Bile rose in my stomach again. I dropped my head into my hands willing away the image, the horror that went with it.

“You okay?” His voice was resigned, as if he had to ask the question, but he didn’t really care about the answer. When I raised my head, I saw that his eyes were keen, studying me.

I couldn’t decide what to do. Jane had worked closely with the cops for years, and she had been convinced that if they knew of her affairs, they wouldn’t keep quiet about it. “It’s been a very long day. I think I need to go home.”

“Yeah, sure, just a few more questions, and we’ll get you out of here.” He clasped his hands on his stomach again. “Who was angry at Jane? She piss anybody off lately?”

I thought of Jackson Prince in the studio that morning. “There was an attorney who was on Trial TV today. He left in the middle of his interview.” I shrugged. “He seemed very angry at something Jane said, and she told me later that she was working on a story that could rock him.”

“What does that mean, ‘rock him’?”

“I don’t know. That’s just what she said.”

“What was the story about?”

“She didn’t tell me. And I have to say that this man is a well-respected lawyer. I don’t think he’d kill someone over a bad interview or a story.”

“His name?”

“Jackson Prince.”

“Ambulance chaser, right?”

“He’s a plaintiff’s attorney, yes.”

“Yeah, makes a ton of dough, I heard. He’s always giving a press conference for something.” Detective Vaughn reached to his right and pulled a stack of forms toward him. He flipped through a few, his hands moving nimbly, clearly something he did on a regular basis. He jotted something down on one page. He asked about Trial TV, about who would have written the story about Jackson Prince.

“Usually broadcasters write their own stories, but in the past Jane operated a little differently.” I explained how C. J. Lyons, her producer at the old station, used to do a lot of the writing for Jane. “But now that Jane had become an anchor at Trial TV, she was trying to write her own stuff, and she gave me the impression that this story was hers entirely.”

He asked more questions about Jackson Prince. I told him everything I knew, which wasn’t much.

“All right, so who else?” the detective said.

“Who else?”

“You know anyone else who was mad at Jane?”

I acted as if I was thinking about the possibilities, but what I was really thinking was that Zac was mad at Jane. She told me that when we met for coffee on Saturday morning and again when I’d gone to her house Saturday night. I’d seen his anger myself when he came home. And Jane had mentioned issues with Zac just today. “Jane and Zac were having some problems,” I said, using her words.

“What kind of problems?”

“I don’t know the whole story. Like I’ve told you, Jane and I were only work colleagues. Well, we were until this weekend when we spent more social time together, but Jane did mention that she and Zac had gone through some tough times.”

Detective Vaughn clicked the end of his pen, just looking at me. Click, click, click. I could hear nothing else-nothing in the hallway. I wondered if the rooms were soundproofed.

“Was he in town when she found that noose in her house?” the detective asked.

“Jane said that he was at their house in Long Beach on that day, too. He came home after Jane found the flowers and the noose.”

Click, click, click.

Detective Vaughn asked me more questions about Zac and Jane. I did everything I could to answer his questions without saying anything explicitly about Jane’s extramarital activity. I couldn’t decide whether or not it was the right thing to do, whether I should be more up-front. Every answer seemed like a misstep. Every answer made me feel guilty. I wanted to give them every bit of information to catch whoever had killed Jane, but I wanted to protect my friend’s reputation, too.

The intensity of it-the questions about who was mad at Jane, the warring in my mind of what I should tell him, all of it piled together with the searing images of Jane’s bloodied body-left me depleted.

I felt light-headed, then nauseous again. I hadn’t eaten anything, I realized, since lunch, and it was almost eleven.

“I think I need to go home now,” I said to Detective Vaughn. I needed to talk to Maggie tomorrow about how much to tell the police. Why hadn’t I called her before? It was just that things had happened so fast, and I had nothing to hide.

Detective Vaughn fell quiet, studying me with those keen eyes again.

“Is that okay?” I said, growing claustrophobic.

He tilted his head to one side, then the other. “You’re not planning on leaving town, are you?”

“No.” Why did I feel so defensive? I was a lawyer, but a civil one. I felt lost in a criminal interrogation, especially when I’d just found a friend dead. “I just want to go home.” I felt trapped inside that windowless room. I stood and glanced around. “My coat. I’m not sure where it is.”

“We got it,” he said. “Evidence. We’ll give it back to you after it’s been processed.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll drive you home.” He stood, too. He was a foot taller and he looked down at me with a powerful gaze. “I’ll see you again, though. Soon.”

28

T hat night, the fresh zing of my new life turned to sour despair. Jane, who had been part of that new life, was gone. Murdered.

The delight and adventure I had experienced the last few days-with Theo, with Trial TV-all seemed silly now.

Sam called as I walked in the door. I told him that Jane was killed. That I had found her.

“Jesus, Iz. Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Home.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

He was there in eight.

It was unlike the last few months, where Sam and I had treaded gingerly around each other, giving the other space, never taking for granted that we would be together for a particular night, much less for a particular lifetime. Now, the fact that he had disappeared on me six months ago didn’t matter.

When Sam arrived, it was just us again. No questions. Nothing to figure out. Just Sam and me stripped to the core. Of us. Which had always been good.

Under the halo of my doorway, he held me while I sobbed. We moved into my dark living room. He sat on my favorite yellow chair and pulled me into his lap, tucking my head into the bend of his neck, stroking my hair. I breathed him in-the scent of home after a long trip away-and I waited for the calm and the order that Sam would bring.

But calm and order never arrived.

At 5:00 a.m., my cell phone rang. Somehow I’d managed to sleep by holding tight around Sam’s stomach, my head on his chest.

At the sound of the phone, I murmured, tuned back into where I was. I could tell from Sam’s breathing that he wasn’t sleeping, that he hadn’t slept, that he had been pretending to sleep for the last few hours. For me.

I lifted my head off his chest and looked at the phone, which was on top of my dresser.

Sam pulled me back. “Go to sleep.”

“What if it’s something about Jane?”

He said nothing, and I swung my eyes to meet his. He grimaced.

Sam curled himself around me, creating a nest. “Get some sleep, get some sleep,” he murmured.

But the phone wouldn’t stop. My house phone started next. I finally lifted the receiver off the nightstand.

“Izzy?” I heard a woman’s sharp bark.

“C.J.?” The voice of Jane’s ex-producer was unmistakable.

“What time are you getting in this morning?”

I sat up in bed. “What do you mean? Where?”

“To Trial TV,” she said, exasperated. “What time will you be here?”

“Uh…” I hadn’t even thought about work. To me, Trial TV had been all about Jane, and my new job had been erased somewhere in the horror of last night. But of course, the network would go on. It couldn’t stop for Jane’s death. She wouldn’t want it to.