said, stopping by a parked car and squinting up at the damp May sky, hoping no more drops would rain down. It had been the soggiest spring in recent memory and she had to fight the urge to wring out her shoes.

“I’m surprised you’d offer up that kind of advice.”

“Look, it’s the right thing to do. How long are you going to stay?”

“I’m about ready to leave.”

“Funeral this week?”

“Get this ... no funeral. She says she’s too upset. Or something.”

“Sounds like the Tori I remember.”

“You’d be surprised. She hasn’t changed a bit. Except for a boob job. She’s about the same.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Lainie said before switching the subject.

“What’s going on with the Jason investigation?” Kendall sighed.

“You know I can’t talk about that. But not much. I guess you are caught up in the Mike Walsh murder.”

“You know he was there the night of the accident?”

“Yes, I do. But that’s all I can say. You know that.”

“I guess so. I hope you catch his killer. Sad to think of a man who’d pulled his life around only to get murdered.”

“All murders are tragic,” Kendall said.

“But, yes, this one is very sad.”

“Tori doesn’t remember Mikey, but I do. Tori doesn’t remember anything that doesn’t move her ahead in any game that she’s playing.” They talked a bit more, about Tori, about the committee and the reunion, before saying good-bye. Kendall slipped the phone into the pocket of her purse. She wondered what it was like to have a sister like Tori. She was always a drama queen, the center of attention, the kind of person who truly believed that any attention was better than none at all. She’d wanted to be a singer, an actress, something that would get her noticed by everyone. Ahead in any game she was playing. That was Tori to a T. After hanging up the phone in her Tacoma bedroom, Tori rolled closer to snuggle her lover.

“That went pretty well,” she said.

“She thought I was Lainie. People are so stupid.”

“It was genius to dog yourself over the boob job,” he said.

“Genius. That’s me. A very naughty genius.”

“Let’s make love again,” he said. She smiled.

“Fast, okay? We’ve got things to do.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Tacoma

The hospital cafeteria at St. Joseph Medical Center was having a special on salmon in a creamy dill sauce, and the entire space smelled like a fish and fry shack. While waiting for the two nurses to join her, Kendall Stark stupidly selected the salmon. It was a light gray with a swath of green sauce that was anything but appealing. Ultimately, she wasn’t hungry. Not really. She was way out of her jurisdiction and she hadn’t bothered to notify Eddie Kaminski that she was going to talk to his witnesses. It was a lapse in protocol, but she thought it was worth the ethical misstep. No one could understand Tori O’Neal like those who knew her. To know her was to distrust her. She’d told Josh that she was running an errand. He didn’t seem to understand her preoccupation with Tori, either, and it was just as well. Steven, however, was another matter. He deserved to know what she was thinking. But she wasn’t ready for that. It was around 1:00 P.M. and the cafeteria was busy. Kendall shuffled her tray along the steel shelf to the cash register. A young man with heavy-lidded eyes and a soul patch that was so overgrown it might have required a hairnet if he’d been on the food-serving side of the operation took her money and told her that refills were free.

“Hopefully, you aren’t an iced tea drinker,” he said.

“That spigot’s dry.” Kendall took a seat next to the window. It had rained most of the day and the parking lot glistened. If there was anyplace she hated more than a hospital cafeteria, it was probably the visiting room at a mortuary. Slumber room, as the mortuary staff had called it, in the euphemistic vernacular of an industry that sought to make death seem transitory, rather than permanent. Corazón White and Diana Lowell caught her attention from across the cafeteria as they ambled over with their trays of assorted lunch items.

“Salmon’s good,” Corazón said.

“Good for you, I guess. But not so good here,” Diana said.

“I’m glad that you could see me,” Kendall said. She waited for them to sit before she gave her spiel that the Connelly murder investigation was ongoing and that she’d need them to sign statements later if she thought what they had to say was important to the investigation.

“Administrator says we can cooperate,” Diana said.

“They like to help the police—”

“—when the death isn’t on our watch,” Corazón said, interrupting her. Diana gave the younger woman a cool look.

“You didn’t hear that from me.” Kendall drank her mocha, a regular, not the Tuxedo from Starbucks that she favored. It gave her one more reason to hate hospitals. As if she needed one.

“Of course not. What I did hear from you,” she said, looking at Diana, “is that you and Corazón observed a few things that bothered you a little during Ms. Connelly’s brief stay here.” Corazón pierced a limp lettuce leaf with her fork before dipping it in a small container of low-cal Thousand Island dressing.

