I read the paper as I sipped. Nothing fickler than a daily newspaper. There’d been a stir when Joel Klein was arrested on suspicion of his father’s and mistress’s murders. Multiple witnesses, among them a certain leading man, had reported a loud altercation between Junior and Ellen at a cemetery party just a day before the bodies were found. And while he’d never be convicted—money like that never was—it was a terrible marvel to realize that, in the end, Ellen had created the perfect cover for me. For us.

It would’ve made Lou laugh. Maybe she was laughing, wherever she was now.

A few days before Joel Klein was arrested, one of the local papers, not even the Times, dedicated a thumb’s width of space to the decease of a local woman, née Rita Palmer, at her home.

It made it worse, almost, that the name hadn’t been a lie. It made me wonder what else might have been true. But I’d never get those answers, so I pushed it away.

The deceased was found in her bathtub, with an injury to the head that had been sustained after a night of drinking. Investigating police officers said there was no sign of foul play, and the death was being investigated strictly as an accident.

That was all. That was all the article said. Nobody mentioned Ellen’s suitcase. Nobody mentioned it because it would never be found. MacLeish had been thorough in his favor, erasing all signs of me from the house. I tried not to think of what he’d done to stage her so well. Had he undressed her, lit a candle, splashed gin in the bathtub? No one else knew she hated it. Jo, be human. In the end, no justice for Ellen, no justice for Lou.

The day after that notice appeared, I’d called Lou’s phone carrier and asked that any calls that came to her phone, either cell or home, be redirected to my number. I explained the situation—a friend of mine had committed suicide, and I had no way of getting in touch with her family. But I wanted them to hear the news from a friendly voice before anyone else. It had taken all of three minutes to connect.

As the days went by and no one called, I felt a sadness deeper than any I’d known even when Ellen died, when I first realized what I was capable of. Lou had no one. Only me. And she hadn’t even wanted that. She’d preferred being alone to my company, at the last. And unlike Ellen’s death, her demise had inspired no speculation, no court reporters banging down her mother’s door. Only me. I supposed, in a way, that made her finally mine.

I’d gotten everything I wanted, hadn’t I. In the end. I stood up and poured myself another drink.