There are a lot of words I could use to describe Letitia. Angry, capable, vaguely Amazonian. She used to wear steel-toed boots and a green army-surplus trench coat in high school, her head shaved in a mohawk. But cute? Never.

“That’s, uh . . . a nice place,” I say. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it doesn’t exactly scream you.”

“People change, Eric.”

“You telling me you don’t still have a pair of curb-stompers sitting in your closet for special occasions?”

She smiles at that. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I haven’t changed that much.” Her face gets serious. “But I’ve changed enough. And that’s what I want to show you.”

I pull into the driveway and we get out. The sky is an angry yellow haze, thick with smoke. With so many nearby brushfires, I can’t tell which one I’m smelling. Griffith Park? Wildwood Canyon? Verdugo Mountains? Flames peek over the tops of the hills while helicopters and tanker planes fly overhead. In the distance I watch a plane dump a couple thousand gallons of red flame retardant over Verdugo. I wonder how effective that’s actually going to be.

Letitia unlocks the front door, and it’s yanked open from the other side by a short Filipino woman with bobbed hair, high cheekbones, and a scowl on her face that could melt steel.

“Annie,” Letitia says, surprised. She looks behind her into the street. “Where’s your car?”

“In the shop. Which you’d know if you’d read any of your fucking texts. Where the fuck is yours?”

“At the station,” Letitia says. She waves at the stolen car behind us. “This one’s for undercover work.” The lie flows out of her like water.

Annie narrows her eyes, but doesn’t question it. Then she turns her scathing look onto me. “Who the fuck is this?”

“He’s from the Police Commission. I told you they’re riding my ass.”

“I am,” I say, trying hard not to make it a question. “Routine ride-along. All good.”

“Now I have to get some stuff,” Letitia says, “but tonight we’ll talk.”

“You’ve been saying that for the last three weeks,” Annie says. “I’m tired of the secrets. I’m tired of the dancing around the subject. You tell me what’s going on tonight, or I’m gone.”

“Oh, baby, don’t be like that.”

“Don’t fucking ‘baby’ me.” She turns her glare my way. “You.”

“Uh, yeah? Me?” I say. I’m staying as far away from this conversation as I can. I can twist reality into knots, command the dead, and walk in the twilight lands, but domestic squabbles? Fuck if I’m getting in the middle of that.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” Annie says. “You’ve been her excuse for a month and a half now. Are you fucking her?”