“Long stays in the bathroom.” He touched his nose. “Obviously underage girls, fake I.D.'s. People getting up and dirty-dancing when the music didn't call for it.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Gobs, Laura. I stopped coming for a while. Things are a lot quieter now, and I'm sure the owners are feeling it in the pocketbook but I, for one-and I'll bet I speak for all the regulars-don't miss those days.”

“Celebs,” said Liana. “They do get entitled.”

Rau got more aggressive with his beer, taking two deep gulps. He dribbled a tad and wiped his lips with his napkin.

“How come the egomaniacs don't come here anymore, Steve?”

“They moved on, Laura. That's what they do, it's all about the Next Big Thing.”

“Ah,” she said.

Rau emptied his mug. Looked over at the bartender but when Gus pointed to the tap, he shook his head.

Liana said, “So two years since it's been celebbed up.”

“Two, three. Here's the irony, Laura: Back then, with all the bodyguards and drivers and such hanging around, you'd think it would've been safer than milk. But that's when there were some problems.”

He wrapped both hands around the empty mug. The music had switched to Brian Wilson singing about the wonders of his room.

“What kind of problems, Steve?”

“Forget it,” said Rau. “Last thing I want to do is spook you. Because I do want you to come back.”

Staring at her. Soft brown eyes.

Liana said, “I'm a big girl.”

“Not important-ancient history.”

“Come on, Steve. I don't spook easily.”

Rau knuckled his forehead. “Brilliant, Rau.”

“What happened?”

“I'm not saying it had anything to do with this place. I'm sure it didn't, because it happened outside… oh Lord, I'm bad at being single.”

Liana wet her lips with Seabreeze. She'd taken in maybe a quarter ounce, felt sharp and on her game as she waited the guy out.

He said, “You really want to know?”

“I do.”

“A girl who worked here-in the dining room, as a hostess-back then they served more food-she left after her shift was over and was never seen again. But nothing happened to her here-we're talking a year and a half ago, something like that… so I guess some celebs were still here. At least that's the way I remember it. The irony, like I said. Then something else happened shortly after. A couple, tourists staying at Loews, dropped in for a few drinks and also vanished. That I heard on the news. They mentioned Riptide as the last place the couple was seen. After that, I stayed away.”

“I can see why you were spooked.”

“Not spooked, just… Maria had broken off marriage counseling, I was by myself… I'm sorry. Now you'll never come back.”

“Steve, I do not allow myself to be ruled by the misfortunes of others.”

“Laura, all I do, day in and day out, is immerse myself in the misfortunes of others. This afternoon it was devising algorithms to predict the correlation between economic downturns and the rise of insurgency in Malaysia.”

“How's it looking for Malaysia?”

“You don't want to know.” Suddenly he stood.

Taller than she'd thought and really not that heavy. Hint of a soft little gut, but broad, square shoulders and long, strong-looking legs.

Tossing bills on the bar, he held out his hand. “Great to meet you, Laura. I mean that.”

This time Liana pressed flesh. His was cool, dry, smooth.

“If for some reason you do come back, I hope it's a night that I'm here.”

Sighing, he pressed his lips to her fingers. Dropped her hand quickly and shook his head and muttered, “Dork.”

Before she could reassure him, he was gone.

“Poor Steve,” said someone up the bar. “That wife of his really racked him up.”

CHAPTER 11

Half the cookie,” said Liz Wilkinson.

Moe Reed said, “Pardon?”

“As in Oreo. We are fifty percent of a cookie, baby. Or maybe seventy, seeing as all the crème's here.”

Reaching under his butt, she squeezed. Her smooth brown body rested atop the hard bunches and swells of his pale, freckled musculature.

Hips touching. Everything glued together. They'd finally stopped kissing.

He said, “Didn't Oreo used to be a dis? Black on the outside, white on the inside?”

“I'm adapting it for my own purposes.”

“Creative.”

“I'm glad you agree.” She laughed. He loved that sound.

Moments later: “Liz, with an Oreo, the dark part's all crusty and the crème is soft. Isn't this more like a reverse Oreo?”

She propped herself up, looked into his eyes. “Now you're a philosopher.”

He craned to kiss her. When their lips parted, he pressed his mouth to her long, smooth neck. She lowered her weight back onto him.

“Mr. Literal.”

“I'm with a trained scientist, I want to be accurate.” He rubbed her back. “Trained scientist, natural gorgeous.”

Liz smiled to herself, felt the sting of bone against bone and shifted her pelvis. The movement, an innocent attempt at comfort, produced a new swell below. “I can tell you're sincere, Detective Reed, because the forensic evidence is in plain sight.”

She sat herself up, ran her hands over those slab-like pectorals. Knowing what human skeletal muscles looked like, beneath the sliver that was skin. Visualizing Moe's striated sheath.

The boy was solid, rock-hard.

Everywhere.

She touched him. Stroked him. He looked up at her, wide-eyed. Guiding him back in, she rocked slowly. Doing it, at first, for his sake, because boys behaved better when they were satisfied to the point of stupor. But soon they were fitting so perfectly and moving so perfectly, Liz's eyes closed and her head began swaying, flaps of her long hair grazing Moe's chest.

She straightened her locks religiously, but some texture remained and he said he liked that. Now the ends tickled his nipples and he turned his head to one side.

“Oh, man.” Shifting his hands to her breasts.

She said, “Exactly.”

Twenty minutes later, they sat at the breakfast room table of her condo on Fuller Avenue off Melrose, drinking peach Fresca and eating takeout deli sandwiches. The neighborhood was Intensely Ironic Postmodern Hipster but Liz had no interest in any of that. For all the time she spent at home, a motel would've served just as well.

Mother and Father had chipped in for the down payment, tossed in some extra for furniture. One day, she'd have to buy something nicer than the foldable card table at which they were eating, IKEA cases to hold all her books, the mattress on her bedroom floor.

Meanwhile, the simple life served quite nicely, thank you. Moe sure didn't care about interior decorating; his own place in the Valley was neat and clean but except for that gym, it looked like a college dorm room.

Lots of books there, too. Pleasant surprise.

She watched him chomp his sandwich. Skinless turkey breast, because of the cholesterol issue. Liz had ordered the same, even though she preferred beef.

Love, Mother had always preached, was all about compromise.

If only Mother knew…

One month out of a Stanford Ph.D. in physical anthro, Liz's dissertation on microchanges in humidity and visceral muscle decomposition had landed her a postdoc with Eleanor Hargrove at the LAPD-affiliated bone lab. The following year, funding came up for a real job at the lab and Liz snagged it. The position meant long hours spent with mummified skin, studying the finer points of rot and shred, the awful detritus that came with finality.

Lots of travel to conferences, because Eleanor wanted the lab to get exposure. All of which Liz had expected and generally relished.

What hadn't been in the game plan was hooking up with a guy, let alone one whose formal education had ended with a criminal justice B.A. from Cal State Northridge.