“Do you . . . do you have alibis for the murders?” Joel asks with an embarrassed laugh, as if he can’t believe he has to ask me that question.

“Yes, he does,” Alexa says. “He was with me. Every one of those nights.”

I turn away from the wall and look at her. Joel has a look of relief on his face until he catches my eye.

A knock at Joel’s door. Standing in the threshold is one of Joel’s investigators, a young, attractive blond woman. As much of a pig as Joel is, he didn’t hire her for her looks, or at least not in the way that would normally mean. He hired her because she can get people to do things she wants, a nice trait for a private eye who might need a peek at a sign-in sheet, the name of a hotel guest, or a particularly well-placed spot in a restaurant. Her name is Janet or Jennifer or Jessie or something.

“What’s up, Linda?” Joel asks.

Right. Linda. That was my next guess. It occurs to me, as I look at her, that she’s fantastic, a true head-turner, and that under ordinary circumstances I might experience at least, I don’t know, a mild adrenaline rush or something. Like I remember what it was like to feel normal, something that’s just across the room from me but might as well be on another planet.

“Need you for one second, Joel, when you can.”

“Go ahead,” I say to him. “We can wait.”

Joel and Linda huddle briefly in the hallway outside. Alexa is still facing forward, toward Joel’s chair, and I’m behind her across the room. I let the silence fill the air.

Finally, she turns her head back to see me and says, matter-of-factly, “We were together each of those nights.”

“Sorry,” Lightner says, popping back in. “Anyway. What were we—oh, the alibis,” he says, dropping into his chair.

“Alexa and I need to figure that out,” I say. “Confirm those dates.”

Alexa shoots a glance my way but doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, definitely do that.” Lightner nods, casting alternate looks at Alexa and me. “Here’s the thing, though,” he says. “Just putting you at a location where you had the chance to come into contact with these people isn’t enough. By itself? Not nearly enough, especially for a professional like you. If you had a criminal record or a history of mental illness or you had some dead-end job or something, maybe. But you’re too buttoned-up a guy, a successful professional. The fact that you happened to come into contact with each of them? It’s just . . . not enough.”

“Well, that’s good, then.” Alexa opens her hands. “Right?”

“That’s not what he’s saying,” I interject. “What he’s saying is, if the asshole formerly known as James Drinker is any good at what he’s doing, there’s more than what we know so far.”

And Joel’s absolutely right. There has to be more that he has on me. And I helped him with ideas, for God’s sake. That scumbag sat in my office while I gave him a fucking tutorial on how to frame somebody for murder.

Joel points at me. “We have to figure out what he has on you. Because whatever he has on you, he could use it any day.”

45.

Jason

Tuesday, July 2

Alexa and I leave Joel’s office and head to the elevator in silence. I don’t like to talk on elevators, so I wait until we’re clear of it, actually until we’ve walked out of the lobby. Joel has given me homework—figure out what it is that “James” might have done to set me up, a smoking gun that will implicate me in these murders. Maybe we’re giving James too much credit, but I don’t think so. Underestimating him has become a hazardous exercise.

The sky continues to spit rain, enough for some people to don umbrellas, but neither Alexa nor I have one. We head into a coffee shop—not a Starbucks—grab some java, and find a table in the lounge, near the foggy window.

I lean in close to Alexa. “I’ve given this a lot of thought since last night,” I say. “About my whereabouts on the nights of the murders.”

I sound like someone in an old courtroom drama or Dragnet. Can you account for your whereabouts on the night of the murder? I think the word whereabouts exists in the English language purely for the purpose of establishing an alibi to a crime.

“You and I weren’t together any of those nights,” I say. “Not a single one.”

Alexa, stone-faced, raises her eyebrows, the look of a stubborn girl who’s being told something she doesn’t want to hear.

“Holly Frazier, the third victim, was killed on the night of Friday, June seventh,” I say. “That was the day you came to my office with the court transcript. The day I asked you on a date for the first time. But we didn’t get together again until Sunday.”

In fact, I recall with no shortage of dread, it was right after my trip to Runner’s High, when I bought shoes and running gear from Nancy Minnows, that I first met Alexa at that outdoor café, Twist. It was definitely Sunday, June 9.

“And Nancy Minnows was murdered on Tuesday night, June eighteenth,” I continue. “That morning, you and I had that . . . fight, or whatever you call it. The Altoids incident?”

She allows the smallest and briefest of smiles.

“You made us breakfast, then you left in a cab. I was home by myself that night. And the night after that, and the night after that. You and I didn’t speak again until last Friday, Alexa. And the last girl, the librarian, Samantha Drury. She was killed last Thursday night, and we both know we weren’t together. That was the night we did our own things. Remember? It was your idea. We’d spent, like, almost a whole week together, and you said, ‘Seven days in a row is practically marriage,’ or whatever you said.

“And the first two victims, Alicia Corey and Lauren Gibbs? They were murdered in early May, before you and I even knew each other.”

Throughout all of this, Alexa’s expression remains tight, uncompromising.

“You and I were together every one of those nights,” she says. “I would swear to that under oath.”

“You . . .” I take her hands in mine. “Honey,” I say. I’ve never called her any kind of a pet nickname like that. I’ve never said anything but her name, Alexa. It jars me for some reason, like it means something.

“You can’t do that, Alexa. You could get in serious, serious trouble.”

“But I won’t.”

“You will, if it ever comes to that. If they set their sights on me and you give me an alibi, they’ll scour the earth to prove it wrong. They’ll pull your home phone records, they’ll ping your cell phone calls, they’ll look at your computer, credit cards, movies you watched on pay-per-view, food you ordered in, whatever. They’ll ask your friends. They’ll have twenty ways of figuring out whether you were actually with me those nights.”

“I was home, by myself, each of those nights,” she says. “Nobody will say that they were with me. Nobody knows where I was, any of those nights. So as far as I’m concerned, I was with you.”

Crazy. This is crazy.

“I’ve already thought about this, too,” she continues. “When I’m alone, I read. Or I work. I don’t make calls from a landline because I don’t have a landline, just my cell phone. I don’t even use my cell phone much. I don’t go on the Internet, and even if I did, I have a laptop. I could have been with you when I was using it.” She looks up at me. “I don’t even know how to order a movie off the television. And I never, ever have food delivered. Except when I’m with you.”

“Seriously, Alexa—”

“Seriously, no one will be able to say I wasn’t with you. Trust me, Jason.” She runs her hand up my arm, soothing me.