We are silent for a moment. There’s nothing else to say, but he finds a way to persevere. “Please send your banking details to my Vancouver office.” He puts a card on the counter. “We’d like to arrange payment for your assistance in the research into David Tao’s background, the work you did when my son initially engaged your services. You’ll be paid in full, of course.”

He mentions some other things, about services rendered, but what he’s really buying is my silence in his investigation of his son’s death. Because he’s now saying something about a nondisclosure agreement.

I stop listening. Is this how Brazuca felt when Bernard Lam started talking about money? I think about all the calls I made to Bonnie and Everett that went unanswered.

At some point Simone tells Edison Lam to get out.

70

Everett hits me at the funeral, in the parking lot after the service. A big swing at my jaw that makes me think of Brazuca as it connects.

It’s an act of blatant misogyny.

If I were a man, he would have swung harder.

Whisper goes for Everett’s throat, and Simone barely manages to pull her back. Everett is restrained by two people I’ve never seen before in my life while my daughter stands listlessly off to the side with bandages over her nose. She won’t say a word to me. Won’t even look in my direction. She’s wearing a black parka over a long black dress. The wind sends her hair flying, and she’s shivering with cold or rage. I can’t tell. Maybe it’s a little bit of both, but she won’t bother to clarify. She’s ignoring me the same way she’s ignored all of my attempts to reach her. She rips the brass key from around her neck and drops it on the ground.

Someone calls the police on Everett, for the assault. I decline to press charges.

“It should have been you!” he shouts as the strangers drag him away, his face smeared with tears.

I nod. Yes, I know. It should have been me.

Bonnie and Lynn were both shot at as they tried to flee. Two bullets in Lynn and one in Bonnie. Three bullets to take a life. Lynn died almost instantly. There’s almost no comfort in that thought.

Everett finds none, either.

“Don’t listen to him,” Simone says, pulling me back to the Corolla. But I do, of course. It’s the only thing that happened at the funeral that makes any sense. The Corolla refuses to start. It, too, gives up on me. Simone arranges for a boost from the funeral director.

Afterward, I stop by Brazuca’s apartment and stare up at the window. A habit I can’t kick. Then the memory of a shoulder, a square of sunburned skin.