"What did the note say exactly?"

"That's personal."

"Mr. Klein "

I sighed. No reason to fight him. "She told me that she'd love me always."

"What else?"

"That was it."

"Just that she'd love you always?"

"Yep."

"Do you still have the note?"

"I do."

"May we see it?"

"May you tell me why I'm here?"

Pistillo sat back. "After leaving your father's house, did you and Ms. Rogers head straight back to your apartment?"

The change of subject threw me. "What are you talking about?"

"You attended your mother's funeral, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then you and Sheila Rogers returned to your apartment. That was what you told us, no?"

"That's what I told you."

"And is it the truth?"

"Yes."

"Did you stop on the way home?"

"No."

"Can anyone verify that?"

"Verify that I didn't stop?"

"Verify that you two went back to your apartment and stayed there for the remainder of the evening."

"Why would anyone have to verify that?"

"Please, Mr. Klein."

"I don't know if anyone can verify it or not."

"Did you talk with anyone?"

"No."

"Did a neighbor see you?"

"I don't know." I looked over my shoulder at Claudia Fisher. "Why don't you canvass the neighborhood? Isn't that what you guys are famous for?"

"Why was Sheila Rogers in New Mexico?"

I turned back around. "I don't know that she was."

"She never told you that she was going?"

"I know nothing about it."

"How about you, Mr. Klein?"

"How about me what?"

"Do you know anyone in New Mexico?"

"I don't even know the way to Santa Fe."

" San Jose," Pistillo corrected him, smiling at the lame joke. "We have a list of your recent incoming calls."

"How nice for you."

He sort of shrugged. "Modern technology."

"And that's legal? You having my phone records?"

"We got a warrant."

"I bet you did. So what do you want to know?"

Claudia Fisher moved for the first time. She handed me a sheet of paper. I glanced down at what appeared to be a photocopy of a phone bill. One number an unfamiliar one was highlighted in yellow.

"Your residence received a phone call from a pay phone in Paradise Hills, New Mexico, the night before your mother's funeral." He leaned in a little closer. "Who was that call from?"

I studied the number, totally confused yet again. The call had come in at six-fifteen in the evening. It'd lasted eight minutes. I did not know what it meant, but I didn't like the whole tone of this conversation. I looked up.

"Should I have a lawyer?"

That slowed Pistillo down. He and Claudia Fisher exchanged another glance. "You can always have a lawyer," he said a little too carefully.

"I want Squares in here."

"He'snot a lawyer."

"Still. I don't know what the hell is going on, but I don't like these questions. I came down because I thought you had information for me. Instead, I'm being interrogated."

"Interrogated?" Pistillo spread his hands. "We're just chatting."

A phone trilled behind me. Claudia Fisher snapped up her cell phone a la Wyatt Earp. She put it to her ear and said, "Fisher." After listening for about a minute, she hung up without saying good-bye. Then she nodded some kind of confirmation at Pistillo.

I stood up. "I've had enough of this."

"Sit down, Mr. Klein."

"I'm tired of your bullshit, Pistillo. I'm tired of "

"That call," he interjected.

"What about it?"

"Sit down, Will."

He'd used my first name. I did not like the sound of it. I stood where I was and waited.

"We were just waiting for visual confirmation," he said.

"Of what?"

He did not reply to my query. "So we flew Sheila Rogers's parents in from Idaho. They made it official, though the fingerprints had already told us what we needed to know."

His face grew soft. My knees buckled, but I managed to stay upright. He looked at me now with heavy eyes. I started to shake my head, but I knew there was no way to duck the blow.

"I'm sorry, Will," Pistillo said. "Sheila Rogers is dead."

21

Denial is an amazing thing.

Even as I felt my stomach twist and drop, even as I felt the ice spread out and chill me from the center, even as I felt the tears push hard against my eyes, I somehow managed to detach. I nodded while concentrating on the few details that Pistillo was willing to give me. She'd been dumped on the side of a road in Nebraska, he said. I nodded. She'd been murdered in to use Pistillo's words "a rather brutal fashion." I nodded some more. She had been found with no ID on her, but the fingerprints had matched and then Sheila's parents had flown in and identified the body for official purposes. I nodded again.

I did not sit. I did not cry. I stood perfectly still. I felt something inside me harden and grow. It pressed against my rib cage, made it almost impossible to breathe. I heard his words as though from afar, as though through a filter or from underwater. I flashed to a simple moment: Sheila reading on our couch, her legs tucked under her, the sleeves of her sweater stretched too long. I saw the focus on her face, the way she prepared her finger for the next page turn, the way her eyes narrowed during certain passages, the way she looked up and smiled when she realized that I was staring.

Sheila was dead.

I was still back there, with Sheila, back in our apartment, grasping smoke, trying to hold on to what was already gone, when Pistillo's words cut through the haze.

"You should have cooperated with us, Will."

I surfaced as if from a sleep. "What?"

"If you'd told us the truth, maybe we could have saved her."

Next thing I remember, I was out in the van.

Squares alternated between pounding on the steering wheel and swearing vengeance. I had never seen him so agitated. My reaction had been just the opposite. It was like someone had pulled out my plug. I stared out the window. Denial was still holding, but I could feel reality start hammering against the walls. I wondered how long before the walls collapsed under the onslaught.

"We'll get him," Squares said yet again.

For the moment, I did not much care.

We double-parked in front of the apartment building. Squares jumped out.

"I'll be fine," I said.

"I'll walk you up anyway," he said. "I want to show you something."

I nodded numbly.

When we entered, Squares reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. He swept through the apartment, gun drawn. No one. He handed me the weapon.

"Lock the door. If that creepy asshole comes back, blow him away."

"I don't need this," I said.

"Blow him away," he repeated.

I kept my eyes on the gun.

"You want me to stay?" he asked.

"I think I'm better off alone."

"Yeah, okay, but you need me, I got the cell. Twenty-four, seven."

"Right. Thanks."

He left without another word. I put the gun on the table. Then I stood and looked at our apartment. Nothing of Sheila was here anymore. Her smell had faded. The air felt thinner, less substantial. I wanted to close all the windows and doors, batten them down, try to preserve something of her.

Someone had murdered the woman I love.

For the second time?

No. Julie's murder had not felt like this. Not even close. Denial was, yep, still there, but a voice was whispering through the cracks: Nothing would be the same ever again. I knew that. And I knew that I would not recover this time. There are blows you can take and get back up from like what happened with Ken and Julie. This was not like that. Lots of feelings ricocheted through me. But the most dominant was despair.

I would never be with Sheila again. Someone had murdered the woman I love.