“So this is like…what? A separation?”

“What? No.” He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw and walked to the window to crack open the blinds. Immediately bright sunlight streamed through the dusty glass. “I just have some things to do.”

“What things?” Kristi demanded.

“Just catching up on some old cases. I’m meeting with one of the guys I worked with tonight.”

“Why? I thought you hated L.A. The way I remember it you couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.”

“I was going stir crazy.”

“So suddenly, after all these years, you hop on a plane and head west? Save me, Dad,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “Just tell me this doesn’t have anything to do with Mom, okay?”

“It doesn’t.”

“And you’re a bad liar. A real bad liar.”

He remained silent, wondering what had tipped her off. Of course…he’d told Kristi he’d seen Jennifer in his hospital room after he’d woken from his coma. Though they’d never discussed it since, Kristi was bright enough to put two and two together. She was also on the verge of being paranoid now that she possessed her own little bit of ESP. Ever since an accident that nearly took her life, Kristi claimed she knew when a person was about to die, that the victim would “bleed from color to black-and-white.” That had to be scary for her, and Bentz didn’t want to add to her worries.

“Aren’t you supposed to be planning a wedding or something?” he asked.

“Don’t deflect, Dad. It doesn’t work with me.”

“So why did you call? Obviously not just to tell me to have a nice trip.”

“Very funny.”

“Thought so,” he said as he moved to the bathroom where a single-cup coffeepot was wedged onto a slice of countertop. Tearing open the packet of coffee, he listened as Kristi kept firing questions at him: Why was he in L.A.? When was he coming back? Were there problems with Olivia? How worried should she be? He plopped the packet of “fine roast” into a basket, added a cup of water to the pot, and pressed the on button.

“I’m fine. Olivia’s fine. Nothing to worry about,” Bentz insisted as the coffeepot gurgled and hissed. He needed to take a leak, but decided not to freak his daughter out any further and waited until she hung up.

It took another five minutes, but she finally told him “to keep in touch,” before taking another call. He relieved himself, hopped in the shower, and dressed. With his cup of coffee in hand, he decided to hunt up breakfast. He figured a coffee shop on Colorado Avenue might be a good place to start.