I was working hard during this time—not just helping build the case against the Felittis and fixing up Mrs. Frizell’s home, but also taking jobs for real clients with real money. My first retainer had gone to new running shoes. Still, I spent as much time as our frantic schedules allowed with Conrad.

Mr. Contreras, trying valiantly not to meddle, couldn’t hide his discomfort from the sergeant. I was upset by it and tried discussing it with Rawlings.

“At least he’s talking to you. My sister heard about you from some busybody on the grapevine and won’t let me sully her living room now.”

I gasped out loud and Rawlings laughed a little. “Yeah, white girl: cuts both ways. So don’t let the old guy worry you.”

I tried not to, nor to wonder how long we could stay close before our careers collided, but it was hard just to relax into the relationship.

Despite my barricade of work I found myself waking time and again from nightmares of my mother’s death, dreams in which Lotty and Gabriella were inextricably entangled.

Conrad was with me one night when the unbearable phantoms broke open my sleep. Trying not to wake him, I slid from my bed to the living room and went to the window. I could just make out the corner of the Picheas’ house. I wanted to go out in the night and run, run so fast and so far I could break away from my nightmares.

I was trying to imagine a place where you could safely be outside at three in the morning, when Conrad came up behind me. “What’s the problem, Ms. W.?”

I put my hands over his arms, but continued to look out the window. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“I’m a light sleeper. I’ve been hearing you get out of bed every night we’ve spent together this month. If you don’t want me to stay the night, just tell me so, Vic.”

“It’s not that.” I was whispering, as if the dark imposed silence.

He stroked my hair lightly. We stood silent a long minute.

I hadn’t planned on telling him about Lotty or my nightmares, but in the dark, with the warmth of his body against mine, I suddenly blurted, “It’s Lotty. I’m so scared—scared she’s going to leave me the way my mother did. It didn’t matter that I loved my mother, that I did what I could to look after her. She left me anyway. I don’t think I can bear it if Lotty abandons me too.”

“So you have to keep everyone around you on pins and needles all the time? Is that it? So guys like me, or even the old man downstairs, don’t get enough of a hold on you to leave you in the lurch?”