The bathroom door opened and Hanna emerged, wrapped in a fluffy hotel dressing gown that she didn’t look like she was at all in a mood to appreciate. “They’ll be serving dinner soon.”

Liza looked up. “Be done in a minute.”

Apparently in no great rush herself, Hanna went and slumped on the bed. “I’m trying, you know.”

“Trying?” Had her head been more in the game Liza might have had a better response.

“To be supportive of”—Hanna waved a hand—”this. But honestly, it’s creeping me out a bit.”

Shutting her laptop, Liza turned around. This was probably a full-attention conversation. “I know you’ve always found the true crime thing a bit … I don’t know, silly? Unethical? Non-specifically not okay?”

“I haven’t.” That was an obvious enough lie that Hanna winced. “Okay, I have sometimes found it a little … a little difficult. It was weird to come home one day and find my wife poring over old police reports and pictures of bloody crime scenes.”

“Weird?”

“Unexpected.”

“I’ve always been into this stuff, for as long as you’ve known me.” There was nothing quite like learning after a decade that your spouse was surprised by a significant element of your personality.

And to her credit, Hanna seemed to notice that this was a nothing-quite-like situation. “I know. Except suddenly having it be a major part of our life was jarring. And now it’s suddenly become an even more major part of our life.”

“I’m hoping this is temporary.” Liza made an expansive gesture that failed to encompass the unusualness of their situation. “Two people have died—”

“I know two people have died. That’s what I mean.”

Liza looked up quizzically. “What do you mean, ‘that’s what you mean’?”

“Two people have died; one of them, assuming he wasn’t quite the fraud he seemed to be, an actual professional detective. You deciding to prod all of this with a stick makes me really uncomfortable.”

“I’m not prodding. I’m … I’m trying to work out what’s going on.”

Hanna crawled across the bed, the better to show Liza her serious face. “The last person who tried to work out what was going on wound up dead on the floor with you photographing his boots. I do not want to have to photograph your boots.”

“Photograph my boots?”

“Sorry, was that too euphemistic? I don’t want you to die. The thought of you dying scares me.” Hanna scooted right the way to the edge of the bed and sat with her legs dangling over the side. “It scares me so fucking much.”

Accepting that her notes would survive to confuse her another day, Liza shuffled sideways and sat at her wife’s feet. “I mean, I probably won’t?”

“But if you did there’d be nothing I could do. You’d be dead, and that would be it.”