“That’s right. She was arguing with someone on the phone. Telling someone that she didn’t want him to call the hospital.”

“A he?” Corazón shook her head.

“No. She said it was her sister. But she talked to the person like he was a man, maybe a boyfriend. I don’t know. Thought you’d want to know.” Kendall was interested, but she kept her affect flat.

“What specifically did she say?”

“ ‘Don’t call here.’ That kind of thing.”

“How about you,” she said, this time to Diana, the older of the pair of nurses.

“About the same thing. I distinctly remember her saying, ‘Don’t ever call me here again.’ She told me it was her sister from Seattle or Portland and that she was coming. She was all sweetness when talking to me. But she was full-bitch when she was talking to her ‘sister’ or whoever it was.”

“You going to eat that?” Corazón pointed to Kendall’s Dutch apple pie.

“Nah. You can have it.” Corazón smiled broadly.

“Thanks.” Diana lowered her glasses to get a better look at her barely toasted BLT. She didn’t say a word. And for a woman like Diana Lowell that was not an easy thing to do. On her way back across the Narrows Bridge to the office, Kendall wondered about the tenacity of a caller such as the one who’d been dialing Tori Connelly’s room. Someone she didn’t want to talk to. Someone who wouldn’t take no for answer, she thought. Once behind her desk, she rifled the furthest reaches of her desk drawer for an antacid. Her stomach was a sour mess and she needed something to calm it. It had to be the salmon she had for lunch. Josh Anderson flopped himself down in her visitor’s chair.

“Where’d you go for lunch? Amy’s?” She shook her head.

“I wish I did.” She patted her stomach.

“I grabbed a bite at a drive-through and now I’m paying for it.”

“Biting you back, huh?”

“You could say that.” Kendall paused for a moment, weighing her options.

“You might need to run things around here for a few days. A family emergency has come up and I might have to leave town.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask where she was going. She’d already lied to him too many times. Lying, she was sure, didn’t get easier with practice.

“Anything serious?”

“Just family stuff.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Kitsap County

Fifteen years ago

The parking lot of the Secure Crisis Residential Center was mostly empty, though Lainie knew that there would be fifty cars shoehorned into the lot by the time she departed after seeing her sister. She parked her hideous green Toyota Corolla (“Nagasaki’s revenge,” she frequently said, making a dark joke of the car’s unfortunate paint color) and went inside. Daniel Hector was the only guard on duty and he signed her in. He led her to the craft room where Tori was sitting next to a Victorian dollhouse. She stood.

“I knew you would come. I knew I could count on you, Lainie.” Lainie embraced her sister; this time she felt a slight hug in return.

“I love you, Tori.”

“I know you do,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. Coming, but not falling.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“What? What can I do?”

“I can’t take it anymore. I’m going crazy. I’m going to die. I need to get out of here.”

“You will get out. You’re almost there.”

“I want out today.”

“Of course you do. I want you out.”

“I want you to take my place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You heard me. You owe me.”

“I don’t owe you that.”

“You do.”

“I’m leaving now.”

“I’ll tell.”

“No one will believe you.”

“Is that what this has come to? That you think no one will believe me because I’m the bad twin? You’re so effing perfect?”

“I never said that.”

“You don’t have to. Everyone else does. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you, Dad, prison, Port Orchard.”

“Look, I know you are hurting. I wish none of this ever happened.”

“Wishing something doesn’t make it so. Just one day, Lainie. Can’t you give me one freaking day?” She looked at a pair of scissors.

“Cut my hair like yours.”

“I won’t,” Lainie said.

“You really want to go there? You were driving that night. It was your idea to take the car, not mine.” An intensity came to Tori’s eyes, replacing anguish.

“I’ll tell. Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think for one second that I won’t do whatever it takes to get what I want.” Lainie could feel her heart pound. She didn’t know what to do. Should she get up and run, or should she stay and reason with her twin? “You made an agreement.”

“I lied,” Tori said. Lainie pushed back on her chair. She could feel her legs wanted to rise up and lift her, but they didn’t. For some reason, she stayed.

“Are you lying now?”

“I get that it’s a risk, but you’re going to have to take a chance. Or I’ll ruin your life. Goody-goody Lainie’s not so good after all.”

