“Alex is contained.” Chase sits down next to me, his face grim and knowing in a way it wasn’t back in June. “I think of her now as a viper, and my apartment is the tank. And I have to just grin and bear it all, trying not to let my disgust show.”

“You’re watching her carefully? Like we talked about?” Sully leans by the fridge with his arms crossed.

“I’m watching everything,” Chase says. He puts a hand on my knee. “And Will is beautiful, by the way. He knows she’s not his mom.”

“He does?” Everything inside my body convulses, a great dragging ache of love.

“You want some soup?” Sully asks him. “I’ve made tons here, and Ruth is … she’s not very hungry.”

Chase looks at the bowl on the table that is losing heat. “I can’t eat, either,” he says. I think he means generally. “But I’ll take a glass of water.”

Sully pours him one, deposits it in from of him.

“How are we shaping up?” Chase says, stretching. He looks like he’s slept very little, but still he’s approaching the week like it’s a run-up to a sports cup final.

“I’ve hit a wall,” Sully says, shooting a guilty glance at me.

“Fingerprints on the coffee tin?” Chase asks.

“We ran those and they’re on there. But so are ours. She could argue we moved the tin knowingly. Or that she moved it without knowing what was in it.”

“The texts and voice mails?” Chase drinks his water like he’s spent days in the desert.

“Nothing Eli said or did incriminates anyone. There’s no specific mention of the drugs at all. That’s good for Ruth, but it’s also good for Alex.”

“Shit,” says Chase. He puts his hand on my knee again. “So what can we prove? The abortion?”

“Yes. But obviously that’s not a crime. And her lying about it to you, Chase, is just a domestic issue.”

“The attack on Eli?” Chase says.

Sully shrugs. “It’ll be hard to prove. A known felon’s word against hers. We’re keeping those charges on the table, just to fluster her.”

Chase sighs. I watch the side of his head, my gaze blurry as if I’m outside my body.

“I have a question,” Chase says, “and it might be a stupid one. But are all drugs the same?”

Sully frowns. There’s a chasm of life experience between them. “Not really, Chase,” he says gently, as though he’s talking to a child.

“It’s just … Alex mentioned this case from work where cocaine was involved. And a kid, too. And there’s something about all of it that just doesn’t sit right.”

“What case?” Sully’s arms tighten across his chest. “Did she say?”

“The kid was called Buster. Buster Floyd, I think. The way she spoke about it was … just weird.”