“A few weeks after Alista Snow was killed,” Lex said. “First he left the country. That part was true. If they couldn’t clear him, I think Gabriel would have just stayed overseas and become another Roman Polanski or something. He came back when the case against him started falling apart. Witnesses started clamming up. There was no security tape. The last step was for Gabriel to meet with Karl Snow and slip him a bagful of money. Once all that was done, the media and the cops faded away.”

“And then, after all that, Crisp kills Gabriel Wire?”

Lex shrugged. It didn’t make sense.

“You told Suzze all this on the phone?”

“Not all of it, no. I wanted to. See, I knew it would all come out now, what with Kitty back in our lives. I figured that I should tell her first. I wanted to for years anyway and now we were going to have a baby. . . . We needed to get rid of all the lies, all the secrets. You know what I mean?”

“I do. But when you saw that post that said ‘Not His,’ I mean, you knew it wasn’t true.”

“Yep.”

“So why did you run?”

“I told you at Three Downing. I just needed time. Suzze didn’t tell me about the post. How come? She saw it, and man, I knew right away something was wrong. And think about it. When she came to you, she didn’t just want you to find me. She wanted to know who posted the message on the board.” He cocked his head to the side. “Why do you think that was?”

“You think,” Myron said, “that she still held a candle for Gabriel.”

“I don’t think. I know. Suzze didn’t even tell you because, well, would you have gone looking to help her somehow reunite with another man? No.”

“You’re wrong. She loved you.”

“Of course she did.” Lex was smiling now. “Because I was Wire. Don’t you see? So when I saw that post, I mean, the shock of it. I just needed time to figure out what to do. So I came up here and made a little music. And then, like I said before, I called Suzze to tell her the truth. I started by telling her that Wire was dead—that he’d been dead for more than fifteen years. But she didn’t believe me. She wanted proof.”

“Did you see the body?”

“No.”

Myron spread his hands. “So then for all you know, he is alive. Maybe he’s overseas. Maybe he’s disguising himself or living in a commune in Tibet.”

Lex almost laughed at that one. “You believed that nonsense? Oh, come on. We were the ones who spread those rumors. Twice we asked starlets to say that they’d been with him and they agreed just to up their profile. No, Gabriel is dead.”

“How do you know?”