“Just one night?” Tori picked up the scissors and slid them across the tabletop.

“Here, cut.” She swiveled in her chair, her back now facing her sister. Reluctantly, Lainie reached for the scissors.

“I didn’t think they could have sharp objects in a place like this.”

“Start cutting,” Tori said.

“You’d be surprised what goes on in here.”

Wearing Lainie’s clothes, blue jeans, and sweater over a long-sleeved T-shirt, Tori O’Neal spun around in a circle as she and Daniel Hector left 7-Pod and her sister. It was part fashion show, part makeover, and a celebration of freedom. Hector nodded approvingly.

“She’ll never tell,” Tori said.

“Do whatever you want with her.” The corrections officer smiled, his uneven teeth stained by chewing tobacco.

“Wish I could have you both at once.”

“You can pretend,” she said. He handed her Lainie’s purse and car keys from a storage locker behind the counter.

“She did a nice job on the cut, Tori,” he said, as she started toward the door.

“I know you were worried about that.”

“Lainie, officer. I’m Lainie.”

“Right.” He reached down and turned on the video camera mounted in the craft room above a painting of an Old English cottage.

Mikey Walsh’s trailer wasn’t hard to find. Tori went down to the boat launch across from Al’s Grocery on Olalla Bay and asked around. She didn’t say she wanted to score some speed, but a man on a chopper figured that’s what the pretty blonde with the ugly car wanted. She pulled into his long wooded driveway, to the mobile home that was one or two winter seasons away from falling into the soggy soil of South Kitsap. She let herself inside and found Mikey on a ratty sofa watching CNN.

“I didn’t take you for a news buff,” she said. Startled, he looked up.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?”

“I’m here to talk to you.”

“I don’t have nothing to say to you. Get out of my house.”

“This isn’t much of a house and you don’t have anything to say,” she said.

“I’m going to do the talking.”

“What do you want?” Mikey stood. He wore ratty Levi cutoffs, a tank top, and athletic socks. He smelled of beer and body odor.

“I’m here to make you a promise,” she said.

“I don’t want anything from you. Your sister is in jail and we’re done.” Tori didn’t correct him. She was Lainie.

“You think my sister is trash, don’t you?”

“She is trash. She’s a freak.”

“Like I said, I’m here to make a promise.”

“What kind of a promise?”

“I promise that you’re a dead man if you ever, ever, ever talk about what you saw.” His eyes flashed defiance.

“You mean how she killed that kid?” She took a step closer. Tori refused to give an inch of ground to that piece of garbage standing in front of her.

“You want to die, too?”

“You’re some stupid girl. I’m not afraid of you,” he said, backing off a little. There was a coldness in her eyes that was like a bucket of ice water in his face. The girl wasn’t kidding around.

“You think my sister’s a piece of work?” she asked, again with a simmering rage behind each word.

“Don’t even think about trying to mess with me, Mikey.”

“Look,” he said, “I have no intention of saying anything. Who would believe an addict like me, anyway?”

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” she said.

“Don’t blow it, Mikey. Don’t ever blow it or I’ll hunt you down and slit your scrawny neck ear to ear.” Mikey slumped back onto the couch. Besides the rage behind the threat, something didn’t seem right.

“You’re not the nice twin, are you?” he asked.

“No one’s nice, Mikey,” she said as she turned to leave.

“As much as I love a challenge, don’t make me come back and prove it to you.”

Switching the part in her hair was easy, though such a small change hurt like hell as follicles were shifted in a new direction. As mirror twins, it had to be done. Tori never thought her father paid that much attention to the girls, not enough anyway. She bought a latte at an espresso stand in downtown Port Orchard and walked along the waterfront. It was late afternoon by the time she pulled in front of the house behind her dad’s car. The old pear tree was in full bloom, a cascade of blossoms stuck to the pavement.

“Dad?” she called out. No reply. Typical. No one is ever here for me, she thought. The house was the same. Smelled the same. The furniture in the living room was placed as it had been before Tori went to serve her sentence. Tori was unsure what she’d expected. She had that strange feeling as if she had been away on vacation and expected the world to be turned upside down in her absence. But there wasn’t anything different about the O’Neal home. Dex was washing his hands in the kitchen. With the tap gushing into the sink, he hadn’t heard her come in. He turned and smiled at the sight of her.

“How was your run this A.M.? You got out of here like a bat out of hell.”

