I opened the door, and she looked at the gun.

“Easy, Homeland Security,” she said.

“What do you want?”

“My stuff. I left some of it here.”

I stepped aside and let her in, closing the door behind her.

“I’m going home to San Francisco,” she said, sitting down on the arm of the sofa.

“Oh. I think your backpack is in the bedroom.”

“Great. I have to get back to school. And there’s nothing for me to do here anyway,” she said, disgust in her voice. “Not like anyone’s gonna do anything for Darcy now.”

I leaned against the door.

She folded her arms across her chest. “Look, I know your girlfriend is dead. I’m sorry. I really am. But my friend is dead, too. I didn’t know your girlfriend, but I did know Darcy. It bothers me that what happened to her is going to take a backseat now.”

I understood what Miranda was saying, but it didn’t change a thing for me. And I also thought that if I took care of Keene, that would be doing something for Darcy, too. Maybe Miranda didn’t see it that way.

“Look, I didn’t come here to fight with you,” she said. “I came to get my stuff and to confirm that you are off Simington’s case.” “Confirmed.”

She nodded slowly, not surprised. “Figured as much. I’ll see if I can find another attorney to take it over.”

“Won’t matter. He doesn’t want to get off. He’s done.”

She shrugged her bony shoulders. “Whatever. Darcy would want me to find someone to at least try.”

I turned away from her. Trying was a waste of time, and we both knew it. But I didn’t doubt she’d go through the motions on Darcy’s behalf.

She disappeared into the bedroom and reemerged with her backpack.

“You gonna go see him again?” she asked. “I don’t know.”

“If you do, don’t go for the wrong reasons.” “And what the hell would those be?”

She clutched the backpack to her body. “I’m guessing you think he might be able to give you some answers, help you solve all this?” I didn’t say anything.

“Then you’ll take care of things on your own, right? Exact your own revenge because justice isn’t enough?”

I turned and looked at her. “You have a fuckin’ point?”

“You hate Simington,” she said, tilting her head to the side, like she was trying to get a better look at me. “And, probably, that’s fair. He fucked you over, and there’s no denying he’s a piece of shit.” Miranda stepped closer to me. “If you do this, you become him. The whole circle of life thing.”

Something resembling an icicle formed in my chest. “Fuck you.”

She laughed and smirked at me. “Are you serious? You don’t see it? You think because you’re hurt, that makes what you’re thinking about doing different?”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking about doing.”

“I don’t?” she said, raising the eyebrow with the ring in it. “That vicious scowl you’re wearing as a mask? What’s that for? That’s not grief, Noah. That is hate and anger and I’m-going-to-kill-the-motherfucker-who-did-this-to-me all over your face.” She let the eyebrow drop. “And why else would you think about going back to see a man you hate? It’s not going to be to tell him you’ll miss him.”

The icicle grew bigger, and I looked past her to the slider. Rain was slapping the big window, running down the glass in thick, blurred streams, obscuring the ocean.

I moved my gaze back to Miranda. “What about you? You don’t want justice for what happened to Darcy? We’re talking about one person who did this to both of them.”

A moment of hurt passed through her eyes. “Of course I want justice for her. But I want the right kind. Not vigilante shit. Darcy would’ve hated that. It’s exactly what she was fighting against.” She shook her head. “I’m angry. I’m hurt. I miss her. But I won’t let it ruin my life.”

She walked past me to the door and opened it, then paused and turned back to me.

“Killing is killing no matter the reason,” Miranda said. “Darcy used to say that a lot because she believed it. I do, too. There’s no difference between what Simington did and what you want to do. You can rationalize it all you want, but that won’t change it. I can see it in your eyes. You think doing this will make everything right and ruin this guy’s life.” She threw her backpack over her shoulder. “If you kill him, Noah, the only life it’s going to ruin is yours.”

FIFTY-NINE

It was two AM, and I wasn’t sleeping.

I’d wasted a whole day, pacing my living room, staring out at the black ocean, and ignoring the phone every time it rang. Now I was lying in bed, doing the mental equivalent of pacing.

Second thoughts were invading my head.

Miranda’s words had stuck with me. It wasn’t that I didn’t know that what I wanted to do was dangerous. Or that, in the entire scheme of things, it wouldn’t really change anything in my world.

It was anger that was propelling me forward, and I knew that was selfish.

But a man who’d killed two women whom I knew was walking around the streets just like I was. I had a problem with that.

The light shivered through the curtains. I could do the right thing. Let the police do their work and apprehend him. I could report the threats he’d made, tell them about the conversations he and I had. Yes, he was a career criminal and had done a good job, so far, of evading the law. But he’d made a few mistakes in the last few days, and he’d probably be caught. There’d be jail time, then a trial, and then most likely prison.

Then he’d be done walking around.

But I wasn’t sure I was alright with that. As long as he was alive, even if he was in prison, I’d be wondering about him, wondering what he was doing, what he was saying. Maybe bragging about Darcy and Liz. And I’d be furious. There wasn’t any legal justice that could extinguish that anger.

It would screw up my life, Miranda was right about that. But at the moment, I didn’t care. I was lying in bed without Liz, never to feel her hands on my chest, her voice in my ear, or her lips on my cheek again. I didn’t feel like anything could screw up my life any further.

I knew that was emotion talking. Everything was still raw. I had no perspective and no distance, two things I knew I needed before making a decision.

I rolled over in the dark and wondered if I’d have the patience to wait for those two things to arrive.

SIXTY

The rain was pounding the beach the next morning, but I decided to go for a run anyway. I needed to get out of my house, even if it meant getting drenched. So for an hour, I ran down the rain-soaked sand, letting the drops of precipitation rip at my face as I went. The exercise didn’t do anything for my mood, but my body felt loose and my mind a little sharper.

Carter was on my sofa watching television when I came back.

“Why in God’s name would you go running in this shit?” he asked, sitting up and sliding his massive feet off the arm of the sofa.

I peeled off my wet sweatshirt. “Why not? Making yourself at home?”

“You have cable. I don’t.”

“Right.”

I went in the bedroom, stripped out of the rest of my wet clothes and threw on a sweatshirt and jeans. Needing a jolt of caffeine, I grabbed two sodas out of the fridge, handed Carter one, and fell in next to him on the sofa.

“Miranda came to see me yesterday on her way out of town,” I said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. What’d you tell her?” “Tell her? Nothing.” I stared at him.

He winced, like he knew he’d been caught. “Look. She’s not stupid. She sort of figured out what we were talking about doing. She wanted to know. She kind of beat it out of me.”

“Beat it out of you?”

“Well, no. But she wouldn’t leave me alone until I told her.” I drank from the soda. “You’d be great under torture.”

“She’d be great at doing the torture.” I shook my head.

He gulped down the rest of his drink, then looked at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”