“I think I’ll stick to Perrier tonight. Public service warning, remember?”

He smiles and excuses himself, returning shortly with two glasses of sparkling water garnished with slices of lime.

I stare down into my drink. “Will they send her to rehab?”

“Well, they’ll suggest it, but they can’t force her. It’s not like she was brought in for disorderly conduct or a DUI. The police have no jurisdiction to get involved in this and Travis will certainly talk her out of it if she’s tempted to get help.”

“He’ll talk her out of it? That’s a pretty damning accusation,” I mutter.

“No.” He sits down on the couch and crosses his ankle over his knee. “It’s just an obvious observation.”

“Why doesn’t he just divorce her?”

Lander doesn’t answer right away and then sips his water before saying, “He has his reasons.”

I stare at Lander and then turn toward the window. He knows his brother is encouraging his wife to kill herself, accidentally or otherwise, and he’s not going to do a thing about it other than take her to the hospital if he happens to get a call. When he told me he was a worse person than I am he might have actually been onto something.

I simply can’t be in love with him.

“What’s in the bag?” he asks, gesturing to it with his glass.

“I got the dress today. The dress you paid for.”

“Can I see it?”

“You’ll see it at the dinner.”

Lander smiles, amused by my refusal. “Did you happen to have the chance to mention Talebi to Travis?”

“Yes . . . it made him very nervous.”

Lander chuckles and takes another sip. “Come here.”

I walk over and sit by his side, staring out at the grayish black sky of the city. So I don’t have the stomach to let Jessica die. I can still go with plan B and help her disappear. I won’t even have to lie. Clearly her husband really does want to kill her, so maybe I just have to point that out and then suggest that it would be a good idea to get the hell out of Dodge. I’m sure I can pin her disappearance on Travis. Trying to make Travis look evil is like trying to make Putin look homophobic. It’s just not hard to do.

And Lander’s complicit in all of it. He’s an accessory, an enabler.