“Fine.” She slid in to a seat at the kitchen table.

“Tired. Long day. Ran a few errands.”

“Good. Sit down and I’ll make dinner.” He swung open the refrigerator door and brought out two cans of iced tea. Tori hated that canned tea, but she was Lainie just then.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said, pulling open the top. The relationship between her father and sister was closer than her own with either. Tori wondered about that. Was it because she’d hated or resented him and he was merely reflecting her emotions in their relationship? He wasn’t unkind. He was cool. But not now, not to Lainie. She decided to bring it up.

“Tomorrow will be a long day,” she said.

“Not looking forward to it.”

“Your sister? That place?”

“Probably both.” She decided to gamble with her next statement.

“We’ve talked about it before,” she said.

“I don’t like seeing her.”

“We’re obligated. We’re a family.” Obligated.

“She doesn’t even appreciate us.”

“Don’t get me started. You know where I fall in that argument.” Tori felt a surge of hope.

“Yeah, she’s not so bad.” Dex O’Neal let out a laugh. It was the kind of chortle that cuts to the bone if one is the target of the rub.

“Honestly, Lainie, your sister scares me sometimes.” Tori could have probed a little. She could have pushed her father’s buttons, but she chose to keep her mouth shut. She’d sit there, play nice, and seethe quietly. She always knew where she stood in that family.

It had rained all night. Tiny bullets of water glanced off the window of 7-Pod. Lainie O’Neal curled as tight as a hermit crab in the scratchy military-issue blankets that outfitted her sister’s bottom bunk. There were only three girls in the pod. None of them seemed to care one whit about anything but themselves and their own misery. Lainie put the girl named Tara at about sixteen. She was a sullen-faced biracial girl who had almond eyes that illuminated nothing of her soul. She was on the bunk above Tori’s. The other girl was named something like Gigi or maybe G.G. It was hard for Lainie to determine her story at all. She barely said two words. Officer Hector told her where she was sleeping and that the girls wouldn’t engage with her if she ignored them.

“The less you say, the better,” he said.

“I want to go home.”

“Like I haven’t heard that before,” he said. Lainie spent the day and the early evening on a filthy red beanbag chair in the juvenile correction center’s lounge watching MTV and wishing she could be home with her father. For dinner, she ate a rubbery chicken wing and some mashed potatoes. She pretended to be angry about something.

“Act mad. People will leave you alone,” Tori had advised. That her sister had been living like this for months crushed Lainie.

“It was a damn accident,” she said.

“Nothing more, just a sad, stupid accident.” The rain continued to streak the window above her bunk bed. It was dark, desolate. The door to the pod was locked. A toilet and washbasin in the corner was there in case any of the girls needed to use a bathroom during the lockdown hours. The idea was disgusting to Lainie. She’d rather hold it for eight hours and writhe in pain than suffer the indignity of using a communal privy. Tara didn’t seem to mind at all. A half hour into the darkness of the pod, Lainie heard footsteps, the sound of a key inserted into the lock. She turned in her bed as a hand went over her face. She couldn’t breathe. What is happening to me? The smell of chewing tobacco came at her.

“Shut up. You’re mine.” Lainie rolled onto her back, twisted her frame to try to get some leverage. She wanted out of there. She clawed into the darkness. The sticky hand over her mouth pushed harder. She couldn’t breathe. She was a virgin, but she knew what was happening. She knew what that man was trying to do to her. Please, God, don’t let him rape me! “Stop it, you little bitch. You’re ruining my game here,” Hector said.

“I like a good dust-up in the sack, but you still have to get the job done.” Why isn’t Tara or G.G. or whatever her name is doing anything? Lainie was unsure how it happened, but he was on top of her. Somehow he had slithered under the blanket. She could feel his body and she started to cough, then vomit. Vomit of chicken wings and mashed potatoes spewed over the bed, onto the officer, over the surface of the scratchy blanket.

“You fucking dirty little bitch!” She was choking on her own vomit. She couldn’t breathe. She fought, and she fought hard. There wasn’t a moment in which she wouldn’t have begged for her life, even if he’d loosened his grip enough so that she could. No one who’d been pinned down, held tight with the hot breath of an assailant all over her, would deny the feelings that spun through her terrified mind. He put his hand on her breasts and pushed before he bent down, panting, and whispered in her ear.

“I know what you did,” he said.

