“What’s she gain by coming back here?” Angie said, adjusting the focus on her binoculars and peering through them at the lighted windows of Jay’s condo in Whittier Place.

“Probably not her mother’s memoirs,” I said.

“I think we can safely rule that out.”

We were parked in a lot under an expressway off-ramp, on an island between the new Nashua Street Jail and Whittier Place. We’d sunk as low as possible in our seats so we could get a clear view of the bedroom and living room windows of Jay’s place, and in the time we’d been here, we’d seen two figures—one male, one female—pass the windows. We didn’t even know if the female was Desiree for sure because Jay’s thin curtains were drawn and all we could see were silhouettes. The identity of the male was anyone’s guess. Still, given Jay’s security system, we thought it was a safe bet that that was Desiree up there.

“So what could it be?” Angie said. “I mean, she’s got the two mil probably, she’s safely hidden in Florida with enough money to get as far away as she wants. Why come back?”

“I don’t know. Maybe to finish the job she started almost a year ago.”

“Kill Trevor?”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

“To what end, though?”

“Huh?”

“To what end? This girl, Patrick, she always has an angle. She doesn’t do anything for just emotional reasons. When she killed her mother and tried to kill her father, what do you think her primary motivation was?”

“Emancipation?” I said.

She shook her head. “That’s not a good enough reason.”

“A good enough reason?” I put my binoculars down and looked at her. “I don’t think she needs much of a reason. Remember what she did to Illiana Rios. Hell, remember what she did to Lisardo.”

“Right, but there was logic there. There was reason, twisted as it may have been. She killed Lisardo because he was the only link between her and the three guys who killed her mother. She killed Illiana Rios because it helped cover her tracks when she stole the two million back from Price. In both cases she achieved a notable gain. What’s her gain now if she kills Trevor? And what was her original gain when she tried to kill him eight months ago?”

“Well, originally, we can assume it was money.”

“Why?”

“Because she was probably the primary beneficiary of his will. Her parents die, she inherits a few hundred million.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Okay,” I said. “But now that makes no sense. No way Trevor’s still got her in the will anymore.”

“Right. So why’s she coming back?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.”

She lowered her own binoculars, rubbed her eyes. “It’s a mystery, isn’t it?”