“Dropped dead? Natural causes? Heart attack? Old fucking age?”

“He was shot.”

“Right. Murdered is usually the term.”

“We had nothing to do with that,” Madelaine said, near tears, maybe with tears.

“Absolutely nothing,” Liz said, cool and secure about it. “Are we done with this now? Can we get to real business?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I have another question. Where were you the night of the fourteenth? Both of you. Between about eleven p.m. and two a.m.?”

Madelaine blurted out, “What?” sounding bewildered and childlike.

“You two have the best motives that I’m aware of. He could put you in the frame, conspiracy to commit murder. Do you have alibis?” There was no immediate answer. Which didn’t mean much. Most people don’t know, offhand, where they were by date and time. Still, I pushed. “You need alibis. For the cops, if it comes to that. What I need is the truth, so I know what I have to deal with.”

Elizabeth looked at her watch.

She actually had a watch. She wasn’t just digitized into time through her cell phone. It was slender and silver with a face in the shape of a teardrop. The strap was like a snake’s skin, presuming there’s a viper with scales made of a shining, polished metal. Elizabeth was clearly feeling pressured by the movements of the hands. Tick-tock, tick-tock. She said, “The way to deal with all of this, all of this, is to move forward. That’s what we’re going to do. Move forward.

“I’m going to make that happen now. Right now. In a big way. Maybe the biggest ever. I need the two of you to buck up and be on your game. Your A game. We can do it. And we will.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE A SATIRICAL HALLUCINATION?

WITH THE QUESTIONS UNANSWERED, THE goal unknown, Elizabeth led us from the unfinished space we were in through the unfinished space that was going to be her large corner office and out of that via her special side entrance—a door that actually existed in a wall that was already in place—to what was to be the secure room.

Elizabeth had another woman for us to see. To meet. To kill for?

—

Sanity. Is. A funny thing.

I. Felt. Mine slipping. Away.

Age? Some strange disease? Chemical imbalance? Something slipped into a drink? But I hadn’t had one.

Cognitive dissonance? That. Yes! Probably. Certainly? Certainty slip-sliding. Away.

That was it. Hold on. The cognitively correct thing to do was to have walked away. Early. At the start. Having failed that, immediately. In the now. Maybe I was just tired. At a breaking point.

—