“Don’t piss me off. You did a real number on your sister, you little privileged bitch. You mess with me by saying anything and I’ll kill your sister and your dad. After I feed them to the sharks in Puget Sound, I’ll go out and have waffles and eggs for breakfast. And then, I’ll come looking for you.” He released her. A sliver of light fell over the room. The door shut. Lainie was crying, coughing, choking. Tara climbed down and took her over to the toilet. She handed her a towel.

“Get a grip. Pull yourself together,” she said.

“What the hell was all that drama tonight, Tori?”

“Drama?” It was a single word, but the only thing that could come to her lips. Tara started for their bed.

“Whatever. Your puke really stinks. I don’t know how I’m supposed to sleep around here. Thanks for nothing. God, I hate this place.”

The dreams started then. The nightmares. Whatever they were. Tori didn’t come back the next morning. In fact, she never did. Tori told her father that she just couldn’t go back to “that place,” that it “hurt too much” to see her sister that way. Tori let Lainie serve out her sentence. Dex O’Neal had no idea what had happened, that the switch had been made. When he saw his daughter in the correctional facility later, he remarked about her new look.

“You cut your hair like your sister,” he said.

“Yeah, it was getting too long,” Lainie said.

“I love it.” The sisters never talked about what had transpired the last time they ever switched places as twins. Tori ran across Daniel Hector at the Safeway on Bethel Avenue one time, and he approached her.

“Your sister was a total bitch,” he said.

“You said she was going to be hot stuff. Fun stuff. That she was into a sexy, fun scene.”

“Didn’t you have fun?”

“She practically threw me on to the floor.”

“She’s a fighter.”

“She was a bitch. I’m glad I’ve got you to mess around with.” She smiled. It wasn’t a real smile, but he was too stupid to know.

“Those were good times. Freaky, but good.”

When Daniel Hector was arrested for molesting a ten-year-old girl three years later, it opened a Pandora’s box of other accusations. There were some suspicions from the staff at the Secure Crisis Residential Center in Port Orchard, but no one really had anything conclusive. The girls in 7-Pod had turned over to a new group three times since Lainie as Tori O’Neal walked free. Lainie was in college studying journalism when she saw the item in the paper, but she resisted the urge to dial the Kitsap County Prosecutor’s Office. While it was true that she didn’t want to be thought of as a victim, neither did she want anyone to know that she’d been duped by her sister. She was damaged goods. Raped. Abused. Tori had faded away after her release and the time between visits with what was left of their family lengthened. The only time she saw her sister was in her dreams.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Tacoma

Tori Connelly paced the house, starting in the master bedroom, then the guest room, down the hall, and to the stairs. Everything in that old Victorian was perfection. On the first floor she lingered in the kitchen looking at all the things she had amassed. The best appliances. An antique paella pan from Spain that hung on the wall cost more than two thousand dollars. She didn’t even cook and never intended to learn. She was going to have to leave all of what she’d fought so hard to get. She was going to have to pray that her sister and Kendall Stark didn’t talk. Kendall was digging into her affairs. Lainie was poking around in things that she should leave alone. And Parker had been a fool. I’ve been through more than any of those idiots can imagine. If they knew what I’d faced, they would back off and give me some space, she thought. I don’t deserve this. She went back upstairs to her phone. Her heart was racing a little, a feeling that she did not appreciate at all. She dialed Parker’s number. It went to voice mail.

“Baby, I was just thinking about you. About us,” she began.

“We have to go now.” She hung up and continued to review the house that would never again be her home. She went into the living room where she’d pointed the gun at the back of Alex’s head and kick-started the series of incidents that was the middle of her plan. Not the beginning. She smiled. She knew that she’d never come back to the old Victorian that she had been her dream. It had reminded her of the dollhouse that she, her sister, and the other girls in juvy had worked on, and owning it was a big F-U to all of those who’d hurt her. Her mother. Her father. Her sister. Her husbands. She examined herself in the mirror. She looked pretty in an ordinary way. Her hair no longer golden, but some color that approximated averageness, something she never wanted to be. Inside her purse, she’d packed plane tickets, five grand, and the code to her Bahamian bank account. She drew a deep breath and reminded herself that the best plans in the world had to be fluid. She knew that, but taking that deep inside once more was necessary. She understood the power of adapting and changing. Steady, Tori. The only person who should know someone’s next move is the one holding the cards. She set a single overnight bag on the front step and turned the key in the deadbolt. Tori went inside the carriage house and shut the door. She could hear Alex’s voice as he told her that he no longer loved her, that he wanted out of their marriage. She’d begged him to reconsider, though she really was only buying time. She climbed into the deep, dark leather seats of her Lexus and shut the door. Then she screamed as loudly as she could.

