WHEN QUENTIN WAS a kid, his mother would sometimes take him to Westwood Village Memorial Park—a patch of green between towering L.A. office buildings and the eternal resting place of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Kate’s idol, Marilyn Monroe. He had hazy memories of those visits: Kate’s cool hand wrapped around his own, that rare touch of her skin and the whispering breeze, the bright flowers on the graves of the stars and Marilyn Monroe’s crypt, the most beloved one of all, the stone gone pink from years of lipstick kisses. He’d been to other cemeteries since, of course. But as he stood under the hot sun that afternoon at Tarry Ridge Cemetery, watching the funeral of Mitchell Bloom from a respectful distance, Quentin found himself feeling much the way he had back then.

It could have been the summer heat or the dewy grass beneath his sneakers, but more likely it was the emotion coursing through him—the same one he’d felt holding his mother’s hand as she sobbed and sobbed over Marilyn, a dead celebrity she’d never met. It was a disquiet he couldn’t put a name to; an awful, powerless feeling, like pounding on soundproof glass.

Quentin watched Robin Diamond walk to the head of her father’s grave. He watched her take the shovel, her matchstick arms braced as she forced it into the earth. It was hard to reconcile this frail, tired-looking woman with the one in the Mother’s Day video, same as it was hard to think of the woman in intensive care as Renee Bloom. Both of them tungsten-strong in that video, both impossibly, infuriatingly happy. Now, Robin looked dead on her feet, Renee was fighting for her life. And Mitchell Bloom . . .

I should warn you, the man in the coffin had said to Quentin three days ago, when he’d spoken to him at 4:00 P.M. at his office in Tarry Ridge. Since I’ve been in private practice, I’m no longer as up on all the current theories as I once was.

You think I want your expertise as a forensic psychiatrist?

You don’t?

I’m sorry, sir, but no.

Well . . . What do you want then?

Dr. Bloom, how well do you know your wife?

Had that been so wrong of him to ask? It had been a simple question, really. One that could have resulted in Quentin closing up shop, heading back to L.A. and finding himself a new angle for Closure. If only Dr. Bloom had been able to answer it. If only he hadn’t chosen instead to psychoanalyze Quentin, to dig down into the reserves of his pain and bring it to the surface, where it could breathe and flourish.

Quentin felt a tap on his shoulder. “Here to pay your respects?”