So he remembered. I’d e-mailed Ray the invitation to Brenae’s memorial screening at LAAC. I thought he’d want to know. Part of me hoped he might fly out to see it, but only the part of me that wanted to hurt as I lay awake at night, missing his body with mine. We’d made no promises or plans, by mutual agreement. We steered away from long phone calls. It was the rational choice for now. Ray couldn’t leave North Carolina, and I couldn’t leave California. But it wasn’t easy.

“The screening is in an hour,” I said. “Layla’s got an open studio, though. Should I go?”

“Does she?” He sounded disappointed, as if he’d hoped I’d called for another reason.

“I wonder if she’ll actually be there.”

“Hard to say,” he said. “Doubt it.”

The rumor was that Layla had gone to some expensive rehab retreat and now didn’t leave her parents’ house.

“Are you afraid of her?” Ray asked.

“No,” I said. I missed his voice, its warm reassurance. “Well, maybe I am.”

“It’s your call,” he said. “Though technically, neither of us should talk to her without lawyers present.”

“Since when did we let that stop us?” I said, plucking a map. “Come with me.”

LIGHTS FESTOONED THE LITTLE COURTYARD to the studios, outlining the benches and the Canter’s Deli stone. The glow and the crowds made the place festive, but as I described them for Ray, I could also see the starkness of the buildings beyond, how the night exposed the dinginess and the worn paint, how the lit hallway could look long and scoured and vacant when all the doors were closed.

Layla Goetz-Middleton’s studio was not on the same wing as Brenae’s—how could it have been? How could Erik have sneaked around between them without being seen? But it wasn’t far, either: less than fifty yards apart, just another room in LAAC’s maze of rooms. I tried to explain to Ray what I saw through the doorways as I passed—pink prongs extended from three walls, and an urn at the center bubbled over with red cloth; a black-and-white projection showed a diver jumping into an empty pool; a giant hair dryer, the size of a bear, blew on the hair of a blond doll figure posed on the floor. Ray’s befuddled responses made me grin and almost forget my destination until I reached Layla’s studio.

“I’m here,” I whispered in the hall outside the door. “It sounds like it’s empty.”

“Go in,” Ray said. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

I leaned on the corridor wall instead.

“Maggie?”

“I’m imagining you here. With me.”

Ray was silent, and then: “That could go many ways.”

I laughed sadly and pushed myself through the doorway.