As she dealt with another sleepless night, Lainie’s thoughts fell to her sketchy memories of Zach Campbell. She’d remembered how excited her sister had been when she announced that she was going to marry the former navy officer based in Bremerton. Tori had met him when she was a casino singer at the Clearwater in Suquamish. He was handsome, almost two decades older. His chiseled good looks had softened with age a little, but with brown eyes and a full head of sandy hair—so full that some wondered if it had been a toupee, which it wasn’t—he was a charmer.

“Aren’t you worried that he’s a little, you know, old?” Lainie asked when her sister met her at a Port Orchard coffee shop on Bay Street. They were barely in their twenties and their relationship had slowly ebbed since high school. Lainie had gone to Western Washington University in the northern part of the state. Though Tori was given her high school diploma, it came with the tarnish of having finished her education in juvenile detention. Neither had ever acknowledged it was Tori who walked at graduation as Lainie. So much had never been discussed. The crash. The prison. The switch. All had turned them into friendly adversaries, not sisters.

“I was a little concerned, at first,” Tori said, of Zach’s age.

“But he told me that age is nothing but a number. Besides he’s financially secure and that matters. I don’t have a career like someone I know.”

“Just so you know, reporters make less than teachers,” Lainie said. Tori shrugged.

“Casino singers make less than just about anyone, Lainie.”

“Very funny. Don’t you want a family someday?”

“He’s old, not dead, Lainie. And maybe a baby sometime. I’m not in a hurry.”

“What about the wedding? When and where?” Tori held up her ring finger. Set in a thin platinum band was a one-carat square-cut diamond that sparkled like a midnight star. It was an ostentatious stone that was meant to draw gasps and envy. And it did.

“We were married last weekend in Las Vegas.”

“Oh . . . congratulations.”

“We’d always planned on being maids of honor for each other. We’d talked of a double wedding. Remember how the other would wait for her sister?”

“That was before,” Tori said.

“Before the accident. Before Mom died. I just want to get out of Kitsap as fast as I can. Zach is my ticket out.”

“That sounds lovey-dovey.”

“You can think whatever you want to think, Lainie. Just remember that when I’m gone, no one will look at you and think that you’re me. The scorn or pity or whatever it is that is passed in your direction by mistake will vanish.” Lainie thought a moment, choosing her words carefully.

“Because you’re going to vanish.” Tori let out a breath.

“Something like that,” she said.

CHAPTER FORTY

Port Orchard

The phone at the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office had rung nonstop with calls from congregants of the Lord’s Grace Church. Most callers were exceedingly polite, offering prayers and volunteering to do whatever they could to help with the investigation. Although Josh was designated lead on the Mike Walsh homicide, both he and Kendall took turns fielding those who wanted to help in one way or another. Kendall told each they were in the middle of the investigation. She never offered specifics. She knew better from seeing other cops get burned when they made promises of solving a case. An obvious murder like Pastor Walsh’s, with bloody footprints and sadistic binding of the victims’ wrists, could languish until such time as the killer struck again. If, indeed, the killer was prone to do so. Josh was convinced it was payback for sexual abuse because of the repeated and unnecessary stabbing. Kendall was of another mind. There was a connection and a very real one with Jason Reed. One call from a prepaid cell phone, however, was nothing like the others. Kendall took the call. It was a woman’s voice.

“You really messed up on this one. We’ll never know what happened to Jason Reed now. Thanks for nothing.”

“Who is this?” Kendall asked, her adrenalin pumping.

“It doesn’t matter.

“It does to me.” The line went dead.

Under the green glow of her desk’s banker’s lamp, Kendall Stark spread out copies of the case file from the Connelly homicide investigation. She was on thin ice and she knew it. The material was given to her as a courtesy because of her reinvestigation of Jason Reed’s death and Tori’s connection with the cases. She’d already overstepped some boundaries by talking with the nurses at the hospital. She doubted Kaminski would appreciate her doing anything more—and she knew she’d resent any cop who’d insert him or herself into one of her active investigations. But this was different. It was personal. It was something she simply had to do. She found herself flipping back and forth between the reports made at the scene and the interview notes for both Darius Fulton and Tori Connelly. Tori claimed she’d been in bed when she heard the gunfire. She went downstairs and the masked intruder shot her as he ran out of the house. Darius claimed he knew nothing of that, of course. But his statement had one detail that seemed puzzling.

