I waited another few minutes, working a little more on my bottles, thinking and not thinking, trying to make myself believe that what we’d done had been only a nightmare I’d concocted after one too many nips of bad gin. Time kept moving forward, never backward, no matter how bad you wanted it to, and after fifteen minutes that went too quick, I got up and walked back to the convenience store to wait for Lou.

Behind me, the ocean kept its own counsel because nature is far wiser than any of us and who knows what sleeps under its waters. I bet you anything the ocean itself couldn’t even tell you.

Chapter 17

Lou’s car shimmered like a mirage on the horizon, and I skidded into the passenger-side door, yanking at the handle before she’d even stopped the car.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Lou said, pulling away from the curb. She was a little pale, a red slash of lipstick making it more obvious, and she was wearing dark cat-eyed sunglasses. It didn’t look like she had slept much last night, either.

“You look—”

“Better than you do,” Lou said. She didn’t take her eyes off the road.

“Where are we headed?”

“Chinatown.”

“We never go to Chinatown,” I said. An unpleasant idea, like cake smashed into cashmere: “Are we meeting Mr. Alibi there?”

Lou didn’t say anything. If I were a different woman, maybe I could’ve left it at that.

“Who is he? A new mark?”

We stopped at a light. I studied Lou’s profile, tipped away from me. The mussed hair. The long line of her neck, all smudgy with fingerprints I could almost see. Her silence was making my skin crawl. “Christ, an old mark?”

Lou checked her lipstick in the side mirror, slid a thumbnail around her bottom lip. “I wish I hadn’t said anything.”

Outside, the green palm trees were turning dizzy cartwheels against the sharp white sky. God, I hated the sun. I hated the heat. Of course I was wrong; he wasn’t a case. She wouldn’t have asked him to cover for her if he were. Well, there was now one thing between us he’d never have.

Lou’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and she was tapping the brakes steadily, which made the car jerk and jump. Good.

I couldn’t stop. The murder and no sleep, Ellen’s bulging eyes and little blue neck—and now this. “What about me, Lou? I’m just hanging out here, twisting in the fucking wind, no alibi, nothing? It wasn’t my idea to strangle her, if you remember. That was definitely not my idea.”