Too convenient? Alice wondered. She’d had glimpses of Richard’s temper just the other day, could see how controlling he could get, could feel his need to bend her will to his own. And she wasn’t even his flesh and blood. She was just the nearly grown daughter of his new wife, someone who reflected on him barely at all. From what Tommy and Cybill said about his relationship with Camilla, it sounded as if he could get really bad, just relentless, like he watched Camilla’s every move, tried to oversee each aspect of her life so that she had to turn secretive to survive, to keep anything for herself. No question, Richard was a seriously determined guy, and incredibly domineering. Alice could imagine him killing someone who got in his way, stood between him and what he wanted and felt he was entitled to. Sure she could. Didn’t even take that much effort.

Alice would look into the matter tomorrow. Not on the home computer, though. Too risky. What if Richard was somehow monitoring it, checking out the sites she visited? Tommy said that Camilla felt the need to have a cover. It was unlikely she’d have gone to the trouble of creating a public identity to mask the private without good reason. No, Alice would do her research at the library, away from watchful eyes. She’d head over in the morning, after breakfast.

• • •

An hour later, Charlie was walking back from the beach to the club. She’d have rather gone straight home, but she’d stupidly checked her bag with her wallet in it, and now she had to retrieve it. She felt like shit, just awful, worse even than earlier. She’d hoped smoking weed with Bianca and Bianca’s friends from St. Augie’s would help, would lift her out of her mood. It didn’t. It just sank her further into it and made her disoriented on top of depressed. She couldn’t believe the way Jude had acted at the party, going off with that Lucy girl, and in front of everyone. After last night on the tennis court, she’d imagined things would be different between them. They hadn’t had sex, but what they’d done felt even more intimate. And she’d thought—no, she didn’t want to say what she’d thought. Not even to herself. It was too hokey. Too embarrassing.