“. . . Mrs. Connelly arrived in a nightgown . . . bleeding ... her hair was wet.” Kendall poured herself a diet cola and returned her attention to the notation made by Kaminski: “. . . The master shower had been wet.” It was easy to surmise that Tori Connelly had taken a shower that evening. No crime there. What troubled Kendall was the idea of a woman going to bed with a sopping wet head. She never would have done that. In fact, Kendall, like many women, took her showers in the morning precisely so she could blow-dry her hair to perfection before work. Tori Connelly’s hair had been soaking wet. She looked at the photos of the master bedroom. The image showing the Rice bed revealed that while it had been turned down for the night, no one had been inside it. The duvet was smooth. There was no indentation where Tori Connelly’s head might have rested. And certainly, there was no indication that there was any dampness on the pillow. If Tori wasn’t in bed, as she had said, what was she doing? Kendall felt that the condom wrapper found in the guest room was also problematic. It hadn’t been seen by Kaminski or the others who’d processed the scene for the Tacoma Police Department. She conceded that the first floor of the house on Junett would have been the most crucial for processing. But the master bath, master bedroom, and the guest rooms upstairs were also relevant. Certainly what transpired May 5 was not a sex crime, so there would have been little reason to consider it of any evidentiary value. Yet, why was it there? It didn’t make sense. Something, she was sure, was amiss. Kendall left her office and found Josh Anderson behind his desk surfing Match.com. She lingered a moment, kind of happy to see that he was working out of his personal funk. She no longer saw Internet dating as pathetic, but necessary. Especially for Josh.

“Making a connection?” Her tone was kind, not snide. Flustered, Josh looked up and clicked his mouse to shut the window. His face went red.

“How did you—” Kendall pointed.

“Behind you. The glass on the watercolor reflects your screen.”

“Thanks. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she said.

“What’s up,” he said.

“You’re obviously not here to critique the state of my love life.” Kendall smiled briefly.

“No, not this time,” she said, holding out the Tacoma Police report and pointing out what Lainie told her about the condom wrapper.

“She found the wrapper. Practically in plain sight.” He pushed the paperwork back.

“Two things,” he said.

“One, what does Kaminski say? And two, why in the F are you working their case when we have our own here?”

“He doesn’t say. He’s probably embarrassed that his tech missed it. I know I would be.” The muscles in Kendall’s neck tightened, like they always did when she felt backed into a corner.

“As for your second point, I can’t give a clear answer. I think—and it’s a gut feeling that I’m sure you’d dismiss as woman’s intuition or something of the like—that Tori is responsible for her husband’s murder. Not the sap they’ve arrested.”

“I won’t denigrate your intuition, Kendall. You know I don’t put much stock in things that aren’t black-and-white. And that’s the way I’ve lived my life and do my job.” Kendall held her tongue. She could have said something cruel back, something along the lines of how lousy his life had turned out, but she didn’t. Being overly defensive wouldn’t get her anywhere.

“Thanks. I just know that Tori killed Alex, Zach, and, yes, Jason.”

“Good luck with that, Kendall,” he said.

“You’re on dangerous ground.”

“Fine,” she said.

“Thanks for listening.” Kendall retreated to her office, angry at Josh, but knowing that her compulsion to figure things out was greater than any admonishment she’d get from her partner, her husband, or the sheriff. If it came to that. She called Darius Fulton’s lawyer Maddie Crane’s office. Her paralegal Chad told her that Ms. Crane was out to lunch.

“She doesn’t take calls during her lunchtime, but if you’re nearby, you can bug her in person. I don’t care.” Kendall knew where Maddie and all the lawyers congregated in Tacoma. Only two blocks from the Pierce County Courthouse, an Italian restaurant called Mama’s was the scene of more one-upmanship than a fight club in a dank warehouse downtown. Lawyers were showy competitors. That meant they liked to be seen.

“I’m going on an errand,” she said, barely stopping by Josh’s office as she made her way down the hallway—a place that had been remodeled too many times without consideration for function.

