“It felt like they were putting you through the third degree.”

“I guess so,” Alice said.

“If it didn’t bother you, it didn’t bother me. I was worried you might be upset.”

“I’m not upset. I’m just tired. I haven’t been sleeping.”

“I’m sure. Go take a nap,” he said, just as Alice knew he would.

She went upstairs and into her old bedroom, and shut the door. It was an unspoken code that was used between her and Jake. When she went to take a nap in the bedroom they shared together, it meant that Jake would join her. When she went into her old bedroom, he wouldn’t. They’d only ever had sex in that room once, right after he’d taken the pictures.

In her bedroom with the door closed, Alice took out the folder that contained all the magazine photos of Gina, the clippings she’d saved from the past few years. She spread them out on the nubby bedspread, finally arranging them in a way she liked, with her favorite picture of Gina in the middle. It was from one of her last published photo shoots, one in which she’d gotten to travel down to Miami. In the picture, she was wearing a yellow one-piece bathing suit and holding a lit cigarette. In the background was a ramshackle beach house, painted in neon colors, and a sexy man asleep in a hammock. Gina was looking directly at the camera, her face almost in a frown. Look at all I have, that face was saying, and look at how miserable I am. Alice ran her finger down the picture, as though she could feel Gina through it. The paper felt cheap. The shot was published in one of the lesser fashion magazines, a magazine that she’d had to pick up in Portland, since Blethen’s didn’t even carry it.

She looked at the other pictures, then gathered them up and put them back in the folder. She stretched out on the bed and looked at the ceiling. She listened to Jake coming quietly up the stairs, then heard him turn around and go back down. He’d seen the shut door of her bedroom. Why had he been so concerned about the policeman’s visit? She hadn’t been bothered by it. They were just trying to decide if it had been a suicide or an accidental death. And it was going to be easy to confirm. Gina was unhappy and on drugs. Why else would she swim out into the cold ocean water? It was so sad, really, when she thought about it. All that youth being swallowed up by all that water. Poor Gina so alone in those final moments. Alice really was a little bit sleepy, and she closed her eyes, then gently massaged her temples, hoping she wouldn’t get one of her headaches.