Andrea considered Piper’s impassioned speech about how she wished Silver Swans had been there when her child was in preschool; how it might have helped him. But helped him from what? Even what Ronnie said she’d been mumbling about—I’m not the perfect person you think I am—that seemed like something a mother who’d tried her best but hadn’t been able to make things right might say to a vengeful, irrationally aggressive teenager. The idea of North skulking around the house, stalking her—well, maybe that even made sense, too. Teenage boys were unpredictable. Andrea had known tons of them. She’d been one.

When she looked up, everyone else had haunted looks on their faces, too. Ronnie curled her fingers around the car door. “I have an idea.”

“Me too,” Andrea said. “Maybe we should talk to that kid.”

Twenty-Nine

Piper’s house was a two-story beauty of stucco and glass. Not as big as the modern masterpiece on the cliffs, but also not the kind of house a poverty-stricken woman could afford after fleeing from a bad breakup in Los Angeles, either. It was on about an acre, surrounded by trees, and then sloping downward to sharp cliffs that led straight to a gorgeous slice of Pacific Ocean. Ronnie could hear the breakers crashing from up here, and the air smelled like sea and sand. Esme would love it out here, so close to the water.

Esme. She was nuts to be here instead of staking out that motel, making sure Vanessa didn’t leave. She’d come in her own car, she’d only stay a few minutes. Ten at most. Then she’d drive back and resume her post at her window.

She looked at the house again. What was it like to live in a house like this? To walk through such a grand front door? It was the type of house that probably had a grand foyer. A backyard pool—and that stunning beach. What child could be miserable, living here?

Yet every day, Ronnie saw dysfunction, loneliness, unhappiness. So many of her clients, still practically boys themselves, watched her with wide, hungry eyes. That was what shook her the most: the difficulty men faced when it came to controlling giant swings in emotion. Men could explode with inappropriate ecstasy; they could burst with unconscionable anger. They could have an orgasm and beat the shit out of you in nearly the same breath—like Jerrod. Like others, too.

“What do we do now?” Andrea whispered, shaking Ronnie out of her thoughts. Andrea and Lauren were sitting in Andrea’s car, parked in front of Ronnie’s; they were speaking on the phone, too afraid to get out of their vehicles yet. The hope was that something obvious would reveal itself: Piper’s son shooting hoops in the front drive, some vital piece of evidence scattered across the front lawn. But the property was quiet. Almost impersonal.