“Your mom?”

“Yes, Mama’s,” she said, relieved that it really wasn’t a lie. When her phone rang, it was Laura Connelly.

“I don’t want to say anything over the phone,” she said.

“I need to see you.”

“Are you all right? Can you tell me what it’s about?”

“Parker,” she said, her voice catching a little in her throat.

“It has to do with my son. Meet me at Shari’s on Union. I’ll be there at three.”

“Can you make it earlier? I’m planning on heading over to Tacoma around lunchtime.”

“All right. How about one-thirty?”

“Perfect.” She hung up, wondering what was up with Laura, though she had an idea.

Kendall Stark was greeted by a wave of garlic as she swung open the big brass doors of Mama’s Ristorante. Finding Maddie wouldn’t be hard. Everyone in the Northwest knew Maddie Crane. Kendall and the lawyer had actually met a time or two before. Maddie got around. Kendall passed through the restaurant and went into the dimly lit bar, where she immediately caught the attention of Maddie’s horde, two women and a man in dark, expensive suits and spray-on tans. She nodded at the defense lawyer. Maddie made a face and got up to greet her.

“You wouldn’t be unlucky enough just to stumble on this place,” she asked.

“What is it?” The place was warm, so the detective unbuttoned her jacket.

“It might not be anything,” she said.

“Can we sit?” Maddie seemed irritated.

“Make it fast. I’m with friends.”

“I see that. Looks like a fun crowd.” They found an empty booth by the kitchen door.

“What is it?” she repeated.

“Like I said, it might not be anything. Tacoma PD missed a potential piece of evidence. Or maybe not. I don’t know.” Kendall chose her words carefully, but in doing so, she made the scenario appear worse than it was. She was, as Josh said, on shaky ground. While she was technically working her own case involving Tori Connelly, she was stepping on the toes of Tacoma Police and that was never a good idea.

“I’m working my own case,” she said.

“But it could be related to yours. Hear me out.” Maddie was devoid of facial expression, which spoke more of her ability to hide her feelings than of Botox. It didn’t matter to her if she believed her client or not, but a mistake by the police was always a good thing.

“Go on. All ears here.”

“Lainie says there was a condom wrapper in the guest room. The deceased had a vasectomy.” Maddie’s eyes were flinty. Again, cool.

“All right.”

“What about your client?”

“That’s extremely personal.” Kendall fidgeted a little in her chair.

“Well, sure it is,” she said.

“But we can’t figure out why there would be a condom wrapper in that bedroom.” The lawyer tapped her long nails against the dark walnut surface of the tabletop.

“So what you might be saying—and what Kaminski probably would not like brought up at trial—is that there might be another man involved with the charming Mrs. Connelly.”

“Something like that,” Kendall said. Maddie got up and started for her table.

“I’ll get back to you,” she said.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Tacoma

It was 1:40 P.M. Ten minutes after Kendall’s appointed meeting with Laura Connelly. Kendall slumped into a booth in the back, but facing the front door at Shari’s Restaurant off Union Avenue in Tacoma, just past the Target store.

“I don’t want to say anything over the phone,” Laura had said.

“Are you all right? Can you tell me what it’s about?”

“Parker,” she said, her voice catching a little in her throat.

“It has to do with my son.” Despite the waitress’s chirpy delivery of the “Strawberry Fields” promotion (“pie, sundaes, pancakes, smoothies, shakes—just about anything you can freckle with strawberries, we’re doing it this month”), Kendall ordered only coffee. As she waited, she wondered if Laura had backed out. She texted a message to Steven, letting him know that Laura was late, and that meant she might be, too.

“Over here,” she mouthed as Laura came into the restaurant. She was wearing black jeans, a black sweater, and a rope of silver chains around her neck.

“I thought it would be more private here,” Kendall said.

“After I talk to you, what difference will privacy make?” There was a coolness, a directness, to Laura’s words, and Kendall nodded understandingly.

“It depends on what you have to tell me.” Laura barely blinked.

“I guess so. Believe me, I thought about not coming inside. I sat in my car for fifteen minutes. I saw you go in and thought about just driving away.”

“But you didn’t,” Kendall said. Laura nodded at the busboy, but kept silent as he poured her a cup of coffee.

“No, I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m crazy about this.”

“I understand.” The waitress scurried over with a thermal coffeepot.

“Coffee? Something to eat?”