I leaned back against the car seat for a moment, cracked my neck and back muscles against the seat, and instantly regretted it. Once again, I’d forgotten about my damaged shoulder and the pain exploded across my collarbone, drove straight up the left side of my neck, and stabbed its way into my brain. I took a few shallow breaths and swallowed against the bile surging in my chest.

“Illiana Rios had enough in common with Desiree physically,” I said eventually, “to make Jay think her corpse was Desiree’s.”

“Yeah. So?”

“You think that was by accident?” I turned on the car seat. “Whatever their relationship was, Desiree picked Illiana Rios to die in that motel room precisely because of their physical similarities. She was thinking that far ahead.”

Angie shuddered. “That woman is intense.”

“Exactly. Which is why the mother’s death makes no sense.”

“Excuse me?” She turned on the car seat.

“The mother’s car broke down that night. Right?”

“Right.” She nodded. “And then the mother called Trevor, which ensured she’d be in the car with him when Lisardo’s friends—”

“What’re the odds, though? I mean, given Trevor’s schedule and work habits and relationship with his wife to boot—what are the odds Inez would call him for a ride? And what’re the odds he’d be there to receive that call? And what’s to say he’d even agree to pick her up, not just tell her to hop a cab?”

“It is leaving a lot to chance,” she said.

“Right. And Desiree never leaves anything to chance, as you said.”

“You’re saying the mother’s death wasn’t part of the plan?”

“I don’t know.” I looked up at the window and shook my head. “With Desiree, I don’t know a lot. Tomorrow, she wants us to accompany her to the house. Ostensibly for protection.”

“As if she ever needed protection in her entire life.”

“Right. So why does she want us there? What is she setting us up for?”

We sat there for quite a while, binoculars pointed up at Jay’s windows, waiting for an answer to my question.

At seven-thirty the next morning, Desiree showed herself.

And I almost walked into her field of vision.

I was coming back from a coffee shop on Causeway Street, Angie and I both having decided our need for caffeine after a night in a car made the risk worthwhile.

I was about ten feet from our car, across from Jay’s building when the front door opened. I pulled up short and froze by a support beam to the expressway ramp.