“Don’t hold your life up for this, boss. Surely this isn’t the only unsolved case you’ve ever had.”

“No, it isn’t. I left Los Angeles with several open files hanging over my head. But this is the only unsolved case that I have in Greenbury. It would be great to leave batting a thousand.”

ELEVEN YEARS AGO, I left New York, a married woman seeking a divorce and a new life in India. Four months ago, I left India, a married woman seeking a divorce and a new life in the States. What was the takeaway? There is no such thing as a new life. There’s only life.

Chris and I married on the outside deck of the top floor of the Lucky Seven casino, a four-story building in downtown Vegas with a view of the strip, sparkling multicolored gems illuminating the massive hotels. We exchanged our I dos in front of a justice of the peace provided by Guy Benedetto, the CEO of the consortium that owned the casino. Guy had decked the area with white roses, lilies, and mums and draped the railings in silver satin cloth. He had provided the champagne for the toast afterward, and all of it gratis: his wedding present to the “Beast,” his name for Chris. He and his wife, Anna, also served as witnesses.

Like Chris, Guy was a charmer—around sixty years of age with an average height, a slender build, and a full head of pewter hair. He had an avian nose, thin lips, and sharp and focused brown eyes: all in all, not a bad-looking man. He was not only CEO of the Lucky Seven, but he also presided over several other casinos in the area and two in Reno.

He was also Chris’s ex-brother-in-law.

He was the oldest sibling of three, and, like Chris, he came from a crime family. But Guy had managed to keep his nose clean. He had set up several shadow companies that allowed him to squeak past the gaming commission’s ever-watchful eye.

Decades ago, Chris had been married to Guy’s sister, Maria. She was the middle child, and a woman whom Chris barely tolerated. The youngest of the three, Lorenza, had once been Chris’s fiancée. Although she was more attractive and smarter than Maria, Chris really hated her. In our teenage years, he often described her as a Mafia princess, spoiled and entitled. The reason for their union had to do way more with the families than with the individuals. Their engagement dissolved once Chris went to prison. Marriage to much less attractive Maria was Chris’s punishment for being in love with me.