“I’d prefer to watch you,” said Berman. As he watched, he drank. Pia snatched glances at Berman, afraid that the medication might have a bitter taste that would alert Berman to its presence. She knew one capsule was the recommended dose for someone with anxiety or insomnia, but she wasn’t sure how much of the two capsules actually got into the drink.

Pia had absolutely no experience of dancing, let alone exotic dancing, but she could move in sync with the music, which thankfully retained the same tempo from one song to the next, if song was the right word. She took the whiskey bottle and refilled Berman’s glass. He had already drunk about a quarter of it. Apparently the taste wasn’t bad.

“Hey, no fair,” he said, and it looked to Pia as if he were having trouble focusing on her. Pia grabbed her own glass and made a point to knock back most of it. This was enough for Berman to slip into a binge mode himself, taking healthy gulps of whiskey as Pia went back to her provocative dancing.

As Berman kept up his drinking, Pia was encouraged to be progressively more creative. After a number of songs and several more additions to Berman’s glass, she began to wonder what was keeping the guy awake. She wondered if maybe Berman popped benzodiazepines every night and had a tolerance for the drugs. But then, while she was refilling his drink, Berman’s eyes seemed to disappear up inside his head, and his glass slipped from his grasp. Pia lunged forward and caught the glass before it rolled off his lap. His head sank back, and he began snoring gently.

“Thank God,” said Pia. She took the iPhone and found the control that switched off the radio. Suddenly the house was plunged into absolute silence. Quickly she ran back to the kitchen with Berman’s tumbler and the other two glasses and rinsed them all out in the unlikely scenario that a Mickey Finn was suspected the following day. She even made certain the pesky blue capsule material was properly disposed of before she put the glasses back in the den and poured a little whiskey into two of them.

“Okay,” she said to no one in particular when all was ready, “let’s see what we can find.”

Chapter 22

22.

ZACHARY BERMAN’S HOME, BOULDER, COLORADO

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013, 2:14 A.M.